Overheard in Recovery: Love is not Enough

I thought love would be enough.

So thought Lois Burnham as she began her marriage to Bill Wilson. No matter what happens, in the ups and downs, love will always be enough.

Oh, if that were only true.

Years later after Bill had gotten sober and was in the early stages of developing Alcoholics Anonymous she wondered why her love hadn't been enough to get Bill sober.  As she struggled with it she founded Al-Anon as a support for the family and friends.

But it is a tough question. Why isn't love enough? Perhaps some of it is the whole "romantic" issue of love. Perhaps some of it is the pop culture idea that "love means never having to say you're sorry." [Baloney!] Perhaps it is because addiction and alcoholism is far deeper and far more powerful than we are willing to admit.

Yet the story of Lois Wilson shows that it is possible to work together with the addict in your family as long as each is involved in developing their own program. Love is not enough- strength from beyond oneself is essential. But love can keep the bonds together long enough to get to where you need to be.

An Environmental Nightmare

Probably.

I find it ironic that it has happened only weeks after the Obama administration changed its mind about off-shore drilling. We have been told it is so safe. Nothing can truly happen.

Until it does.

But what's the livelihood of a few shrimpers, fishermen, oystermen, and marshes when it comes to saving money for us to drive more than we need to?

More than we realize.

Probably.

Mexico Vacation 2010: Day 7

In February my wife and I took a week-long vacation to the Riviera Maya- the Caribbean Coast of Mexico. We stayed at the Bahia Principe Akumal Resort about an hour south of Cancun. Through this past week I have been blogging about the trip and our experiences.
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The last full day in Mexico. Today it was hot. We spent most of the day at the beach area. I sat and read and then did some wading again taking pictures and video and watched people. My wife sat in the shade and read.

This was probably the windiest day. A cool front was approaching and the wind was howling.

Sat near the flowers below. They had a similar arrangement there every day. The upper right picture on this post is from the same arrangement. I was interesting to watch people as they went by, stopped, looked closely then touched the flowers to see if they were real (Yes, I did that, too, on the first day.) Yes. they were real.

How are these for desserts at the buffet where we ate lunch? No, I did not lose weight during the week.

My camera has the ability to take panorama pictures, stitching together three pictures. This week was the first chance to use the underwater capable camera, but I got the hang of it. This pan shows about half of the beach area at the three resort complex where we stayed.

So I went out by the breakwater and took pictures

above the surface of the water with the children and adults playing...

...and a couple under the surface. With the sea creature on the left I knew he was under there but could not see the LCD panel. So I just did some guessing. I guess I was lucky.

But it was the people- always the people that got my attention. This one was fun to watch.

The kid in the bright trunks was stalking the old lizard sitting calmly sunning and warming his blood on the walk. The kid took a few minutes to slowly move in on the lizard. I don't know what he was hoping to do but the lizard didn't get to his age by ignoring these human interlopers.

So he "ran" away. What else would you do?

Then it rained. In fact, it poured.

And, no, the bird was not under the umbrella,
but the picture and angle was too good to pass.

Actually it rained several times during the week. Usually at night, although it was raining on the surface the say I went scuba diving. In spite of my otherwise poor sense of humor it did not ruin the dive. It wasn't raining under the surface. (Sorry.)

We got back to the room after the storm and found our last towel sculpture, a wild white gator.




Supper this evening was the first time that a waited was surprised that we didn't drink. We had been offered alcoholic drinks all week long from the moment we arrived. We always smiled and politely said that we don't drink.This evening the waiter brought us our complimentary drink when we sat down at the table. My wife smiled and said, "No, gracias." He smiled and then put both drinks in front of me with some comment about how now I can enjoy both. I smiled back and said that I don't drink either.

¿No bebe alcohol? ¿No tequila?

Later we were discussing allergies with him since my wife cannot have certain foods. He looked at me and asked if I had any allergies. No, I said. Only alcohol. He gave a nervous laugh and dropped the subject. I can see how people early in recovery might have a difficulty with this whole situation. Early in recovery people are often so sensitive to "being different" since they believe "everyone drinks." When facing a situation like this it would only reinforce their self-perceptions and beliefs. So to "be nice" to the waiter, to be "accepted" they might very well give in.

After supper I met with some local recovering people. It was probably the personal highlight of the trip as we shared (and attempted to share) our cross-language experiences, strength and hope. Not only was it a recovering event, it gave me a safe place to share in Spanish and be accepted. It was like any similar gathering of recovering people back home. I could see and feel the gratitude and hope that they experienced. It's the same in any language!

And for me a sense of true humility. Here is this so-called professional from the USA sitting with no deep understanding as three local residents of Akumal, MX, live their sobriety with me. To sit there and ponder the amazing progress and success of recovery was deeply humbling. They were appreciative of my presence and I was awed by their acceptance. For me to be able to do some of it in their language was even more important to me than to them.

I was energized by the time I got back to our room. Life never fails to give me what I need.

Even if it's in Spanish and I have no idea what half the things were that they were talking about.

Spring Advances- Birds and More New Flowering

It was too windy last Friday for another bike ride- and it rained the rest of the weekend. So I headed back to Whitewater Park for more rambling. I have realized that part of me wants to record the coming of spring. This week I was more aware of the birds.

The feeders outside the park office were busy. The Goldfinches, perhaps being the most common. But they were joined by others, there and around the park.







But it was the expanding colors that was most obvious. They are now truly beginning to mix, blue, yellow, white. Many of the flowers are still small, but the green spreads and with it the colors of spring.


The biggest discovery was the first blooming of the trout lily. I had been watching on place with a few leaves coming up, but they hadn't bloomed yet. Over along Trout Run Trail, though, the first blooms were up with many more yet to come.




I am more amazed at the park every time I go. I discover new places, but also the changes in the old familiar places. As spring continues I will continue to be renewed, I am sure, along with the park.

Just what the doctor ordered after this past winter.

Mexico Vacation 2010: Day 6

In February my wife and I took a week-long vacation to the Riviera Maya- the Caribbean Coast of Mexico. We stayed at the Bahia Principe Akumal Resort about an hour south of Cancun. Through this past week I have been blogging about the trip and our experiences.
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I took the day as one of rest and reflection. In some ways I think I continued to avoid the events of the day before. Sometimes the soul just needs to get out of the wind of the world and allow the dust to settle.
So for the first time this vacation I slept in- which was still 9:15 after going to bed at 10:00. I didn't feel any worse for wear so I headed out.

A little way down the road from the lobby was this observation tower, built like everything else, in the tropical/Maya manner. I admit that I had a moment of hesitation after the previous day's events, but I decided to climb up and see what pictures I could get.


I took these first two panorama shots of the Coba lobby.





Then looking out toward the Caribbean you get a full sense of the ecological green area around the resort. This whole area along the coast was basically accessible only by boat until the 1960s. They appear to be working hard to keep the ecology from being too mangled. I am not sure how you can do that with all the tourists that go through the area every day, but they are doing a good job, it appears.


I did some more walking and came at another look at the Akumal lobby.


We then headed up to the "shopping" area of the resort. There were the regular inside shops in the building in the left picture. (We needed some medical supplies for my wife's wounded hands.) on the outside were the "vendor" type shops attempting to look like an outside market. I always love the colors. A closer look will show all kinds of stuff though, from the "Hear - Speak - See No Evil" monkeys to skeletons and models of El Castillo.

Back down to the beach area at the Akumal lobby. and more time to rest.

I think I went back and took a nap after that.

It was refreshing after yesterday. I needed the sun today to continue the recharging of my winter batteries. I think I have pushed my limits on this vacation- and had my limits pushed by other stuff happening. Above all was that mortality moment on the gravelly path at Chichén Itzá. The awareness comes breaking through that life is not always what we think it will be. Around each turn could be the "black swan," the unexpected and unpredictable. 

That may very well be a part of travel when done at its best. It may even be what one could expect in the midst of the ruins of a once vital peoples. They passed. This too shall pass. In coming face to face with the passage of great amounts of time we realize our tiny lives are but a drop in the bucket. What then is the meaning of life if it all ends like this?

Heavy duty questions! Not something easily dealt with in the lazy tropical atmosphere of the Riviera Maya. 

Supper tonight was another masterpiece of gourmet cooking - and presentation. When presenting the meal the wait staff even choreographed their moves- placing the plates down, taking the covers off. Food as show. Food as a way of avoiding the deep issues.

That made me sad today. Wanting to go home to some semblance of comfort and familiarity but certainly not wanting to go back to the cold. Do all travelers get to this point of wrestling with BIG issues? Or do they use travel to avoid them? I know for me the answer is probably "Yes" to both.

And the day comes to an end. 

Every MoMA

Take two minutes and five seconds and see all the paintings on the walls at the Museum of Modern Art. It will be a nice refresher for the day.

Mexico Vacation 2010: Day 5

In February my wife and I took a week-long vacation to the Riviera Maya- the Caribbean Coast of Mexico. We stayed at the Bahia Principe Akumal Resort about an hour south of Cancun. Through this past week I have been blogging about the trip and our experiences.
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New Seven Wonders of the World was a project that attempted to update the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World concept with a modern list of wonders. A popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the Swiss-based, government-controlled New7Wonders Foundation, with winners announced on July 7, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal. -Wikipedia

 These Seven New Wonders are, (in alphabetical order):

* Chichen Itza, Mexico
* The Great Wall, China
* Petra, Jordan
* Christ Redeemer, Brazil
* Machu Picchu, Peru
* The Roman Colosseum, Italy
* The Taj Mahal, India

The amazing ruins of Chichén Itzá on the Yucatán is the destination for our trip today. We join a group tour run by Apple Vacations leaving our resort before 8:00 for the 2 hour ride.

The first thing we discover is that we are very fortunate to have quite a guide. Pepe is a history major who is working on his Ph.D. with an emphasis on Maya history. He is able to bring a great deal of awareness and information along with an ability to make it very interesting.

Chichén Itzá means "at the mouth of the Itzá well" and predates Columbus by 1000 years. It collapsed about 500 years before Columbus from a number of causes.

As we arrive and enter the ruins through the Mayaland Hotel and, walking out we see El Caracol, the observatory.


A short walks brings us to the centerpiece of the ruins- El Castillo.

Dominating the center of Chichén is the Temple of Kukulkan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl), often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle). This step pyramid has a ground plan of square terraces with stairways up each of the four sides to the temple on top. On the Spring and Autumn equinox, at the rising and setting of the sun, the corner of the structure casts a shadow in the shape of a plumed serpent - Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl - along the west side of the north staircase. On these two annual occasions, the shadows from the corner tiers slither down the northern side of the pyramid with the sun's movement to the serpent's head at the base. -Wikipedia

When the pyramid was excavated there was not enough stones available to reconstruct the whole structure. Above is a section that has not been reconstructed. Below is the reconstructed section.

To be in the midst of this amazing place can only be described as awesome. I am amazed by all the incredible knowledge it took- knowledge of architecture, astronomy, and who knows what else. It is not as old as things I have seen in Israel or Rome, but consider that this was built in the middle of the Yucatán- an arid region where all rivers are underground. Yet this was an economic center and a form of early democracy. Wow.

On the right above is the section that catches just the right angle of the sun at the spring and fall equinoxes so that it looks like the body of the serpent above the head. That they could manage that feat before all our modern technologies boggles the imagination.

Then there's the equally incredible ball court.

On the right below is a general overview.

On the left is part of the left-hand wall depicting the great ball game that was played here.

It seems that the ball court

is the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 545 ft × 223 ft. The imposing walls are 39 ft high, and in the center, high up on each of the long walls, are rings carved with intertwining serpents. [Note: An American football field is 360 ft x 160 ft.]

At the base of the high interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated and from the wound emits seven streams of blood; six become wriggling serpents and the center becomes a winding plant.

The game itself is debated but it would appear to have some great significance in the Maya cosmology.

Below is one of the rings through which the ball was to be hit in some way or another.


What may be most odd is that some people think that the winner is the one who is decapitated- sacrificed- since they have helped the gods be successful. (It is admittedly difficult to keep from making any comments about how that would have changed the NY Yankees dominance of the American League all these years. But I will refrain.)

In one part of the ruins are rows of columns, each of which appears to be dedicated to a warrior who gave his life in some battles. I was struck by how a "war memorial-" type of structure may be a basic part of our human civilizations. Even to including the equivalent of names as we do on the Vietnam War Memorial.

Then we headed out toward the sacred cenote. There were vendors everywhere all selling variations on the same things for the same "one dollar." It had rained on our trip, the sun had come out and it was hot. As we walked along, without warning, my wife fell. At first I thought she had just tripped on a stone or something but she fell flat on her face.

I called her name and she didn't respond. It may not have been more than a couple seconds but it was incredibly long. All kinds of thoughts went through my mind in that time. Until she finally moved.


But she was hurting. She had fallen flat on her hands and the gravel and stone had done quite a job on both palms. I helped her up and we managed to get back to the shade at the other side of El Castillo. Our guide saw us and went to call the ambulance on the property for just such occurrences. We waited 20 minutes or so as they took another person back to the hotel.




Fortunately it just took some cleaning and gauze to get her feeling a little better. Some ibuprofen helped. Even though she doesn't drink a lot of jokes went around about the Mexican answer to all medicinal needs- tequila.

We managed to make it slowly back to the hotel where lunch was waiting and some cool shade. We also were entertained during lunch with dancing - and beer bottles.



After lunch I went back and took some more pictures, and I, too, fell- tripped- as I was walking up a slight rise. I was not hurt as badly as my wife, but I was shaken. I pushed away the feelings, went on taking pictures but admittedly did wonder what the Mayan gods might be up to. (I was surprised the next morning when my wife made a similar comment.)

Soon it was time to get back on the bus and head back to the coast. We passed through the town of Valladolid where this wondrous looking church sat right on the square.



And I even managed to find a RR crossing sign
to take a picture of.


Later, back at the resort we were entertained by a roving Mariachi band. The trumpet player was quite good. I was impressed. From a trumpet player that's quite a compliment.




I had difficulty writing that night. Perhaps what I wrote at the end of the night in my journal would explain how I was feeling:

• Tomorrow- I must rest and reflect. The soul has been shaken today. It needs some reflection and recuperation time.
• So for tonight, that's all. May it be a calm, restful night with a beauty of life and hope reborn when day begins.

Race - Still an Important Issue

as 50 years ago this summer that I first remember being aware of racism. Our family went to Florida to visit an old friend of my father's. As we were visiting with him, sitting watching TV or the like, he started ranting about Ed Sullivan having all those [deleted] people on his show. African-Americans. Blacks. People of color. I remember vividly as he got more and more upset that Northerners will learn why they should keep [those people] from having rights.

My 11-year old sensibilities were appalled. I remember my mother sitting in embarrassed silence. I don't remember my father saying much. We were northern Democrats in 1960. Civil Rights was something that we would support. I had already become aware of the separate restrooms for "Whites" and "Coloreds" as we had driven south from Pennsylvania. Hey, it wasn't even 100 years since the end of the Civil War.

I remember my mother talking to my brother and myself about this in some comforting way. I don't remember the specifics but it was supportive of civil rights and forgiving of Dad's friend.

I thought of this last Tuesday evening as I sat in a "Diversity Awareness" training session downtown. I have volunteered to be a "lead docent" for a special exhibit coming to town next month on Race.


Rochester Public Library and Mayo Clinic are partnering to bring the national touring exhibit “RACE: Are We So Different?” to Rochester, MN, this year. The exhibit will be on display from May 17 - Sept 4, 2010 on the second floor of the library.

I sat there and watched two excellent videos from the three part "Race: The Power of an Illusion" and couldn't help but be disturbed. This has been going on for 50 years of my life. This has been argued about, worked on, struggled with for a lot longer than that. Here we sit in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century and we are still talking about it, arguing about it, trying to change it. I thought of the tag line of Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone?:

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.

I volunteered for this over the next few months because it is an important issue. Here we have our first African-American President, and we are still beset by the racism inherent in our nation's psyche. Immigration laws seek illegal immigrants of color. After all, illegal immigrants from some parts of the world look more like "us."

I cried and then got angry as I watched and listened to arguments still being made after all these years. I shuddered as I watched the history of American racism grow from science and religion to be so pervasive at times as to be invisible and unconscious. I became energized to use my "white privilege" as a way to help change things.

I am sure that I will post more about this between now and the end of summer when the exhibit ends here in Rochester. I will be paying attention to my own invisible prejudices and how to confront them in myself. I will look for opportunities on those days I do my volunteering as a lead docent to help at least one other person move away from racial stereotypes. I will be available to help people see that race is not a biological or genetic inheritance but rather a socio-political-religious construct.

I am looking forward to continue the campaign against racism in our country so that we can more fully live up to the ideals we say we were founded on, that all are created equal and endowed with the same possibilities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Local Rochester, MN, Information
Rochester, MN, Community Events

RACE- Are We So Different?

Science Museum of Minnesota RACE website

Race: The Power of an Illusion

Race: The Power of an Illusion transcripts

Till the End of the World

Last evening I asked my pastor/wife what today's sermon was to be about. Just being curious since I had already planned to go to church today.

The end of time,

she responded.

Oh,

I said. I don't like end of time sermons. Even when I have preached them, I haven't liked them. I do like the Book of Revelation since it is a great parable and perhaps the earliest of the best uses of "fantasy" to get a message across. Beasts and dragons and wars and endless armies battling in a cosmic conflict. Wow. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a great mentor in John of Revelation.

I remember the first time I heard of the Book of Revelation. I was probably ten years old and was not a Christian. It was probably around the time my father had a brain tumor operation in far-off Philadelphia on my 10th birthday. Somehow or another my Christian aunt mentioned it in a way that intrigued and scared me. I found my Dad's old Army Bible, tried to read it and put it down. I don't think I slept much that night, feeling alone, separated from both parents. It may not have been the end of the world, but it bore an eerie resemblance to it.

We non-fundamentalists have a difficult time explaining Revelation and the end of the world.  Every sermon I have ever given (or heard) tends to follow the same line:

• We are not supposed to use this as a script
• Jesus tells us the no one- himself included- knows when it will happen
• It's all about perseverance in the face of persecution
• In the meantime, do what Jesus wants us to do- feed the hungry, visit the sick, welcome the stranger.

But underneath it all is always to be found the end of the world. Even when we don't believe it will happen just as some have interpreted the book, the end of the world is a reality, if only our individual experience of it we call our own lives.

Which is why it may be so scary. The older I get the more I become aware of that. I don't really want this life to end- my world. Personally, I'm having a good time. I'm enjoying myself, my family, my work, my world. It is a never-ending parade of wonder and awe. Yet, having lived a longer life than either of my parents were able to live, I am aware that all I have is today. It is in the "today" of my life that I experience love and grace and hope. It is each "today" that I can help feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, give water to the thirsty.

Oddly, last evening during the TV broadcast of the Twins-Royals baseball game. Bert Blyleven ended up being philosophical and quoting the great outfield philosopher, Kirby Puckett. It is on the wall of the Twins club house. Puckett said it on the day he announced he had to retire early because of health issues. It makes sense:

Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

I don't think that was the message of Revelation, although I don't pretend to know about that for sure. But when we talk about the end of the world, to go anywhere else is to miss out on the importance of today.

A 10-Year Memory: Recent History Repeats

April 25 – The State of Vermont passes HB847, legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples.

Mexico Vacation 2010: Day 4

In February my wife and I took a week-long vacation to the Riviera Maya- the Caribbean Coast of Mexico. We stayed at the Bahia Principe Akumal Resort about an hour south of Cancun. Through this next week or so I am blogging about the trip and our experiences.
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Scuba diving...check.

Snorkeling.. that's today.

But first, Day 4 was February 2 and down there in Akumal, El Tejon saw his shadow and there will be six more weeks of this wonderful Yucatán winter. Too bad we only had another three days.

Not far from our resort, at the northern end of the village of Akumal is the Yal-Ku Lagoon. It is considered one of the fine places for snorkeling and scuba. That was the first stop of the Mayan Adventure Snorkeling experience. What makes Yal-Ku so special  is that at the one end it is fresh water entering the lagoon which is open to the Caribbean on the other. That makes for an interesting mixture of eco-systems. We were told to be "green." We could only use bio-degradable sunscreen. A number of us had some with us so we shared.

Needless to say we entered at the fresh water end. It was a "wilderness" area. One of the things I have learned over the years is that wilderness can have all different kinds of eco-systems. Wilderness can be as loaded with life as a northern forest or tropical lagoon or as desolate appearing as a desert.


The first part was easy. Sort of. For some reason my mask wanted to continually leak and too much water makes for no fun. This was my very first time snorkeling and I actually found it difficult. Having the flippers made the movement easier than just swimming but I was constantly struggling for the first part of the swim.

Overall, my underwater pictures were only so-so. It was more difficult than I thought to see the LCD screen underwater so I spent a lot of time just shooting blindly- aiming in the general direction, pressing the button and hoping. Got a lot of out-of-focus pictures and many of rocks and shadows. In reality, though, there were a lot more fish here than I saw scuba diving.

I decided not to try to swim more into the salt water area. They said that if it was a good day we might see different fish and that maybe we would see some nice coral. I was glad I didn't go. Those who did said that the rain the evening before had caused some mixing and the current was stronger than usual. I was satisfied in what I did.

Yes, it was a lot of work.
I am as tired as I look.

We got back to the docks and headed back toward the van.

(I guess mermaids are not allowed.)

One interesting sidelight was the restrooms at the Yal-Ku Lagoon area where we were. They are very eco-friendly there for obvious reasons. So the toilets were in two sections- liquid and solid. (I'm trying to be sensitive here.) Somehow that was ecologically good by reducing water usage and other things. I had never heard of these before. Well sure enough in March BoingBoing reported on the popularity of the separating toilets in Europe.

On, then, to a cenote.

A cenote is a sinkhole with exposed rocky edges containing groundwater. It is typically found in the Yucatán Peninsula and some nearby Caribbean islands. The term is derived from a word used by the low-land Yucatec Maya to refer to any location where groundwater is accessible.... Cenotes are surface connections to subterranean water bodies. While the best-known cenotes are large open water pools measuring tens of meters in diameter, such as those at Chichén Itzá, the greatest number of cenotes are smaller sheltered sites and do not necessarily have any surface exposed water. ... Cenote water is often very clear, as the water comes from rain water infiltrating slowly through the ground, and therefore contains very little suspended particulate matter. -Wikipedia

Cenotes are therefore an essential part of the Yucatán ecology. While they look like the types of water-caves we may have in the US, the surrounding ecology is so different. The cenotes need to be protected since they are often connected and provide support for agriculture.

We got into the water- which was cold, but not as cold as say the Boundary Waters or Lake Superior. 

(Hey, we've been drinking water warmer than this.) 

We were not allowed to use our flippers here. They didn't want us with the possibility of hurting or damaging any of the fragile formations or the system. Nor did they want us to use ANY sunscreen before we got in since this also provides drinking water in a wide area.

The lack of flippers really made it difficult for me. I just couldn't make it very well at all. I was again exhausted. As much as I hate to admit it, I even had to be pulled by our guide back to the entrance using that lifesaver ring in the picture above.

Here at the entrance we could see how the cenotes function. Since they are subterranean caves the roots of the trees above find their way to the water.

There was, of course, the presence of the ubiquitous lizard

and the Maya gods at another small cave.

Not all cenotes are underground. There are open ones. Sinkholes. As our guide explained the next time a major hurricane crosses the Yucatán the wind and the rain will undoubtedly uproot trees that are sitting atop cenotes. The thin layer of ground may then give way and open up a sinkhole. Our guide stomped on the ground at one place and we could hear the hollow beneath it.

This one made for a great place to jump and swim.

Would it surprise you if I found more flowers?
I thought not.

The day ended with a dinner and party by our tour company, Apple Vacations.

Well, I still went to La Casita with my trusty Moleskine journal.

Today was a day that got me to think more seriously about my lack of physical conditioning. I had started my workout regimen a couple weeks before the trip, but it had just started. By the end of the week in Mexico I will pass the half-way part of the year between my 61st and 62nd birthday. What is realistic? What should I expect? What can I do- or not do? There will be a lot more on this on Day 5.

Sitting writing I also realized that I haven't even seen a newspaper anywhere on the resort. I didn't take my computer along so I was totally unplugged. TV was available but I didn't watch any news- the only one being BBC and I really didn't want to spend nice warm evenings inside. I have no idea what is happening out in the world. And I am not missing it.

So ended Day 4. Early to bed since Day 5 was to be the big trip of the week- one of the Seven New Wonders of the World- Chichén Itzá. That post will be later in the week. It will be quite a trip.