Resident Tourist

Originally, Dash and I planned on being in Costa Rica for a bit longer, but my favorite cousin’s wife sent an invite on Facebook to his surprise birthday party in Colorado for the New Year. I had not seen him in person in twenty years, so I begged Delilah, who was in Texas finishing up her gig on the 1883 show, and we decided to go for it.

In the process of letting go of the majority of our belongings, I had discarded my winter clothes. My thought process was that, for the foreseeable future, we would be in warm climates. But looking at the temperatures in Colorado at the end of December, I panicked and asked my wife to bring some winter wear for me.

At the Costa Rica airport, I was given the chance to check our carry-on bags and without thinking about it, checked the bag with my hoodie and Dash’s jacket. Once we arrived at our layover in Dallas, Delilah sent me a photo of her in this small-town Colorado airport, where it was 20 degrees out. Disembarking the plane, she had to walk down boarding stairs and brave the elements to get to the terminal. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt and seeing snow on the ground, I was a little freaked out. 

I purchased Dash a sweater at the DFW airport and thought that I would be able to suck it up and hustle from the warm plane, through the cold, to the warm terminal where a coat and pants awaited me. Whatever frostbite I suffered would be a constant reminder for me to be more prepared. 

However, the cold in Colorado is much different than the bitter cold of Texas. For example in Texas, if it was 40 out, you might be hating life if you had to stay outside a matter of minutes. But in Colorado’s 20 degrees, I strolled out of the plane down the steps into the cold and sauntered to the terminal at a leisurely pace without issue. Something about the humidity in Texas, maybe the altitude in Colorado, I don’t know.

It was amazing to see my cousin again. Delilah, Dash, and I all loved spending time with him and his family. It was also cool to be a surprise for someone. We were originally going to only spend a few days together but we changed our flight again (due to a lack of COVID testing during the New Years’ holiday) and stayed a few more days, to my cousin’s and our delight.

We didn’t know where we were staying long-term at this point. What we had was a hotel booked for a few days. Almost a year ago, we had put an application into an apartment and were told there were no vacancies. We had tickets to go to Hawaii but not much beyond that.

While in Colorado we received a call that an apartment was going to be available in mid-February. Then we flew off to the island of Kaua’i.

We had racked up a lot of Marriott Bonvoy points over the years and were able to stay in a Sheraton for the month of January. Then we purchased another two weeks at the cheapest condo we could find (but still, youch!) for the two weeks in February.

While it was touch and go on whether we would actually get the apartment here, we were able to move in on Valentine’s day. We found furniture on Craigslist for free or cheap and ordered some boxed foam mattresses for ourselves and air mattresses for our guests, found bedding and towels from the thrift store, and hit up Ross for cutlery. Our landlord gave us some pots and pans they were going to donate and a neighbor clearing out a storage shed gave us a hookup too.

I almost felt a little nervous posting about our time here until we moved into a more permanent place. It had been some thirteen years since we had a landlord and the rental process was foreign to us. Also, the island way is more laid back than we are used to and there wasn’t anything to say yes you have a place to stay until we actually moved in. Once we actually signed a lease and got the keys I felt like I was able to breathe again but hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.

We are loving our time on the island. There is always something we are doing or learning. It is interesting to be basically tourists that live here. More about our adventures in the next exciting episode!