Matt & Jean's Big Caribbean Adventure: The Final Chapter

The next day we sailed for home. It was the last full day of the cruise. We slept in, then turned in an official report on our ring. The captain of housekeeping, or whatever he was, and his first mate came to do an official search of our cabin, and they didn't find it either. So they gave us the number to the corporate office in Miami, and if they don't locate the ring by the end of this week (I think), we can call their loss prevention office and request a damage reimbursement. So at least we won't have to replace the ring out of our own pocket.

With that unpleasant business out of the way, we set about enjoying our last cruise day to its fullest, which mainly involved sleeping, eating, laying about and reading--pretty much like in the beginning. We might have been a little more active were it not now apparent that I'd picked up some kind of bug, with symptoms fluctuating somewhere between severely cold-like and mildly flu-like. My best guess is that I got it from the community snorkel I used in Grand Cayman. I realized at the time that the entire concept of a snorkel that had been used by about a million tourists before me was disgusting, but once I got in the water with the stingrays I forgot all about niggly little things like "germs" and "hygiene" and only cared about shoving my face under water for a better look at the cool fishies. I'm still paying for it, though by now I am feeling mostly better. Good thing I got that hepatitis shot. So it was a lazy day of recuperation. We had dinner in the formal dining hall one last time, handed out tips and thank yous to the appropriate crewmembers (including our stateroom attendant, with assurances that there were no hard feelings over the ring), then packed our bags and went to bed.

Going Home

Getting off the ship and getting through customs the next morning turned out to be not at all the nightmare we were expecting--which, once we got done being glad it was so easy, became concerned that it was a little too easy. Good thing we weren't terrorists or drug smugglers. Maybe homeland security should stop hanging around airports robbing grandmothers of their perfume bottles and step things up a little at our nation's ports of call.

Anyway.

In hardly any time at all we were back in our car, heading North out of Galveston. That leg of the drive was pretty uneventful, pleasant except for the still feeling cruddy. I could barely keep my head up for more than 20 minutes at a time, so I slept through most of it, until we got to Dallas and I had to help Matt navigate his way to Irving to visit his friend. Unfortunately, he didn't call for detailed directions until we were aready past the exit we were told to take, and we were north of Plano before we figured out we had to turn around and go back. But eventually we found it, and I finally got to meet the guy whom I've heard so much about so often that I was starting to wonder if I should be jealous.

Said friend turned out to be extremely likable and hospitible, and invited us to crash in his spare room for the night. The next morning, we said our goodbyes, hit Jack In the Box for breakfast (we don't have those in OK), then a couple hours later we were back in our home state. We drove through Atoka, home of Boggy Creek and recent sightings of the Boggy Creek monster, aka Big Foot. Nope, we didn't see him. Or her, as the case may be.

Around lunch time we passed by a little town called Krebbs, famous locally for an Italian settlement in which practically everybody has a restaurant, including Pete's Place, where Choc Beer is made. Pete's Place, it turns out, doesn't serve lunch, so we hit up the nearby Isle of Capris instead for some spaghetti and raviolli. It was good. But, well, as Italian food goes, it was pretty Okie-fied. If you lived here you'd know exactly what that means. But it was the best Okie-talian I've had in a long time.

Before leaving town we checked out Lovera's Italian Grocery, which was also pretty Okie-fied. Imported Italian goods and delicious-smelling smoked meats aside, our attention was mostly on a black male kitten hanging around outside the store. We came thisclose to taking him home with us, despite knowing that Niblet and Sasha would never speak to us again if we brought another invader into their home; but when the shop lady told us that the little girl who lived next door had pretty much claimed him and was trying to convince her mother to keep him, we decided we didn't want to be the jerks who broke the kid's heart. So we pried ourselves away from the kitty and hit the road. A couple hours after that, we were home. A couple days after that, we were back at our jobs. Sigh.

All in all, I don't think I could have asked for a nicer honeymoon. Except for that whole thing with the ring. I'll keep y'all posted on that.