9-12-08 (from hand-written journal)

9-12-08
Today was interesting to say the least. Yesterday I got an email from Continental advising to change travel plans because all flights to Houston 9-12 through 9-14 are likely to be canceled due to Hurricane Ike. Adam called his dad, who travels quite a bit, and offered to look into options for us.

This morning, Amy and Adam told us their Saturday flight had been canceled. The next flight available through Continental (at least with seats available) is Tuesday, so they're staying another three nights.

Mr. Flacks called Adam and told us Continental will reimburse you the price of your ticket if you have to change to another airline. When we looked at the fine print, this is strictly for when a flight is canceled. As of now, our Sunday flight has not been canceled. It likely will be though, so we booked flights on American Airlines that go through Miami instead of Houston. The flight to Miami is earlier, and the connecting flight back to Indianapolis is even later on Monday than the
original one through Continental, so my 12 hour layover over night has just turned into an 18 hour layover over night. I will need to get a hotel room for sure now. With all the travel issues, Adam is no longer staying the layover with me (as originally planned when we were going through Houston), and will be back home Sunday night. Honestly, I can't blame him for wanting to get the traveling over with as soon as possible.

Enough negative stuff for now though. Well, not really. In the off season, water taxis only seem to run every 3 hours or so during the day. While in the pool this morning, the bartender Marva suggested we rent bikes and ride them into town. We went for it, and WOW, was it a mistake. The bikes themselves were old and rusted, and the path we took was partially on the beach, partially on a back-road in bad condition. When we made it into town, we were exhausted. We locked our bikes up (though my lock could be pulled open without the key) and looked for lunch. We ended up eating at The Blue Moon Cafe, which was delicious. I had a bbq brisket sandwich, which Adam originally ordered one as well. However, they only had enough for one of us, and Adam switched his order to a burger while I ran downstairs to see if the water taxi folks would let us take the bikes on the taxi. After lunch, we did some souvenier shopping. We both got some cool stuff, but Adam is definitely better at bartering than me, and liketly got better deals. Having no desire to ride the bikes back, especially with souvenirs, we put out the extra cash to get a private water taxi to take us (and the bikes) back to Belizian Shores. This is the point in the day we made our travel arrangements to go through Miami official.

After the arrangements were made, I needed a drink, so back to the pool bar!!! A majority of our friends from yesterday were there, as well as a new couple, Ping and Star, who had just arrived that afternoon. As it turns out, Ping and Star had just come from St. Ignacio, and had done some of the same stuff we did out there (the ATM cave and I think cave tubing), so we had plenty to talk about with them.

At 7:30, we (me, Adam, Ping and Star) got a private water taxi back into town for dinner. Since we didn't actually eat a meal there yesterday, we suggested going back to El Patio. I ordered a Carribean Lobster, and it was freaking delicious (it was served in a tomato basil sauce, and the lobster itself had been cooked in Belizian rum). After the meal, we stuck around and watched Hurricane Ike coverage on the Weather Channel. The storm looked devastating, but seeing a weatherman on-location get so mad that he appeared to quit his job on-air, then walk off camera was absolutely hysterical. After this, we took a water taxi back to the resort, and pretty much called it a night.

Signing off,

Ryan