2016 - Myrtle Beach, North Carolina
Our 15th Anniversary trip was fantastic!
The Parricks don't take normal trips at all! Nothing went as planned by Ronny, but we probably had just as much fun the way it turned out! We got to the airport in KC and as we tried to check in, we slowly realized the passport cards we had gotten for our Niagara Falls trip and used for our Bahamas cruise the year before, were not going to work for air travel to Cancun. As the attendant repeated you need a paper passport book for air travel, I slowly remembered it all from when we got our pass cards... oops... It sunk in slowly that we just weren't going to be able to get a paper passport book, even expedited if we went to a Regional Office - which the closest ones are Minneapolis, MN and one in Hot Springs, AR.
So on to Plan B! While Ronny spent hours on the phone explaining how we ended up this way and "missed our flight" (even thou we were there early) to Expedia (he has learned to not use Expedia since then..don't worry) trying to get any money refunded we could, I searched for our alternate trip plans - all in the KC airport at 9 in the morning.
MIRACLES DO HAPPEN! He had purchased the trip insurance and while I'm sure this was our fault and they shouldn't have done it, somehow, they refunded all but just over $200 of our money!! So, the new vacation winner is Myrtle Beach, SC! We couldn't get connecting flights that day, so we spent the night in KC and had an excellent BBQ dinner and flew out the next day. Even with the crappy "luxury" BMW rental, the last-minute old hotel trying to be a grown-up revamped "resort" (it was clean just old) and crazy no plans... we had a wonderful time just spending time together with no plans, no work and a beach (and a bunch of beer, wine and crab legs!). We spent some time walking the strip and hanging on the beach, drank some beers with strangers in a dive bar, saw some alligators, took a sunset kayak gator bait tour with a redneck guy in a swamp and ate plenty of crab legs. We even found Cancun... Cancun Lagoon mini golf!
GREAT time with my most favorite person in the whole wide world! **Then we fly home into normal Kansas spring weather - wind, hail and severe thunderstorms with possible tornados - excellent. Already had hail damage on my car in the KC airport parking lot so we didn't care that we drove through 3 other waves of hail on the trip home - just GLAD to make it home. We only saw quarter to ping pong size and some crazy wall/shelf clouds. Heard there were funnel clouds and baseball size hail all around us. WILD...
The trip you planned to Cancun with a swim-up room etc., would have been totally awesome - I'm sorry it didn't happen, but I love you Ronny and we will make it to Cancun some other time!
