If you’re reading this I’m . . . . .
It’s Thursday morning and you’re reading my blog. But right now, as I’m writing, it is last Wednesday, June 10. I know this sounds a little like a science fiction time travel thing, but I have no way of knowing what will happen in the ensuing week. I will also confess to being a little superstitious. That’s why I didn’t finish the first sentence. In fact, I rarely write about things that might happen. Just a
little quirk because I don’t have any others.But tomorrow, or last Thursday, depending on how you look at it, I leave for a week long trip to the Central American country. I got back last night, I hope. So I decided to write the blog a week early.
With any luck I had a good time taking my daughter through the jungle trails, snorkeling in the Pacific, wrestling crocodiles (maybe more of a spectator) and generally having a good time.
In the photo on the right that's me in the front left.
Traveling with family can be challenging, especially to another country. I’ve been to Costa Rica twice. One time I was search by Costa Rican Customs. And I don’t mean a pat down and move along search. I also forgot my passport and snuck though immigration. I don’t recommend it. This is just a simple family trip which should be less eventful.
In the photo to the left I'm in the Tulin River. There's a special on one of the nature channels about the Crocodiles in the Tulin River.
A couple of years ago my Priest’s wife (we’re Episcopalians and allow that kind of thing) asked if I would consider being a chaperone on a mission trip to Central America. She knew I had been there while with the DEA and speak rudimentary Spanish. When I told her I was nervous about going back she said, “Are you worried about drug dealers wanting to get you?” And I replied, “No, I’m worried about a bunch of seventeen year old blonde kinds running around.”
Now I’m bringing a blonde kid with me.
If I answer the comments, I made it back safely. If I don’t, someone check on me.
What’s an adventurous, intentional or not, trip you have taken?
I went to Helsinki and Leningrad in 1974 and came back with a wife.
ReplyDeleteNo lie.
Wow! That beats any travel story I can come up with. I once visited Haiti and came back with a large hand-carved wooden urn, which prompted me to say, "What was I thinking?"
ReplyDeleteThe summer after my junior year of high school I went on a mission trip to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. We left Ohio the day the Indian Affairs rep had told the village we would be arriving. They weren't all that impressed when we turned up two days late.
ReplyDeleteWe were given two buildings to use, a church (that apparently wasn't used for anything else) and a meeting hall. Right after we arrived, a group of men came and dug a hole for our outhouse. Fortunately, it was a two-seater. Not that two of us were ever in it at the same time.
We also had a couple of tents, but after one night in one of those, I started sleeping in the church with a couple of the guys. It's very windy in South Dakota at night.
A couple of the older kids threw rocks at us the first couple of nights, the neighbor's husband was beating her and turned out to be a drug dealer. The kids all wanted to know how old we were and when they found out my friend was 18 they were very excited that she was getting her government check.
The first lunch meal we served the kids during bible school we had the entire village show up. Apparently the word was out that the church folk were giving out free food. We had been told that everyone in the village stole their water from the teacher's house, we ended up doing the same. It was just easier than driving an hour (and usually getting lost). We did feel guilty about it though.
At the end of the week we went to airport and saw him off to Parris Island-two years later I was writing him letters as he was fighting in the Gulf War.
It was an eye-opening summer for a group of suburban kids from Ohio....
I don't know, is this an adventure? I chaperoned a 100+ high school marching band to Disney World in April. One concussion, several cases of dehydration, one or two cases of the flu and one broken nose--of one of the chaperones!
ReplyDeleteWhew, I'm back.
ReplyDeleteGood stories.
Impressive Paul.
Norby, that's an adventure.
we had a serious good time seeing things we'd never seen.
We're all wiped out today.
Jim
The summer of 1988, my husband and I were chaperones on a student tour group spending six weeks touring the US and Eastern Canada on two busses and two chase vans. One hundred and six of the MOST over-privileged Valley kids, none of whom had ever heard the word NO in their entire lives. We had been married three years at that point, and those kids are the first 106 reasons we have none. I would elaborate, but I haven't completely shed the recurring nightmares.
ReplyDeleteI went to London, and came back with practical (but definitely NOT practiced!) knowledge on how to pick up a john from a former sex worker.
ReplyDeletei went to london and came back with a husband and two kids
ReplyDelete