The Final Moments in Puerto Rico

After the house closed Honeywell decided that Jeff should go on travel to Albuquerque. This did not give me much time to sell the car, close accounts, get vet checks etc etc. it was easy coming to PR but not easy to escape. It did however give us two weeks of free hotel and 40 bucks or so for food and a rental car! It also let us go together which made things easier since I had never been to NM and without a job thought it may be hard to open bank accounts, buy a car and rent somewhere to live. I did the best I could to make things as easy as possible for when Jeff returned for the final packing and cat shipping.

The new owners were moving in just after we left and I had been transitioning cat feeding to downstairs which is where Jeff would live for a few weeks before leaving for good. The new owner has a dog (normal from-the-states- dog-that doesn't chase or kill cats) and cat and I worried about cats taking off before jeff returned to ship them. When the time came we put Pollo (had to go in the cabin since she has a smushed face) and Jackie (we thought she would be alright for a couple weeks in a hotel) into their carriers and headed in a rental car to the Aguadilla airport at midnight or something. We had two check ins full of some tools, a small number of appropriate clothes, a pot, a pan, towel, jewelry and medications. I had my iPad and some papers. Jeff parked the car in the lot and we shuffled our booty to the padlocked airport doors. Yes. PR makes people stand outside in the dark at midnight like animals before letting them in to check in and go through security. What other airport does this? We get in and the line is long (of course). We move from line to line and them Uthey want me to take the cats out of their carriers. I make them take me to an enclosed room since Jeff cannot even touch Pollo (except when she is on the bed at night). I manage the cat thing and then we sit and wait some more. I just want the plane to take off so I can be out for good. I don't want some problem to make me be on the island for even a minute more. We board and a short time later take off for Newark!

Jackie did a little yowl-talking but settled in ok. Pollo was silent. We only had an hour in Newark but got to the gate and got some breakfast and I already knew I was in a different land...even the airport food choices were better than what I had seen in years! Then we headed to Denver and had an uneventful flight. After a couple hours we had a little bit of a walk to get to the turbo prop plane that would take us to Albuquerque. There was an empty seat between us and we were the last seats and Jackie was very vocal with an occasional chiming in by Pollo. We landed, drove 40 minutes to the hotel and finally could relax! Cats were afraid and hid under the bed but we were able to shower, feed them and spend some time with them before heading out for food. Our first meal was sushi and it was wonderful! The hotel was silent and the room dark and those two things are things I hadn't experienced in years! In the morning I took Jeff off to work and then went to look at rentals.

I had investigated areas we may want to buy in and narrowed the search to Placitas. A lot of artists live there, houses generally have an acre of land and it is only a half hour from Albuquerque. Jeff found a couple rentals on line and I had appointments to see them. The first one could have worked for non winter months but was kind of run down. The second one was the one. I had a realtor show me another that also would have worked but we would have to show the house and figured it would freak out the cats. Jeff looked at house 2 after work that night and we applied and gave references and credit check info and were set to move in 2 days before had to go back to PR! Perfect timing! Next on the list was a bank account. Did that. Then the driver's license which was trickier because you had to have a bunch of stuff to show residency and we are without jobs and everything else! I started looking for a car. I knew what I wanted, found it and bought it! That gave us enough residency paperwork to get a license. I got an eight year license in about 10 minutes with zero hassles. Long story short - in two weeks I found a place to live, bought a car, got a driver's license, got insurance, got Obamacare (thanks to Jeff's hard work), moved in with cats and got settled. We also walked along the Rio Grande river a couple times, hiked in the Sandia Mountains, hiked around Placitas, went to a gathering with new neighbors and then Jeff flew away.