The first thing you should know about this blog is that sometimes it will be just plain wrong.  Straight up bad advice. That’s the beauty here, you never really know.  Isn’t this fun? YOU get to become a part of the experiment in wandering.

For example, last week I explained that getting medications delivered through a virtual post box was our plan for dealing with long term medications.  Pfft! Easy as pie.

Um, no.  A fellow Seasoned Wanderer set me straight on that with this email:

“Sara! Are you freakin’ nuts!?! We are wanted in the both the United States AND Mexico due to our attempt to get meds in this way!”

This traveler, let’s call her Pat, ordered her medications through her on-line pharmacy and had them delivered to her virtual post box. She then had the medications along with two months’ worth of mail sent to her in Monzanillo, Mexico.

Well she TRIED to have them sent.  Alas, the package was stopped at Mexican customs and refused entry. Ack! Drugs!

Pat was told by “A Very Kind Man” that he could take care of everything (“mui simple, Senora”) for a small fee (“una pequena kindess…”). Our term for this in English is bribe.

Now, Pat is a very law abiding woman and this did not sit well with her. She refused and so Mexican customs sent the package back to the U.S.

But alas, the package was stopped at U. S. customs and refused entry. Ack! Drugs!

Sadly, Pat’s migraine medications became the pharmaceutical equivalent of Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

Pat had to petition customs for their release, and her U.S. doctor had to fill out a small mountain of forms. Then the drugs, along with the forms, went to the FDA. This agency was charged with making certain that these drugs were exactly what they said they were.

They also opened the unopened prescription bottles to make absolutely certain that they were unopened.

In the meantime, of course, Pat ran out of her medications and had to get new prescriptions from a Mexican doctor.

THIS turns out this was the best method.  At least in Mexico.

Lesson learned. We’ll let you know what other lessons we learn.  Maybe.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

This is one of the most common questions we got on our first 300 day trip. And a question we heard even more frequently before last year’s four month trip to Mexico.

Let me tell you about a Belgian couple we had breakfast with in Campeche, Mexico last winter. We were staying at the wonderful Hotel Castelmar.  A pasta tiled, colonial building with the rooms surrounding an open, flower filled courtyard. Here in this gorgeous courtyard is where breakfast is served at communal tables.

I was on my third cup of coffee when The Belgian Couple asked if they could join us. As always at communal tables, conversation came easily (after three cups of coffee). The Belgians were travelling all over Mexico, escaping the harsh winter back home. He spoke some Spanish and English (…Italian, Dutch, German.). She spoke only French.

Tattooed, hip, she about 30, he in his 40s. We talked about travel, of course. First Belgium. Ron had been to Brugges and Brussels, I have not been… yet.  Then we talked about travel in Mexico and other places – Europe, Asia, North Africa. They were clearly seasoned travelers.

“What about the United States?, I asked. “Any plans to visit there?”

He looked a bit stricken. Seeing this, she pressed him for a translation. Then she also took on an embarrassed look.

“No”, he replied. “No plans.”

“Oh really. We’ve traveled all over the States. There are some amazing places to see, New Orleans, New York, the Badlands…”, I replied, eager to share stories of my country.

He looked embarrassed as she shook her head back and forth. “We are too afraid”, he said. “Too many deaths, too many guns. We have no plans to travel in the U.S.”

It was one of those times where I had been excited to talk about the extreme beauty found in my birth country. The friendliness of the people, the music, the culture. But nope. Not gonna happen.

They were right. The U.S. is a violent place. We are a gun toting, pry it from my cold, dead hands, Second Amendment touting culture. Shootings happen with enough regularity that some have become immune to it.

Today’s sad example, the shootings in South Carolina.

And these stories, occurring several times each year, and not limited to any particular places – cities, suburbs, small towns, the countryside –  these are the stories that make the foreign press. We are well known for our gun culture. And the random deaths it brings.

It’s at these times that I get patriotic, wanting to both defend and trumpet my country. But I’m left with nothing to say. Left only sad and embarrassed.

Let me ask you. Last time you traveled to some amazing spot in the U.S., like Breckenridge, The Grand Canyon, the coast of Maine, how many Europeans did you run into there? Not too many. Certainly not equal to the number of Americans that travel to Europe.

No, I’m not afraid in Merida. Nor was I afraid in Malaysia, London or Morocco. Ron always tells people that he’s not afraid because he was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey outside of New York. His first watch was found on the ground after a street fight. And back then, the gangs were mostly using knives. The ease of obtaining a gun is a relatively new thing.

I will not be the only person who blogs today about the need to make some serious changes to our gun culture and our mental health system. There will be a lot of better written, more widely read comments over the next week or so.

But then, as always, it will recede back into the background, along with the quiet sobs of a new widow or childless mother.

“I want to be in America. I want a gun in my hand”, the man on the radio sings as I write this morning.

Not so much, friends. Not so much…

I may have mentioned that I need My Own Time.  There are a few things that make getting My Own Time really hard.  Having small children in your care is high up there.  And a close second is travel.

After a massive move and two weeks of constant togetherness in Breckenridge it was time.

Now please understand that Ron gets this about me. I’m an early riser and he sleeps in most mornings allegedly to give me at least a couple of glorious hours to myself.  I usually spend this time writing and reading. But every once in awhile I need a whole day, an afternoon and sometimes a weekend to myself.

After a few choice verbal exchanges, it was clear to both of us, the time had come.  Off to the hiking trail.

Hiking in the mountains in the closest I have ever come to a truly spiritual experience.  I adore it. I need it. But it’s early in the season here in Breck and many of the high trails are closed or mud pits.  But there are plenty of trails in town and at lower altitudes to keep us busy while the higher trails dry out.

We had already walked along one of the low trails along the Blue River just outside of town. This was where we met some fire fighters practicing water rescue. One guy, poor soul, got to be the victim. His job was to throw himself into water that had been snow or ice about 20 minutes earlier. The others practiced throwing him a bright yellow tethered buoy, in just the right spot where he would be carried up to it by the (ridiculously) fast water. If the throw was too short, he would be carried right past it.  Too long and he might have to bump through several rocks to get to it.

They managed to save him two times out of three as we watched. Practice makes perfect.

So this afternoon, My Own Time, I decided to follow the Blue River further south, as it wanders through the town of Breckenridge.  First I followed the path behind the Main Street shops. I was rewarded immediately by a fox sighting.

Apparently, this fox, or a relative of this fox, has occupied a home right on Main Street for years.  There’s a painting of her hanging on the wall in our rental that was done in 2001. She returns to raise her kits under this abandoned house and is seemingly oblivious to the spring and summer crowds that swarm down the street.  Fenced off in a yard next to her home, the crowds are kept at bay while this Foxy Lady comes and goes in stealth to hunt and feed her kits.  Later in the week we saw her two blocks away up on Ridge Street carrying a treat home to her kits.

On this afternoon, I looked at her, she looked at me, I said “hey” and she twitched her ear.  “Hey back”, in fox.

Connection made, off I went through the alley that parallels Main Street.  Here I met The Real People of Breckenridge.  The wait staff heading to work, or catching a smoke. Aproned, name-tagged, friendly.

Further down I found a wild flower garden not quite in bloom. Just a few Butter Cups and Johnny Jump Ups inching their way out of the dirt toward the sun.

Then I rounded the corner and saw a boat. A big boat. Seriously? Yep, this is the Gold Dredger..

According to the Town of Breckenridge website, in the late 1800s dredge boats began working the river, literally chewing up the riverbed looking for that illusive gold. These two-story pontoon boats used great lines of buckets to dredge up to 70 feet deep. They took everything. All vegetation, all bedrock, even the buildings along the river. Few historic building survived along Main Street thanks to these dredge happy boats.

And now this one, is a restaurant (of course). And apparently closed for the off-season. Looking pretty creepy and kitschy, I might add.

Further down the path I saw some huge, clear, inflated balls bobbing on a pond at the south side of town.  What? They were all set up to take passengers who would enter the balls and … whatever. But not today. Tables were set up to take each customer’s Waiver of Liability.  And cash. But now, the balls were empty. Too bad. I would have loved to see the flailing and falling that would surely take place inside them.  Another time…

As I made my way back home I passed the gondola. It had been closed for the two weeks that we’ve been in town. But today it was going!  Opening day, said one of the employees. I looked over at the cars and most were empty. The door opened and slowly slid by. A nice young man offered me his hand to enter a car.  A whole car all to myself.

Why not?