...Because it's never too late to jump on the bandwagon

Ecuador pics

Here are pictures from our time in mainland Ecuador, about 8-9 days.  This was actually the very first part of the trip, so we have been working on them sort of out of order but, of course, are lining them up in the right order over there on the left.  I couldn't handle having them out of order there! 

So, here is the rest of Ecuador!

More South America Pictures

Alright, folks, we are moving right along.  Here is #2 of what will be 4 photo albums, Peru 1.  Jeff stepped up his contributions and did most of this album (maybe you shamed him into it, Doug?), although I added a bit to some pictures and did the captions on some.  You all will definitely be able to tell who wrote what. But in case it's hard to figure out, keep in mind that Jeff hated the jungle way more than I did and he rarely uses exclamation points.  Another interesting note.  You might see somethings spelled a couple different ways here.  In fact, things actually are spelled a couple different ways down there (like Cuzco and Cusco, and don't even get me started on Qorikancha).  So, most of the spellings are right, even if very few of them are the same.

Surgery!

Here's a picture of Jeff's knee getting fixed.  The surgeon is snipping away the torn part of the meniscus after having pried his kneecap up to make a little space to get in between there.

It Begins

Photo album #1 of at least 3 is finally ready. This is The Galapagos!

Homage to a Beach Towel

In June 1991, I graduated from Menifee Valley Middle School.  13 years old and ready to enter the big and glamorous world of high school.  At graduation, I got several gifts that I remember.  In fact, I do still have two items from that day that I have gotten a lot of love and use out of.  The first is a lovely gold and pearl necklace from Bill Hargreaves, my step-father.  The second was a "beach kit" from my sister, Layla.  The kit included a chair, a beach towel, and some other stuff I have forgotten.  Perfect for the summer.  That was probably even the summer that I went to stay with her at her apartment at Sunset Beach for a while!  But, I digress.

I still have that beach towel.  For the past 19 years of my life, that towel has been my one and only.  It is more well-traveled than I can even remember, having definitely been to most of the countries I have been to (16) and probably more states than I can count, since I think I probably took it with me on my drive cross country with Erin Stone at the age of 16. 

This summer, my mother-in-law, Jan, asked me if I would ever accept a new towel into my life.  Is it possible that the raggedy, see-through towel is not as appreciated by others?  Actually, I said, I would accept a new towel, but after giving it a good go about 10 years ago, I never found one I liked.  They were all too short (as I insist on having a towel that I can lay full out on and have neither my toes nor head touch sand) and/or had stupid designs.  Jan informed me that beach towel technology has made a  lot of progress in the last decade, and while I was somewhat skeptical, it did make me wonder about the possibilities.

Later in the summer (after my towel's last hurrah at Tahoe), Jan and Darrell gave Jeff and I new beach towels (turns out Jeff's was a little old too, but not almost 20 years!).  The new towels don't have silly designs, and are quite large, thick and comfy.  In fact, my new towel could probably fit almost two of me side by side, and, yes, it is tall enough for me!  We finally took them out for a test drive today on a short trip to the beach on this fine San Diego November day.

My old towel is still with me, however!  It is now serving as my alternate bath towel for the days I wash my hair, so I don't turn our plush bath towels blue.  It's been re-purposed, but it is still part of the family!  How much longer might I keep this?  Will I get in the Guiness Book for having the oldest functioning beach towel on record?  We know not what lies ahead for the towel and me, but I think it deserves this tribute for its years of faithful service.  Here it is in all its glory, taken without a flash so you can see how threadbare it is:

A good pick-me-up

I discovered this video a couple of weeks ago now, but I swear I go watch it almost every day still. It is funny and upbeat and sweet and just so fun to sing along with:

Fun in Memphis

Right after getting home from South America, I flew to Memphis for some great girl time.  In order (both chronological and in order of my personal preference!): Hanging out with my fellow volunteers.  We partied on Beale St (the Gaslamp Quarter or French Quarter equivalent for Memphis) and talked into the wee hours.  Then training for our volunteer positions with Chi Omega for an intense 24 hours.  Finally, we put on a leadership conference for some of our alumnae leaders across the country.  Here's a picture of us on our last night, enjoying some final downtime at the Hampton Inn:

Clockwise from me:  Katie (Memphis, TN), Rebecca (Des Moines, IA), Ann Shirley (Houston, TX), Rosemary (Mobile, AL), Maggie (Chicago, IL), Suzan (Washington, D.C.), Christine (Boston, MA).  It was so much fun to hang out with these girls!

Overdue and Inadequate Update

Well, we really left it hanging with that last post, huh?  Didn't even write about Lima, much less the return home which was, amazingly, almost three weeks ago now!  Granted, I did just finish unpacking a few days ago, so I'm trying to cut myself some slack.  As most, if not all, of you know, I left soon after returning home to put on a conference, and spend some girl-time, in Memphis.  I got about an average of 2 hours of sleep per night during those 10 days following the trip, and am making up for it now with about 10-11 hours of sleep per day.  Jeff is doing the same, mostly due to having caught the flu (or something) and recovering from his knee surgery, which went exceptionally well.  We even have pics...maybe we'll post some!

We have gotten a bit organized now, cleaned everything up and are getting down to business.  Getting some photo albums together of our trip is definitely on my to-do list....along with about 57 other things.  But seriously, yes, I'm going to get to that!  Also, I've read tons of books and seen tons of movies that I haven't done a single review on.  That's not even on my list, so woe betide those of you that rely on my advice before picking up a book or putting something in your Netflix queue.  If unsure, please send inquiries directly to me and I will be sure to help you out.  You're welcome.

It's great to be back with the cats, both of whom are total love-muffins.  And it's been nice to catch up on the latest in the world, like seeing pics of Kathleen and Mark's new little girl, Claire, and visiting my new nephew, Elias.  Oh and it's Ivan's b'day today.  Happy birthday, Ivan!

I promised an inadequate update, so I better stop there.  Maybe more later.  You wouldn't believe how busy two unemployed, childless adults can be!

Peruvian wine

Yesterday we took a little wine tour near Ica, Peru, their primary wine-growing region.  We went to three bodgeas, or wineries/pisco making operations.  Let me not belabor the descriptions of what we tasted.  I will be gracious and succinct and just say that one need not spend one´s time exploring the wines of Peru. 

Pisco is another story.  Pisco, like grappa, is made from grapes, but is made directly from the juice, as opposed to distilled from the wine, as grappa is  And this, a Peruvian will tell you, is why pisco is better than grappa.  Pisco is rather strong, 43% or so, and so I wasn´really interested in going pisco-tasting. But, they love their pisco, so we did it!  The last place we went, El Cantador, was really the best.  They showed us their whole operation, from the stomping to the Incan containers they use for 2 weeks to ferment it, then the distillery, and then we tasted a bunch of different types of pisco.  Apparently there are seven different kinds of grapes you can make pisco from, and then you can also have pisco acholado, which is mixed with more than one type of grape.  Anything in that word sound familiar?  Chola, or cholo, which means mixed: Spanish and Incan.  We were also taught the proper way to drink pisco, which we were told must never be done as a shot.  It is bad luck.  One must sniff it like wine, drink it and hold it in the mouth for 3 seconds, then swallow and breathe out through the mouth deeply.  It actually did taste better this way.  And the difference between the piscos made from the different grapes was really quite distinct.

They also had some dessert and semi-dry wines that weren´t too bad.  One was like Bailey´s, but made with pisco instead of whiskey, and had a nice caramel flavor.  Another was what they called the ¨babymaker¨ which was a wine called Perfect Love and is rumored to be a great help in getting a couple pregnant.  Mostly, they say, because it is a sweet wine that a woman will drink a lot of and then voila, it is done.

Another funny thing was how much security they had at these wineries.  Various of them were completely surrounded like fortresses with high adobe walls.  We´d have to drive up and either fill out paperwork or the driver would have to leave his license with them, to get in.  ¨Them¨ being an armed guard wearing bullet proof vests, and carrying a hand gun.  Seriously...what´s the story there?

Well, we are now in Lima, our last stop before coming home.  We have about 48 hours here, and then the red-eye to LA.  Haven´t heard the greatest things about this city, so 48 hours may even be too much, but we have really slowed down our pace over the last week.  I think we have finally gotten into the kind of groove you need for really long-term travel.  I still don´t know if we could do a really long time, like 6 months or a year, and after all, we have the kitties waiting or us.  But, I definitely can see how we could do a longer trip, with this kind of pace.  A week ago, we were talking with Marlene about how a really long trip would be ridiculous and as she headed home, I was the tiniest bit jealous (as I kept thinking about cold drinks, ice, my own bathroom, and of course, the kitties).  But this last week has been restorative and relaxing and Jeff is looking at furnished apartments in Quito and Arequipa.  Who knows what will happen!

Sandboarding

Today we arrived in Huacachina, after doing a flight over the Nazca lines, which was interesting and, thankfully, induced NO nausea!

Huaachina is basically a small oasis in the middle of miles of sand dunes.  It´s built around a small natural spring and the rest of the area looks like the Sahara Desert.  It is beautiful.  So we signed up for a dune buggy tour and sandboarding.  The dune buggy ride is actually half the fun.  It´s like a really awesome roller coaster ride, but longer and different each time, and there is no track.  You wear those seatbelts between your legs like a race car driver, and I was still flying up in the air and all around.

Then, the sandboarding.  Our guide was having everyone go down on their stomachs and Jeff and I were like, Whatever!  We want to go down standing like snowboarding!  So we did.  And we were humbled.  Really, there is just too much friction on the sand (and he waxed our boards before every descent) and so it is hard not to get buried in sand.  Also, it is not a normal snowboard like I thought it would be.  It is mostly like a snowboard, but instead of real bindings, you have just some velcro straps.  Which does not give you much control of the board.  So we ended up on our butts at least half the time.  I wasa just starting to get the hang of it on our 3rd descent, but the friction was so bad that even with my board pointing straight down the hill, I was barely moving.  So we decided to switxh to our stomachs, and that actually proved to not only be a lot easier, but a lot scarier too, because you do go faster.  Fun!

Now for the sad news.  There were three casualties and I will go in order of ascending importance.  First, our small camera.  Got sand all in it.  Don´t know how as we didn´t go down the dune with it.  But there ya go.  Jeff is going to try to take it apart and clean it when we get home, but in the meantime, thank goodness we also have the big camera.  Next, my elbow.  The sand is totally soft to fall in, but somehow I hit my elbow on the board and it is really painful.  I can´t really bend my arm very well right now.  But, most importantly, my favorite pants are goners.  Ok, so I have been wearing them too long anyway.  The mud from Saigon never came completely out, and yes they already had two tiny holes in inappropriate but really not noticeable places.  And yes, they got even dirtier at Machu Picchu.  But, these are really the best pants ever and I´m really mad I didn´t have 10 more pair made in Hoi An last year when we were there.  So anyway, the second time I went down, I finished the slope and took off my board and was all the sudden like, ¨hmmm, feels a bit drafty!¨and realized that what was once a small, not very noticeable hole had just become a rip extending from my waitband all the way down to mid thigh.  Wow.  Of course it was a little embarrassing, but honestly I was more devastated about the pants.  I wrapped a sweatshirt around my waist for the rest of the afternoon, so as to preserve some dignity, and Jeff convinced me that when we get home we will sew the pants (or have them sewn, more likely) and I will just call them my Frankenstein pants and continue wearing them with impunity.  Maybe I´ll even start a new trend!

After enjoying lots of dune buggying and sandboarding, we stopped on some high dunes and watched the sunset.  Gorgeous.

Tomorrow = wine tasting!