Escape from Hurricane Dean

We were on our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic enjoying the beach, snorkeling, eating, drinking etc. All great until Thursday morning. I'm in the hotel room, I've been making multiple trips to the bathroom, I feel like I've been punched in the stomach and E is flipping through tv channels keeping me company. CNN is on and they are chattering away about Texas and tropical storm ERIN, blah blah, then they say ever so enthusiastically and the first hurricane of the season! Hurricane DEAN is in the Atltantic and gaining strength and headed to the Carribean. What-say that again? They show the projection path. First estimates, say it will hit the Dominican by Saturday morning. We are to fly out then. E begins calling around, can we get out earlier? Maybe but probably not. We decide to leave our resort on Friday to be sure we make it to the airport. Our resort is about 2 hours from Santo Domingo and we don't want to get stuck at the resort. As we check out and arrange rides to the airport everybody seems confused. Why do we want to leave early? We keep explaining about the storm, all the staff say, "Don't worry, it won't hit us!" European's are everywhere and still making plans for snorkel trips for Saturday. Um I don't think so....

We get to the airport and can't fly out so we stay all night there. I tell E to pretend he is on the Amazing Race. The ticket guy says, "You plan to stay at the airport?" and then just shakes his head. We do, we play cards, read, eat burger king, seats are comfy but not designed to allow laying down. The airport is very modern and nice. The cleaning crews work hard throughout the night. But it is right on the water and there are windows everywhere. By 4 am the AA airlines ticket window opens, by 6 am the Spirit airlines opens, people begin to trickle in. By 8:30 our Delta man is back to check our bags. We go and wait at the gate. The incoming plane lands and the pilot comes in, he speaks to the man at the gate, I think we need to get this plane off the ground as soon as possible. People come and buy out the first class and all available seats. A man describes driving to the airport, the huge waves crashing over the highway, boulders being pushed onto the road, a washed out bridge. I'm very glad we left the resort when we did! It has started to rain and the wind is just starting. We actual leave an hour early. I sigh with relief, good bye Santo Domingo! We fly to ATL and then Chicago. We stay overnight with his grandma there and she has a bottle of good Oregon pinot gris open for us. In all E says were up for about 40 hours (minus a couple small cat naps 15 minutes at a time). We drove home, finally we are home. I feel so much better and it is just the best feeling to be home. I enjoy traveling and seeing new places but it always nice to return to home.