On Our Way Home

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Costa Rica 2013: Day 16: On Our Way Home:

Well, we got up at 4:30am to get our ride to the airport at 5am. After paying our exit fee of $29 each to leave costa Rica, we boarded our Delta flight to Atlanta, almost an hour late. Fortunately, we'd left a couple ours of layover in Atlanta before our flight to Pensacola, so we didn't have to rush to the next flight. The flight to Pensacola was pretty much full, with a lot of new Sailors that just graduated from Great Lakes and were on their way to Pensacola for aviation-related A schools.

We arrived safe and sound in Pensacola and were picked up by our oldest daughter Monica and grandson Kevin. It was great to be back home. Our trip to Costa Rica was a lot of fun, and rather different than our usual 3 or 4 week trips with at least some ruins to see. We did get a pretty good taste of Costa Rica. It was a beautiful country with a lot of variety of vegetation, climate, and wildlife. I have to say though that it was more expensive in most ways than our other trips have been. The hostels/B&Bs/lodges were more xpensive at $25 to $70 a night, the food was usually more expensive at $4 to $10 per person/per meal, and even the souvenirs tended to be more expensive. I think Costa Rica is likely the most expensive country of Central and South America. Maybe not more than most of Europe, but not much less either. The people were quite friendly and like I said, the scenery and wildlife were great. I don't have any photos for this final day, but I'll try to make a nice panoramic photo to add later.

Nothing is firm yet, but next year I think we'll be doing an Alaskan cruise on our 40th wedding anniversary, so until then, think of all the good times we've had on our trips, and give it a try yourself.

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