DAYS 4-7: The Boys' Last Days, Banking, and Cart-Swapping.
DAY 4: Friday
Friday was a fairly unremarkable day, with the exception of some evening visitors on our patio...
We were playing Monopoly after dinner and heard some commotion...opened the curtains to see two baby raccoons rubbing ALL OVER Nathan's swim shoes! Sorry for the reflection of our home in the door - this was the best I could do without scaring them off!
DAY 5: Saturday
We took the boys out to Secret Beach - we usually don't go out on Sundays as we hear it can get pretty rowdy. Back to Sunset Palace for a relaxing day in the shade for me, and some frisbee in the ocean for the guys.
Saturday dinner was at Caramba! (The exclamation point is in their name, not strictly my excitement.) I consider this one of the fancier restaurants in town - they have full air conditioning, servers are in white dress shirts and aprons, and you can "pick your catch" from the ice tables out front. We go every year, and each meal has been spectacular! This year, the clientele was...appalling. The restaurant, as I mentioned, is not a beach bar, yet 80% of the customers/tourists were dressed incredibly inappropriately - bathing suits only, or with a small/see-through cover-up, men with button-down shirts unbuttoned, or in tank tops, etc. That attire is totally acceptable during the day at a beach bar; it is not okay Saturday night at a nice restaurant! For shame, tourists. Please be respectful to the service people and other guests when dining out. I don't ever want to see a man's hairy armpit at a dining table. Or some lady's thong swimsuit.
Here is my "Lobster a la Caramba" - with a dijon mustard rub and parmesan. It was good, but Nathan's traditional lobster in garlic butter was better!
DAY 6: Sunday
We journeyed back to Hurricane's for Sunday Funday - it's low season so they aren't holding cornhole tournaments, but they have a fantastic dock, and we took our instant-tent for shade. Josh (bartender/manager?) has been a gracious host and is so welcoming to all. A tourist lost his wedding band in the water playing football, and Josh set out with a snorkel for probably 20 minutes until he found the guy's ring! I hope they tipped him well.
On the dock at Hurricane's
We cleaned up and went to SandBar for dinner, and were instantly disappointed that their Bacon and Bleu pizza was discontinued - a garlic sauce base with bacon, thinly sliced granny smith apples, caramelized onions, and bleu cheese. Our favorite pizza anywhere! The night was saved when we saw Boots - one of their resident cats, she's a tiny tuxedo that is aloof and adorable. I stalk her every year.
DAY 7: Monday
The boys were set to return to Arizona, so I knew this would be a tough day.
Their American flight from BZE to DFW departed at 12:15, so we had breakfast at The Farmhouse across the road, and had them pack. They only brought backpacks as they can wear Nathan's clothes, so packing didn't take all that long.
We always buy a return flight in person, right before we want to leave. For whatever reason, this Monday was particularly busy - we were in the terminal at 9:45 to purchase a 10 or 10:15 flight, only to find out the next available outbound to BZE was at 11:20...cutting it crazy-close for an international flight. EEEK. Tropic Air pulled up my frequent flier account and was able to get them on a 10:45 departure. We all experienced a few minutes of stress while Tropic came up with a solution; it's not like PHX to Vegas where there is a flight every 30 minutes, if they missed their BZE to DFW flight, there wasn't another outbound that day!
To kill time, Nathan and the boys went to the Belikin Store across the street for last-minute souvenir shopping.
When it was time for them to board, I did better than I expected, and Nathan did as well - although his sunglasses were firmly planted.
From there, we raced to Heritage Bank to withdraw cash. We brought enough for our first week, but now have to pay for a monthly cart rental in cash, and most businesses prefer or only accept cash. Normally we stop at Heritage early in our trip; this year, we were able to delay, which is good - it's not as simple as going to a teller in the U.S. There are two security guards out front that usher you in. There is always a line of questioning on why we are withdrawing our money from our account. Then the bills are counted by hand, there are no "auto-counting-machines". It's a 15-20 minute visit, typically.
Once we had cash, we traveled to Coconut Carts to pick up our 4-seater. They have new ownership that offered a $500/mo U.S. rental during slow season, and they have just refurbished their carts - this was $100-350 less than the other prices I was quoted. Yes, we are paying more in slow season to rent a golf cart than most car payments. We want to get a cart permit to buy one of our own ASAP!
I drove the new cart to Carts Belize to drop off our 6-seater, and then we returned home. Nathan worked on cleaning our bodega/garage; it's been a 'catch-all' since before we owned it, and when our shipment arrives, we'll need to store a lot of stuff in there. Keeping busy kept his mind off of the boys leaving, too.
I also asked our property manager for her landscaping contact as we had a bit of weeds pop up in our front yard; we'll be able to keep up now that we live here, but an overhaul by a professional was required. Our landscape tools are in our shipment, and I'm a little leery still to wander into tall grasses.
We now begin our time as true residents, shifting from "vacation/entertaining the boys" mode, to our new reality - it's just us and 3 (or 4, counting outdoor kitty) cats!