Silly me. Before last Thursday, I was worried about what to write in my next blog. My family was living the simple RV life in Port Richey, Florida. Jason planned a couple funtivities with a short natural trail walk, bowling, and an awesome arcade just down the road from us.
Our intentions then were to slowly continue moving up and through Florida’s panhandle, and maybe, eventually, making our way back west to home in Oregon to see family and friends. But as I am known to do so well, I decided to scheme on my husband. Jason’s sister, Lori, and her husband, Ron, are taking care of our mail and rental properties back home while we're out galivanting and boat shopping. Lori and I send information back and forth about the mail such as “please open!” or “more garbage”. Lori tends to our mailbox once a week, and by doing so, gives us a valuable peace of mind that we aren’t missing anything important coming through. Ron and Lori decided they’d had enough of Oregon winter and booked a week-long trip to Cancun, Mexico. The nerve. As the trip became imminent, Lori reminded me that she was going somewhere warm, tropical, and dreamy. She talked about the wonderful pampering appointments she had prior to heading down, and of course, that they wouldn’t be around the following week to do the mail run for us.
And that was all it took.
I opened up the laptop and started working the wide, wide web for deals. Jason and I were finally
starting to feel ourselves again after a solid two weeks of the dreaded COVID takedown, and I think we were do for a change of scenery. As we continued our trek higher north in Florida, the weather continued to cool. Like under 40 degrees at night cold! I didn’t sign up for that absurdity. Clearly, the only answer was to get back south again. And why not go even farther south than the Florida Keys and find ourselves in Cancun, Mexico? Double-bonus would be seeing family while we’re there! Take it one step further – let’s not even TELL anyone that we’re going down, and surprise Ron and Lori when we get there! So the search was on. I needed to put this vacation as together as possible before I pitched it to my husband. Even better, get the boys on my side so we could all soften Jason up to the idea. I pieced together a trip, securing a room in the same resort, finding super cheap flights, reaching out to a high school friend about how to find her pet-sitting Floridian counterpart for our Sage and Moxie to stay with, etc. The boys caught on to my plot and quickly jumped on board with the plan. Boys loved the idea that this time, they would get to deliver the surprise to family. The schmoozing commenced.
In all fairness, Jason wasn’t against a trip to Mexico, and he certainly wanted to see his sister again after a long four months of holidays and birthdays apart, but Jason is also the practical one. We’re out here looking for a boat, and is spending our money on this trip the right choice? We could spend that same money, or even less, and book a trip back home and see ALL of our family. Or rent a house for a couple of months for an RV reprieve and still spend less money. But I got the spending down as low as I could, and with our reward miles completely covering our flights, Jason relented. Game on!
Vacation was booked on Friday morning. We were flying out in three days for a 7-night getaway with a sneaky surprise in the works. After a very tedious search on Rover.com, I finally found a highly rated, in-home pet sitter for our big dog, Sage, and feisty-but-loveable cat, Moxie.
The twenty-something year old Layten said all the right things and toted the proper experience for the job. After letting him know that we were still trying to find a place to park our RV for the week and weren’t sure we could meet him before the day of our flight, Layten offered up his backyard to park Wanda the Winnebago (after getting the approval from his “momager” that he lives with). So convenient! This trip was coming together nicely.
Jason changed our final RV booking from going further North to moving inward toward Orlando Airport for Saturday and Sunday night. Perfect. Everything was in motion, and when early Monday morning came around, we packed up camp and headed for Layten’s house.
That’s when things started to unravel. I should have known it was all too easy. Every piece of the vacation locked into place like one of my jigsaw puzzles, smooth and clean. Then the universe just had to step in and say, “How about we spice things up a bit, shall we?”
Jason and I walked up to Layten’s front door and knocked. In looking around the property, we were already second guessing the place. Busted car parts and garbage littered the front yard. The fence was broken and wouldn’t be secure for our RV, let alone keeping our Sage safe.
The door opened a crack and a dark outline of a woman’s head peered out but didn’t say a word. After asking if Layten was home, we heard a grunt, and the door closed again. Jason immediately stepped off the porch and started calling elsewhere to store our RV. The door remained closed for a solid couple of minutes before Layten stepped out, closing the door behind him.
“Sorry, I can’t sit for you guys. My mom changed her mind.”
Insert panic attack here. Clearly blindsided, all I could utter was an “Ok” and walked off the porch to find Jason on the phone finalizing the storage for Wanda. Jason was just as shocked as I was and we started grasping for solutions. We sat on the curb for over 30 minutes. Jason is calling everyone that came up on his Google search for pet sitters or boarding locations near us and the airport. I got back on Rover.com to see if ANYONE could watch our pets. Specifically Sage, our 10-year-old Mastiff that has gotten cranky and jealous in her older years and shouldn’t be in a home with dogs she doesn’t know.
The list was small, but I sent an S.O.S. message to everyone on it. Some responded right away with “sorry, too short of notice”. Yeah, I’m not happy about the short notice either! Tears were flowing as everything felt like it was falling apart around us. The trip was becoming a bust, and I started wondering if we would get any money back if we cancelled flights and resorts less than four hours in advance. Not to mention the boys’ heartbreak if we threw in the towel and they didn’t get to surprise Aunt Lori and Uncle Ron after all the hype that was building up over the last couple of days.
Jason found a couple places for boarding, but they required vaccination records. Which of course were back home in Oregon. Our vet could get it to them, but it’s 5:30am in Oregon, and they wouldn’t be open for another four hours – and we should be on our flight in four hours! So boarding our pets anywhere was a non-starter, and our reliance was on Rover.com or Facebook. Alas, I was able to get through to TWO sitters that responded quickly and were available – but only for watching Sage, not our cat. Good enough! We were desperate. The weather was going to remain in the 60’s while we were gone, and Moxie could simply stay in the RV the week we were gone. Ok, Moxie was covered, now for Sage. I messaged both sitters for their addresses – it was crunch time and every mile mattered. Our hero pet sitter, Vince, came in clutch with only being 15 minutes from us and we set out for a whirlwind of driving the RV and car to his house (I spent that time to uncontrollably cry it out, still not sure we would make the flights). Essentially, we stopped in front of Vince’s home, Sage bounded out of Wanda, we dropped off her supplies with Vince in the front yard, quickly giving him a run down and were back on the road to get the RV to storage within 10 minutes.
It was now 3.5 hours before we were supposed to be boarding, with the airlines giving us repeated and explicit instructions to arrive three hours before boarding, or you WILL miss your flight due to long
lines and being understaffed. Fortunately, Jason had prearranged with the RV storage to stow Wanda and the car. We arrived at Park Bark & Fly, filled out the paperwork, parked both rigs, set Moxie up with an abundant supply of food and water, and climbed into the shuttle bus that pulled up just as we were going to start hoofing it to the front of the parking lot. Such service!
We arrived at the airport two hours before take-off. God bless Spirit airlines for being super-efficient with a frantic family of five. We arrived at our gate with enough time to get some to-go food, eat, collect our nerves, and get in the boarding line. Whew, we did it!
While we were at the airport waiting, we were stalking Lori and Ron on a location-sharing app that we all have. Jason and I were worried that they would check our location at some point and see what we were up to. But we were also using the app to check their location to see where we would be able to surprise them once we arrived. I was also commenting on Lori’s Facebook vacation pictures, attempting to get their plans for dinner out of her so we could pop in on them there. We got on the plane knowing where their dinner reservations were and with a back-up surprise plan just in case we couldn’t get into the restaurant.
Unfortunately, we were spot on with our deductions about that pesky app. Unbeknownst to us, Lori was checking our location – and she saw we were at the airport. Ron told us later that he was trying to keep her from getting her hopes up, saying we could be flying to check out a boat, or many other things. Just because we were at the airport doesn’t mean we were coming to see them. Increasing her suspicions, I couldn’t get the darn airplane’s WIFI to work, so my conversation with Lori took a long pause while we were in the air. Once we landed in Cancun, I had a message from Lori: “What are you guys up to today?” We knew the gig was up. At least we were fairly sure. But we were absolutely certain when we received a message from Jason’s parents shortly after asking what our plans were for the day.
Lori and Ron met us with drinks and giddy hugs. They changed their dinner plans, and we were all able to eat together. After an exhausting morning going through every emotion my body could muster, that Pina Colada tasted exceptional.
And so here we are, in Cancun, with family again. Maybe this needs to be a regular part of our voyage on the road. Family coming to us as a surprise that knocks our socks off and fills the heart. Or we take a trip and knock said socks off our family. Wouldn’t that be the best? Never knowing who might be around the corner? Always showing up to an outing, peeking around, almost expectantly? So fun.
So here’ to impulsive spending, to Layten getting his first 1-star review, and to catching up on missed family hugs.
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