Hanging out in Miami

Sunday/Monday, 13/14 July 2008

OK... So I think I have all the documentation to get the birds out of the US. All I can do now is wait to hear what time I should take them to Amerijet for transport. When I looked at their website, it showed that their Monday morning flights to Grenada leave at 6:30 am which gives them an arrival time around 10:30 or 11 am. That's good... it means they should be there in less than 24 hrs from the time I drop them off. I don't have to worry that they'll run out of water or food... they'll be just fine.

Originally I was told to drop them off at Amerijet between 1 and 4 pm, but they'd send me an email message with the confirmed time over the weekend. Well, Sunday came along & I didn't hear anything, so I just took a drive over to drop them off near 4:00. Unfortunately, the guard at the lot entrance wouldn't let us in... and she couldn't speak English at all! I'm trying to tell her we need to drop off the birds, but she couldn't understand me. So we went across the street & called their office. There was some confusion about the time of departure for the flight to Grenada, so we ended up taking the birds back to the hotel to wait. We finally got a call to bring them in no later than 10 pm. Now we have a little time to kill, so we took a drive to check out Miami Beach! It was a beautiful evening. We checked out the water temperature, then took a walk around South Beach... lots of restaurants with sidewalk seating with the shopping district just a block west.

Then back to the hotel to retrieve the birds (again) and on to Amerijet! This time we were able to get in (the guards must have had a shift change while we were gone). Joey & Cricket were happy to entertain the workers while we checked them in. We were told their flight was now scheduled for departure at 2:30 am... great! They should be in Grenada now by around 8:30 (after a short stop in Trinidad). Then it was time to leave them behind & trust that they'd be just fine till Scott is able to claim them. I called him to let him know what time he should expect to hear from Amerijet in the morning, and to call me once he has them in his possession.

On Monday, since I was no longer "babysitting" the birds, we decided to do a little sightseeing, then spend our last day at Miami Beach. We got on one of the tour boats in Biscayne Bay and went to look at how some of the rich & famous live on the nearby islands. The sky was overcast again... which it has been for the past 4 days. We drove through a downpour on our way in to town, but it cleared off enough for the boat tour. We also got lucky & didn't have to dodge the rain at the beach... although the clouds were definitely threatening to cause a raucus at any time! All the while, I'm waiting to hear from Scott that he has the birds... the boat trip was over at 12:30 & I still hadn't heard anything. Since there seemed to be a little confusion about the flight time... I believe they had 2 scheduled, with the second one leaving at 8:30 am... I didn't worry too much, figuring they maybe didn't leave Miami until 8:30.

I finally couldn't take it anymore so I sent Scott a text message: "Birds?" And his "I got em" response was fantastic! Woo-hoo! Mission accomplished! I don't know what time they finally got there, or if he had any difficulty collecting them at this point. All I knew was that they were safely transported and I could now rest easy.

Tomorrow I make my own final departure from the US. Air Jamaica flight is scheduled for departure at 10:20 am. If all goes well, I should be in Grenada Tuesday evening by 6:00 pm.

More to follow...