The deck’s swan song
Are we planning a quick getaway trip to the Caribbean? We’ll let you know in this post! But first another “last time” event. This week we got the deck set up and ready to enjoy. It is, by far, our favorite “room” in the house and we spend as much time as possible out there from early spring to late fall. The heaters and fire table keep it warm when the evenings are colder, and the ceiling fan and shade canopy help drop the temperature on the deck significantly on really hot days.
This will be our last season to enjoy the deck. This time next year we will be preparing to sell the house and our real estate agent has recommended we sell it empty. We may get a few weeks of use out of the deck while we are finishing the kid’s senior year and celebrating her graduation, but after that we will need to re-home everything.
You can bet that we are going to milk every ounce of enjoyment that we can out of the deck this spring, summer and fall.
A new front door costs $500, so we painted the old one
We wanted to get a new front door, preferably with a window to add some light in the front entrance. But when we priced what we wanted, we couldn’t justify the money, given that our current front door is still perfectly functional.
Why is there a toilet in the picture below? Click here to read that post!
As we often do when we want to make a large impact without spending a lot, we turned to paint. Unfortunately, when we looked at the paint on the inside of the door, we realized that the paint job was not done correctly the first time and the paint had not adhered very well. The inside of that door doesn’t get a lot of wear, and the paint was the same color as the metal underneath, so we didn’t realize it until we started to prep the door for new paint.
What would have been an evening job of putting a few coats of paint on the inside of the door, became a project that spanned two weekends and involved paint stripper, after wash, tons of Scotch-Brite pads and several rolls of paper towels.
But the elbow grease was worth it and now our door looks much better!
The Caribbean is not designed for a quick getaway trip
A few weeks ago, we realized we have a few long weekends coming up where we could plan a quick getaway trip. Over coffee last weekend we talked through the idea of taking one of those long weekends and squeezing in a quick trip. We had never really thought about a short trip to the Caribbean before. Our trips have been at least a week long, mostly because we wanted to be some place long enough to really experience it.
But we thought that with a shorter trip, we could potentially go someplace we had already been, someplace where we know the good places to eat and what there is to do. Our first thought was Hopkins, Belize. We’ve been there a couple of times and it is an easy place to relax and just chill for a few days.
Getting there fast is not an option
But when we looked at the logistics, we realized why quick getaway trips to Caribbean don’t work, at least not how we do them. Take Belize, for example, on a Friday through Monday trip. We fly out on Friday and arrive in Belize City 5-6 hours later, depending on the layover. We take 45 minutes to get through customs and then probably wait another hour for a flight from Belize City to Dangriga. Once we land in Dangriga, we take a 30-minute shuttle from the airport to Hopkins. Best case scenario, we arrive in Hopkins by 4 or 5pm.
On Monday, we would reverse the process. Traveling in and out of Belize to any place besides Belize City takes a full day. We would be left with 2 days to relax in the sun. For the cost of flights and accommodations, those would be two really expensive days.
The verdict…
No surprise, we decided not to book the trip. We will be using our upcoming long weekends to cross some of our backyard projects off the to do list. Aren’t we such exciting people! Once we start traveling, we do plan on adding some quick getaway trips in , since we will already be in the neighborhood of other islands.
What are your thoughts on quick getaway trips to the Caribbean? Let us know in the comments!
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