Unintended Travels

Back from our trip to the Dominican Republic (and several other unintended cities!)

The plan was to leave home at 4am, board a flight to Charlotte, NC, then connect to Punta Cana.
Easy enough.
Weather was beautiful as we took off right on schedule, our spirits were high! (along with our bodies in the airplane.)
until...
the plane was diverted to Bristol, Tennessee because of fog in Charlotte. Huh? I thought fog was reserved for the airports near...uh....oceans? San Francisco? Los Angeles? Sydney?
Who knew they had fog in Charlotte?
They do.

so after a delightful (cough,cough) stay in Bristol, we landed in Charlotte too late to catch the last flight of the day to the DR.

instead, we caught a flight in the other direction to:
Our luggage didn't catch the same flight...
Our spirits drooped a bit... our clothes were even droopier- especially the white t-shirt that I wore and accidentally dropped chocolate sauce on in the Charlotte airport.
After 16 hours of travel we ended up farther away from the DR than when we began! After checking into a Fairfield Inn in Jamaica, NY we enjoyed an amazing dinner at the in-hotel restaurant (situated in a large conference room area), we were able to laugh about the whole situation.

Thursday found us arriving in the DR only a day late and several dollars short. (I just couldn't abide the really gross by now white t-shirt, and had to buy an over-priced one at the airport. I have learned my lesson and will never travel in white again! I should probably not wear white ever again...but it matches everything which is a plus for the matching challenged like myself.) The resort was one of the nicest I have ever stayed at, and the service was beyond gracious.







Our room had an ocean-front view and it was beautiful. Right in front was a private beach with little tiki huts and bed-like lounge chairs (what are they called, anyone know?) Cares of the real world just slipped away and life took on a dream-like quality. And that is pretty much how we spent the next four days! Sitting on our bed-like lounge chairs, people-watching, reading, and napping. I do this well. Dave has a bit harder time with the relaxing thing, but he tried hard! I was proud of him for his effort.

























And now we are back to real-life. The concerns that seemed trivial now seem important again, but nowhere near as important as they seemed before the trip. Outside the resort grounds, we saw the hardships that many of the Dominicans face on a daily basis. We felt gratitude for the blessings in our lives, and have added the lovely Dominican people to our nightly prayers.