I hoped to blog along the way but the camera died about the 3rd day into our trip and the charger is at home. We still had Geoff's camera phone for photos, thank goodness.
I can't keep up with this blog!
Friday, March 29, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
La Serena to Los Angeles, Chile
March was crazy for Geoff.
Well- it went something like this. Ray Greer came down for the entire month of March or most of it. He and Geoff were all over Chile and Brazil making sales visits so it was a pretty busy month for Geoff. Me and the kids planned a road trip to southern Chile for spring break so we were pretty excited to get Geoff back....for a little while, anyway.
Me and the kids left La Serena and drove to Santiago on Friday where we met up with Geoff. The big news is that we are staying for what looks like another year! Woohoo! So we thought it might be a good idea to get a feel for housing, neighborhoods and church community in Santiago. We think it might be much cheaper. So we spent Fri, Sat and part of Sun in Santiago. We have some mixed feelings about that- but that's for another post.
Sunday after church we left for Los Angeles. Not the Cali kind but the Chile kind. First we had to trade in our rental van. The one we picked up the day before had all kinds of problems and there was no way we were going to travel long distance with it. The battery was going dead- we could hardly get it started, the back seat wouldn't lock down, the side window wouldn't close, the overhead lights wouldn't turn on, there were chunks of tire missing and the doors wouldn't lock!!! So we traded vans. About 3 hours into the trip the rental car company called Geoff and asked where the keys to the other van were. We had them.
Well, about an hour north of LA it starts to get really green and beautiful! So pretty-- but I think next time I would like to just drive through Los Angeles and not make it a stop over! The surrounding area was beautiful. We had not made any hotel reservations because we are winging this whole trip! From Santiago, Los Angeles is about a 5 hour drive. So we get into the city and can't find anything that is available for 6 people or within our budget. Well, we did. I'm going to try to do my best to describe it. I wish we had a photo. It was on a very busy one way road with all kinds of little shops and stores. There was a little sign that said, "hotel". But we didn't know where the hotel was. Between 2 shops there was a doorway that led upstairs to... a hotel. We stayed there. It was mostly a hostel but we ended up with private rooms and did not share a bathroom so ours was a hotel room. We had to get 2 rooms so we had the 3 boys stay in one room. Me, Geoff and Ash stayed in the other. I didn't know until the next morning that somebody staying in the hotel had to go tell my boys to stop being so loud! urggghhh!
Before we could leave the next day we had to send some money to Geoff's guys. Geoff got into the bank and couldn't find his personal bank debit/credit card. We searched EVERYWHERE for it. Still can't find it. I'm really glad we discovered it when we did so we could cancel the card quickly. We used it just the night before to take out cash. Anyway-- what a pain.
Then we had to find a Chile Express to mail back the rental van keys. Finally we were on our way to the next stop-- Pucon.
I just decided that I better break up this spring break into different posts.
The only photo I have is this. Not too interesting but we wanted to show how green it is. This is somewhere between Santiago and Los Angeles.
Well- it went something like this. Ray Greer came down for the entire month of March or most of it. He and Geoff were all over Chile and Brazil making sales visits so it was a pretty busy month for Geoff. Me and the kids planned a road trip to southern Chile for spring break so we were pretty excited to get Geoff back....for a little while, anyway.
Me and the kids left La Serena and drove to Santiago on Friday where we met up with Geoff. The big news is that we are staying for what looks like another year! Woohoo! So we thought it might be a good idea to get a feel for housing, neighborhoods and church community in Santiago. We think it might be much cheaper. So we spent Fri, Sat and part of Sun in Santiago. We have some mixed feelings about that- but that's for another post.
Sunday after church we left for Los Angeles. Not the Cali kind but the Chile kind. First we had to trade in our rental van. The one we picked up the day before had all kinds of problems and there was no way we were going to travel long distance with it. The battery was going dead- we could hardly get it started, the back seat wouldn't lock down, the side window wouldn't close, the overhead lights wouldn't turn on, there were chunks of tire missing and the doors wouldn't lock!!! So we traded vans. About 3 hours into the trip the rental car company called Geoff and asked where the keys to the other van were. We had them.
Well, about an hour north of LA it starts to get really green and beautiful! So pretty-- but I think next time I would like to just drive through Los Angeles and not make it a stop over! The surrounding area was beautiful. We had not made any hotel reservations because we are winging this whole trip! From Santiago, Los Angeles is about a 5 hour drive. So we get into the city and can't find anything that is available for 6 people or within our budget. Well, we did. I'm going to try to do my best to describe it. I wish we had a photo. It was on a very busy one way road with all kinds of little shops and stores. There was a little sign that said, "hotel". But we didn't know where the hotel was. Between 2 shops there was a doorway that led upstairs to... a hotel. We stayed there. It was mostly a hostel but we ended up with private rooms and did not share a bathroom so ours was a hotel room. We had to get 2 rooms so we had the 3 boys stay in one room. Me, Geoff and Ash stayed in the other. I didn't know until the next morning that somebody staying in the hotel had to go tell my boys to stop being so loud! urggghhh!
Before we could leave the next day we had to send some money to Geoff's guys. Geoff got into the bank and couldn't find his personal bank debit/credit card. We searched EVERYWHERE for it. Still can't find it. I'm really glad we discovered it when we did so we could cancel the card quickly. We used it just the night before to take out cash. Anyway-- what a pain.
Then we had to find a Chile Express to mail back the rental van keys. Finally we were on our way to the next stop-- Pucon.
I just decided that I better break up this spring break into different posts.
The only photo I have is this. Not too interesting but we wanted to show how green it is. This is somewhere between Santiago and Los Angeles.
Inthinc in the Community
We are excited and happy to say that Inthinc's first humanitarian efforts in La Serena, Chile were a huge success! Inthinc employees, their families and friends joined efforts to help a children's home in La Serena. We gathered much needed supplies such as hygiene products, all kinds of school supplies, arts and craft supplies and food items and delivered them to the children's home. We had prepared ourselves with projects and fun things to do with the kids during our visit. We had a reading corner, some games to play, a craft project and paper airplanes. The kids just LOVED it! We stayed for about an hour and a half and thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent with them. To be honest I was not sure how all of our projects were going to go. The kids couldn't get enough of all of it! I was pleasantly surprised at their interest in the books and the craft project was a huge hit. The boys were amazed at the paper airplanes. Most of all the kids just needed the love and friendship. The hard part was leaving. I knew it would be hard. There were a couple of kids who were crying as we left. We can't wait to return!
Here are a few photos. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the property for the safety of the children. There were several moments I wish we could have captured!
Here are a few photos. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the property for the safety of the children. There were several moments I wish we could have captured!
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