savvynomadadventures

She falls asleep and I squeak out a sigh of relief. We are on a plane. Thank you baby Jesus. Feelings of excitement start to flood in… the last 10 hours have been quite the whirlwind of emotions.

As most of you know I am a Restaurant General Manager by trade. What this means is I’m married to my job. Plain and simple. Crazy stupid hours, daily wrangling a staff of Dragons (Mother of Dragons is my nick name, how fitting), never any time to myself, let alone quality time with my Domestic Partner, Honey. But anyone who understands running a business also knows that this is all part of the gig. Knowing all of the madness I still signed up and I am extremely passionate about what I do. But with all of this madness there must be some time for travel and escape.

Travel has always been my happy place and with my current work schedule these trips abroad are becoming fewer and fewer. I’ve traveled to 65 countries and and I am yearning for some more action. So I decided… It’s time. The itch needed to be scratched. Where to you say??

COSTA RICA of course! The native land to all things sloths! Two-toed sloths, three-toed sloths and any other sloth like creature you can imagine. Monkeys galore, 1000’s of species of birds and an abundance of creepy crawlers & reptiles.

Honey has an unnatural obsession with sloths. I mean it borders fanaticism. Sloth socks, t-shirts, water bottles, blankets, ornaments, etc… Not to mention the copious amounts of sloth videos she makes me watch whilst she ugly cries and squeals “omg omg omg I want to hold a baby sloth pleeeaasse !” I give a proverbial eye roll and agree that they are cute. I haven’t fully researched this fetish but it certainly isn’t normal and actually borders creepy and obsessive. However, I love her so damn much I wanted to take her somewhere that we can at least see the damn things.

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ENTER: Costa Rica

This was going to be the most epic trip yet. Hours upon hours of research to find the best route for our adventures. We decided to rent a car, giving us the luxury of traveling at our own pace. Stopping at volcanoes, jungles, beaches, mountains, and everything in-between. First stop??? A Sloth Sanctuary that has baby sloths! DUH We also rented a tree house deep in the jungle to do some serious sloth stalking.

The excitement started to grow as we started to put the trip together. I was so overwhelmed with work for three weeks straight that I literally woke up one day and Honey Exclaimed “WE ARE GOING TO COSTA RICA TODAY!!” We sang silly little Costa Rica songs while we were packing and even made a cheesy Costa Rica Video!

****Side Note**** Last time I made a video about an event right before it was supposed to happen…I have regretted it every day for the last 3 1/2 years. My sister, her 3 year old daughter and myslef made a video addressed to Hillary Clinton on election night 2016 (we also popped the Champagne and started toasting our Madame President) on her on becoming the first female president. Well, let’s just say that didn’t work out how we had planned…so, back to Costa Rica.

We are all packed & we double checked everything. Bug spay. Check. Sunscreen. Check. First aid kit. Check. Snorkel gear. Check. Phones, laptops and our newly purchased Cannon Rebel EO7 Professional Camera with telephoto lens. Check. Passports. Ahhh… Passports. Those precious little blue books that allow us Americans to travel to exoctic destinations all over the world.

I open mine to take a quick peek to make sure it’s mine and not Honey’s and a catch a glimpse of the expiration date. April 2019. April 2019. It’s February 2020. It takes a moment for me to make the connection in my saturated brain… “Babe”, I quitely whisper, “its 2020 right?” She smiles that infamous smile of hers that is trying to contain excitement. “Hahah indeed it is! Let’s Go!” I could literally feel the blood drain from my face because I knew in that exact moment that we were NOT going to Costa Rica, Honey would NOT see ANY sloths, and I just became the worlds BIGGEST idiot. She immediatley noticed the change in my demeour and backed away. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?” She shrieked.

I take a moment as I try to rationalize this in my feeble brain. This is completely my fault, a TOTAL Rookie move and 100% avoidable. We are not going on our dream trip and now I have to explain this to the love of my life.

She is pleading with her eyes for an answer but I couldn’t control myself and I burst out in hysterics. In between sobs I told her my passport is expired and we are not going on to be able to go on this trip. She stood there with a blank stare as it started to set in.  She pleaded “maybe we get a new one real quick?” It took me a moment to calm down, but I thought…maybe we can somehow make this happen?

Oops, its Sunday, there isn’t a single Passport Office open on Sundays. I called every emergency Passport agency and got the same response. If I were the luckiest of the lucky, I COULD have it by Wednesday or Thursday with a hefty fee of over $400.

Scrambling to figure it all out, wiping the mascara from my face, I realize that I have to pull it together! I have a 70 Person Wedding Event to put on at my restaurant in two hours!

We rushed out the door, Honey calling the airlines to cancel and see if there is any way that we can get some type of refund for our tickets, while I’m a lunatic juggling both work and cancelling our booked tours and lodging.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

Reality has set in… now what?

We have 12 days off together, our bags ARE Packed, we have 2 Valid Drivers Licenses, and the adventurous spirit! It didn’t take long or much thought at all… we are going to HAWAII.

Boom! Let’s do this!

Within 6 hours we flipped our entire vacation. As I write this we are descending into Kauai.

We are flying by the seat of our pants. No hotel booked yet, but we do have a Jeep waiting for us at the airport.

Everything happens for a reason. I need to take my own travel advice that I have given to to countless other folks over the years…Expect the Unexpected.

It’s not about the destination, its about the journey.

When life throws lemons…go to Hawaii!

Stay tuned for our epic adventures. It’s going to be one helluva a trip.