South to the Dominican Republic: Why do all good times come to an end?

Why do all good times come to an end? I think I speak for the team when I say, we were not ready to come home. Who would want to leave this lush, beautiful, hot climate. The mood of our team was a little dismal, we were all disappointed to leave, the missionarys had stuff to do, we all had school to do, and it was time to leave. Why, was the question going through our heads. Why could we not stay another month. Why did we have to fall in love with the place. We sucked up every plant, person, animal, and house into our memory on the trip to the airport. we knew that we would probably never return with the same great group that had begun this adventure together. We had battled a hurricane, saw the world that traps many children to poverty, and lived with the stench that encompasses every person when we drive through the garbage lined streets. We still would like to live here and make peoples lives more enjoyable. Maybe it was the fried chicken, or the wonderful cooking that was provided to us. I still think it is because we all were touched through and by the people and living conditions that surrounds every living creature. We packed up, ate breakfast and headed to Santo Domingo for our flight. Hearts are heavy as we walk through the door to the airport and wave as the bus leaves the sidewalk, never to return to the same group that it left.

Checking in was easy, the assistant was very nice but had to try reading all of the names on the ticket list, well, it was very comical but he did a good job on the ones that were phonetic. We got through security, very minimal compared the bigger airports and made our way to the gate. Some of our group wanted coffee and went to find a coffee shop. There is a funny account of one members experience trying to talk with the Dominican airport assistant in the coffee shop, read his account here: Coffee Adventure. We had pizza for lunch and calmly waited for our plane to leave. Alas, it is never as easy as it is suppose to be, is it? Two of the team were called up to the gate, they had pulled our luggage off, and wanted to search their bags. Something suspicious had been spotted in the suitcases. We think that they wanted the machete that someone had purchased. They found batteries, but did not find the weapon, fortunately. Finally, we boarded the plane and prepared for take off, the rest of the trip was uneventful, we played poker on the plane, read our books and listened to music. We landed in Atlanta and had 1 hour to pick up our bags, go through immigration, recheck our bags, go through security and get to our gate in one hour. Our bags had priority tags on them so they were supposed to come to the baggage claim first, they did not. We waited twenty minutes before our bags came. We did get through everything else and back on the next plane with just minutes to spare. The same activities took place on the way to Portland. We got there by 11:00 pm tired. We passed the original restaurant where the Evolution of Poker for our group began. We got our bags, and loaded into the awaiting cars to take us home. Stopped at McDonalds on the way home, ate, and fell asleep in the car on the way home. It was the end of our adventure that i'm sure any of our team would be willing to repeat again.