Fits and Starts .... and Stops

It is the big day .... well it is supposed to be.

Things were looking pretty good, I got my three bags down to two after my daughter Cait laid down the law (no mom, you don't need that many pairs of pants or that many t-shirts!), and I had a ride to the airport! Then I woke up Saturday morning to find an e-mail ... my flight had been cancelled. Not sure why, maybe weather somewhere else?

The flight was rescheduled for Sunday morning at 6:30, arriving in Belize city at 4:00. The weather in  northern California was crap and I didn't want anyone getting up at some ungodly hour to get me to the airport in Sacramento at 4:30 a.m. So I asked my friends Dee and Kim to drop me at the airport Saturday night.

You know, that is a really good idea, no biggie to me where i just sit and do nothing much, except I should have planned better. By the time I got there, the whole airport was pretty much shut down, no ticket agents so no checking my bags in, Starbucks outside of security all closed up tight. Hmmmm. Well I settled in with my book and I read and napped and read and napped some more til about 4:45 a.m. when the ticket agents showed up again.

As I said, I got my three bags down to two, and that wasn't re-pcacking stuff, it was actually being brutal and choosing not to take as many clothes, leaving a few things behind to be shipped at a later date. But I did it, two large bags, I weighed them carefully with my digital travel scale, one came in at 42 pounds and the other at 48 and a bit. Add to that two carry-ons, one roller and my backpack, I was kind of good to go.

Okay, maybe not. I had checked in online, no big deal (except i got lousy seats when they re-booked my flight ... oh well), I put my first bag, the  lighter of the two on the scale and it says 50 pounds on the dot. I panic just a little bit. Um, I'm used to the airport scale and my scale being about 2 pounds different, I always try to give myself a little cushion. But really? EIGHT POUNDS????, I put the big bag on the scale, nope not 8 pounds different,  the bag I assumed would come in at right about 50 pounds weighs a whopping 60 pounds according to United Airlines.

I admit, I am "that customer" when I look at the guy and say, "that can't be right, you sure that scale is right?" Like he really is going to say to me, oh sorry ma'm you're right, our scale must be 10 pounds off, no problem. Yeah, no. He says instead, it's right, you need to take out 10 pounds. WTF??????  So now I am really "that customer" that we all hate, I have my suitcases open in front of the ticket counter as I rummage around trying to figure out how to lose 10 pounds and figure where i"m going o put them when I take them out of my suitcase.

I'm not even sure how I did it, but I took a bunch of stuff out of my suitcase and stuck it in every available nook and cranny in my carry on luggage, including rolling up a full 5mm wetsuit and stuffing it into my backpack. Got that bag to 50.0 pounds.

A Starbucks mocha and a croissant later and I'm ready to roll. So off I go, leaving Sacramento with the tiniest bit of sadness and I'm headed to Belize by way of Houston. And they gate checked my roller bag so I'm looking like I'm a good traveller with only a backpack as a carry-on. Hah! Have them fooled. Oh, but i do have a middle seat in the absolute last row of the airplane ... really? Really no leg room, no arm room.

Boarding group 4 out of 5, in the very last row and a B seat is a middle seat ... but I do have TSA Pre check!

But wait .... I'm on my way to Belize! It is all just fine.

Next post: Belize city to Placencia then my first foray out on the town, okay, out in the village.

Take This ... .Leave That

When I finally made the real decision that I was going to go and it would be right around the first of the year I had to then seriously think about where I would end up, what I would take with me and what I would leave behind. And, for all that I left behind did I want or need to store things or what did I want to actually get rid of.

I started looking online for places to rent in Belize, both in Ambergris Caye and in Placencia. I also checked out Roatan, one of my other favorite Caribbean countries. I ended up trying to make pro and con lists for each place -- although I have to admit anything on the "con" list is pretty inconsequential really, I mean what really could be bad about living somewhere tropical???

Ambergris Caye I have been to before. It is lovely and based upon my research and the people I have talked to who either live there, go there often, or who have family who live there or visit often, it has a huge ex-pat community, many of the conveniences of home and beautiful diving. I looked at several condos for rent. They were within my budget (although not as low priced as I had hoped) and on first glance seemed perfect. The more I thought about it though, they are very Americanized, very much like a condo complex you'd find anywhere in the US. Is that really what I wanted? I'm not so sure.

I communicated with a leasing agent in Belize about a couple of places but we didn't communicate well, they seemed a little slow to respond to my questions. They were on Belize time.

I really have a feeling that everything happens for a reason and this felt like some type of sign that it just wasn't right.

I started looking a little more at Placencia which I have never been to but have researched and talked to several who have been there or live there. It is in the south of Belize, on the mainland, a little more laid back than Ambergris, a little less expensive and a  little less Americanized. But again, I haven't seen the place personally so I'm not completely ready to commit before getting there.

Roatan is really beautiful and much less expensive (based upon my own research) than Belize. But it is also a much poorer country and I think that those places I might want to live would require me likely to have access to or own a vehicle. I was hoping to get away from having a car.

I finally decided that the universe was telling me to just go, look for myself and make my decision once there. I can do that. So I'm going, will stay at a resort or short term rental for 2-4 weeks while I find the perfect place to live. Most places require a 6 month lease, easy.

Okay, so that decision made now what about my stuff. Almost every place I have looked at to rent comes fully furnished. Well thats good because I can't imagine how I would get furniture there or even buy more once I arrived. Remember, this whole thing is a seat of my pants operation so I'm really not prepared to furnish an entire apartment/condo.

Confession #1, I have almost zero emotional attachment to any of the stuff I own. I mean, certainly to photos and things of my kids and my family, some things that belonged to my mother and father before their passing, but generally I don't care about the "stuff" that filled my apartment and that I have moved repeatedly from one place to another. The stuff I care the most about that was there was my books, photographs and memorabilia of my kids childhood, the art I owned -- much of it produced by family and friends -- and the things i needed to do what I love, my computer, my underwater camera equipment and my dive equipment.

The thought of storing everything else in a storage unit depressed me. A monthly bill for stuff I didn't care much about and would really do me, or anyone else, no good seemed stupid. But I did still have a few things i couldn't throw away and it is almost everyone's favorite time of year -- tax season -- so I had to think about what would i do with the few things i really did need to keep.

Confession #2, I have this idea that every few months I might make a trip back to the US to visit friends and family and in fact I know of one dive trip which will require me to be in Florida to leave. Now that Florida trip is the middle of summer so no worries there but what if I came back in January and it was 0 degrees?!? I'm not taking heavy winter clothes with me to Belize but I might need them for a visit back. I finally decided one box or suitcase in Tennessee with some warmer stuff, and one in California. When all was said and done I had a couple boxes of paperwork etc. that I couldn't dispose of and a couple boxes of books that I didn't want to dispose of. So I finally decided on a very tiny storage unit (more like  a storage closet) for those things and my one box of clothes to be kept in Tennessee.

Okay, basic decisions made but what about all the rest. Like I said no emotional attachment to any of it so I got rid of it all. Sold or gave away just about everything I own. If this whole plan were to fail (and I don't plan on that happening), I'll just have to start over again. But did I care about the couch I had in my apartment? Not at all. So away it all went. Some I gave to people because I would rather have given it to someone for free who could use it rather than donate it where it would be sold to someone. Other things i gave to charity for the tax write off. And other stuff I just gave to whoever could take it and maybe pass it on to someone else in need.

I had hoped to pack one suitcase with all my dive equipment, one suitcase with my clothes then take my usual two carry-ons and that was it. I pared down all my clothes and my dive stuff and I still couldn't do it. So I'm now going with three suitcases of 50 pounds each and two carry-ons. Let's not talk about the weight of the carry-ons. And that is quite a site, me trying to wrangle that luggage through the airport  and onto shuttle buses etc, it is not a pretty sight.

But in the end it is everything I would need to live in the caribbean. There were still a few pieces of dive equipment I couldn't fit in my bag (either due to room or weight) so I have another suitcase packed and stored with a friend for either my next trip home I'll take it back with me, or when someone comes to visit I'll pay for the extra piece of baggage and have them bring it with them.

Well maybe it's not quite that bad but that's how it feels.

The airlines LOVE me.