McBerkoBlog

Dear reader - and here I'm speaking primarily to myself, as I'm writing mainly to document these memories for my own future enjoyment - I must apologize. I barely captured anything here about our Costa Rica trip in summer 2024, and nothing at all about our two weeks in Prague and Vienna in 2025. Maybe someday I'll catch up, but in the meantime, let's forge ahead! This summer we're staying in the US. Time for a nearly 6-week long road trip! Why now? Ruth will be a senior in high school next year, so this might (?) be the last time we can all do such a long trip together. Bill quit his job in April (yay for FIRE, aka Financial Independence / Retire Early... but that's a whole separate post), so we've got this short window where we all have the time freedom to do it.  Here's the plan: Leg 1 - Raleigh west to Denver. We'll visit Asheville, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and Great Sand Dunes National Park along the...

On social media, people often only share the best of times, especially during vacation. Let's get real here, however - our Costa Rica trip (summer 2024, finally publishing this previously drafted post for future reference!) did not all go as planned. We usually work through some hiccups on any trip, but this was the first time in a while that we had major airline delays.  Before the "embracing" part Here's a short list of the problems on our trip: 8 delays in the flight from Charlotte to Costa Rica, ending in an overnight delay Decided to make the best of the airport hotel by swimming, only to find the pool was closed Wasted a bunch of time finding a working ATM when the airport one was broken Took way too many wrong turns trying to follow Waze shortcuts on a stressful drive through terrible San Jose traffic Missed one of our two nights in the cloud forest Almost flooded a cabin bathroom with a misfiring jet on a whirlpool tub One of us got sick for a day and a half W...