Almost in Hopkins and Tricia update

Hmmm… As soon as I cleared customs and immigration in Belize I placed a call to Peter to see if he’d heard from our friend Tricia. It seems that she was arrested in Miami on 3very serious federal charges. He said she thought she was safe because of the statute of limitations having expired in New York. She’s been out of the states for 8 years. Well it seems there is no limitation on federal crimes so she was on a watch list and they got her as she stepped off the plane.. He didn’t know the particulars about the crimes though. Her arraignment is set for September 24th and he has been trying to arrange for a lawyer for her. My guess is she will have to use a court appointed lawyer though since she is basically broke. And, since the charges are federal, she is still in Miami and her trial will be held in the federal court in Dade County. With her past history she is a flight risk so it doesn’t look like bail is a possibility either. Another thing Peter said was that he was told the court is severely backed up and it could be a year before her trial. Not a good thing!!! We need our friend Tricia back at Kismet.

I had a 2nd phone conversation with Peter later Sunday night and he said that he and his wife Myra are taking care of Kismet. Either he or she spends the night there and Myra, when she isn’t working, is the cook for anyone wanting dinner. He’s also been keeping up with email reservations from her website. So that’s one less worry for Tricia. Ron and I talked on the phone as well. He’s still in Omaha but is planning to drive back starting at noon on Monday. He bout an 86 Toyota pick up truck that he said is severe;y overloaded with the tools that he is bringing down now that he is making Belize his permanent home. So we should see him in about a week or so. It will be nice to have him back again and he will be a big help around Kismet as well.

Peter also said that Steve is checking into a drug treatment clinic in Cancun on Monday. He’s working out the payment arrangements. Hopefully he will be diligent and listen to what he’ sees and hears in the group and private sessions and takes it to heart and turns his life around.

Now that all that is out of the way… I’m almost back home in Hopkins. The bus ride to Belize city was fine, not up to the ADO (Mexican company) standards but comfortable and 2 I met a German couple who live in a small house behind the Wind Chief Bar in Hopkins, and 2 young girls, Australian medical students, who will be working for 2 months in the cancer clinic in Dangriga. We got to Belize City at 2:15pm, just missing the 2:30pm Maya Island Air flight to Dangriga because it’s a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport. So I was forced to sit for 2 hours until the 4:30 flight. That also meant that I would miss the 5pm because the flight gets into Riga too late for a taxi ride to the bus depot and last Hopkins bus of the day. I wanting to sleep in my own bed Sunday night but it galled me to pony up US$60 for a cab, when the bus costs only US$3.50. So I spent the night at Val’s Guest Hostel (where I’d spent so many hours using the internet keeping up with all of you) for US$10.50 and had a fried chicken for dinner (US$2.50) a spent a nice quiet night watching the 3:47 hour 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia” starring Peter O’Toole. As a side note I last saw that movie when I was 11, growing up in Oak Lawn. I remember my Mom taking the 7 of us kids to Walgreen’s Drug store every Saturday and giving us 25 cents for candy (you could buy 5 candy bars for a quarter then) and dropping us off for the day at the Coral Theater with the 25 or 50 cent admission (I can’t remember) and enough money to buy a soda. Those were the days of double feature movies and a cartoon or 2. Its one of my fond memories of growing up. Anyway, the taxi driver who brought me to Val’s from the airport told me he was headed for Hopkins Monday morning to pick someone up so he offered to bring me home for US$10 at 9:30am in the morning and I took him up on it. I’ll hit the vegetable market before hand and stock up on fruit and veggie. Later in the morning Peter will drop off the fishing gear that I lent to Joe and James before I left and, later today,I’ll be happily fishing in the lagoon again! It’s the one thing I continually miss when I’m away from home.

And…I’ll be finally be sleeping in my own bed tonight!

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

On the road again...

We’ve still heard nothing of Tricia or her whereabouts and it’s very frustrating!

Thanks again Pat, Reese, and family for making me feel so at home in Houston! Monday 9/13 was my Cajun food day and I had 2 very delicious dishes, 2 of my favorites too. Seafood Gumbo and Crawfish Ettufee. Sadly it was at my 2nd choice of restaurants, Boudreaux, because, after all the time I’ve spent in Houston since October of last year, I didn’t know that there was a Pappadeau’s right around the corner from Boudreaux. I LOVE Pappa’s! I was a constant diner when we lived in Alpharetta GA. I’ve eaten tens of dozens of oysters on the ½ shell, gallons of Ettufee and Gumbo, tens of pounds of boiled crawfish as well as other delicacies from their menu. And Tuesday was my BBQ and chili cheese dog day. Now I’ve fulfilled my food bucket list for this trip to the states…

Tropical Storm Karl made my travel plans for me. Wednesday 9/15 was my flight to Cancun and also the day the storm came ashore near Chetumal MX, closing the roads to the north and south. So I stayed in the Kimbe Hotel Wednesday through Saturday. I figured that if there was flooding it may take a few days to subside and I didn’t want to hit the floods in some small village and not have a place to stay. Since I was familiar with Playa Del Carmen from my adventures with my brother Dave I thought it as good a place as any to ride out the storm. Playa did have some rain and thunder on Wednesday night and most of the day Thursday but that didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the city. Friday night I thought that I would treat myself and had a lobster and sirloin dinner with a nice salad, and a slice of strawberry cheese cake (and I’m not a dessert eater!) and an excellent bottle of Merlot. Yes…a bottle all to myself! And I felt it by the time I got back to the hotel too! Saturday 9/18 was my bus ride day. I wasn’t sure of the schedule so I didn’t know how far I’d make it. I caught a 1:20pm buss and 5 hours later found myself in Chetumal, another place Dave and I are familiar with. Since there were no buses to Belize City I checked into the Holiday Inn that we stayed in, and Dave checked into again when I was a guest to the Corozol jail for a night. I had a wonderful Chicken Mole’ dinner and hit the hay early to make up for the sleep that I missed Friday night. Yes, I don’t sleep well when I’ve been drinking…. My bus to Belize City leaves at 11:45am. Hopefully I will be sleeping in my own bed Sunday night.

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

Stagecoach TX and the Coyles

Still no further word on Tricia’s whereabouts or what’s happening to her…

I reached the Coyle homestead around 7pm central on Friday 9/10. What a relief after so long a drive. It wouldn’t have been ½ bad if you didn’t have to be aware of the pothole, and in some cases the crater, danger every minute of the drive. Even on the best of roads they appeared. It made the drive mentally exhausting. Now that I’m in Stagecoach TX I can finally relax and get some rest, at least until Tuesday 9/14 when I’ll turn in my car and head for a hotel near the airport for my 5:45am flight on Wednesday. Until then I’m thoroughly enjoying the Coyle hospitality and I did a bit of shopping to fill my extra suitcase with goodies to bring back with me. A nice tender (unknown to Belizeans) steak, some buffalo wings, and Cajun food are on my “must have before I leave” menu too.

My living quarters at Pat’s house is their tour bus. It’s opulence I absolutely makes my trailer seem dismal! It’s very roomy (at least 2ce the size of my trailer), very nicely furnished, and very comfortable. And what I could do with all the storage onboard!!! But…I look at it as the more room you have the more you have to clean. And that would take away from my lazing about every day.

In the past 2 days I’ve taken 2 of my must have foods from my list. On Saturday night Pat, Reese and I went out for dinner and has an absolutely delicious porterhouse steak, salad and loaded baked potato and an appetizer of deep fried pickle spears. That was an unexpected treat! Today, Sunday, while watching Houston demolish the Indianapolis Colts we had chicken wings. In the next 2 days I’ll be looking for my Cajun food as well as my obligatory chili cheese dog.

Sunday is a day of rest and I’ve spent most of it napping. I was also treated to a thunder storm. I’ve always slept extra soundly whenever I hear the thunder roll. I don’t know why. It’s just soothing to me.

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

Brownsville!!!

I’m in Brownsville TX!!! The ride today was nowhere as adventurous as yesterday and Mexico has done a lot of road work since Kevin and I started driving me down to Belize In January. They were a lot better and a lot smoother. I did have my car search at another military checkpoint though. And when I got the U.S. border I pulled into the “Century” lane. I didn’t realize it when I pulled in and as soon as I did I knew I was in trouble. The Immigration officer asked for my Century card. Of course I don’t have one. It’s the one for frequent travelers who pay $125 a year for the ability to bypass the long immigration check in lines. So…my car got searched again and drug and explosives sniffed. It took about 20 minutes to complete. Now I’m sitting in a McDonalds, using their free internet, to look for a hotel for the night. I’m way too tired to drive any more.

My car needs a good washing. Besides road dust I found where all the dragonflies, butterflies and bugs come for the winter. I’ve never seen so many of the 1st 2 in all of my life. Mostly monarch and yellow butterflies and dragonflies in huge swarms. While it looked pretty it wasn’t a pretty sight as they were crushed by the front of my car and all over the windshield. No matter how many times the windshield got washed I still can’t see. Five minutes after leaving the gas stations it was covered again. And using the windshield blades/washer just smeared them more and turned my vision into a haze. Now that I’m in the states it probably won’t be so bad.

I emailed Bruce on Wednesday night (9/8) to see if Tricia had arrived yet and he responded back quickly with the bad news that Tricia was arrested in Miami Airport for an unknown reason and was being shipped up to NYC. I have no other details. That poor lady cannot get a break to save her life. If it wasn’t for bad luck she’d have no luck! God only knows when I’ll see her back at Kismet… The news from Bruce today was that he hasn’t heard any more from Tricia so he doesn’t know where she is right now.

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

1/2 way to the TX/MX border and oh what an adventure!

There was a bit of a mix up over our travel plans. Tricia thought her flight was on Thursday but I thought Wednesday. Sure enough it is Wednesday. It all started when I mentioned that I wanted to leave between 5 and 6am on Tuesday, not knowing how long it would take to pay my trailer duty and for Customs to provide a rider to the border. Since Cancun is a 6 hour drive from Belize City I wanted enough daylight to get there, knowing how bad the Mexican road signage is. But that is too early for Steve to get up so we left late Monday and stopped for dinner and sleep in Belmopan and we left at 7am for Belize City and Customs. Customs was not a happy adventure, although I finally got my car after a 3-1/2 hour wait. The tariff paperwork for my trailer, which was supposed to be ready at 8:30am, wasn’t finished until 11am, at which time I paid it. The next adventure was getting someone to ride with me to the border in a timely manner (like the 5 minutes I was promised). Tricia was driving Steve’s truck with him as a drunken passenger. Bad thing was that he stopped everywhere along the way to greet friends and buy more liquor. How much good do you think rehab is going to be, if he even makes it there? Tricia was pretty upset by that too. In Orange Walk he stopped again and I told Tricia I was going to head to the border because I had no idea that kind of a hassle I’d get there so being there 1st would hopefully eliminate their sitting around waiting for me (and it was a hassle but nothing like Belize City). Steve walked back up while she and I were talking and said he was stopping in Corozol for “an hour tops” too. I told them I would meet them in the Princess Casino in the Free Zone. Guess what??? They never showed! I waited 3 hours for them. Of course our cells don’t work outside of Belize because they are pre-pay so we had no way of communicating. I won a couple bucks on the slots while I waited. Finally I decided it was time to be on my way. Tricia had already moved her luggage to Steve’s truck or we’d have had a bigger problem. So my trip to Houston finally started around 6pm. I drove until 2am at which time I was in Escarcega, about 250 miles from the Free Zone. Pretty good distance to drive in that amount of time in the dark and on crummy roads. I pulled into a PEMEX gas station and slept for an hour and drove then to and Villahermosa, getting there at 5:30am and sleeping one of the state border check points until 7:30am. Between Chetumal MX and Villahermosa I was stopped at 3 military check points. At 2 of them they searched the entire car, even under the floor mats, and all of my belongings. They were nice about it and I was soon on my way. Now I’m in Veracruz which is about ½ way to the TX/MX border. That drive was an adventure too. When I got to Alvarado (near Veracruz) the entire town and 5 miles of the road northwest was flooded. Hundreds of homes were flooded, some to their roofs. That took over 3 hours just for that 5 mile stretch. I watched Police and private boats were rescuing people from their homes while we very slowly drove the flooded road. I know it sound crazy but I drove in up to 2 feet of water and was scared stiff! I was too far into it before I wised up and thought about turning around. So I figured I’d play the waiting game and keep driving and if it got any deeper than what I’d already driven through, or the water start flowing, I’d turn around and see what other direction I could go. I REALLY didn’t relish the thought of driving to Mexico City! Anyway, Tractor/trailers and buses were plowing through the water, making huge waves that washed up onto the hoods of us traveling in the opposite direction and shook our vehicles as they passed. I prayed for safe passage through the watery streets and was granted it, and said a prayer of thanks once I was on dry road again. I finally got to Veracruz around 3pm and I’m going to spend the night here, getting some much needed rest and an early start in the morning. I’m not sure that I’ll make it to Brownsville though because the worst of the roads is coming up. More as I make my way toward Pat’s home in Stagecoach TX!

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

New Fishing Buddies!!!

Two new guests arrived yesterday (Saturday 9/4) afternoon, James and his father Joe and became my newest fishing buddies. James is from Phoenix and is an actor. Perhaps you’ve seen him on Desperate Housewives. His dad is a carpenter and lives in Sierra Vista near the AZ/MX border. This trip is a Father’s Day gift from James and they are staying for 5 days. Both are really nice guys and former Navy sailors like me. Joe and I have visited some of the same bars in the Philippines, but 12 years apart.

Today we went on a fishing excursion to the Cayes and caught a dozen nice sized barracuda. Grilled fish is on the menu for dinner tonight. We laughed about throwing James overboard because every time he picked up a rod he had a fish in what seemed to be 10-20 seconds…literally. His dad joked, “Why do I get the rod for 20 minutes and you only have it for seconds?” It was pretty funny. I caught a barracuda and a triggerfish from the boat and one when we stopped at Bread & Butter Caye. I think James and Joe caught 6 barracuda between them and James also caught a yellowtail snapper. Patrick, our boat captain caught 3 barracuda in rapid succession on a hand line. Tricia came as well bit didn’t fish. She was our designated photographer. The other thing I got was a pretty good sunburn on my face and the top of my head. I brought a hat but didn’t wear it. That will learn me. Now the 3 of us are waiting for Peter to show so we can go fishing in the lagoon. We’ll be back there in the morning too. The 3 of us are fishing diehards!

Tricia, Steve, Peter and I plan to leave at 5am Tuesday for our trips. Steve to rehab, Tricia to her long awaited trip to Maine to see Bruce and San Francisco to see another friend plus a stop on Long Island NY to see her 99 year old adopted father. I know she is REALLY looking forward to the trip and to leave Belize for 2 weeks to shop in real stores and eat real food. Me, I hope to be in Houston by Friday. A really big steak is on my radar! Steve is headed to a rehab clinic in Mexico somewhere south of San Diego and then plans to go home to LA for a visit following his treatment. Prayers for a safe journey for all of us are greatly appreciated!

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!

Ready for my trip to Houston

I’m ready for my trip to Houston to drop off my car now. Yesterday, Wednesday 9/1, I went to the U.S. Embassy in Belmopan and applied for my permanent passport, which will come in 7-10 business days, and back to Customs in Belize City to arrange to pay the import tax on my trailer and to pick up my car on Tuesday 9/6 to drive Tricia to Cancun airport for the start of her 1st U.S. trip in 8 years and then drive to Houston. She’s going up to Maine to visit Bruce (see my blogs from January) and then on her way back she’s traveling via San Francisco to visit one of her old friends. Me, from Cancun I’ll head west and then north and cross over into the U.S. through Matamoros MX, where I left the country to come to Belize. This time the trip will be easier and quicker, a total of 3 days or less instead of the 6 it took Kevin and I to get here because I won’t be dragging the trailer. But then I won’t have Kevin as a traveling companion either. That’s what I’ll miss most. He at least spoke some Spanish so we were able to order food and get a room plus he was great company. I did add a couple of driving days to the trip for Murphy’s Law… My return flight is from Houston to Cancun, where l’ll take a bus to Belize City for about US$30. The fare difference is close to US$500. My Cancun ticket cost me US$182 but to fly to Belize City from Houston the fare was over US$700…one way! So even with a night or 2 in hotels (I may take my tome coming back and make a holiday of it) I’ll be saving a ton of money. I looked for a flight through Miami thinking I could have an open ticket with a couple of days in between so I could drive up to see my kids in Orlando but the fares were out of sight. So, I’ll have to wait until Christmas to see them. My flight back is on Wednesday 9/15. Plus I’ll get to see Pat and family and eat some good food before heading south. I know I’ll miss my fishing though!

Lots of medical problems in my extended family… Surgeries mostly so prayers for my sister Eileen, my brother Tom and brother-in-law Jerry are greatly appreciated! The economic down turn has severely impacted a couple of my cousins too so add them to your prayer lists as well. Living where I do, and as cheaply as I do, I feel blessed by not having that pressure.

We haven’t heard anything from our friend Ron since he traveled off to his home in Omaha on August 8th to settle some personal affairs. No idea when he’s coming back. Hopefully everything is ok.

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!