Vacation

Roadtrip Day 1: Texas & New Mexico

Mom and I began our Crazy Summer Roadtrip A La Thelma And Louise But Without The Murders and Driving Off Cliffs this morning.(I’ve posted my photos on Flickr.) It’s funny how your perception of how long you’re spending in the car (or, I suppose, any mode of transportation) is relative to your total travel time. For instance, the 4-1/2 hour drive to Houston from Dallas seems to take absolutely forever, yet the eleven hours we spent in the car today seemed to go by fairly quickly, and I think that it’s because I know we have another three or four full days still to drive. So does 1/4 of a journey always feel like 1/4 of a journey, no matter how long that journey is? At any rate, we spent most of today in Texas. I’ve lived here my whole life (sigh) and I still marvel at the fact that one can drive literally all day and still be in this same damn state. That being said, West Texas skies are amazing. So big. Here is the route for today: 635 to 35 in Dallas.35 to 380 in Denton.380 to 287 in Decatur.287 to 40 in Amarillo.40 to 385 in Vega.385 to 87 in Dalhart.87 to 25 in Raton, NM.And 25 to Trinidad, CO, which is where we are right now. Just outside of Amarillo, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch. I have wanted to see Cadillac Ranch ever since I first heard of it years ago, and now I am very happy that I can cross this one off my Must Do Before I Die list. It seems a little less “larger than life” than I was expecting (Cadillacs 20 feet tall? Not so much), but it was still pretty cool. Normally I really like New Mexico, but today it […]

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ShinyGirl Across America

Our new web designer started at work this week. There’s a lot for him to absorb but he’s doing a fine job so far. I’m having to learn how to be a boss, which is kind of weird. I’m spending a lot of my time this week training him, and I’m not getting much of my own work done. However, after tomorrow I do not have to care for a week and a half. I’m leaving on a roadtrip with my mom from Dallas to Seattle. Two women, a hyperactive labrador retriever, and an angry cat, 5 days, 2500 miles. There was a slight change in plans last week, and now we are driving Mom’s comfy Honda Accord instead of Dad’s small-cab stick-shift pickup truck, with the dog in the middle and the cat carrier under the passenger’s feet! I plan to take lots of pictures, stop at weird roadside attractions, and blog from the road! Love you, laptop. 🙂

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Paradise is exactly like…

… where you are right now, only much, much better. I keep saying that to myself, but there would have to be a whole lot of “better” applied to Texas to make it compare with Belize. Or at least, the parts of Belize that are fancied up for tourists. I absolutely loved vacationing there, but in a way it makes me feel very strange and somewhat guilty. The resort that we were at was the definition of “tropical paradise,” with your every need taken care of and the surroundings groomed to perfection. But just a few miles away, in Hopkins Village or any number of similar villages in “the real Belize,” the poverty is heartbreaking. Families live in 100 square foot shacks made of rotting wood, corrugated tin, and palm thatch roofs. If you’re lucky, your house is raised up on stilts to keep it away from the water that perpetually puddles on the ground in this rain-soaked country. The minimum wage is approximately $1 (US). Much of the time, I really felt like a “rich white American” intruding in their country — out of place and guilty for lounging around at a luxury resort all week. But is it a good thing that my money is flowing into their economy? Do I actually help the Belizeans by contributing to their tourism industry?

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Belize: Day Eight

Today was our last day in Belize, and it doesn’t really count because it’s a travel day. We didn’t do a whole lot else. After breakfast (Doc with a special-order omelette and a parting glass of grapefruit juice, me with my usual fruit and cheese), we settled our bill at the front desk, left an envelope with gratuities for the entire staff as well as extra for a few specific people, and retrieved our dive equipment from the dive shop. Luckily none of our stuff was taken in the theft a few days ago (Giovanni’s regulator was stolen, along with someone else’s BCD and I think also a wetsuit or two). We packed as best we could, resigning ourselves to the fact that we’d have two suitcases full of damp musty-smelling clothes. We had to be out of our room by 11 a.m., check-out time, but our van to the airport wasn’t leaving until 1 p.m., so we brought our luggage down to the lobby and sat with Doug, Nish, Kurt, and Megan until their van left at 12. We found out that, since we didn’t arrive until dinnertime on our first day, our lunch meal was included on our last day. So we went ahead and ordered lunch, and by the time we were done, it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes to the staff, loaded into the van with Lorenzo, and headed for Dangriga. Our puddlejumper at Dangriga was about 3o minutes late arriving, which was fine since we had plenty of time before our connecting flight. We sat in the Dangriga airport and read the local papers, which were interesting in that they contained little hard news and some soft core pornography in the guise of a “love” column. In Belize City, we visited the […]

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Belize: Day Seven

This morning we left at 7:30 for a full-day Mayan history tour of two major temple complexes, Xunantunich and Cahal Pech. Both sites are near the Guatemalan border, over 2 hours away. Something like 30 people signed up for this tour, so we had to pile into three vans. We didn’t time it right, and all the vans were nearly full by the time we got to the loading area. Doug and Nish climbed into one of the vans, and Kat and Brett followed us to one of the others. There was room for all four of us, but they spied Tom sitting in the front seat and they turned and hauled ass towards the third van, where there was room for only two. So Doc and I lost the battle and had to take another Tom bullet for the team. Surprisingly, Tom made little comment the entire trip, although I feared we were off to a bad start when he asked Lorenzo, the driver, as soon we got on the highway, “So, what kind of engine you got in here?” The morning was very misty with lots of thick white low clouds, especially as we headed into the hills in Central Belize. We saw at least a dozen rainbows, very vivid and close to us. Some of them ended right in the roadway directly ahead of us. Lorenzo told us that in Belize, rather than finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, legend has it that you’ll find a boa constrictor. We stopped at a citrus factory along the way (and by “stopped” I mean “pulled over to the side of the road for 2 minutes so we could look out the van windows”) and a tourist trap gift shop that I guess the resort […]

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Belize: Day Six

This morning I did not have any adventures planned, yet I got up early anyway. This whole trip I have been getting up before 8 a.m., on my own. I suppose it’s probably largely due to the fact that we have been going to sleep somewhat early (11 p.m. or so). Doc went diving in the morning, along with Brett, Kurt, and Megan. I think that he’s really enjoying it. The divemasters have cancelled the trips to Blue Hole and Glover’s Reef, so all the divers are just staying on the barrier reef this week, which I guess is still probably pretty damn cool. I puttered around this morning taking pictures, and then took the laptop to the lobby so I could upload some of my photos to flickr. Even though I technically have an internet connection while here, I haven’t really been using it as much as I thought I would have. I mean, I know I’ve mentioned getting online for three or four days now, but when you compare it to my normal online schedule (averaging about 70 hours per week, I would say, between work and home), it’s nothing. The connection is slower than molasses in January, but I don’t know that that is necessarily a factor. I have not missed TV at all, I have not once had the urge to make a phone call, and I also haven’t wanted to listen to any music on my iPod. It’s weird how my nearly-total disconnect from the fast-paced hurry hurry world of my normal life, where I constantly attempt to absorb as much audiovisual information as possible, happened so quickly and easily. Maybe that means that when the apocalypse comes, I will survive because I adapt well, and society will value me because I have skills that […]

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Intro to tropical paradise

I am writing this while sitting on the balcony patio of my spacious condo-like beachfront cabana room at Hamanasi Resort in Belize. I’m about 100 feet from the Caribbean Sea, whose waves produce a sound so soothing that it’s caused me to fall asleep on the beach on two separate occasions. It’s really quite wonderful here. The temperature has been hovering between about 75 and 90, with 100% humidity, which somehow doesn’t seem as oppressive in a tropical location as it does back at home. The ocean breezes cool everything down. I’ve been wearing my swimsuit all week, just in case I want to go in the water. So far I’ve been snorkeling and Doc has been diving twice, and we did a very strenuous hike up a mountain yesterday. We’re having a great time with our friends, and have even made some new ones. I am writing down our adventures in detail, which I will edit and post when I return to reality in a few days, and I’ll also post my photos to Flickr.

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Belize: Day Four

I decided to go snorkeling again this morning, while Doc, Kat, and Brett went diving along with Doug and Nish. The boat ride over was annoying because I ended up sitting next to Tom, while the rest of Tom’s party sat on the other side of the boat. No sooner had he sat down then he immediately turned to me and launched into a story about some friend of his and volcanic sequences and moss and people spending thousands on hotel rooms and the geology bonehead of the year award. Seriously. What the fuck?! And he told the story as if I should know the people he was talking about! I tuned out and just made little “hmm” noises every few minutes or gave vague smiles, while trying to show as little interest as possible. Thank god I had my sunglasses on. When it seemed like his story was possibly winding down (or maybe that was me simply giving up), I gave a final smile and turned to Giovanni, the dive/snorkel master sitting on the other side of me, and began a conversation with him instead. Rude, maybe, but it seems apparent that Tom does not understand social cues such as obvious boredom and discomfort in his “victims.” The boat dropped us off on South Water Caye and we walked around to the other side of the island. Tom was quite eager to get in the water, so he walked on ahead of the rest of us. The sad part is, the rest of his family was making fun of him behind his back, rolling their eyes and making snide comments. I almost felt sorry for him. At one point he turned around and said (and I quote) “Everyone, please note the sand underneath your feet. Now, you’ll notice that […]

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Belize: Day Five

We didn’t sign up for any adventures today, so we slept in (which was only 7 a.m. for Doc and 8 a.m. for me). After breakfast of pineapple, cheese, and yogurt, Kathryn and I did some yoga out on the end of the boat dock. Later in the morning I took the laptop into the lobby of the main house, got hooked up to the internet, and e-mailed Mom to see what time her flight left on Sunday so we could be sure to be home in time to take her to the airport, in case we were too tired to drive back to Dallas on Saturday night. I chatted for a bit online with Brittney, who told me that Dallas is covered in ice and basically shut down today. I was doubly glad now that we had decided to drive to Houston and fly from there, because if we’d tried to reschedule our flight out of Dallas we may never have made it to Belize. After lunch (a much-too-highly seasoned cheeseburger and rather tasty french fries) I took my book and a towel down to the beach and laid in the sun for a little while. I got an hour or two of reading in, and fell asleep to boot. Luckily I’d coated myself in both sunscreen and bug spray, so I wasn’t any the worse for wear. Doc worked for a little while on the laptop and spent some time organizing his photography that he’d taken this morning and the previous day. Taz, the fluffy striped beachcat, visited me while I was sleeping and gave himself a good bath. Doc got a photo of him licking his butt. I’m not entirely sure what we did the rest of the afternoon and evening, as I did not take notes […]

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Belize: Day Three

We rose early again this morning, had a light breakfast of pineapple, grapefruit, papaya, and toast, and met in the main house at 8 a.m. to start our Mayflower Rainforest hike. The intensity level was advertised as “rigorous,” but they also had said that the black bean soup the night before would be spicy, and it had no heat whatsoever. Based on that, we figured that they wanted to weed out the people who couldn’t handle a little uphill walk. Wrong! They were trying to weed out everyone. This hike was one of the most difficult physical activities that I can remember doing. It was worth it in the end though. We drove in vans out to the Mayflower Rainforest national park, and began our hike up to 750 feet above sea level. The first part was easygoing enough, mostly flat with a few moderate inclines and downhills, very muddy. Golden and Lorenzo, our guides, pointed out interesting plants and animals along the way. We saw a cacao bean tree, a rubber tree, philodendrons, cohune palms (where we get hearts of palm from, and I learned that it involves cutting down the entire tree to get it, so I don’t think I’ll be eating those again), coconut palms, bastard palms (covered in needle sharp spikes that hurt like hell, and the only way to soothe the pain is to cut down the palm to get at the liquid inside), tourist trees (whose bark is reddish and peeling like a bad sunburn), leafcutter ants, soldier ants, toucans, hummingbirds, and a 6’ long black rat snake — I spotted it myself on the way back down the mountain, shrieked like a little girl and hauled ass back towards the visitor center. Nish volunteered to eat a termite from a mound in the […]

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