Play Date For The Animals

     Play dates are not just for little kids, animals have them as well. Every day at about 8:30 a.m. is our play date time between Mia (the in door cat) and the Peacocks, Ricky and Lucy. It begins with Lucy scratching at the door then she pecks at the window. I call Mia and tell her that her friends are here. She comes running and plops down and starts rolling and meowing. When Lucy starts squawking then Mia comes to the window and starts pawing it. This goes on every morning.

     Don't look at the dirty windows. It is hard to keep them clean when this goes on every day and on sunny days the peacocks will come back around 4:00 p.m. for more play action.

     Then we have the two dogs who look in constantly. They are either watching the TV or they just like to give us that look that says we are lonely and hungry.

     Today we had a unique play date. This involved it sounded like hundreds of black birds. They showed up in the top of a couple of trees in the back yard. They started squawking then the guinea started followed by the peacocks. It sounded like they were in the house it was so loud. I was able to snap this picture of the birds but as soon as I opened the door to get the other critters everyone flew away and play time was over. Just like little kids, a grown up was not welcome.

Aruba!

     Well we left the farm for a week and as far as the farm went everything ran smoothly. A snow storm hit  after we boarded which caused us some delays and I will go into that in a bit. Andy got his car stuck in our driveway. He tends to do that every year. Our driveway is not straight and I think it drives in the ditch which isn't hard to do since it is the same level as the drive. Then the poor kids brakes go out as he is driving back to Ames. He calls it his "death defying drive". The car is still parked because Mom wasn't here to take care of it for him. Glad he still needs me! I need to work on getting that car somewhere this weekend.

     Now to our travels. Let's just say we are not really happy with Delta Airlines right now. We get to the DM airport at 4:30 am for a 6:00 am flight. The pilots show up at 5:45. Plane sits at the gate because of "Mechanical Problems". We sit for 1 hour, causing us to miss our connection to Aruba. The only flight to Aruba that day. Delta was kind enough to have our new tickets waiting for us when we got off. They have to reroute us from Atlanta to Miami. In Miami we change airlines. We will arrive in Aruba at 10:55 pm.

     Delta did gives us $24.00 in food vouchers, a hamburger in the airport is about $6.00 so that is going to go far. We didn't want food we wanted drinks, we were looking forward to being on the beach at 3:30  pm. So we settle in with our ipad and computer, thank goodness for wireless. Time comes to board our flight to Miami, once again we sit at the gate. For one hour due to an "outdated manual".  That is right the plane can not fly because it has an "outdated manual". Umm wonder how many times that plane flew with that manuel? And why would they be reading the manuel while flying?

   Thank goodness we had some time till the flight took off from Miami to Aruba. As we are going to the gate we found Mountain Dew, Tim is addicted to his Dew and you can not find it on these islands. For some reason only Coke products. Tim stops to purchase 2 bottles and I get a Dr. Pepper. Off to the gate we go. Forgetting we have to switch airlines which means going out and reentering the whole screening process again. You can not take in liquids, no matter how much whining I did. So we had to throw out our new purchase. This is not a good start to a vacation.

     Our flight from Miami to Aruba took off with no problems it is 7:40 pm and the plane is not full. We arrive in Aruba and have to go thru customs get our passport stamped then go pick up our luggage. We wait and wait and have no luggage. By this time it is close to midnight. We go to the American Airlines desk and tell our sob story they give us some information and say they will deliver it when it shows up. The customs people who check your luggage are gone. There is no one in the airport. We go out to get a cab and no cabs. The area where the cabs sit is dark and quiet. We look at each other like now what. These little airports you can not get back in once you are out because the in door is located elsewhere. Finally we see a cab driver who has other people and he calls us a cab. We get to our resort at 1:00 am.

     Thank goodness we have traveled enough to know that we do not rely on the airlines to get our luggage at our destination in a timely manner. We each packed a carry on so we had our shorts, swimsuits and I had my flip flops. We did have to purchase sunscreen, $15.00 for a tube that we can purchase here for under $5.00. Our luggage showed up Monday morning.

     But this picture here, it was all worth it. We had temps in the mid 80's everyday and at night it only got down to the mid 70's. We had one 30 second shower.

                                               This was our view from the balcony.

This is Eagle Beach. Just miles of beach and not Hotels or Resorts polluting the beach.

     We were hoping for a event free trip home once we talked ourselves into coming back. The process at the Aruba airport was different but fast. They take a lot of precautions to help keep things safe for people entering into the states. However once we were in Atlanta our plane is delayed for over an hour because a flight attendant didn't show up for work and they had to find someone who was on call. We left Aruba at 4:05 pm and got into Des Moines at 11:15 pm. Then had to wait for a 1/2 hour for them to get the luggage off the plane. Thank goodness our luggage was there this time although it was just our dirty clothes and I doubt we will need the sunscreen for awhile.

     It is the  most beautiful Island we have come across so far.  The people are wonderful, they speak English. The island is clean, the drinking water is great. Aruba has the most amazing sunsets.  The weather always perfect.  You can't go wrong visiting this island. Just don't take Delta Airlines.