The Farmer's Wife Abroad {Part 3}

 I'm not going to tell ALL the Newark Airport stories, because you'd completely lose interest in my whole trip and abandon the Chronicles for the Pioneer Woman's blog. Someday, though, you need to hear the story of Luis the Mexican janitor and also of the mysterious setting up of a stage through out the night by many different characters, none of whom seemed to have any knowledge or connection with any of the others. And the complicated ordering/payment/pickup experience of ordering a simple, generic $12 breakfast sandwich at 5 a.m....modern convenience and technology gone TERRIBLY wrong.

It's astonishing, really, what stories one observes when there is no other entertainment at 3 a.m. in hell.  I mean, Newark.


After several gate changes throughout the night and early morning, we finally departed at sunrise....six people from Montana that looked like we'd just pulled in from a four day commute on a Greyhound bus. We boarded amidst a full cabin load of happy, excited, WELL RESTED AND FED scuba diver groups who were chattering and laughing with their cute little carry on luggage and clean tee shirts.  I wanted to hate them, but I didn't have the energy.

Fortunately, the illicit coffee had kicked in enough for me to realize that we were taking off near the Statue of Liberty!  There she was...right out my window! (At least, I THINK it was the Statue of Liberty.  I HOPE it was the Statue of Liberty, because then another life goal would have been met, along with having and using a passport.)

 Upon boarding the plane Doc, Jenny, David and Yulena went promptly to sleep. This is a terrible phone picture of about halfway through the 4 1/2 hour flight from Bonaire to Newark. It was pretty much how everyone (except the fresh scuba groups) made the flight.
Except me.  I couldn't sleep for anything.  I was flying over the ocean!  To a foreign island!  Where they promised me there would be flamingos!

I cried when we finally made the final descent and I saw Bonaire for the first time.

I made it to the island.

(In retrospect, I know it was weariness and relief, but at that moment it seemed quite sentimental...)

The Bonaire Flamingo Airport is no-frills.  

It's a good introduction to the island.

Bonaire itself is a no-frills place. Nothing fancy. No one has the opportunity or means to get too big for their britches here. 

We walked directly out of the airplane into the hazy, moist heat.  

Got ourselves down the stairs attached to the plane.

Began the longish march to the airport, wondering to ourselves whose bag would be the one sent to the Netherlands mistakenly, because one bag is ALWAYS lost. 

Guess what?
The Flamingo Airport really and truly is charmingly painted pink! (This picture is all tippy because I was trying to take a photo without impeding traffic while balancing an overloaded carry on and purse.)

 Even the tile walkway is pink!

"Bon bini na Bonaire" is the Papiamentu phrasing.  Papiamentu is a sort of Creole-y language that's really only heard on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  It's a crazy corruption and integration of all the languages of all the nationalities who have "owned" the island through the years.  (The airport is a converted military building as it turns out.  They're currently building a NEW airport to accommodate the number of flights that are coming in, growing every year.)

The flamingo...right before I got the stamp in my passport book. (The stamp ALSO had a flamingo on it.  We were veritably wallowing in flamingos. It was glorious.)

All the bags made it!

Miraculous!

The Villa Lunt caretaker, Marc (who Ivan believes is distantly related to Luis the Mexican airport custodian) met us with rental cars and led us through Kralendijk to our home for the week.

(Marc is his own post.)

To be continued....

Independence Day, Montana small town style...

Wayland and the kids, headed to the VFW hall to meet Grammy Karen for the parade. 

The hats make me laugh, because they're so....used up, for lack of a better description. My kids aren't really all that particular about their hats and it makes me nuts.  For the longest time, Angus wore his cowboy hat backwards...deliberately!  He thought it looked better that way.

They wanted to wear cowboy clothes, because Cowboy PopPops was taking them riding after the parade...thrills!

The Jordan VFW has erected a really wonderful memorial for all the men and women in the county who have served and are continuing to serve our country in all branches of the armed forces.  You can't see the wall of names, but it starts with the Civil War and continues through to those currently serving.  We stop and look at the names, often; the kids find names of their grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins, and we visit about what it means to be in the service.  It's such a good thing, that they have an appreciation for who has provided the freedoms we enjoy. 

Anyway, this is a metal statue that's part of the memorial and the kids are entranced by it.  We say hello to the soldiers every time we go to town, even if we are just driving by.

Waiting for the parade!  They came home with quite a haul of candy, actually.  What am I going to do with 25 pounds of Starburst and Tootsie Roll candies?

 Cowboy PopPops, bearing the American flag, riding Doc (I think)!  We're so proud of him!

It's really a tiny parade, mostly made up of the old car poker run, but this year there were kids on bikes and a great float from the greenhouse!

And every year, the VFW has a float with all the veterans they can gather up.  This year, we got to the VFW hall pretty early, so the kids went in and visited with them.  I went in to check on them and found a whole row of veterans listening to Maggie and Angus telling big stories and asking questions.  I don't think they could probably hear much, but they were just so pleased to have the kids there!  When they all came out to get on the float, we had to sort the kids out; I truly believe they'd have just tromped right up the ramp and ridden the float with their veteran friends!  Being friendly with soldiers really pays, too....the Pluhar kids got double candy rations. 

I love the following pictures, of the kids watching their Cowboy PopPops in the parade!

 And here's the riding!  It was so nice of Dad to load up an extra horse to give them rides.  Isn't the country beautiful and green?  It was a lovely 4th of July...only in the low 80's. 

Grammy Karen hugged the one left behind, who maybe felt a little sad...

It's the boy's turn! 

And Maggie gets the hug, this time!

I don't think Angus stopped smiling, from the time he was boosted up on the saddle until he was walking away from the horse trailer...

Time to load up...

This makes me laugh!  Ace, rolling his eyes at us.  He was pretty bouncy that morning and thought hauling kids around was a pile of nonsense. 

We returned home, took big naps and had fireworks that night...it was a really great 4th of July!

A fresh look at gratitude...

The Farmer reads a lot of military sorts of blogs, when he's not feeding cows.  I'm sure there's some significant symbolism there that I'm missing....

Anyway, two nights ago, he called me over to read this one:

http://lifeintheinfantry.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-am-i-thankful-for-quite-bit.html

A soldier who was stationed in Afghanistan not long ago, wrote about what he's thankful for.  It took my breath away, and of course, brought tears of gratitude, both for his service and the blessings it secures for my family and country. 

Please take the time to read it...