Travel Log: Day 53 (8/19), Jaco and San Jose Costa Rica

Today we packed up all of our stuff and boarded our shuttle to San Jose. For BC and I this shuttle ride was free of car sickness. Both AC and JC were a bit sick though. The shuttle driver was doing the classic continuous pump of the gas pedal, but that was balanced out by the mostly straight and flat toll road.

We checked into our hotel (Barcelo San Jose) and went to dinner. Trying to keep it cheap we ordered from the least expensive set of menu items. The cost came out to a still sort of high $44.

Travel Log: Day 54 (8/20), San Jose Costa Rica, Houston USA

Barcelo San Jose

Since AC refused to sleep in the second bed with BC last night, I decided to sleep in the bed with him. I was hoping to lure AC into the free spot with JC so she wouldn’t sleep on a tiny little couch that she was too big for. I understand now why AC doesn’t want to sleep with BC. He snuggles up pretty aggressively, using up any room until you have no space left in the bed. I left to join JC in the other bed at 2am since AC stayed on the couch. AC slept terrible on the dinky couch, but honestly that was a better bet for her than sleeping with BC.

We had the free hotel breakfast which was good, although weird. Weird in that the best thing I found to eat was beef stew. The coffee was really good though.

Flight

We made it to the airport and the security process was different than expected. There were no signs saying otherwise so I got my liquids out, took my belt off, only to be yelled at by the mall cop that I was going too slow. It turns out we only had to take laptops out, so it was very much like TSA pre-check.

Our flight to Houston was good most of the way, but had to go into a holding pattern just outside of Houston because of weather. After circling for 30 minutes or so we were then rerouted to New Orleans. We were on the ground there for about 30 minutes then went on to Houston. Customs was quick and easy.

Houston

We went out to ground transportation to catch an Uber. Our Uber driver circled through the airport area twice but we couldn’t find him. Eventually Uber just gave us another driver and we found him just fine in the expected location. He (Mario) was a true pro driver unlike anything I’ve really ever seen from an Uber driver. His car (Honda Pilot) was clean, quiet, cool. Mario was dressed slightly above business casual, talked just the right amount, and helped us with our bags. The contrast between him and our Costa Rica Ubers was stark. If every Uber driver were a Mario I would never want robo-taxis to take over.

Our hotel room (Home2Suites) is nice. We decided to give the kids the nice bed so they could sleep together with enough room to put a divider in the bed to keep BC on his side of the bed.

Travel Log: Day 55 (8/21), Houston Texas

Today was a full day in Houston at our hotel. The familiarity of everything was a welcome break before we jump right back into the unfamiliar tomorrow. We ate the hotel breakfast which was really good. We stashed some of it for lunch as well.

In the afternoon we went to buy snacks at a nearby gas station. We decided to have our Friday movie night today since the next night we have anywhere will be Saturday night in Tokyo. I assume when we get to the Tokyo Airbnb we will be walking dead and have no interest in a movie night. There’s a rule sprouting in our mind that we should never buy things that don’t have price tags on them. We violated and solidified our commitment to this rule at the gas station today. Our snacks plus some extras for the flight came in at $55. Nearly all of it lacked price tags, probably because nobody would buy the stuff.

Before watching our movie we went to Jack-in-the-box again. It was delicious again.

I turned the Japanese phrases I have been documenting into a set of flash cards for all of us to study with. The clock has run out though, and we’re going to have to start our journey in Japan knowing basically no Japanese.

I’m trying to do some emergency cramming tonight to make the travel go smoother, but time has run out on that too. We’re just going to have to try to get some sleep, and work the problems in Japan.