Here is to my last piece on our adventures in the Dominican Republic. This is more of a fun post sharing our travels back home, similar to my first post on our travels there. My intent is not for you to remember these travel posts as any significance compared to the middle two posts about our time actually in the DR, but to share the entirety of our experience with you. With that being said, I'll jump right in.
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| Our last sight of the of the DR as we made our way back to America |
Similar to our travels down, our team was returning back to America in two groups, flying into Detroit and Grand Rapids. Again, I was a part of the group flying into Detroit. Our flight left a few hours earlier than the group flying into Grand Rapids, so we had to set out before sharing breakfast with the rest of the team. Just like our trip down, it was a 4:20am wake up call for a 5am departure for the Santo Domingo air port to make time for our 7:30am flight to New York (JFK). We loaded onto the bus and Billy, our guide/translator for the week, continued to demonstrate his never failing excitement for anything and everything. I thought if there was going to be one time that week we caught him without a smile, it would be then... Nope.
It was a good thing we decided to get to the airport extra early this time. We walked in the doors of the airport at 5:30am and got in line to check our bags. The line was beyond the walking guides they have set up, but it was moving fairly quickly. After 10-15 minutes we got up to the start of the guides and then an attendant directed us towards what looked like an express line because we were in a group. We all thought our luck had finally changed from our travels down. Well, maybe not... by 6:30am we had finally reached the front of the "express" line. The original line we were in also had just cleared out. We realized that there was no benefit at all to getting moved into this other line. It actually set up back by probably 30 minutes from where we were in the other line. But security was quick, and we were still to our gate with time to grab a quick bite to eat to bring with on the plane before starting our long day of travel.
We made our way onto the plane and departed for New York. On the plane, I got to watch 'The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug', and Kim watched 'Frozen'. Things were going well. We even landed in New York early! We still felt the need to hustle as we made our way from the international terminal to grab our checked bags and get to customs. At baggage claim, all seemed well until we realized that Andrew's guitar was not with our bags... Andrew checked his baggage tracking on that fancy little Delta app that we got to use so many times on our trip down and it didn't even list the guitar being scanned into JFK with the rest of our bags. We then made our way to Baggage Services and they encouraged us that the guitar was still traveling with us and we would see it in Detroit. Apparently, they didn't feel it necessary for the guitar to go through customs? So we grabbed our bags and took them to customs. JFK was much more lenient than I had expected... They just took our bags and put them on another conveyor belt, and off we were. I still have my customs declarations page. I guess they didn't need them.
After a few sets of directions given with the same tasks in different orders, we jumped on a tram to the domestic terminals. We then had to go outside, across the street, and back inside the airport to go through security once more. But we actually got to experience a layover for the first time on this trip. We might have even had more than an hour to wait at our gate for the next flight. That was a great sign because we knew we only had a 45 minute layover waiting for us in Washington before our final flight home to Detroit. As time for our boarding approached, the gate staff that our flight was slightly delayed... because one of the flight attendants was running late. We really thought nothing of it. They started boarding the flight, and I got to check one more thing off my bucket list... Loading onto a plane up the stairs via the tarmac. And it was a good thing too. As we were loading on the plane, we looked out onto the tarmac and noticed a bag had fallen off of the luggage carrier on the way to the plane. We then noticed that it was Ellen's bag. So we yelled and they heard. Ellen's bag made it bag onto the carrier and onto the plane.
I mentioned that we didn't think much of our delayed flight. Well, that was until we were on the plane and our fancy Delta apps started telling us that the delayed had affected our travels and suggested alternate flights for us to book. None of which left until the next day. At this point, you could see the stress level in our team begin to rise for the first time in all our travel adventures. We were determined to make that flight. At the same time, I was arranging a back up driver to pick us up from Detroit as some things had come up in our plans for that as well. Fortunately, that did not take long to figure out. We landed in Washington, hurried across the hall to our next gate, and made it on our final flight home! We were all set.
I had two of my roommates generously driving out to the airport to pick us up and get us home. And then I opened my mouth one more time... I turned to Andrew and Ellen and said "Now, as long as nobody has parked Kurt's car in at Ellen's house, we are home free." We landed in Detroit, made our way to baggage claim, and then I received a text. My roommates were stuck at Ellen's house trying to find the owner/keys of the car that had parked Kurt's car in... I definitely got some dirty looks for that one. We were exhausted and ready to be home, and you could tell. Eventually, my roommates borrowed another car, made it to the airport, and we all loaded in and drove back to Ann Arbor. Kurt's car was still parked in, so I sent my car back with him, Andrew, Evan, and Kim so that they could just get home. My night was done, but they still had a 2 1/2 hour drive back to Zeeland with a stop in East Lansing to drop Evan off at school.
By the end of the night, we were all at our respective homes. We were safe and we had everything we left Santo Domingo with. Praise God for His sovereign rule over something as silly as our crazy travels.
Praise God for an amazing week in an amazing place with amazing people.
peace and love,
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