Back in USA

We are back in the US and our old schooner is hopefully sitting safe at a dock up the river in Guatemala. With us living in two worlds now we have a life in both places. In the Caribbean most of the sailors there say they are happy not being in the US any more. They always have reason from politics, to the police in the US cramping there life style or maybe how cheap they say they can live in a 3^rd world country. Living cheaper is an illusion. They like to clam but if you live the same way we do in the US it will cost you a lot more there but it’s real easy to just do with out like most do. If you do have trouble with the police in a 3^rd world country it can be a night mare and there is no way to totally avoid politics any where we have ever been. As I said we have a life in both places. Even getting to both places can be both good and bad but always an adventure. We found our little house as we left it with a few changes. The grass is brown now and Pam’s little garden is all dead. She did get a couple of cabbage heads and the sage is still looking okay. It snowed here this week. Another thing, cruiser frond when they hear the word snow. Our little house out on the prairie in Kansas has a gas furnace but Pam is in love with our pellet wood heater. Setting warm by the fire with it snowing outside is not so bad to us. Eating pecans fried in butter watching it snow. Having home cooked biscuits for breakfast and Kansas steak for supper is best here for sure and easy to get. If we are talking some times people say how have you seen so much? And the answer is in Pam always wanting to go and the traveling. Coming up here it was buses,cabs, two planes and a long car ride to get back to our little house. Our son called us from town and said we needed to go by and see a Falcon convention going on there. We have seen these people with their old Ford falcon cars in places before. Some modified but most just like when they were new. As we drove up in our old 1972 antiquate Chevy utility truck we use out here that belongs to our son Pam was squealing it’s not cars it’s birds.

What Kind of Falcon?

It was a bird of pray convention and they hunt with these bird like the kings of old. They take them out in fields and let them fly. When they see “and they can really see” something to kill they fly down and maybe kill a pheasant. The owners also have bird dogs retrievers to go get the pheasant. It’s called hunting and I like to hunt rabbits myself. When I hunt it takes some work but we all know I will never be a king or even hunt like one.

Quite snowy morning

With the snow and the falcon conviction Pam was in her stride making sure we were in Hays to see the steam train coming through town celebrating the Continental rail road. It’s is the biggest and heaviest engine they ever had in service.

Big Boy

Leaving the next morning with the the seam rolling in a snow storm it was a remember-able site. To all our friends in the Caribbean we will be back after the first of the year but for now I think we will have Alaskan Snow crab legs for supper easily bought here by the box. Maybe I will go hunting tomorrow or maybe I will just wait and see what Pam tells me we are going to do. Remember she likes to hunt too or maybe this time she will just do the little things she likes to do around the house. It has been 20 years since we had a washing machine. I have the garage and the basement to play in. All is good out here in Kansas. We have been ask to do a display for the month of December in the library in Hoisngton about our travels.        Also on December six we will display my art in the Hays Art Walk.

Travel Plans

By the time most of you are reading this we will be traveling again or at least getting ready to. We leave Sunday for the long bus trip here on our boat in the Rio Dulce river to Guatemala City to a hotel there to make sure we are not at fault if we miss our flight by not making it there on time. Going back to the US to spend Christmas with our son and his friends back in Kansas. The bus ride can take as little as 6 hours are as long as most of a day. Politics down here and protest can bring havoc to travel. Most of the time blocking the road to have a good protest is never more than eight hours. This can make for a long day setting on a bus waiting for a protest to be over. We always take something to eat and water on the bus with us now. On one trip the bus would break down about ever 20 minutes and you could smell diesel fuel. The driver would change his shirt, go do something and get it going again. Change his shirt back and drive like he was mad until it would stop again. We left at 8am that morning and was in Guatemala City at 10pm. 10 that night. That driver was tired and by the time we got there he was driving like it. If this is not bad enough there are wrecks. Wrecks here can be a mess with bodies thrown about and the news paper showing the most hayrick things they see. Taking a news paper with you on a bus trip is not advised. This is not a what if there is a wreck thing but what happen a few days ago some where here. If all this sounds like you would love riding a bus down here add to this the joy of buses with movies. Movies in Spanish of course. Action movies that make no since where the hero can not be killed. Saying we are going back for Christmas for some here bring on fronds. Talking about snow will get them talking about never going back. For some it’s flip flops and black beans and rice forever. For Pam and I we still have a life back in the US. Dreaming of a white Christmas sounds good but for now to our friends up there. We are on our way.

Some pictures of some of the things we see in Guatemala.

Coconut tree

Bananas

Flowers

Two Worlds?

We are still in Guatemala working on our boat up the Rio Dulce river. Life is so different here than it is at our little house out on the Kansas prairie.

This is the trash boat that comes around the marinas here in the river to pick up trash. It’s a home built wooded hull boat covered with fiber glass that is just a long pointed box with an out board. As they are loading the bags there looking in each bag for what they can sell. Aluminum cans or shoes that can be fixed. We have bought some brass things they had for sell off of boats they found in trash bags. We all have to make a living someway. Here cars are few and most people ride motor bikes.

Happy dog

Need to go some where with your dog, just train them to ride in a bag. It’s not uncommon to see a little 49CC bike with the whole family riding on it and their dog going to town.

This is a tour boat that needed some work on the bottom so they are working on it the Guatemalan way. Get enough people to pick up this big boat at the boat ramp, block the ramp with it laying on it’s side until they get it fixed and then reverse the hold process with enough hands to put it back in the water. I don’t know how many tour boats they can build here in the river but they are every where here now and building more but if you get careless with your dink and leave it not chained to something you may find the dink floating somewhere with out the motor. Licenses to captain a boat, registration and inspection to take people out on your boat is not a problem they worry about here. I said in one of our last blogs we are going back to Kansas for Christmas and the town near us out there has ask Pam and I to put on a display in the library. They seem to think we are a little different than the people they see everyday after we were talking to the Better Business Bureau about my art and they called the library. They said the kids and a lot of people out there only know the world they see every day. We are old now and have never done anything special really but we have been doing little things our whole life. Got a pilot licenses early in life, even got some flying time in      tail-draggers, motor bikes, sometimes riding cross country on long trips, driving big rigs with one day in Canada and a couple of days later in Texas a few days later New York city. Chris crossing the US. Did some time working in nuclear power plants all over the US. Lots of camping and skiing both water and snow, building an array of stuff. Built the boat we live and travel on for over 20 years now. Done a lot of little stuff but again “nothing to brag about “ What do we show them with us never doing anything important. How can we show them the worlds we have lived I? Or show them the two worlds we live in now with us living part time here and part time there. Each place so much a world apart.