Fishing in Costa Rica in the Osa Peninsula

I absolutely love fishing. What is it that I love about it. Can it be the ocean? Can it be the sky? Or maybe it is sitting on the boat and hunting? The great snacks and the fun and adventure of it. Whatever it is… I seem to like it a lot. You might even say that I love it. I myself am the kinda person who loves adventure. I love the thrill and I find that fishing fulfills a desire to hunt and conquer.

Recently I took a trip to Costa Rica. It was supposed to be a honeymoon type trip where me and my new wife bonded in a boat, catching fish. It was a bonding experience, but I am not sure it was as honeymoonish as my wife wanted. The trip was a partial gift and we took the opportunity to fly to Costa Rica and plan a fishing excursion neither of us would ever forget.

We were going to Crocodile Bay; this is a fishing destination that is located in the Osa Peninsula a little way from the main cities and reachable by bush plane. Once we landed in San Jose Costa Rica, we were immediately bombarded with pictures of sailfish. This is the HOLY GRAIL of fish. It is one of the sport fish that is not only beautiful, but it is rare and a hard catch. The pictures we saw in the airport made us super excited and we thought of the prospect of catching one. We hurried out to the front of the airport, and it was like we were plunged in a 90s drama where someone goes missing. There were all kinds of locals with beat up signs yelling the names of passengers or trying to give tourists a ride to their hotel.

Honestly, I was a little unhinged and not feeling very great when we saw the man with BORCA on his sign. We approached him and he knew we were going to Crocodile Bay so we got into his car and felt pretty good.

Day 1

Fly – Airport – Hilton Hotel – Dinner – Workout – Sauna – Sleep!

The first night we stayed at a Hilton Property near the soccer stadium. We were on the 19th floor or at least we were pretty high up. We had time to decompress, eat at the restaurant on the 18th floor, listen to the honking of the locals below driving crazily… (I haven’t even gotten into the motorcycle situation there) and then take a dip in the pool and sauna. We were more than pleasantly surprised. We got views of the skybar and took some videos of ourselves.

Pool and Jaccuzi Top of the Hilton: https://youtube.com/shorts/8EhgO2e5gPo?feature=share

Stadium View at the Hilton: https://youtube.com/shorts/SWM1hhlFTTQ?feature=share

Cloud Bar at Hilton Costa Rica: https://youtu.be/Q4lJH2c66lE

Day 2

Breakfast – Fly – Land near cemetery – Lunch – Explore – Rainforest Tour

We woke up at the Hilton and we went down to have breakfast. The coffee in Costa Rica is very strong and even I was having a hard time with it. My wife was watering it down. There were all kinds of eggs and the normal American fare, however there was some Costa Rican influence of fruits, grains and dirty type of rice. They eat a lot of yucca there and all kinds of fruit. I told my wife to avoid the types of food that she doesn’t normally eat since I have had the experience of my stomach reacting badly when travelling.

We ate in the sky longue, and it was beautiful. The weather was overcast, and we had learned that it was near the end of the rainy season so the clouds kinda clung to the mountains that we could see through the windows. After we ate, we ran back to the room and grabbed our bags and like everyone made sure we had everything that we needed. Tipping our Costa Rican friends who spoke great English it wasn’t even 8AM and we were leaving for the next airport to take a little bush plain to Jimenez or Osa Peninsula.

We got in our taxi and headed to the airport, unlike commercial airlines they weigh you and the bags to make sure that they have enough fuel to make it to the destination. This is NOT nerve wracking to someone who hates to fly. I am a tough guy all around, but flying is one thing that makes me a little nervous and flying in a tiny plane that fits about 15 people is tough on me. It was a single engine propeller plane. You could really feel the turbulence. My wife and I read our respective books. I was reading the bible and she was reading a romance novel that she was trying to hide from me.

On the plane you could see the stretches of rainforest, you could see giant trees that I later learned were Kapok trees and you could feel ever blip and bump of turbulence. The buildings were not in as bad of repair as I expected from a central American country, many roofs were rusted and it added to the ambience. My wife and I started to get excited when we were over the water, you could see the jewel blue color and the waves from the plane looked like a still on the beach. When we were descending, I got worried because I couldn’t see where we were landing since the pilots head was in my way. As I said we were in a TINY plane. My wife assured me she could see the landing strip and a cemetery…. We were landing next to a cemetery. Really!

The landing was great we got out and admired the interesting culture of their small cemetery. Each grave had fences around it and many graves had silk flowers and interesting tile work. My wife wanted to take pictures of the cemetery and see it more, but I pulled her away anxious to get to Crocodile Bay and see where we were staying for the next couple of days.

A van that the locals call a troupe (troup-ee) is how they say it came to pick us up. We boarded and drove literally around the corner to Botanika a Curio property by Hilton. They were obviously in construction but had finished the main building and one of the main hotel buildings where we stayed.

The property was beautiful. Since the trip was a partial gift we didn’t expect it to be high end. However, the owner of Crocodile Bay had decided to work with Hilton to upgrade his hotel and make it a world class destination. The food was upgraded the rooms were 4 star plus. We were literally in a paradise that we hadn’t expected. We sat with the excursion and tour guide person to set up our trips. We decided on a rainforest tour, a farm/chocolate factory tour and 2 days of fishing. My wife wanted to do one day inshore and one day offshore and as an accommodating and wonderful husband that I am I agreed. But I did not agree to the sloth tour, which I regret to this day.

We had time to get lunch and eating Spanish/Mexican style food was especially amazing in Costa Rica. The flour tortillas in everything were amazing. We ate some quesadillas and tacos dropped our stuff off in the room, walked the property and checked out the boats and docks. Then came back to do our Rainforest trip.

Our tour guide that we had for this tour turned out to be just for us. Tours are not planned for just 2 people but they are so accommodating that they will do a tour just for you. Since we were at the end of the rainy season and they were still in the middle of construction and word hadn’t gotten out yet about the Botanika, they weren’t super busy. We learned that the people of Costa Rica make about 3 dollars American an hour. We asked about the cost of everything and had our tour guide take us to a local store and the gas station. The roads are in not super disrepair, but they were full of puddles and potholes and were all dirt roads.

We quickly learned that American products are stupidly expensive (but man don’t you want that RedBull or Monster Energy drink when you are in the middle of the rainforest), although our tour guide said that it wasn’t as bad other places in Central America since they are so close to the Panama Canal the imported goods were cheaper then say if you got them in Honduras.

We then took about an hour drive up the mountain and the tour guide was looking out the window for wildlife. The first thing we saw was a Roadside Hawk. We pulled over and he pulled out his scope and we were able to get a good look. I suppose I was surprised that it was a roadside hawk and I expected something more exotic.

Soon we would be deeper in the rainforest. I kept asking the tour guide. What it the name of that tree? Of that plant? Of that animal? He would tell me he knew a lot but he did not know the name of all of the trees because there were so many. He explained because of the 12 hours of consistent daylight year-round (the sun sets and rises at 6 AM -6PM) that every kind of tree in the world practically grew there. It was so diverse that you could study your whole life and not know the names of all the trees.

Even though, we still were introduced to the Giant Kapok Tree we saw this tree far off and were amazed at its height. It looked like a giant tree among tiny toothpick trees but really it was a giant among giants. Our tourguide explained that many people thought the Kapok tree was a gate into another world, many Macaws lived in the tree and many animal species depended on it. I realized that it was a gift from God and Costa Rica is a special place where you can see Gods creation displayed magnificently and majestically.

We finally got to see monkeys. We heard Howler monkeys and got out of the Troup-ee we saw two different kinds of monkeys, spider monkeys and the white-faced capuchin. They were really neat with their long tails swinging and jumping through the trees like big squirrels.

We would get in and out of the troupee and the tour guide asked us if we wanted to hike or not. Since we had traveled a lot we told him to cart us around in the van and do roadside rainforest sightseeing. It was interesting to see the Scarlet Macaws which live for almost 100 years and mate for life in their family flocks. Side note-Theses would make good beneficiaries for taxes in Land Trusts. There was one green parrot who had found a window and was pecking at his reflection of himself angrily. The tour guide said it was something annoying that Parrots do sometimes since they are so smart they recognize their reflection as another bird. We traveled up the rainforest and saw a millipede, some cool butterflies’, toucans and a coaxtl which is a raccoon Costa Rican type animal. My wife wanted to see sloths, so we drove close to a wild beach to find the trees the sloths like, but we had no luck. We had fun and took a lot of videos of the different animals on the tour. We got back into the troup-ee vehicle and headed back and ate dinner at the resort.

Bush Plane: https://youtube.com/shorts/QMbMaB9kQRk?feature=share

Bush Plane Landing:

https://youtube.com/shorts/MCdtYOQ_Adc?feature=share

Hilton Crocodile Bay: https://youtu.be/czCL9Z_t9H8

Gas Prices: https://youtube.com/shorts/4qVfbjgjtPo?feature=share

Monkey Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/BJQZ8yvG0Sw?feature=share

Howler Monkey (My wife calling out to the monkey you can hear the Howler answer.): https://youtube.com/shorts/LavwAE4ezpM?feature=share

Squirrel Monkey: https://youtube.com/shorts/ukjtwi3Cgbg?feature=share

Toucan: https://youtube.com/shorts/LpyRfxfARok?feature=share

Costa Rican Cowboy (We saw him on the rainforest tour): https://youtube.com/shorts/16oO-0zAcnc?feature=share

Kapok Tree: https://youtube.com/shorts/9wr7rO5MiMs?feature=share

Brahman Cows: https://youtu.be/b9amuNAOg-s

Day 3

Breakfast – Boat – Inshore Fishing – Lunch – Back at Property

The third day we got up early to eat breakfast by the Hilton. We got locked in our hotel room. All the rooms have a ton of locks. We asked why so much security, and they said that theft was sometimes a problem, so they had a lot of security in place. They had guards that walked around the perimeter of the establishment, cameras, locks on every two doors, and then the hotel itself had a huge door that locked the entire hotel. When we woke up in the morning we were locked inside and couldn’t figure out how to get out. We waved our arms around and pressed different buttons. There technology was better than southern Florida. It turned out you needed to PUSH the door gently after you scan, but why do that? So, we took the Emergency Exit and headed to breakfast.

There were three different breakfasts, there was the American Breakfast, Traditional Breakfast and Costa Rican Breakfast. Since we were there for three days, I decided to try all three different breakfasts. Each was about 25 US dollars and so carried a pretty good price tag even by American standards.

The breakfasts were amazing though and came with coffee and juice and so much food that it was way too much! It is hard to say what breakfast was the best. At this property the restaurant was relatively new, and they are very highly priced for Costa Rica so they are attempting to do full table service, 5 course. This ends up taking too much time from the servers though who are constantly trying to keep up with which spoons and forks are supposed to be on the table at the time than with actually getting you something you need like more coffee.

After breakfast we headed down to the dock, you can walk about 6 minutes to the pier or you can take a complimentary golfcart ride. We walked down to the pier and along the long board walk to our first boat and met our first Captain.

The first boat we had was a 26ft Boston Whaler that we would use for inshore fishing. We had a captain who would take us out for the whole day but no first mate. Which works out well for inshore. We were going to go out for a full day of fishing, and we were leaving at 7AM sharp. We had a friendly Captain who instructed us that the first thing we would do would be to go get the bait fish. If you fished in America often you might buy the bait or bait fish. Here we need fresh live bait fish and so our first experience would be to go out to some good fishing holes in the gulf bay area. The locals referred to the waters near Osa Peninsula as a gulf because it is a gulf.

We got on the boat and got a comfy spot, and I snuggled up with my wife, it was cloudy, and the surf was great that day we had real choppy water and probably 3 to 5 feet. In the gulf in the morning, it was the calmest and we came to a spot that they called the “mothers belly” basically pregnant belly, because there were so many different fish around the reef that you could catch.

Our first fishing method that we would use was jigging. I never really jigged before, however I do really love to bottom fish, so jigging is a lot like bottom fishing and I was really good at it. To catch bait, we used sabikis. You put on silvery or shiny hooks that catches the fish’s’ eye. There is no bait or fake bait that you mimick is alive by letting out the reel, you just keep reeling slowly up. If you are lucky you will have a line that has 4 or 5 sardines on it by the time you get it up to the boat. You remove the fish by hand and they go in the live bait tank to be used later. Fish love live bait and are fooled by them better than anything else. Makes sense right. We caught about 20 sardines and green runners. In two or three different fishing spots. In Costa Rica you cannot drop anchor because there is so much reef and you would destroy it, so the Captain is constantly circling and angling the boat back and forth over the fishing spots.

Bite is on for a few minutes and then the boat needs to be moved back over the fishing spot.

I wanted to bottom fish for a bit and caught a baby snapper and a dog faced Tuna and an Albacore Tuna. I threw all of them back and later regretted throwing back the Albacore Tuna because well, it could have been dinner. My wife and I were joking because the first fish she caught was a jack, and she fought it hard. We joked that she got “jacked” but then that was her theme for the rest of the day. She ended up catching three more jacks. So four of Kind!!! Ha. Every time I thought she had something good on like a sport fish Rooster it would be a jack and I would get upset and stop filming. So, we didn’t get that much footage of her catching her jacks. The overall theme for her that day If we get jacks, we get jacks!

After fishing for the bait and doing a little bottom fishing, we stopped to see some of the big humpback whales which are in the peninsula area calving. So, you see mama and baby whales breach quite a bit, and they are quite large, and it is majestic to see.

The next part of the day was to find the area where the Roosterfish roost. We took the boat for a ten mile plus journey out into the ocean and out of the gulf or bay. When we got into the ocean it was a lot choppier and we were staying close to shore because it was inshore, we tried a couple of spots, but we were having problems since the waves were so high. So, we took another hour trip to find some calmer water. Eventually we got there, and we found a place where it was only 2 foot swells we were probably 400 feet from shore and maybe 60 feet of depth.

We took turns with whoever getting a bite completing the fight. My wife got a jack or two and then I ended up with a Rooster. I never understood why people like fish that you can’t really eat. The Roosterfish is both beautiful and gives a great fight. The fish has a great personality. It jumped out of the water 7 feet and fought me for a good 10 minutes. I finally reeled that fish in and held him in my hands. That fish was smart. I think he knew he was going up to get his picture taken. He wanted it done. We released him, because the roosterfish is really done for the picture, they aren’t great eating at all.

We tried a few other spots and fished for awhile. Since we were so far out since the waves were so choppy we had to head back. We had a great day and I learned why people were so excited by the Roosterfish. We headed back went home, relaxed ate and watched some TV in the hotel.

My wife turned out that on our cloudy inshore fishing day that she had ravaged her skin and burned like crazy. She looked like a cute tomato. Since we are from Florida, and she sees a lot of sun… and because it was cloudy she didn’t wear ANY sunscreen. This was to her folly, me with my Scottish heritage was not as badly burned as she was. She looked at me and told me she would be fine but that her skin hurt to have sun on it. She would need a long sleeve shirt to survive the sun for the next day of fishing. We went back and she was burnt out and she took a shower and passed out.

Humpback Whale: https://youtube.com/shorts/w_9km_pw2Ag?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/wA2zuGylBYQ?feature=share

Baby Snapper: https://youtube.com/shorts/7w0QSHQVK7A?feature=share

Dogtoothed Tuna: https://youtube.com/shorts/-6e4JBRCCUc?feature=share

Here Comes the Rooster: https://youtube.com/shorts/_t6JDEvVSGc?feature=share

My lovely wife Phoebe Horton Borca with a Jack!

Day 4 Breakfast – Captain and First Mate – Outshore Experience – Lunch – Second Lunch – Swimming – Gift Shopping -Dinner (Italian Night) – Bed

On the fourth day we woke up and my wife was extremely burned from her previous day. She wore one of my black long-sleeved shirts and black pants to try and cover as much of her skin as possible. I told her she would be hot and she let me know that she knew but she had to sweat it out, because if she got sun on her skin it hurt. She slathered on sunscreen, and we headed out. There is nothing like an injury on a vacation to ruin the next vacation day. She pulled herself together and we headed for breakfast.

The property is peaceful in the morning and the vacationers are friendly. In the center of the room complex there is a sitting area and garden. My wife encountered a large bullish looking frog there. In this place you could relax and use your wifi and enjoy the property. Everyone said Hi, as well as let us know where in the United States or world they were from. We met people from Hawaii and from the UK as well as some Costa Ricans. All the elevators to the rooms are keycard locked, so don’t lose your card. At least once on the trip we lost our card and we weren’t able to get upstairs to our room in the elevator and we didn’t know where the stair access was, so we had to go to the main building to get a new card. On the walk up to the main building, the grounds are impeccably kept. They have a night creature tour, which we didn’t do but heard that it was quite nice.

You walk the grounds at night and meet all the animals active at that time. They have a suspension bridge over a swampy area that is pleasant to walk, as well as they are working on building bike trails around the grounds. You can pick up a bike and check out all the scenery the gardens have to offer.

Breakfast is my wife’s favorite meal and I enjoy drinking LOTS of coffee. This was the day that we realized you could sit outside in the rainforest setting and enjoy your breakfast. However, we had already been seated inside, but we decided that we would eat dinner on the boardwalk area where they have a mini rainforest garden preserved for your pleasure. I can’t remember exactly what breakfast that I ate, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it and that the wait staff and the chef were very accommodating. One of the servers asked us if we caught any fish and did we bring them back for dinner. And since we had only caught a Roosterfish and a lot of Jacks and I didn’t keep the Albacore, I was upset that I had not brough home any DINNER.

I announced to my wife that today the focus was DINNER and that we would ensure that we caught DINNER! We would feed ourselves. We would feed the wait staff. I was going to go offshore fishing to slaughter fish. And this time, my belly would be full.

After breakfast we walked down the boat to the dock. The dock is on a wild beach. You forget since Florida beaches are manicured and built up for tourism what a wild beach really looks like. Osa Peninsula is on the Pacific side. The beaches are mucky and sandy and have a lot of crabs and crustacean like creatures walking on them. There were always a local or two near the beach walking their dogs. The dock was long and thin and the boats were anchored near the docks but not on them. We walked along the pier at about 7AM in the morning ready for an exciting day. The weather was not quite as good as it was the previous day, but we had come at the end of rainy season (October) and there were storm clouds in the sky hanging ominously. I told my wife that we could handle a little rain and that we would be fine. We went and found our Captain, First mate and boat. The captain’s name was Charlie and he said we would have a great day fishing. We asked him about the sailfish probability, and he said that it was about a 50/50 to get a sail. We asked our itinerary for the day and he said we would spend the first hour getting bait and then we would head offshore. He had radar and so we would avoid any rain as best as we could. He said that it was very rare to cancel due to weather and that they had no problems going out, since it looked like it might rain.

We had a 35 Foot striker boat. I won’t talk about the price tag, but for just me and my wife it was over 2K, but it was worth it since she had never offshore fished before. The striker boat has the captain up top and where you can sit on the bottom.

We got on the boat and Captain Charlie gave my wife a ten-minute explanation of how to use the onboard toilet. She looked like she would rather die than use it, but you never know if you might need it. It is nice to have. The toilet was inside the boat. They also went over what was in the cooler for us to snack on. There were Costa Rican style potato chips, which we loved cookies, and the packed lunches that we selected when we chose our excursions the first day in the lobby. There was also plenty of drinks and some beer. My wife and I do not drink but that option is there for people.

Captain Charlie explained where we could sit and his job was to navigate the boat and sit in the striker tower. The first mate who had been working on the boat for more than 15 years, set up all the tackle and rods and he also fished. However, if he got a bite he would give the rod to me or my wife.

Familiarly, we set out to the different spot to catch bait, we were catching green runners and sardines again in the gulf. We would hang over a spot and sabiki, which is where you have the silvery hooks and yank up and down. We didn’t seem to have as much luck with the live bait as we did the day before where we were pulling up 4 plus sardines on the line. This time it was 2 or 3 sardines sometimes 1. We were drifting more in the bigger boat and I would say we went to 3 to 4 different fishing holes including the mother’s belly hole. The captain would tell us about how far down the fish were. As I have pretty good fishing experience this helped me catch the bait. I was able to drop the sabiki where the fish were and then snag them on the way up. My wife struggled a little more with the sabiki and she suspected her hooks weren’t as shiny as mine. I told her the fake fish were good as if it was dulled a lot it meant that it was bitten a lot. She looked a little upset so I told her not to worry. But everyone knows that you can get discouraged when you don’t get a bite on your line for awhile and someone next to you is. You wonder why and what you are doing wrong. Sometimes, it is just like that and you need to get your grit and move on. Charlie being the excellent captain that he was moved the boat if we didn’t get a bite after a minute or two.

We fished for an hour to an hour and a half getting the bait and filling up the tank. My wife asked what happened to the live bait and would there be enough. We had 20 to 30 fish in the live bait tank. The first mate said that they dumped the tank every night when they cleaned the boats so they needed new bait every day they went out. They showed us the humpback whales in the gulf who were also enjoying the sardines and green runners. Then we hunkered down in the boat and started to head offshore. Captain Charlie said it would be about 40 minutes before we got to the spot. The boat kicked it into high gear and we had a snack and watched as the first mate started to set up the reels for trolling as we headed offshore out of the gulf.

I told the first mate about fishing in Florida and how you need to go about 75 miles offshore into the gulf stream to go offshore fishing. The offshore depths were much quicker to get to and they were more similar with the distance that you would travel if you were fishing in the Florida Keys which is closer to the shelf. Once you were out of the gulf and the waters protected by the peninsula it was only 10 to 15 miles offshore and were in 4000feet of depth. We asked what was in season in that time of year and they said 50/50 for sails and marlins on a day out and that Mahi season was just starting up.

The first mate started dropping the lines in and we slowed down to start trolling. This is when you run lines with bait behind the boat. We had two rods on outriggers, two up top and four in the boat so we were always running six to 8 rods. 2 of the rods had big teasers on them, a couple of the baits were dragged on the surface and a couple under the surface. We had live bait that the first mate showed us that were still alive. The bait was hooked through the eye and then dropped in the water so that it moved exactly like a live fish (because it was). Almost immediately after putting in all the rods we heard the reel start spinning and it was FISH ON! The first mate jumped into action and started reeling in the rods so the lines didn’t get tangled. I told my honey to grab the rod and she had the first fish. She said, “Wait, No! You can do it! I am OK! I don’t want the first fish!” She protested but I handed her the rod and told her to catch it. She exclaimed she didn’t know what to do. The fish pulled out more line and we were telling her pull up and reel down. Pull the rod up to keep tension on the line and then as you drop the reel to keep the tension even you reel in the line. She couldn’t believe how strong the fish was and kept saying she didn’t know what to do and asked for me to help her.

I wanted to help her and was so worried that the fish was going to get away, but I told her over and over, “You got this” and I wouldn’t help her as she whimpered and fought the fish. My worry of the fish fleeing and getting away was very real. The fish jumped and we realized it was a HUGE Mahi. It took about 5 minutes to reel in. We had to get the belt for her and she had to sit down for a bit as well. I did not help her as much as I wanted to be in control, I wanted her to experience the fight that the sportfisherman cherishes. I wanted for her to know that the fish was caught by her. When the fish finally came up to the boat, the first mate leaned over and speared it with the gaff. He hooked it into the boat where it flopped and fought some more. My wife was laugh-crying and she couldn’t believe her eyes. She said it was insanity. I was telling her what a great job she did. It was an absolutely HUGE Bull Mahi. And I said, “Way to go Honey! You got Dinner!” We sat down and took pictures with the fish. She wanted to take pictures with me, so we did it together. After the pictures, we put the fish in the ice cooler and the first mate cleaned the blood up off the boat diligently and put the rods back into the water. We sat down as Charlie congratulated us and we started moving again at about 8 miles an hour.

I started telling my wife that when you go offshore fishing in Florida that you overage about 1 big fish per hour. So I fully expected not to have another fish on for an hour. We grabbed a drink from our lunch cooler, and we sat and chatted and not even 30 minutes later it was FISH ON again. This time I tried again to get my wife to do it. She told me she was happy enough for the entire day and didn’t need any more fish. It was my turn and I needed to get the fish.

I grabbed the reel and it was another MAHI, she was swimming alongside the boat and was a great fight for me. She didn’t fight me as hard outside of the boat as when she got inside. She was so mad she flopped on the deck for a few minutes spattering blood everywhere when she finally calmed down we got a picture with her she was a great size but no where as big as the first bull that my babe caught.

We helped clean the boat and learned a little of the boat maintenance. The first mates and boat captains are super meticulous about keeping their boats cleanly. As soon as we took pictures and put this fish in the ice box (MORE DINNER) he was cleaning. If you clean the blood right away apparently it is much easier to keep the boats clean and with such expensive boats that you take tourists out on, you always want them in pristine condition. Since I was upset that we hadn’t brought any dinner back the day before, and we only had one day left I knew that we couldn’t eat more than 1 fish, in fact the Mahi that babe caught would feed us for a few days. I wanted to provide for others so I asked if I could gift a fish to the Captain and First mate and then if we caught another, I would gift it to the kitchen staff. Captain Charlie said it would probably be OK, but that Crocodile Bay had a 1 day a month for the employees. The crew were only allowed to take fish home once a month. I argued that I wanted to gift it and it was my right, so they finally accepted graciously.

The weather was holding up pretty good for thunderclouds in the distance, we could see storms on either side of us, but Captain Charlie was maneuvering us through them using his doppler radar, which was awesome, and I was impressed by his efficiency of use. Again 30 minutes later there was another bite. This time the fish was on the outrigger furthest away. I told my wife that we were very lucky, and it was her turn. She protested again but took up the rod, talking to herself the entire time. “Pull up, reel down!” over and over again like a mantra. Since the fish was so far away on the farthest outrigger, it took her 6 minutes plus with the belt to reel this fish in. It was a big mama. Like the bull she caught the female Mahi was almost as long as she was. We put this girl in the icebox too.

For the rest of the time offshore we caught 3 more Mahi, my wife gave them all to me and I was happy enough to reel them in. They all gave me a good fight. And I was happy to bring in Dinner for everyone. My wife hadn’t caught a Roosterfish before and I had caught one the day before. So for the last hour or two we went back inshore fishing to see if we could find her a Rooster.

We went back inshore and Captain Charlie found a reef that was 30 feet from shore and we were in 50 to 60 feet of water. There was a good fishing spot above a reef. In this area I caught my dream fish (besides sail) I caught a Yellowfin Tuna. My wife managed to get a beautiful African Pompano and a Jack. We threw the African Pompano and Jack back because we had enough fish for dinner and gifting people at the resort. And well these Jacks were not good for eating. We ran out of time and needed to head back in. So we hunkered down in the boat happy with our 5 Mahis and 1 Yellowfin Tuna a great day of fishing. Back on shore the first mate told us that our fish the yellowfin and the first Bull Mahi would be at the restaurant that night. We also found that you could have your fish packaged and taken to another restaurant that was pretty good to eat at according to the locals.

Done fishing we went back to our rooms and stuffed our laundry bag with our fishy clothes to be cleaned before we went home. We then took showers ate another lunch at the resort and took a dip in the pool. We hadn’t even enjoyed the pool that much since we had gotten there.

After that we went and found a resort worker to let us into the tourist shops. We bought shirts for our three boys at home and a couple of shirts for us.

This was one of the most fun nights for eating. We went back to the hotel and it was Italian night. There was a buffet and you could order food or participate in the buffet. We decided we would do both. We had Italian salads and spaghetti and the head chef came out to discuss how to cook the Tuna and the Mahi for me. He did a breaded Mahi with tartar sauce and he did a seared tuna filet. I can now say that Tuna fresh Tuna like this, is the filet mignon of the sea. We stuffed ourselves and called it a day.

Leaving in the Morning: https://youtube.com/shorts/aAKX4woywfY?feature=share

First Bull (Longer video): https://youtu.be/dPb57fyMVQU

It's a Bull: https://youtube.com/shorts/sU7Aa_fUK44?feature=share

Mahi Sneak Attack: https://youtube.com/shorts/5s6HrMXU4ho?feature=share

Big Girl Mahi: https://youtube.com/shorts/Dl3fKTxZz7I?feature=share

Yellow Fin Tuna: https://youtube.com/shorts/1CPmR1-gCeM?feature=share

Longer Tuna Video: https://youtu.be/qeg87-mTlso

African Pompano: https://youtube.com/shorts/5Nz-JdZpgsU?feature=share

Day 5

Breakfast -Chocolate Factory Tour -Lunch -Swimming -Packing

Last day at the resort in rainy season and it was finally raining. When we woke up we ran downstairs to find that it was pouring. There are umbrellas for guests in many different areas. We grabbed umbrellas and then went to breakfast. I asked the people who worked there if they had a chance to eat some of the fish that I gifted the kitchen staff. They said that they hadn’t but that they were very grateful and that the chef was going to make fish for all the employees that night. This made me feel much better than the first day when I didn’t even get dinner.

I knew as a man who just did two days fishing that I needed to do something for my wife. She had thoroughly enjoyed the rainforest tour and I knew that she would love the chocolate factory tour. So we hung out for a bit and then at 11AM we met to go to the chocolate factory. It was about a 30 minute drive away. On the way there were saw Palm Oil farms on the side of the street as well as Teak Wood farms. These trees grow exceptionally well in Costa Rica. We had a different tour guide, he was more soft spoken and we had to ask him to speak up a bit for us.

We arrived at the farm. It was a traditional Costa Rican farm. The government 50 or 60 years ago had given away plots of lands to people. These plots often had traditional farms. These kinds of farms grew all the food that someone would need. Many of the traditional farms had been lost but on this one everything was organic as well as part of the farm was wild.

It was pouring out and we had big umbrellas. We learned about different kinds of plants as we walked around. They had the cacao trees and different kinds of big cacao seed pods. Our tour guide picked one off the tree and we ate raw cocoa seeds, which were white. The sweet part was the gummy flesh on the outside of the seed. Most locals prefer this part of the cacao plant. We were introduced to many different trees for food inside the farm. My wife ate some white peppercorns off a peppercorn tree and later she regretted it.

After touring a lot of the farm we went to the piece de resistance, a huge Kapok tree. It was incredible to say the least. We took a picture of the tree and admired it. We also drank coconut water and threw the coconuts into a river into a hoop.

After the Kapok tree we went to the main pole barn and we got to try our hand at making chocolate. We saw the process of drying the chocolate seeds. We were able to crush the seeds. To separate the seeds and then crush them into paste and sweeten the chocolate with powdered sugar. Chocolate has many great properties but one property is that it is great for your skin. My wife and I did a chocolate face mask. We then were made a traditional Costa Rican lunch. There was yucca, rice, chicken, beans, green banana salad and it was delicious. There were two chocolate hearts that we had for dessert. We went back to the hotel and enjoyed the rest of the day by swimming and eating. The next morning it was back on the bush plane and taking off to the mainland to catch our plane back home.

Neat Plant at the Chocolate Farm: https://youtube.com/shorts/mgG7_9vtGNo?feature=share

Kapok at the Chocolate Farm: https://youtube.com/shorts/1Fq9mx38M20?feature=share

Chocolate Farm Pole Barn: https://youtube.com/shorts/pKfuvHhSSQs?feature=share

Chocolate Farm Separating Chocolate: https://youtu.be/5enBsUNoHAI

Chocolate Facemask: https://youtu.be/714ljFpYEKk

2020 - Montana Snowmobiling Trip

Day 1 Breakdown

Day 1 - Travelling

We decided that we would do a trip to Montana to go snowmobiling and do a mix of fun things from there. We booked tickets on skiplagged and got the cheapest flights we could get. This trip was going to be a combined family trip where we had 3 boys coming with us. We had 5 people on this trip and when we got on the plane since we had a larger family group we were all over the plane not sitting together. We took turns being the person who sat all by themselves. Our first stop was New York as a layover. It was my first layover in New York and you could see the Statue of Liberty from the plane. In the airport, we had a 4 hour layover, we had tried to carry all our luggage and we were eating New York pizza and found a place to lounge and charge our phones.The Trump election loss sentiment was lingering and still a hot topic in the airport and around the security. We also got mask scolding numerous times, me more then the rest of the family because I hated the darn thing and thought it was silly. We found a super cool light display that we sat under. All of the boys were tired from sitting and then sitting more. We had all worn a lot of our winter gear, because we were from Florida so our jackets and stuff was strewn everywhere. We finally got on the second plane. This time I was sitting by myself and I got to admire an interesting astronomical phenomenon, where the moon, Venus and Mars were super close together and lined up.The heavens really declare the Glory of God. The planets were beautiful the day we left, shining brightly so close together a beautiful spectacle.

We got into Montana and it was beautiful. The mountains were huge and it was an amazing display of creation. We got ourselves a rental car and then drove to Livingston where we would base our stay. On the way to Livingston we admired the scenery. All the mountains were covered in snow and we were located in a valley. Montana’s roads were pretty cool as well. They had great big highways and you could drive 80 for the speed limit, which is a lot higher than Florida. Here, even though everybody drives crazy, the highest speed limit I have seen is 70.

Something that I notice as a Floridian that traveled to someplace COLD is that people who have cold weather and are from there, is that they use way too much heat! It might be something like Floridians who use way too much AC in the summer, Montantonians use way too much heat in the winter. The hotel, the cars, the ski lodges… every place we went was super hot and dry inside and outside, it was very crisp and cold.

We rented two hotel rooms. We had our 8 year old with the 18 and 19 year olds upstairs from us. Part of the deal of the trip was they got to come along but would have to do hotel room babysitting.We left the boys and told them to go to sleep and then went and listened to the wind howling outside our room. It was hard to sleep that night, the wind howled so much and no matter how much you want to howl at the wind it just won’t stop blowing. We stayed at Fairfield Inn and Suites. We had to have multiple rooms, needed a pool and hottub, as well as a place that would help the pocket book by having breakfast. This had all these options and it was central to different ski hills, yellowstone and Boseman. Since we did this trip in the winter of 2020 we didn’t have many options for skiing and eating since a lot of places were cutting down the number of their guests to like 40% capacity. Because of this we were not able to go skiing at BigSky and instead we went to Red Mountain. Our basic itinerary for the trip was to do a day of skiing, a day of snowmobiling, a day in Yellowstone, a day exploring museums and hotsprings. After we grabbed something from fast food we told everyone to hit the hay, because our first day would be snowmobiling at Two Top Mountain in Yellowstone Park.

One side note, because of COVID the pool had to be booked and only 1 family could use it at a time. This was not that cool because one of the reasons we paid a little extra for this hotel was because of the pool and hot tub and now we found out that we couldn’t even use it at our leisure, because of the silly COVID restrictions.

Day 2

Car Breakdown/Uber -- Rentals -- Snowmobiling -- Lunch -- Snowmobiling -- Hotel -- Ted’s in Montana

We awoke first thing in the morning about 430AM and scrambled to get ready. We had to travel from Livingston to Two Top Mountain, our goal was to be in the car by 5AM. Since we were in two rooms and on different floors and we had an 8 year old upstairs it was insane but doable. We got up, went upstairs, made sure all the boys were getting ready, and went back downstairs. They were fighting over socks, the bathroom, clothes and looking for their gear. Waking them up and getting them ready wasn’t easy and in one night their room looked like a whirlwind had hit it. Mind you, we did eat in their room. We also had to make sure that we had coffee and were trying to have Mr.Coffee brew as we got ourselves ready. When we finally wrangled them all going up and down in the elevator many times and herded the boys to the cars, we were already wondering what kind of day it would be.

We stepped outside into the pitch black of the freezing Montana morning. You realized just how cold and dark it was, no moon, and it was snowing. The car had been warming up for a few minutes and we sprinted without slipping on ice and got into the car. It was snowing lightly and snowflakes were blowing around. It was the frigid air blowing that killed your ears and we were all decked out in hats and gloves and probably more paraphernalia than we needed but as we were from Florida, you know we had long johns on under our clothes. The trip should take us about 2 hours and 10 minutes to get to Two Tops Snowmobile rentals. It ended up taking much longer.

This part I will gloss over, because it is a little embarrassing. Driving too fast on an icy road, during a snowstorm in the dark led us to go off the road and get the car stuck. Rather than wait for a tow, we called an uber and ubered to Two Tops, we had no choice since it was completely booked and we HAD to be there to get a day of snowmobiling. Otherwise there was no rescheduling. The uberbill in Montana was excruciating. All the kids and my girlfriend, at the time, now wife gave me a hard time about it and I think I have finally lived it down. We arrived later than we should have and the Uber was super expensive. But there was only one day that there was any availability for snowmobiling so we had to make it there on time. A big luxury vehicle that fit all 5 of us passengers, I sat in the back, but enjoyed some conversation learning about Montana. When we arrived at the snowmobile place the uber driver dropped everyone off with me. My wifey went to McDonalds with the driver and spent about 50 dollars on McDonald's food so that we wouldn’t be hungry. Inside the snowmobile place, we were putting on stinky helmets and we all got given a snowsuit and gear. It was complete chaos. The three boys were all getting helped in different places, we were getting helped and trying on gear and trying to stuff our faces with McDonalds breakfasts. Gear wasn’t included but it was worth it. Once we were geared up the tour guides went over the rules with us and quick instructions on how to run the snowmobiles. Also they gave us some tips on places we could go, maybe stop to swim. We were doing a self guided tour, because we wanted to be able to go at our own speed, whatever that speed would be. They told us not to drive on the main highway, but the snowmobiles were allowed on all the other roads. They also warned us to stay away from certain areas that day because of rapidly changing weather and fog.

The older boys and I got snowmobiles with the biggest engines, 900cc Ski-Doos and my wifey got a 600cc. They all had hand warmers and warming seats. The warm handlebars and seats were super nice on the derrieres and much needed as it was way too cold with the wind.

We set out in a row, me, the two boys and wifey to be, each on a snowmobile of our own and my wifey and her son on a snowmobile together. We took awhile to get to the trails. We had to maneuver around a couple of streets and then we went across a big football field sized area that was lined with trees. I was euphoric but as we were still close to the city of West Yellowstone we kept our speed to slow.

The trail system of Two Tops has a dozen different trails that are 20 to 30 miles long that stop at hot springs, the trails go beside canyons and also goes through Yellowstone as well as the tri- state area, which includes Idaho. Me and the two older boys enjoyed ripping through the back trails. We would go until a junction or we would go until we felt we needed to stop and then wait for my wife to come in tow with Lo. She was happily and very slowly trudging along with her 8yo. He was miserable. He hated being on the snowmobile. He hated the helmet which was too big for his head. He said he was cold though he was suited up to the extreme. He would let his head bobble while he rode and apart from the first few hours of the day he hated it. In retrospect younger kids sometimes have a hard time with snowmobiling. Me, John and Brett would patiently wait after we had zoomed through a trail. We started making a couple of stops, and made snow angels.

One time we got off the trail system, which I committed to memory and we went up and down a huge hill. It was fun and euphoric. Phoebe filmed us as we rode on this trail. We got back and then got into a line again and found one of the mail trails. Now we were zooming on a more crowded trail. Once or twice we had to stop to pull someone out of the ditch or dig out a snowmobile that had gone off track and was next to a tree. In most cases everyone was safe that got stuck in a ditch and we were able to pull out the snowmobiles and people that were in trouble on the trails.

One memory is particularly glaring and crystal clear to me. When at the snowmobile station we were warned at the snowmobiling place to not go to the top of Two Tops Mountain, because the visibility was bad. On the trails and especially at the mountain the weather changes very fast. While we took the warning seriously, somehow we ended up there anyway by accident. The fog was thick, it felt like you were inside a cloud. It was hard to see the snowmobile in front of you. We were going pretty cautiously through this as we didn’t want to lose any family members in the fog. However, we ended up at the top with thick fog and we were snowmobiling next to a ridge cap. I stopped and warned everyone to be careful and we quickly finished the area. What a thrill to be on the snowmobile with blankets of snow on the ground, huge white pine trees on the top of Two Tops. Leading my family through the wilderness of Yellowstone. We followed some more trails in the middle of the park. The trails got close to a little town, so we decided to stop at a Mom and Pops for lunch. The town was very woods-chalet type of architecture, there were a lot of very steep roofs, log cabins and wooden houses. Antique snowshoes and ski sets decorated some of the chalets and they were quite nice. The town had many trails in it, and many snowmobilers were visible on the side of the roads. There were more people on snowmobiles than there were cars out and about.

Eating lunch was probably the most fun for Lo, who decided he would have spaghetti and meatballs. We peeled off our snow suits so they were half on and half off and decided that we would all have hot chocolates. We ordered a variety of meals, mostly burgers and fries and ate. We snowmobiled until about 4PM and we were due back at the shop. Near the end I took a turn with Logan and let my wife speed around a bit, since she was stuck going so slow all day. I had a mini race with her, but of course it was no challenge. As we were coming in the long straight runs toward home, the sky was turning pinkish with the evening coming on and the air was crisp and clean. Once in the city of West Yellowstone to return the snowmobiles the quickest way back for us to not be late was to go beside the highway for a bit. Locals yelled at us for forgetting the rule so we side streeted it back, being careful of cars that in icy condition don’t have as much control if they happen to not see you. We got the uber back and called the rental shop. Our rental had been picked up and we would get a new one tomorrow.

On the drive home we decided to stop in at Teds. He is from Montana so we thought being closer to the ranches that supplied Ted with buffalo and cow meat would mean that our meals would be more delicious. It was pretty good, some of us tried the buffalo burger. The 8 year old was quiet as a mouse and we were poking fun at him for being so tired. After that we ubered back to the hotel and dug in for the night for a new adventure in the morning.

Snowmobile - It’s Snowing

https://youtube.com/shorts/W4EhSv0k4Lo?feature=share

Snowmobiling Footage

https://youtube.com/shorts/pqncN17IVec?feature=share

3rd Day

Car Rental -- Hunting Shop -- Yellowstone -- Petrified forest -- Snacks in town -- Driving all over the show

This day we had to wake up and take care of the rental. We booked the pool for the kids and left them at the hotel as we drove back to the airport to pick up our car from the rental facility. It didn’t take us long, we were back by 8AM and still the boys had caused havoc. Logan had decided it would be hilarious to throw the lawn chairs into the pool and two of the boys had been reprimanded by the staff. We reprimanded them as well and were surprised that the older one got caught up in the younger ones antics, especially since in the morning before we left they were all complaining about each other and at each other’s throats.

Breakfast we would do at the hotel. It was provided anyway so I told everyone that they must fill themselves up because we wouldn’t be stopping at a restaurant and I wasn’t going to spoil them. Besides there is nothing wrong, with a hotel continental breakfast. We ate breakfast at the hotel for at least 3 days of the trip, both of the days that we went to Yellowstone and the intown exploration day. The breakfast spread was nice, with fruits, cereals, waffles, oatmeal, eggs and hashbrowns. Everyone ate what they wanted and I was in an oatmeal and raisin mood that week and pretty much everyday I had coffee and oatmeal for breakfast.

We piled them into the car. It was probably about 9:30 at this point and we weren’t as crazy about being up at the crack of dawn, only on the days we went skiing and snowmobiling. We got the google maps out to head to Yellowstone National Park. On the way there I decided that we would stop in and pick up some binoculars. We stopped at a local hunting shop and II picked up one nice pair and we headed out to the park. Once again everyone was nervous about my driving and I reassured everyone that I would take it easy in the park.

We drove into Yellowstone which was 85 miles from where we were located, this was about an hour drive. The boys were on their phones or video games in the car and they had been instructed to be fully charged because once the charge wore out there was a limited number of chargers. The boys were constantly jostling one another and Logan in the middle because he was the smallest he was always pushing his legs against the other boys and complaining he had no space.

We paid at the booth to go into Yellowstone. Once into Yellowstone there was a small town we loaded up on snacks in the gift shop as we would be eating snacks for lunch that day. At the town there were all kinds of board walks around natural hot springs. We parked and walked around different springs. These were not the swimming type of springs and there were loads of signs of stories of people who walked on what looked like the ground but its actually a super thin crust and in only a minute or less you are completely boiled alive. It seemed to me that there were more stories about how many people died in each respective spring that we walked around then information about the spring itself. I am sure that is not the way it was, but when you are reading about all the people who fell in that is what you tend to remember. We spent an hour or two putzing around and looking at all the sights. Then we piled back in the car. We drove near some hot springs that people can go in beside a river and such, but unfortunately all of these were closed due to Covid lockdown, which was sad because I am sure we would have all liked to go dip or feet or go for a swim in the hot parts of the river in the middle of the winter. We had gotten a map of Yellowstone from the giftshop with interesting places on it, the types of animals you can see and the boys wanted to see the petrified trees or forest. So we drove for another hour or two on the winding and icy road. There were not many people in Yellowstone in the winter, only a few cars were on the roads once you left the little tourist trap near the entrance. Every once in a while we would see 2 or 3 cars pulled over. Whenever we saw this we got out of the vehicle to see what everyone was looking at. In this manner we were able to see bighorn sheep on the side of the road, an elk, a fox, and pronghorn deer. Buffalo were everywhere, obviously and we would stop when some were close to the road. Spotting animals from the car was also fun and the kids would put their games down and try to see the next animal. In this way we were able to spot a wolf on the side of the mountain.

We made it to the petrified trees, there was evidence boulders everywhere from a past volcanic eruption. My wife pointed out that Yellowstone is on a dormant supervolcano that could erupt at any time and destroy life as we know it on the planet. Thanks for those thoughts babe. We parked the car need the petrified point of interest and everyone got out. John and I went up ahead and the wife and the boy were lagging behind. I was in awe of the evidence of the flood with the boulders everywhere and told the boys about God’s great creation and how you could see right here in Yellowstone evidence of the flood. Steam was coming out of different parts of the snow and there was a little stream in the snow by the boardwalk. John and I were staring at the steam and the river and ice and looking at the petrified trees sign and the boardwalk waiting for the others to catch up. A group of people came down and we asked how far it was to the petrified tree. They said it was a mile hike along the trail and it wasn’t that great. So we read the sign, my wife and everyone caught up we looked at the steam and then decided than a hike was not on the agenda for the day since it was getting dark.

Buffalo

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m-_c75doQpA

https://youtube.com/shorts/KQvdWtDnuds?feature=share

Bighorn Sheep

https://youtube.com/shorts/r3ncGgtN2j0?feature=share

Fox

https://youtube.com/shorts/VYsAliz-yxk?feature=share

Elk

https://youtube.com/shorts/C6ILYdFYpgM?feature=share

4th Day

Wake Up -- Drive to Red Lodge Mountain -- Skiing & Ski School -- Lunch -- Bad Pizza -- Slept thru New Year’s Eve

The third day of the Montana trip had arrived and it was time to ski. Once again it was the hustle and bustle in the early AM, my wife was running around like a chicken with no head as the saying goes trying to get the boys up and getting Mr. Cranky Pants up and dressed.The two older boys were getting increasingly harder to get out of bed and the 8 year old when dressed was walking like a ZOMBIE from the apocalypse that you had to keep your eye on lest he walk into a wall or slip on stray ice in the parking lot. He was the type that when fully snowsuited up his arms would naturally go straight from his body. Everyone needed their warmest gear and we had to be waterproof cause if you fell down and got snow on you, you would be wet the rest of the day and therefore freezing. There was no getting snow suits from Red Lodge mountain; it was what we had brought with us.

It was about a 2 hour drive to Red Lodge Mountain from Livingston and in the opposite direction of Yellowstone. We had wanted to ski Big Sky or even the mountain in Bozeman but since it was COVID 2020 the only mountain with availability was Red Lodge and we had booked it. We were calling other mountains to try and get in, but there was no luck. It was a pleasant drive on clean roads in the valleys of Montana. We were all super excited when we finally saw Red Lodge Mountain that we would start climbing up the winding roads in the car.. The good part about it being COVID was that there were little to no lines with the skiing and no crowding and that was a blessing even though we had to drive further. Since we had went into the ditch everyone in the car was still nervous and it was a thousand times annoying every time one of the kids or my wife commented on my driving.

Once up at the top of the mountain we headed to the shop, even though we had planned and bought snow jackets and gloves and everything in Florida at Marshalls and TJ Max for deals. We were still short a few supplies. My wife didn’t have a ski mask and we didn’t have gloves. The two boys both had gloves and all their gear, because they were planning on using it later on another trip to Virgina. Tickets, gloves, ski rentals and poles set us back a hefty amount but as we only do one big trip and we had all been cooped up due to COVID it was worth the splurge. We still have most of our gear except the 8 year old who will now weed a new set. We got in que to get our boots fitted and then one by one we met outside the building. Lolo (8yo nickname) was ready and so I headed out to put the kiddo in ski school while my wife patiently waited to be the last fitted for boots and skis. We stuck Lolo in ski school and I got a lowdown on how the program worked. It would take 2 hours per school. So I got him 2 ski schools and he would be in ski school until lunch. After lunch we would take him skiing with us and see how he would do.

It had been awhile since I had skied a difficult mountain like this. Mountains in the Rockies are a lot harder than the mountains out east. RedLodge Mountain is in the Beartooth Mountain range and is 9,416 feet. The base is 7,016 feet. This means that there is 2400 feet of vertical skiing, which is pretty awesome. We looked up how high parachuters jump from a plane. They go about 10-12,000 feet so the summit is really high especially for someone like me from Florida. Excitedly, me and my son John looked for my wife and my other son. We couldn’t find them so we got on the ski lift. The chairs were cold, the ski lifts were incredibly high. They were scary. I never remember ski lifts being so high. My wife later complained that she was terrified on the ski lifts and that Brett wouldn’t stop hitting her with his ski and scaring the daylights out of her. Looking down and then saying things like: If we fell we would die for sure. John and I got to the top of the lift and looked around for Phoebe and Brett. We finally found them, smiles plastered on all our faces except my wife's, who looked more like a ghost that a smiling vacationer that she was. Me and John took off down the mountain. Our ski abilities were pretty good and we stopped at the bottom of the first hill. Brett was still skiing with the V formation of his skis and was having a hard time controlling his speed. He still made it down to the bottom next. All three of us were at the bottom waiting for Phoebe to come down. We saw her lying on the mountain staring up and the clouds. Did she even know how to ski?

Yes, a few minutes later she got up, brushed off the snow and skied down the mountain like a PRO. We all congratulated her and laughed and asked her what was wrong. She said she was overcome by how huge the mountain was, how cold it was, and she wasn’t sure if she could do it. Then she just decided she would do it and got up and skied to the bottom. She told us, she would need some time to break herself into the mountain and that she would stick to green and blue runs at the most. So we all skied a few Green and Blues and boy, the green runs were very hard, the blue runs super hard. After a few times skiing with them, we decided that we would go to the top of the mountain. Why wouldn’t we, there were 6 chairlifts and it took 2 chair lifts to get to the very top. John and I got to the very top and stood amazement at the sheer height of where we were. Once at the very top it was only blacks down and one blue, it was so steep and so icy we took the blue but that felt like a black and that nearly killed us.

We found Phoebe and Brett after skiing some of the harder things and said that Lolo would probably be done with ski school. We decided we would go take a look at how he was doing and then go for lunch at the lodge. We got to the ski school and saw Logan skiing with no poles no problem, he might have been better than his mom and Brett. We scooped him up and he was dying to try the mountain out. Ski school sticks you to the bunny hill and that is it. So everyone in tow, we went to the lodge to have lunch. We got into the wooden chalet style building and found a table. We all ripped off our gear and undid our boots and jackets relieved to get out of the steaminess. Sitting down we laughed and talked about the mountain and my wife went to get us lunch. We had chili dogs, hot chocolate and french fries. Logan was begging to get out of ski school and do the mountain, but my wife was too petrified to get him out. No, she would protest. I can’t even barely get myself on and off those crazy ski lifts. I am terrified to take him on there. So Logan to his disappointment was put back into ski school for the afternoon. We decided we would do 3 more hours after lunch since we still had to drive back. I reassured the little man that I would come and get him even though his mom was a chicken. Everyone was making fun of chicken mom, and so I told him I would get him for the last hour and ski with him. True to my word we all went back up the mountain. Brett was proud of the progress he was making, John and I were skiing blues and enjoying a lot of challenging terrain and my chicken wife was practicing her technique with Brett on the green runs. They tried a blue one near the end. When I went to get them the second time and went and scooped Logan, I once again offered my wife to take the boy on the mountain. She clutched her chest and said she couldn't cause she was scared and one of the other boys made chicken noises. So I took the little man on the lift and told him we would do a green run. Me and him got on and went to the top. He was 8 and pretty small but super excited. He was holding onto the pole so hard that when it was time to get off the lift I had to pull him. Later my wife was saying that she was very glad it was me and not her on the lift with him because they both would have fallen off. Logan was pretty good on the mountain, we did about three more runs and then it was time to go and turn in our skis and drive back home.

Heading down the mountain we saw a lot of deer in the town. The boys loved seeing the deer and kept talking about hunting and how the deer only come close to people when it isn’t hunting season. We got back to our hotel and ate the worst PIZZA in the history of PIZZA. You think when you go on vacation and when you are someplace as beautiful as Montana that the food will be good. Where we are from the food is amazing. Florida has tons of great places to eat. Really! But not Livingston, the pizza we ordered tasted like they got it out of a box from Wal-Mart and then microwaved it. Even the hungry 8 year old wouldn’t eat it. Now it’s not my recommendation to do this, but we left a terrible review (which they removed) of negative a thousand stars. We laughed and forced the bad pizza down. Then even though it was New Year’s Eve we all went to bed with no celebration because we were so tired.

5th Day

Explore Bozeman -- Museum of the Rockies-- Planetarium - Indoor hot springs -- Chinese Food -- Outdoor hot springs - Rib and Chop

On the Fourth day, after a day of skiing and a day of snowmobiling, we were going to explore Bozeman. There was a huge museum there with lots of dinosaurs and well all kids, and even adults love dinosaurs. As a strong believer and Christian I don’t believe in the timeline that they are millions of years old, but I do believe that they are a part of God’s creation and have gone extinct. I look at the world through the lens of a believer and I know that God created everything. It was an easy day in Bozeman and we took a couple of pictures outside the museum and inside but I am not even sure at this point where all those pictures went. We saw many different dinosaurs and enjoyed the museum thoroughly. It’s fun going to the museum with the kids and the wife. I am pulling her to look at things, and everyone is talking to everyone else about something neat that they saw. We were learning about how fossils were made and how much bone is left in the fossils and all the different kinds of dinosaurs that roamed Montana before the flood. We went into the gift shop and my wife bought a pair of binoculars for Lolo so that when we went back to Yellowstone there would be less fighting over the one pair that we had.

We went and watched a movie in the Planetarium that was in the Rocky Mountain Museum. It was about the sun and as usual, I came out feeling the amazing awesomeness of God’s perfect creation of the sun and the Earth. The magnetic field of our planet put there by God protecting us is perfection. We had to wear special polarized glasses and the seats tilted completely backwards so it feels as if you are looking at the sky. One of the boys dozed off during the movie and we had to wake up the slobbering turkey at the end. After the movie we were going to head to a hot spring. We found a highly recommended hot spring on the internet. This one had a gym and several different pools. We piled the boys in the rental SUV and took off to this hotspring. I really didn’t know what to expect as I had never been to a hot spring, but when in Rome you do as the Romans do. So we did our first hotspring. This one was like a pool. There was a huge warm pool, several smaller hot pools and polar pools. There was also a steam room and sauna. The steam room and the sauna were for everyone. My honey was pinching her nose in the sauna because it stank like BO. We went into the steam room and the boys went from pool to pool and were daring each other to take a polar plunge. We had all heard of the benefits of the hot springs and how people come from all over the world to go to the pools or hot springs because of the healing properties of the dissolved minerals in the water.

I myself jumped in the pools and played with the boys. I tried all the different rooms and pools and I wasn’t that impressed but I supposed it was OK. I was surprised because I thought a spring would be an outdoor pool, but this was a swimming pool that piped water in with a pump. Then they mixed it with different amount of water to get different temperature pools.We played for awhile but it was more of a sit and relax type place and me and the boys wanted to run around and let loose a little. It had a spa/gym atmosphere. So I decided it was time to go, rounded up all the boys and we headed to find some good Chinese food and eat it back at the hotel.

We found a chinese place in Livingston that was open, remember a lot of things were closed due to New Year’s Day and other things were closed due to Covid. We stopped and picked up our take out, headed back to the boys room upstairs in the hotel and ate. Once again, the food was super sub par. After eating, the boys all wanted to go explore more. So we cleaned up and got back in the SUV. They wanted to go to an outdoor hot spring. Brett was dying to go to the outdoor hot spring and had found one 30 miles away. It was a little far, but Honeybear wanted to go to, and all the boys wanted to go… So I said yes!

I am so glad we did. We were full and we had a great day. This hotspring that Brett had found was nestled in between two mountains and a river. The sun was setting and the hot spring was outdoors. There were tiki torches and big rock boulder gardens. You entered what looked like a trailer. Logan’s bathing suit had gotten left behind because it froze in the car. The only bathing suits they had were way too big. We got the smallest size and tied it, and told him not to jump to much or his drawers would fall off. It is hard to describe the ambience of this place. It was simply beautiful. We congratulated Brett on his awesome find and enjoyed the view and enjoyed the water.

We swam in the multiple pools in the starlight and torchlight. Logan insisted on splashing everyone when we wanted to rest. So we took turns entertaining him and throwing him in the water. The air was foggy when you breathed out and steam rose up from the pools. They had underwater lights that twinkled like the stars in the sky. It was a little piece of heaven on Earth and I was so glad that everyone convinced me to go when I wanted to go to bed because everyone had taken a toll on me.

Since we had terrible pizza and terrible chinese food, we were in the mood for something good. We asked a few locals where a good place to eat was, and they told us the Rib and Chop house. We called and there was no seating available so we ordered for pick up. Finally a local meal that was amazing! We enjoyed good food for a change and since the Rib and Chop was full, we ate in the dining area of the hotel. We set up the tables and put down napkins and ate a family style meal there. Then we sent the boys up to their room. Logan was terrorizing the two boys and every once in awhile they would call us and beg us to take him. We would say no, deal with the kiddo and go to sleep!

6th Day

Yellowstone -

This was our last day in Montana. We decided that we would go for a ride in the SUV and that we would go on a hunt for a Moose. Many of the roads were closed due to snow, so we couldn't drive to see the Old faithful. We drove and admired animals and searched and searched for moose. We heard that there was a moose in a certain area in the winter in the park. So we drove there. We finally found the moose. You couldn’t tell if it was male or female and it was sitting way off in the distance in snow. This was also an eventful day where we stopped in a little town, ate sandwiches, made some yellow snow, saw lots of animals, played a lot of tunes, and drove to the other side of Yellowstone.

On the flight back in the chicago airport me and the wife got a plate of garlic fried brussel sprouts slathered with parmesan cheese and then all of a sudden we had to board the plane. There was no way we could hide the smell of the delicious and super stinky dish, we felt bad because people were making faces at us. We tried to eat it quickly to get rid of the stench and at one point a lady asked to change her seat so she wasn’t sitting next to us. We were trying to be circumspect but Brett kept saying, “Why did you order something so stinky.” over and over again. Thanks Brett for calling us out, that was pretty much the last fiasco and we were on our way back home. All in all it was a great trip with the family a super fun trip and I would go again.

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