a new dawn

I am not a planner. 

Rather than set out a life plan, I have surfed the waves of events as they came crashing ashore.  Whenever I tried to make plans, I heard God chuckling.

I put that philosophy to the test on Monday.  It certainly started well -- as you can see by the photograph above.  I was up early enough to watch the sun start its day over the Fort Lauderdale beaches.

But Monday was not to be a Fort Lauderdale day.  My cousin, Dan, and his wife, Patricia, drove down to Lake Placid to discuss a road trip.

I knew it was going to be a good day.  They were supposed to call me when they arrived.  Just as Roy and and I were getting out of the car, my telephone rang.  It was Dan. 

While I was talking with him, a couple came up behind me asking for directions. I tried to ignore them because I was trying to hear where Dan was.

Of course, as you have already guessed, it was Dan and Patty.  In what seemed to be a hundred acres of parking, they had managed to park right beside us.
 

So off we went to a Colombian restaurant (Patty was born in Colombia) to conduct a bit of family business --and to have a great plate of Colombian food, something I have not had since the early 1970s.  Because it was getting crowded, we drove over to a huge swap meet site that once housed a permanent circus -- before the ASPCA intervened.

And here is what we discussed.  Dan and Patty are quite the long-range travelers.  But they want me to join them on a three-month road trip from Florida to the southern border of Panama -- and then back to Florida.

I had considered several trips in Mexico this winter, but Dan's proposal is enticing.  I will see a good deal of southern Mexico I have not yet seen.  And then drive down the Pacific coast of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

It will almost be like turning myself into Vasco Núñez de Balboa - without all of that bothersome raping and pillaging.  I just hope I can keep my head a bit longer that Balboa kept his.

There is nothing definite yet.  And I have no idea where I will join this quest.  But I am willing to break my no-planning rule -- just a bit.

And if I need to sit and wait, maybe I can buy one of these at the swap meet.  If I correctly understand what it is, it will make every man who has ever been asked: "Do these pants make me look fat?"  Because the correct answer will be: "You bet they do, dear.  And you look fine."