The long road south

Hello, hello!

I'm terribly sorry it's taken me so long to get another blog post up.  It's been a rather busy couple weeks, though, to say the least, so I hope you'll forgive me.  I've been too busy living life to write about it.  :)

First off, let me say that we're in Belize!  We made it!  YAY!

Here's us in the parking lot of the Belize airport... we made it!

Secondly, I just have to share that I have a brand new nephew as of Friday, August 22nd, and I am so excited about it!  Grant David is a real cutie and his wonderful parents are thrilled and I'm just so happy to be an auntie!

Despite the onesie, I still think he's got an adorable old man face!

Okay, so, let me catch you up on where we've been and what we've been up to.  I left off in Philly, where we arrived at the end of our first day of driving, but a lot has happened since then!  The day after we visited my Aunt Susan and Uncle Pat in the Philly area, we drove across Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh to visit another set of relatives, my Aunt Dottie and Uncle Jeff.

Here's Juliette getting a picture with my Aunt Dottie, my Uncle Jeff, and my cousin Alex.

We spent a great evening with them catching up and enjoying a lovely summer Friday night.  Juliette had a great time, too, as she discovered that she could play on the pool cover, which was big and sturdy and could more than handle her weight.  She walked, crawled, rolled, and flopped all over that thing like it was a giant waterbed just for her and she had the best time doing it.

It did get her pretty dirty, though, so James took Juliette in their pool for a refreshing dip (and bath, of sorts) and she loved that, too.  She was one happy baby.  The next morning, it was James' turn to be one happy daddy, as Aunt Dottie let him take her fancy sports car for a spin.  It was her 60th birthday present from my uncle and it went fast!  James briefly considered ditching the minivan and trailer, flashy though they are, for the zippy little car, but I didn't think Dottie would be thrilled with that, so I made him bring it back.

Zoom, zoom!

We said our farewells and hit the road again, this time headed towards Ann Arbor, Michigan.

We made it to Ann Arbor without any hiccups and spent some time with our wonderful friends Karen and Juan, who are friends we met while James was at Dartmouth, and their beautiful 10-month-old daughter Cecilia.  It was so great to see them, as we haven't gotten to spend time with them in person since their wedding in Peru 4 and 1/2 years ago.  We had a delightful time catching up and watching our babies play together.  We even gave the two bambinas a bath together so they could have one of those cute but slightly awkward "group of naked babies in a tub" shot when they're older and looking back at the history of their friendship.  :)

Double the babies, double the cuteness!

The next day after church and lunch with Karen, Juan, and Cecilia, we set out for Springfield, Illinois.  We almost made it, but we were tired so we stopped in Normal, Illinois, about an hour short of our target destination.  I'd say our stay in Normal was pretty average and ordinary, in keeping with the vibe of the town.  Seriously, what kind of a name is "Normal"?  Maybe they felt that Bloomington, which is directly next to Normal and almost encompasses it, was just too wild and crazy of a name, so they needed something "normal" to even it out?  I don't know.  Personally, I think it's kind of an abnormal name.

Anyway, after that uneventful and unassuming stay in Normal, we moved on the next day to Springfield, Illinois - land of Lincoln!  We had been hoping to do a small amount of sightseeing on this road trip and Honest Abe's hometown fell directly on our route, so we planned a short stop to see his house.  It was a really neat stop and we were glad to visit such a cool little slice of history.

The Lincolns' house!

I also learned a bit more about the man himself...  I loved this little tidbit in the middle:

Was Lincoln dedicated to the proposition that all cats are created equal?

We got back in the car with plenty of miles ahead of us before we could stop for the day, but we got sidetracked from making progress by the lure of Mark Twain's childhood home in Hannibal, Missouri, only a few hours later.  I mean, really, we couldn't just cross the Mississippi and then ignore  signs for the village that dear old Mr. Clemens used as a model for Tom Sawyer's town! We wandered around and saw the house that Mark Twain lived in as a boy as well as the infamous whitewashed fence that helped give Tom such notoriety.  We looked at the mighty Mississippi and enjoyed some Italian food before getting back onto the highway.

Juliette is too smart for me!  She didn't fall for the trick and wouldn't pay me to paint the fence.  :)

We even saw a steamboat to complete the illusion of being "back in the day."

It was so much fun to see Hannibal and I'm glad that we drove that way, although we had fully intended to drive through St. Louis to see the arch...  Oops.  When we left Springfield we had set the GPS without looking at which route it was going to take. We realized too late that we were on a different route than we had planned, but that's okay.  I think we had more fun in Hannibal.  

We drove late that night all the way across Missouri and made it to Topeka, Kansas, where we decided to stop.  The first hotel we stopped at was full and I admit that I wondered what on earth could bring so many people to Topeka on a Tuesday night.  Maybe there was a corn-growing conference or something.  Is that mean?  I hope not.  It's just that the Mid-West feels so big and lonely and empty.  It's the kind of place that lets you begin to understand what it might feel like to have agoraphobia and it doesn't feel like the kind of place that would fill hotels.  Anyway, I'm sure Topeka has some great attractions to its name and that there's lots of reasons that people would want to stay there on a Tuesday night.  ;)

The next day we drove and drove across the giant cornfield known as Kansas and, just before arriving at our destination for the day, made a brief stop at the intriguingly eccentric Fick Fossil and History Museum in Oakley, Kansas.

James visited this museum when he was 11 years old, so we had to stop by and see it now!

And when I say 'intriguingly eccentric,' I mean that they had paintings like this:

Does this bonnet make my ears look big?

Shortly after the museum visit, we arrived at my sister and brother-in-law's house in Scott City, Kansas.  It was great to see Laura and Jared, and my little sister Kayla was actually visiting, too, so we had a lovely reunion and were very happy to be all together.  

Hanging out in our pajamas with a belly and a baby and some doggies.

The above picture was taken by our friend Tim, whom James picked up from the Garden City, KS, airport later that day not long after we arrived.  Tim is a friend of James' from Dartmouth and he flew in to replace me as co-roadtripper, as Juliette and I were staying in Kansas to visit with my sisters for a week before meeting up with Tim and James and another friend, Gordon (who joined James and Tim in Texas), in Belize after the three of them drove through Mexico.  

A lot of people had expressed concern about driving through Mexico and were relieved when I told them that Juliette and I would not be joining that part of the drive.  It just worked out better that way for a few different reasons.  However, James told me that he didn't really feel unsafe at any time in Mexico.  I think Mexico gets a bad rap for some of the things that go on in very particular parts of the country when the majority of places don't experience the violence and safety issues that people fear so much.  That's just a cursory opinion, but either way, with a carefully planned route and lots of preparation, James, Tim, and Gordon had a safe trip through Mexico filled only with adventures of their own making.  And they did create some memorable experiences for themselves!  Most notably, they took what they thought was a shortcut but was in reality the most mountainous road that James has ever experienced, according to what he texted me.  They drove up and down 10,000 (yes, 10,000!) feet of elevation by means of dozens and dozens of steep mountain switchbacks with a fully loaded van and trailer...  It was a nerve-wracking experience, to say the least!  I heard about it after and could only congratulate them for not having accidentally driven off of a cliff.

Here's a screen shot of part of their ridiculously squiggly route on Google Maps, to give you an idea.

In a slightly less hair-raising experience, the "Tres Amigos" had the pleasure of getting to visit one of James' and Tim's classmates from Dartmouth, Chris, in a small Mexican town that happened to be only a very short way off of the main route.  Chris and his wife, Gladys, are from Singapore, but they are currently living in Mexico for a few months and it was great fun for those guys to reunite, even if only for a short while.

Mexican college reunion!

Juliette and I, in the meantime, stayed in Kansas to spend some time with my sisters before Laura had her baby and before Kayla flew off to Africa to spend 9 months working as a nurse for Mercy Ships on the African coast.  Unfortunately, though, our plans for excursions and celebrating Kayla's birthday and having some sister time were curtailed by Laura having some pregnancy complications and Juliette getting a nasty cold, complete with having a severe sore throat, cough, and fever, vomiting up all of her medicine, and getting a bit of an ear infection.  All of us saw much more of the inside of a hospital than we had hoped or intended.  Laura was eventually put on strict bed rest and Juliette was so sick that she pretty much put herself on strict bed rest.  I was trying to take care of Juliette while Kayla was trying to take care of Laura.  It was definitely not how we had planned our week!  It was disappointing to miss out on the time we had planned to spend together, but we did the best we could with what we had.  

A truly miserable baby in the ER.

As sad as it was to see Juliette so ill, I was so thankful that, if she was going to pick up some virus as we traveled and get that sick, at least we were in comfortable house with access to good medical care and not driving through Mexico!  That would have been a real bummer for everybody.

It wasn't a completely wretched week, though.  Here's a shot of Kayla with her birthday cake:

The birthday cake icing references the classic Bogart/Hepburn movie as a nod to Kayla's upcoming African adventure, if you were curious.  :)

And here's a shot of all three of us enjoying the local pool before Juliette came down with her fever later that evening:

What an interesting red cup!

After almost a week of misery, Juliette perked up from her illness at about 8:30pm the night before she and I were to leave for Belize (and by 'perked up' I mean that she was willing to do something besides cry in my arms).  I was very grateful that she was seemingly feeling a bit better for our day of travel.  Unfortunately, though, by that time she had passed along her cold to me, so my day of travel was rather more unenjoyable for it.  We had to take 3 different flights to get to Belize from Kansas, which made for a long day of traveling by myself with an infant, tired and sick and loaded down.  However, despite all the frustrating travel hiccups that occurred, someone always seemed to go out of their way to make my day a little easier or a little more pleasant.  For instance, one passenger helped me carry Juliette's diaper bag through the narrow aisle all the way back to my seat.  One airline employee gave me a row to myself with the baby, while another took care of gate-checking Juliette's stroller for me.  There were several other things like that, and, feeling as maxed out as I did, those little acts of consideration made a huge difference in my day... Thank you, kind people!

So, as you can imagine, it was a big relief to make it through Customs and Immigration at the airport in Belize City and finally walk into our new tropical home-away-from-home to be reunited with James and the guys.  Phew!

I have lots to tell you about Belize and our first few days here, but that'll be the next post!

Just outside the airport...  Welcome to Belize, little one!

And they're off!

Welcome to my blog!  You're getting in on the action right from the start, because as of today (well, yesterday, since it's after midnight), we are officially on our journey to Belize for a year of exciting adventures while we volunteer with Hillside Clinic!  We are so thrilled about this whole year and I am glad to share it with you through this blog.  

At Hampton Beach just a few days prior to departure.

I write this initial blog post from the cozy familiarity of my aunt and uncle's house in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, which is not too far from Philadelphia.  James, Juliette, and I had a great first day of travel from our home in Kingston, New Hampshire, down to the Philly area.  

Firstly, the van and the trailer performed very well.  This first day was an important test as to how well our mechanized beast of burden will handle the strain of hauling a heavy trailer all the way from New Hampshire to Belize.  And when I say heavy, I mean it.  James has that thing stuffed to the gills with a generator for the clinic, lots of tools and equipment, a couple of bikes, our clothes, our kitchen stuff, and lots of miscellanea that will hopefully make living life abroad for a year less challenging and more homey.  I will have to post a picture of how jam-packed the compartment is, but in the meantime, here's a shot of our life and home packed up into this trailer.  (With the makings of a home inside a trailer, would this possibly be considered a "trailer home"?)

Yes, I am available to consult on your next car commercial.

Juliette and I enjoyed refreshing naps and played "let's smear the banana mush on the car seat instead of eating it" while our stoic chauffeur whisked us along turnpikes and parkways to get to our destination: the Tap Room, "Chesapeake City's Premiere Crab House."  We were meeting my Aunt Susan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Michael, and friend Hanh there to celebrate the birthdays of Michael and Hanh, who happen to share the same birthday - happy birthday to both of them!  It was so wonderful, as it always is, to see dear family members and share food and conversation while enjoying each other's company.  Well, I admit I didn't share the food, as I prefer to enjoy crabs alive and in their natural habitat.  I opted for a non-crustacean repast of manicotti; in my opinion, crushing crab corpses curtails congenial culinary consumption.  Also, alliteration ameliorates almost all activities.  ;)

Decapods are friends, not food!

I don't think it's fully set in that we've really left home for a year abroad, but we are so excited nonetheless.  Maybe we just need to recover from staying up ridiculously late/early to finish packing...  there's nothing quite like rearranging the car and trailer by moonlight in the wee hours, fervently hoping that everything will squish into a space that doesn't look quite big enough.  

It did help us feel the reality of the situation, though, when our home church, West Congregational Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, gave us a beautiful and kind send-off last Sunday.  They let us tell them a little bit about what we'll be doing down at the clinic and then prayed for us and our year in Belize.  Here's James and I describing our upcoming adventures and then sharing some group prayer:

The little munchkin couldn't stand still, so she ended up wandering all around while we talked.  :)

Anyway, it's very late and time for bed.  The sooner I get to bed, the sooner I come one day closer to turning this plump little cutie into a Belizean baby!