Typically I try to schedule a warm weather vacation in February to avoid turning into Jack Nicholson’s character from the Shining. Would I try to murder my family if I wasn’t able to get a brief respite from the Michigan winter in the shortest but worst month of the year? Probably not, but I don’t want to take that chance. This year the annual February trip was put in jeopardy by an ill timed trial that was scheduled in the fall to take place in late February. However, Covid saved the day by shutting down the Kalamazoo jury trials allowing me to plan a trip to Puerto Rico. We were scheduled to fly out of GR on February 18 and set to return on February 26. The afternoon of our scheduled flight out I received an email from American Airlines alerting me to the fact that our flight to Philadelphia was running behind and that may cause us to miss our flight from there to Puerto Rico. We decided to head to the airport anyway thinking that if the flight was not going to make it we could find an alternative much more easily if we were at the airport. When we were standing in line to get through security I received another email that indicated the flight was going to be further delayed, putting the likelihood of catching our connecting flight at about the same odds as Ukraine prevailing against Russia. Aiden lost his mind in the security line and started F bombing American Airlines. However, we continued on and went to our gate so that Shirley could track someone down to see what our alternatives were. I was desperate and jumped on AA’s website to see if there was anything that would allow us to get to Puerto Rico on Saturday but there were only flights that allowed us to board on Saturday and reach Puerto Rico no earlier than 22 hours from departure.

We ended up rebooking for Sunday from GR to Miami. Our flight left at a little after 6 in the morning and gave us an 8 hour layover in Miami. While the Miami airport has a bit more to offer than GR we decided we were going to go on a day trip to pass the time and ended up taking the bus form the airport to Miami Beach. We stopped for breakfast at a hotel on Collins avenue that was worse than Denny’s and didn’t have the catchy breakfast meal names ( I love Moons over Mihami). After finishing breakfast we bought a bunch of beach gear from Walgreens and one of the tourist beach shops and found a place to vacate at the beach. After roughly an hour the sky clouded over and it began to rain. Wandering around in MIami Beach with all of our shit must have been how the Israelites felt when they escaped Egypt only to doubt God and be cast into the dessert for 40 years, only they didn’t have the advantage of sun block. When the kids and Shirley returned from an additional trip to Walgreens with their arms full of snacks we decided to pack up and get back on the bus. On our ride to the beach there were only a handful of people and traffic was fairly light, on the way back to the airport you would have thought they were shuttling Ukraine refugees to Poland. Shirley snaged a seat for her and Parker, while Aiden and I were stuck with individual seats. After a couple stops some guy got on and sat in the seat in front of me and he smelled like the cheese from under a homeless guys balls, I had to put my mask on (which was required on Miami public transportation) to dampen the smell.

The Jansma’s managed to touch down in Peurto Rico a little after 9pm Atlantic time. Atlantic time is an hour ahead of EST. Initially, and this is one of the many reasons missing our Friday flight sucked, I had a Jeep reserved through Hertz. However, they only hold your reservation for 12 hours so Shirley grabbed a different rental car off Expedia. We had to take a shuttle to the agency and it was some name I had never heard of before. Sadly, the rental car was not only a complete pile of shit it was also $400 more than the Jeep. When we tried to put all of our luggage in it wouldn’t fit and we were looking at having to bungee strap Aiden to the roof. (Bungee straps were an additional $5 a day per strap) However, and I’m not sure why because when it comes to Karma I deserve none of the good kind, the rental guy upgraded our Shitsubishi, from a small SUV Shitsubishi (you could probably fit no more than 3 clowns in the small Shitsubishi) to a midsize Shitsubishi SUV, it even had XM radio so I could listen to the morning drive on NBA radio. We ended up arriving at our rental around midnight rode hard and put away wet so we decided to spend Monday lounging around the pool and hanging out at the beach. I had rented a place that had separate bedrooms because sex is a must on a tropical vacation and is much more likely to happen if Shirley and I have our own room. However, the first two nights Shirley slept with Aiden and I slept with Parker.

I had planned and booked the entire trip but Shirley, at least in her mind, had contributed the most because she reserved tickets to the rain forest for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So, Tuesday we decided to make the trip to the rainforest to go on a hike. Roughly 63 feet before we make it to the visitor center Shirley asks me what the date is. Turns out our tickets were for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When we get up to the attendant booth at the visitor center Shirley asks politely if there is a chance we can still get in the park, the attendant smiled and said no in response. However we were able to pay $16 to go into the visitor center, which was even more underwhelming due to the fact that I thought I was going to be hiking through waterfalls and a lot of cool shit in the actual park. We did find a swimming hole that was a quarter mile hike to get to and somewhat made up for the hour long round trip.

On Wednesday I took the kids to Super Wal Mart with me to get some supplies for our hike. We scoured the Super Wal Mart looking for ponchos but had no luck. However, the kids were able to find nips, for those of you who don’t know what nips are, at least the candy version, they are like werthers but unlike werthers your kids make jokes about them the entire time they are consuming them. On the way back we stopped at McDonalds to order some breakfast. I patiently waited in the Drive Thru line only to have the attendant talk at me in Spanish, this is where the 3 years of Spanish Immersion and $45,000 in tuition was suppose to be of some assistance. Sadly, that isn’t enough to allow you to order off the McDonald’s breakfast menu in Espanol. Neither kid was of any help and I somewhat panicked, backing out of the drive thru lane and hurriedly exiting the McDonalds, but not before Aiden could yell “Adios!” to the drive thru attendant. So, I guess that Spanish Immersion experiment wasn’t a complete waste.

The next few days were spent at the beach, in the pool, and going on a snorkel adventure. The crazy thing is Parker indicated midway through trip that he was sick of hanging out at the pool, I was tempted to Fed Ex his ungrateful ass back home. He also indicated that he missed his friends and was looking forward to getting back home. There was nothing I missed about back home other than our dog Max and knew that I would be in a deep state of depression once I returned back to the great white north. Our flight on Sunday out of Puerto Rico was at 8 am so we woke up at 5 to be on the safe side. Shirley and I come from two different schools of thought on travel. She is a white knuckle traveler worried about every unforeseen hiccup that could beseech us on our journey, where as I don’t sweat much of anything other than a deep seeded fear that my plane will crash. Shirley actually told me that she woke up Saturday night and was worried the rental car place didn’t open until 6 am. So, that context will help you appreciate what I experienced on the way to the airport. We stopped to top off the rental car tank but Puerto Rico doesn’t have pay at the pump so I had to go in to pay. When I approached the car Shirley was standing at the pump ready to fill the car with gas. In the 16 years I have known her she has never once pumped gas in my presence. She wanted to utilize the 30 seconds it took me to walk out so that we could get to the airport as timely a manner as possible. Sadly, she was unable to figure out how to work the pump so I had to take over.

In closing I do think the world can be divided in to two distinct groups, those who want to get on a plane immediately when boarding starts and those who prefer to wait until the last possible minute. I had been given a ticket that required me to get a seat assignment at the gate while Shirley and the kids had their assignments already. They boarded together and I lagged behind, but I let the societal pressure of boarding as soon as you can get the best of me and instead of waiting in line for Starbucks I boarded the plain with at least 45 seconds to spare.