Sullivan Gets Ready for a Soda Cap Trip

Sullivan Lands a Wanders Ashore

Sullivan Climbs Atop Coke Zero Mountain

Sullivan Goes Chomp Chomp Chomp

Sullivan Sitting Pretty Wearing a Headband

Sullivan! Don’t Drink the Beer! Sullivan So Spilly!

Sullivan in Apocalyptic Wasteland. Sad Place for Sullivan.

Watch Out for Rock Slide Sullivan! Sullivan In Trouble!

Sullivan Protected in Plastic Bubble. Safe Sullivan….

Okay enough of that! But there’s only so much to do when you’re stuck at Papeete Airport for four friggin hours on a layover! So yes the highlight of the airport boredom was buying a trinket prize out of one of the machines and sending him on adventures!

It was likely we were probably delirious at that point. Just happy to have survived and escaped from our honeymoon. At the airport. We played cards. Ate giant sandwiches. Drank Blue Slushees….

Observed the airport Christmas Tree…

And the art for sale… (i seriously almost bought this)

Or make neck pillow boobs…

It seemed like ages ago when we saw the sun on that one and only semi-sunny first day…

When I lounged in a hammock and dug in on my Cap’n Cook book…

And we happily crashed on these chaise lounges in an empty resort…

How long had it been since we were initially greeted by the sleepy  swaying dancer at the airport? Felt like months…

But we were free!!! Free of punishing mysterious food that looked like that… (this was the soup of the day)

Free of desperately trying to keep the mood light by making Frenchmen out of food…

Or insisting the wife don her Fruit Googles…

Sure we made some friends along the way. Like Crutchie the Hobbled Bird…

Stellar Sting Ray Super Steve Sanderson….

And these little kids who just found this terrified puppy in the airport parking lot…

We were free of taking shelter in Beringer Wine…

Never again would we have the icey Merlot at Chez Louise…

No longer would my art be based around mosquitos (seen here La Mosquito Buerre) …

But I learned how to be a paddle dork…

And enjoyed some Tuesday Night Entertainment!

But it was time to say bye bye to the Raiatea Airport cafe (where we sat for a total of 10 hours).

So goodbye abandoned island ‘resort’ …Maruuru mofo! You didn’t break us!

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Sorry it’s taken me so long to wrap this up.

But the truth is the trip home was sort of uneventful. It took forever of course. Flying long distances smushed into seats is fairly horrendous.  Some girl requested a seat near us by the bathroom because she had a stomach flu. Wonderful.

But when we finally arrived bleary-eyed in LAX I felt like Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson when he went to the supermarket. There was so MUCH! So much food! So much coffee! So much stuff there that we needed and loved. Starbucks and magazines. Cash machines. Cookies!! I think we felt genuine American pride. One more plane ride to JFK and we’d finally be home…

Honeymoon over. Untan. Bank account drained. But apartment filled with wedding presents and excited to see dogs later in the day. Yadda yadda…

But above everything else we knew that if we could survive a honeymoon disaster like that… it was a sure sign we could get through pretty much anything when the bad times come. Our foundation was proven rock solid after being tested marooned at a rainy resort for days on end. It held up fine.

Currently, we are negotiating with our travel agency about some sort of refund. It’ll be a long road there but I’m patient. Currently the offer on the table from them is a $600 credit to the next trip we book through them. I’ll see what I can do to get that number up there but if we can’t… lesson learned.

Here’s one important lesson I should have learned from my Dad long ago. If you’re planning a trip and you’re not even sure about where you’re going and where you want to be. Don’t book a week in one place. Book a night. Maybe two. And then just wing it the rest of the time. You never know when you’re going to want to escape from your vacation…

Of course, this doesn’t apply to cruise ships. Sorry this post took so long and it was all uneventful and stuff… but I was out of stuff to talk about! :-)!

ok bye!

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