We're Out of There!

Will, it happened.  Our time in the DR was up.

We left the DR on April 23rd and flew to Miami.  Leaving this spot was very hard to do.  I know I've said it before, but the DR is an incredibly beautiful country and we'd met so many amazing people (ex-pats, vacationers and Dominicans).   We quickly felt very much at home....and I definitely plan to return.  Lot of crying going on that last day as we said goodbye to our Dominican friends.

Syd, Nona, Benni, Matt, Jose Luix and Matilde

 Jim and Kristine happened to be in the DR when we left.  This was great, we were very happy we had these two to send us on our way.  They took us to dinner at Alley's our last night...and beat us at Spades (as usual).\\

The flight to Miami was fine...although a bit delayed.  Hermann had no problem whatsoever in the cargo hold.  We were very happy to see Ryan and Brandee, and of course Buster.

The three days we are spending in Ft. Lauderdale have been very busy.  I went to an ENT doctor the first day as I've had problems with one of my ears for six months.  Not great news....I probably need another surgery for polyps but that doesn't fit into my schedule right now.  The doc injected steroids into the polyps (not the most comfortable thing I've ever had done in a doctors office, but not the worse either) and that seems to have helped for now.  We also had major shopping to do to stock up on supplies before we head into Mexico.  And then we've been packing and repacking the car!  Now everything is pretty much ready.

Ryan and Brandee are making their famous Paella tonight and my friend Tri is coming for dinner.  Then tomorrow morning Matt and I hit the road.  We'll spend the first night in Tallahassee, then two nights in New Orleans, two nights in Pharr, TX preparing to cross the boarder, one night on the road in Mexico and then'll by Thursday, May 3rd we'll be at our new temporary home.

We've researched and researched and feel we're prepared....but have some issues still up in the air.  Not sure about we need to do about getting Hermann ready to cross.  Sounds like I need to get another health certificate and it really should be certified by the USDA.  But then some blog postings I've read state that if you take the dog to the vets in the boarder town you can cross without this USDA certificate, and then others say that the Mexican authorities seldom check the paperwork at all.  So we're going to play this by ear.

We also need to get Mexican insurance.  We could do this on line but think instead we'll probably buy it at the boarder.  And then we'll need pesos....lots and lots of pesos.  It's cash only at the gas stations and we'll be filling up several times in Mexico.  In the DR, we'd just draw our money out of the ATM in pesos....but not sure how many towns we'll be passing through that have an ATM.  We'll probably just bite the bullet and exchange currency at the boarder....even at a crappy exchange rate.

So next update should be on the road!!!