Eye on Miami

Yes, that's Laura's actual eye.
So far in Miami, we've been on a Duck tour, visited the beach (but not swam), and hiked through Everglades National Park. Plus visited the Sunny Isles Beach branch of the post office a couple of times. (It's not bad as far as post offices go.)
We saw an adolescent alligator in the Everglades, as well as some smaller lizards I assume were young alligators. But you never know.
Tomorrow we're off to Port of Spain. At least our luggage will be a few pounds lighter ...

More Disney photos

I forgot to post a link to these photos from our recent trip, which were taken by the Walt Disney World photographers in various places around the parks. The ride ones are from Test Track, which is a great ride (in case any of you were wondering).

A difference of opinion

Yesterday after we'd made it through checking our bags and the security maze at Reagan National and were sitting safely at the gate, I said to Kevin, "I know you dealt with the hard stuff, but that was so much better than it could have been." He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "That's the worst airport experience I've ever had."
OK, so it wasn't pleasant. We'd had to take a taxi to the airport, but because of all of our luggage, we had to call for a special minivan taxi. Even then, it was a squeeze. Kevin and the Pakistani taxi driver discussed the driver's wife's visa application.
When we checked our bags -- curbside out of necessity -- two of our big suitcases each were seven pounds too heavy. The skycap suggested we pull things out of one and put them in the other so we'd only have to pay for one (it's now $50 per bag). So we did. So I really did get to rearrange items in my luggage at the American check-in counter.
Fast forward to Miami, where the hotel in North Miami Beach I'd booked via Priceline gave us a horrible room. Nasty, frayed, cigarette-burned bedspreads, mildew on the walls in the closet and in the air conditioning vent, etc. So Kevin went and complained, and we got moved to a much nicer room.
One of my tasks for today is to find a post office so we can send some of the heavier items in our luggage to ourselves in Trinidad via diplomatic pouch. But I'm hoping to also visit the beach located right behind our hotel ...

How do you prepare for a move overseas?

I just spent 10 minutes consolidating bottles of Vaseline lotion. Yes, I'm cheap. But I'm also very worried our luggage will be too heavy.
If you see someone with six suitcases spread on the floor by the American Airlines check-in counter tomorrow at Reagan National Airport, that'll be me rearranging all our belongings into different bags than the ones in which we're now packing them.

At least we'll have pudding

We were a bit over the allowed weight for our unaccompanied air baggage (UAB in Statespeak), so some things had to go in the (typically much slower) household effects, or HHE, shipment instead. But the pudding made it UAB. So we may be without our usual paper towels for a while, but at least we'll be able to eat pudding.
For my next trick, I'll be taking the spare tire off the back of Green Car and putting it in the cargo area. Kudos to anyone who can tell me where to find the jack in a 2007 Jeep Liberty. I had to look it up in the owners manual.

Costco, anyone?

We've been spending an unfortunate amount of time (and money) at Costco the past couple of weeks. Even while we were in Florida, we were having conversations about what we needed to buy at Costco when we got home.
Among the things sitting around the apartment -- not all from Costco, obviously -- awaiting various methods of shipment to Port of Spain:
New luggage, because we were a couple of suitcases short of our allowance and then the zipper on one of our big bags broke Friday morning as we were packing to leave Orlando.
Numerous boxes of Ziploc brand freezer and sandwich bags.
The coffee table that belonged to my grandparents and Nicole let me have despite her name being written on a piece of duct tape stuck to the bottom of it. (Yes, my grandfather marked heirlooms with duct tape.)
A box of small containers of pudding. Both chocolate and vanilla, of course.
An assortment of small, somewhat inexpensive gifts for birthday parties Laura will be attending over the next couple of years.
Two rather large containers of Nutella.
We may be buying another piece of luggage tomorrow. The movers are coming Tuesday, the auto shipper is picking up Green Car on Wednesday, and we're flying to Miami on Thursday and then on to Trinidad the following Tuesday.
Anyone wanna trade lives?

So much for rest and relaxation

The Disney World trip was fun but filled with rain and worries about moving-related issues. It seems Laura will be telling stories for years to come about me losing my brand-new baseball cap on Splash Mountain, so feel free to ask her about it the next time you see her.
But at least she got to compare outfits with Sleeping Beauty (aka Aurora or Briar Rose) at Magic Kingdom on Tuesday. That was after the loss of the baseball cap for anyone keeping track.
For a slide show of our trip -- Downtown Disney, Magic Kingdom, MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom and two days at Epcot -- click here.