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As of today, we have been back from the Puravida Adventure* for a full week. So why have I not been filling your feeds with pictures of intrepid zipliners who (Oh, gosh!) just happen to be posing in front of a volcano?
So many reasons, but perhaps chief among them is the sentiment I posted on Facebook just before we boarded the plane that began the return trip from Costa Rica to Kansas: "I'm ready to be home, but I'm not ready to not be here." Because, oh, people, this was the trip you dream of when you dream big.
It was big in an actual, measurable way. Check out the picture above. You will note that I, a tall woman who has been in the back row of pictures since second grade, am the shortest in our traveling party. Lovely Girl#2 looks down on me from a couple of inches, Husband hovers around 6' even, and Boys#2 and #4 each claim 6'4" or so, so we may have been the most vertically-gifted traveling party in the nation during those 10 days.
But it was also big in the sense that every single variable that could have gone our way actually went our way. In the next few days I'm going to be pulling out some specific topics to oooh and aaaaah about, but for today, let me just say that if we would have had Boys#1 and #3 and Lovely Girl#1 with us, this would have been the most perfect trip in the history of vacations. (Those three are adults, with actual paying jobs, and I am thrilled about that, but sad that those same work schedules didn't lend themselves to October vacations.)
Here's one example of how the vacation gods cared for us: We went to Costa Rica during the rainy season (optimistically christened "Green Season" by the local travel board). Because I lived there during my 3-plus years in the Peace Corps, I knew rainy season is not a myth but is often manageable. Husband did not know this, and for the month before we left my beloved insisted on pulling out his weather app every single day to show me: "Look! It's going to be raining in Guanacaste every day." And I would patiently remind him, "Yes, it's the rainy season. It will rain every day. But there's a good chance we'll get at least some sunshine every day, even if your app isn't showing that."
Finally, with two weeks to trip time (at the point that all of our reservations were non-refundable), I stopped him as he pulled out his phone.
"I know rain is forecast for Guanacaste. I know that. You have told me that several times, and if you tell me again I will be forced to grab that phone out of your hand, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it 800 times. I cannot control the weather, and even if all we do is sit in our AirBnB and read books and watch our luggage mold, WE WILL HAVE A GREAT TIME."
Ahem.
I was a little stressed at that point, is what I'm saying, with the eight gajillion things I could not control. But do you know what?
The weather was gorgeous. We ziplined in full sun, with the clouds blowing away from the top of Volcano Arena to give a perfectly unimpeded view of the jagged peak. We walked around the town where I had lived and popped into the bakery without carrying our umbrellas, and although we did go to the beach on the one full-on-rainy day, we knew a warm tropical rain is perfectly fine when you're going to be getting wet anyway.
And Husband, who is sensitive and reasonable, had not mentioned the forecast again so he wasn't forced to scramble to get a new phone.
So today's post is just to let you know that we've gone and are home, and our Costa Rica trip was, well, WE HAD A GREAT TIME.
*Puravida is the all-purpose Costa Rican word that means Great! Super! All Good! Hello! Good-bye! Literally it means "pure life," but who remembers that?
