Alrighty then, no more major missteps today bar one that could’ve sent three of us to the hospital (but I’ll save that for later). And Kate realizing that she did such an excellent job packing the rest of us but she forgot to include her asthma inhaler. So not bad really. Think we’re hitting our groove. We woke at 5 am and roused the kids soon after. I ran our winter clothes out to the car, which we’re leaving at the hotel for 14 days, while Kate finished off getting the kids ready. The shuttle bus was right on schedule, 6 am. And soon we were at our terminal (unfortunately the wrong end of our terminal, but who’s complaining). Having forgotten to use my electric razor at home, I’d quickly shaved off ‘my bush’ as the kids sometimes called it, and gotten a few nicks to which I’d applied the age-old trick of tissue paper. While waiting in line, the kids reminded me I still had that paper on my face. I replied that’s OK, I can be ugly for 5 minutes, I’ve got the rest of my life to be handsome. To which, my 7 year old daughter, says… well that’s not very long, ribbing me for being so ancient. OUCH. Kate remembered that we couldn’t take yogurt through security, and the kids didn’t want it, so I ended up downing 2 yogurts without a spoon. I jumped out of line and found a corner where few people would have to witness my savagery as I used the yogurt seal as a spoon.
While shaving, I’d realized that with the swelling on the left side of my face (root canal on Monday morn), made my face lop-sided like a stroke victim. That became the running joke of the morn. Jane even guided me through the mannerisms for the rest of my body… drag my left leg behind, let my left arm fall to my side and curl under like the way a gorilla naturally drags their knucles. I touched this up a little by dabbing some of my yogurt around the left side of my face, then limped back to my family waiting in line. Got a really good laugh out of Kate… that was worth it.
Later I realized that like the Owen Meaney book, perhaps this was a hint that I should be practicing for that inevitable event, so that when it occurred I was prepared. I already have weak vision on my right, and a severe hip injury on my right. groin tear on my right, and shoulder soreness (stemming from high school baseball days) on my right… The entire right side of my body is falling apart. If I get a stroke on the right side, maybe with some practice, it wouldn’t be all that detrimental ;-)
That distraction and others killed some time and soon we reached the counter, having skipped self-check so that we could sign up for frequent flyer miles, only to find out they won’t do frequent flyer signup at check-in anymore. To make matters worse, Kate felt compelled to ask about our largest carry-on that was borderline. The lady told us to throw it in the bag sizer, a little steel contraption. So I stuffed it in (it wasn’t a simple fit). Yup, half an inch too tall. We’d organized the trip around all carry-on, so beged to have her allow the bag. She called her manager over and we pleaded and they finally said ok. But in the end, that didn’t even matter. but I’ll get to that fun later. We did get one pearl of advice from the lady who took pity on us and as we were walking away flagged us down and said be sure to ask for the ‘family aisle’ at security. Sure enough, the lady managing the queue for security knew all about this secret passcode, and let us into the ‘family aisle’. Our wait went from 125 to 2. Evidently this was a well-kept secret at AA, American Airlines. A family whose baby my wife had been adoring was in the long queue. She paid it forward by sneaking out of line and telling them as well, and their wait fell to 3. Huhhh, who knew. Security was no issue, the kids even got to leave their shoes on. We’d breached the inner sanctum of the airport and were soon at our gate. 
I fired up the computer and tried to deal with our AA frequent flyer issue, but my browser wasn’t showing the captcha on their page, so I couldn’t validate that I wasn’t a malicious computer trying to take over their site (BTW, a company just recently programmatically defeated many captcha’s including google’s, which is considered one of the most difficult. Looks like we’re creeping closer and closer to the singularity, hello Terminator).
They announced that the flight was full and they had limited overhead capacity, so would likely be checking bags starting with group 4… well, we were group 4. Way at the back of the plane. And sure enough, they made us check 3 of our bags. 
Unfortunately in the bedlem of getting on the plane, the one bag Kate didn’t want checked (all the stuff we needed on our first day) was taken. She tried to get the stewardess to reclaim the bag in Dallas, and maybe the stewardess tried, or maybe she didn’t. But I had to appreciate her telling us she’d try but even more wisely (probably having dealt with a few irrational customers before) she didn’t tell us the verdict until we were walking off the plane, minimizing the amount of headache we could be for her.
The flight, other than the stress of Kate worrying whether our bag would get to Belize, was uneventful. The boys played video games, I asked Maeve to make a drawing of the zoo…
Jane was sitting with us trying to enjoy her “window seat” 
(completely blocked by the jet engine). We said it wasn’t the WORST flight we’d ever been on and and we three retold the story of the worst flight ever when we’d hit turbulence returning from Dominican Republic flying into New York. The plane made its decent, severe turbulence. Then, was called off, had to circle, and had to go through the exact same turbulence again. I was fine, and got to see the statue of liberty twice when I wasn’t helping clean up spew from 3 of my 5 kids (we’d adopted our neighbor boy Bryce for that flight). Walking off the plane, no exaggeration, there were puke bags in every other row, if not more!!
At Dallas, we had 2 hours before our flight left, 1.5 before boarding. I found our gate on the board, D29, and we headed towards it planning to stop somewhere in the foodcourt for a nice lunch. We chose Fudruckers, which was a bit of a trek. The airport version didn’t hold up to a real Fudruckers, which is an awesome burger joint. But the kids devoured it. We still had plenty of time to sit and wait for boarding. maybe too much time… dun, dun, dun! Maeve and Theo found this sculpture to climb around and play hide and seek in, while I attempted a repair on Jane’s purse and Kate watched a quick episode on her smart phone, before it turned into a brick as we found out it was not international capable and couldn’t function in Belize despite Belize having good Verizon coverage. At some point, that “thing’s are going TOO well” feeling kicked in. Where’s the people out of their chairs clamoring to get on the plane? Yup, wrong gate! We’d been boarding for 15 minutes already just several gates down. None of us thought to read the sign at gate D29, which clearly read CanCun. YIKES. No harm… When we got to D22 they hadn’t yet called group 4 (yup… still the last group on). I’d like to think we’d have overheard them calling ‘Sebastian famly’ over the speakers, had we not realized our mistake. But I gotta wonder.
Another uneventful flight, landing in Belize around 3:40. (the rivers are swollen due to the extended rainy season Belize is experiencing). 
They let us depart off the rear of the plane as well. Awesome. We’d jumped from group last to group first. Unfortunately we’d placed one of our overhead bags much further forward in the plane, so Kate stayed behind waiting for the aisles to clear while I escorted the kids to custom. Customs line was slow but uneventful. Even our much needed blue bag showed up on the carousel, so all was once again good. I was prepared for bag handlers to want to touch our bags and charge us a small fortune for doing virtually nothing, but they asked us whether we had a car rental and directed us exactly how to get to it. Never ever making an attempt at our bags, which clearly we could handle with our army of 6. I was shocked and appreciative, for which in hindsight I should’ve and would’ve gladly given a tip. Maybe on the way back through. The car rental was just as he’d said… a short walk across the parking lot to a row of vehicle rental places. Ours was Budget. A lady was waiting there for us, as well as one of those handlers I was dreading downstairs at the airport. I tried in vain to show him that we had it handled, as he walked me to our car (my hands empty as well as all the kids hands empty) he reminded me it was nearly Christmas and that I was sure to give him a good tip. Wait, was that a reminder or a threat. I said he’d have to wait as I didn’t have singles… oh no, he had change. I gave him a 10 US and asked for 4 US back (quite generous given the load of nothing he’d provided me) and he weasled another $1.50 American out of me returning only $5 Belize ($2.50 american). WHATEVER… not worth it. Smile and wave boys, smile and wave. The car held a bonus for me. A stick shift. It’s a Ford Diesel with 4 wheel drive. I like it.
With us having forgotten the map (and Belize books) at home, which BTW Ruby had chewed up, and me unable to get the Belize map loaded onto my GPS, we were helpless but to rely on the directions of the Budget rental lady. As it turned out, not so great. She’d cited mile 32 marker as our destination… only 3 miles off of the mile 29 marker where the zoo turned out to be actually located. The other half of our problems I’ll take credit for. The car’s speed was only in km/h. I was enjoying the stick shift driving so much, I didn’t take into account that the odometer would then naturally be in km as well. So anytime I reset the odometer to try to repeat her approx mileage, I was way off. 2.2 times off in fact (thank goodness Kate reassured me of this conversion). The other factor was the dark that had set in, and unlike the US, where lit roadside billboards are the norm. the signs could only be faintly made out with high beams… but with oncoming traffic we had to kill to lowbeams at points. We finally ran into Amigos, a middle of nowhere bar/eatery that I’d remembered reading was near the zoo. And pulled in for directions, but the bartender had little idea of exactly where the zoo was. Luckily one of the patrons, possibly an ex-pat from the US, knew exactly where it was. And gave us great directions. Her buddy, possibly an ex-pat from Britain, given his accent, added that TEC (Tropical Education Center) was about 200 feet past the zoo on the opposite side… roughly 2 miles back on a very poor dirt road. Had he not mentioned that, I would’ve sworn we were driving into the middle of the jungle. Found out later that we’d actually exited the highway a little early, and there was a second driveway further down. But they met up with each other anyway. 2nd driveway was nicer and less concerning. Juan, the night guardsman, said the first drive was some sort of dump site.
We found the parking lot at TEC and Gerald was there to sign us in and greet us. He told us a meal was included and waiting for us in the dining hall. It was AWESOME. Everyone was reminded of the great food we had in Dominican from Nelly our house cook. 
They were waiting on one more group to arrive, so Juan escorted us back to our cabin to get settled. We were super-impressed by the ‘pond house’ as they called it. But a little concerned with the apparently intentionally one-side railed bridge that lead to our pond house. No worries, there’s only crocodiles in that pond should we fall in. Theo even found one while shining with Juan’s high-powered flashlight he’d left us. I enjoyed the kids squirming a bit thinking a crocodile would nip them at any turn.
We headed back to the dining area, then followed Juan’s minivan carrying the rest of our tour group over to the zoo. Joshua was our tour guide, and started by introducing us to their boa constrictor. We each got to hold him (her?)
Night zoo tour was perfect… absolutely no bugs. No rain, and fun adventure. Tamirs, the national animal, ocelots, black panthers, cougars, all came up to the keeper, Joshua, for nighttime feeding. The kids absolutely loved the tour. They were able to feed some of the animals, even feel the pad of the foot of the black panther, which Joshua explained really did have spots. He was just a leopard with much more black than yellow… very tiny spots that were barely noticeable.
Feeding the Royal Gibbons… a bit of a wild-game delicacy in Belize. so named cuz they were served to queen Elizabeth when she visited back in the 70’s.
Favorites from the night zoo tour
Maeve: Black panther, lucky boy. The hugeness of the Harpy Eagle. (up to 6’6” wing span… endangered here cuz locals think they can carry away a child)
Theo: the ‘face jammer’ parakeets that Theo was exchanging whistles with
Jane: Ocelot especially his coat pattern.
Zeke: Gibnut, some animal that scared Theo as he was feeding it a banana.
Mom: Boa constrictor on Maeve (and watching Maeve overcome her fears and actually enjoy the snake and return to wearing him more than once)
Dad: How sleek the boa constrictor was. Can definitely now understand why people have snakes as pets and not just the keep it in a cage kind of pet.
We ended our day with what should’ve been the get to bed routine at our new digs, the pond house. Jams and brush your teeth. Only don’t use the tap water, use the bottled water. One wrinkle, Theo comes out of the bathroom saying, “Dad, I found your water bottle in the bathroom”, handing me a gatorade bottle that looked identical to the bottle I’d been drinking from at the airport. We’ll call that mistake 1. I didn’t think too much about it (mistake 2) and placed it in the fridge for later. When the kids got to the brushing part, the gatorade bottle seemed the right size, so I handed it to them (mistake 3). Maeve used it first, and complained to Jane how bad the toothpaste was. Jane told Maeve to just use it. (mistake 4). Jane used it next and complained to Mom and I how the toothpaste tasted like bleach… our answer, just use it and stop complaining. (mistake 5). I used it next and couldn’t believe how bad this toothpaste tasted. Can toothpaste go bad, I thought? Finally convincing myself that maybe it was that new fangled baking soda kind. (mistake 6). Luckily, none of us swallowed any. At that point, Maeve was talking to Theo who reported that the toothpaste tasted minty. Minty?? That stuff was horrible. She was the one to ask Theo whether he’d used the gatorade ‘water’. The answer was no. And she was the one to deduce it was not the toothpaste but the gatorade ‘water’. Which we deduced was actually bleach! We’d brushed our teeth with bleach. We rebrushed to try to get the taste out of our mouths. Our best guess is that the gatorade bottle was tucked behind the toilet with the other cleaning supplies and Theo, the curious monkey, discovered it and carried it out to me. (BTW. NEVER store chemicals in a drinking container. And if you dare violate that common rule, be sure to mark it in big irremovable letters as such)
So ends day 1. Trips to hospital or emergency care: 0!! We’ll call that success.
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