Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

When Bode and I left Jason in Santa Marta, it was a bit of a last minute thing. I bought the tickets at 9:30 am and Jason dropped us off at the airport at 3:30 pm that day. At this point, we were still hoping to ship from Santa Marta, but knew that RORO was a very real possibility. The plan was for Bode and I to take everything we could with us.

We ditched most of our clothes and stuffed our 3 large duffel bags with everything we knew we wanted to keep and that Jason wouldn’t need.  We were allowed 2 checked bags each, which meant we had to go buy some bags – the big rectangular plastic tote bags with the zipper for $5 – 1 for us, 2 for when Jason returned. We also carried on 4 pieces. You’d be surprised what you can stuff into a ukulele bag.

We spent over an hour trying to get a letter notarized that said it was okay for me to travel internationally with Bode. This is supposed to be required, but I was traveling one-way from Colombia to the U.S. on a ticket purchased that day… with a bag full of kitchen knives, car parts and other things that may be hard to explain.  In the end, no one asked us for the letter, but I think it’s a good idea to keep a generic letter like this on-hand in case of emergency.

Bode and I flew from Santa Marta to Bogota (oh yeah, in the Andes the temperature drops a good 40 degrees), to Houston. Nothing more than a ‘Welcome back’ from both Immigration and Customs – very nice. We rented a car and drove to my Mom’s house. She was at a conference in Atlanta, so I sent her a ‘guess where we are?’ e-mail.

We spent the weekend at my brother’s house and within 24 hours had gone to a movie, the community pool, spent $100 at Target, and eaten Mexican food, sushi, and donuts. Welcome to ‘Murica!