Guatemala

On Sunday, I returned from another awesome trip down to Guatemala. I was just there back in April for Painting Lemonade, but when I was leaving I looked out the window of the airplane and saw an incredible view of green mountains and towering volcanoes. I told myself that I had to come back and explore this country. So just a few months later I was back with my friend, Chris to ride around the country on rented motorcycles. Probably not the most sage decision on our part, but we managed to both make it back in good health. Although, there was one run in with a chicken bus that left Chris off the bike for a few days, but he recovered and we had a great time. As usual, here's a video, but you can also check out all of my pictures here.

If you ever get the chance, Guatemala is a fantastic place to travel. The volcanoes are incredible, the food is terrific, the people are friendly, and it's all very affordable. You can usually fly there for under $400 from the states, and stay there for between $5-$20 a night depending on your standards. From Antigua you can take a bus to just about anywhere in the country for less than $25. With many more volcanoes and Mayan ruins left for me explore, it's a safe bet that I will be back.

Home

First it's off to Guatemala to ride through the country on motorcycle, but then I'll be heading home. I've learned that home can be wherever you make it to be. Life in Arizona has been great, but I'm ready to come home. I've got something special waiting there for me.

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Life In Arizona

Aside from just trying to find a warmer place than North Carolina for the summer, I am out in Phoenix to watch over my sister's children. She is going through chemotherapy, trying to work full time, moving next weekend, and her children are out of school for the summer. It's great out here. There's good ultimate 3 nights a week, awesome hiking if you can bare the heat, I get plenty of time to work on my graduate classes, my parents are just an hour away, and it's absolutely gorgeous. This morning I hiked to the top of Camelback mountain.

As far as city hiking goes, Camelback is probably the best in America. It's very similar to Flattop Mountain in Anchorage, Alaska. It's very satisfying to see exactly what you are hiking to the top of and then get rewarded with an incredible 360 degree view when you get there. From the top of Camelback you can see the entire Phoenix area.

If I lived in Phoenix, I'd probably try to capture the sunrise from up here every few months. They say 300,000 people climb to the top of Camelback every year, and I would consider it a must if you ever come out to visit. However, city hikes are not my favorite. The top of the mountain was small and crowded with about 20 people when I got there. I didn't stay there long before heading down the backside and getting off the trail to summit a lower peak at the far end of the mountain. From there I got to soak up the scenery by myself without the distraction of so many people. I even took the time to practice some self photography.

During the week I get to entertain the niece and nephew. They are 7 and 5 respectively, and all they ever really want to do is swim in the pool. With the temperature frequently breaking 110 degrees, it's about the only thing we can comfortably do outside. Fortunately my sister has a great, little pool that offers some relief from the sun. This is key as I probably spend about 2-3 hours out there every day.

I've learned that one of the best strategies in raising children is to wear them out during the day. If I get these two in the pool and toss them around for at least an hour in the morning, they'll have no problem at all going down for their nap after lunch.

Seeing that my family lives in Arizona and I live in North Carolina, I only get to see them maybe twice a year. Fortunately, because of my job as a teacher, this is the second time in three years that I've gotten to move in with my sister for a month. It actually fits my personality quite well. I don't keep up with my friends too well, but get us back together and it's like we've never been apart. Most uncles would never have this opportunity to live so closely with their niece and nephew, even though they'd probably see them more regularly than I see mine.

It would be nice to live out here someday, maybe after I spend some time in Africa. More likely, this will probably just be a place I get to stop in for extended periods of time. I'm about half way through my time here, and I'm going to try and enjoy every last minute of the time I have left.

CAMPING FAIL

I told my mom that I was bringing my camping gear out to Arizona with me this summer so I could do some hiking and camping. She said, "Yeah, that's a great idea, and we should take your niece and nephew!" My idea of camping is filling up my backpack, hiking a challenging mountain trail, and sleeping in a remote area; none of which I can do with the niece and nephew. I was planning on going solo, but my mom anxiously misinterpreted my intentions and put together a family trip. I practically grew up on a KOA, so I can understand her confusion. Trying not to be a camping snob, I convinced myself that it would be fun to sleep outside and "ruff" it with my 7 year old niece and 5 year old nephew.

Not having much interest in site camping, I let my mom set up the whole thing. We drove about 40 miles south of Tuscon to the Coronado National Forest. The site was supposed to be at elevation, but instead it was located at the base of the mountains. It was 99 degrees when we walked out of the car around 2pm. Our "campground", was an RV park and we were the only campers crazy enough to pitch a tent on this day. My niece and nephew laughed at the meager size of my tent as their tent towered over mine. Dying in the heat, once we got the air mattress set up in the house tent, we hit the pool.

After pool time it was dinner time. We discovered a community grill next to the front office and I went over to cook some hot dogs while my mom was going to cook some canned corn on their old Coleman stove. I was turning hot dogs over the grill with my fingers when I heard, "CHRIS! CHRIS! HELP!" I casually turned around and saw my mother standing next to a roar of flames. It appeared that the picnic table was on fire and my mom was in a panic. Fortunately, I was next to the front office and I sprinted into it. I threw open the door and said, "My mother just lit our picnic table on fire!" The lady behind the counter had no idea if they even had a fire extinguisher and we both searched the room. She grabbed the phone to call the fire department when I found their extinguisher and took it outside. I'm not going to lie to you, I've always wanted to rip away that plastic cable tie and pull the metal pin from a fire extinguisher, and it felt pretty cool to finally do this for the first time. I ran out there and blasted the plastic table cloth that had blazed up so wildly.

As we all caught our breath, I was proudly grinning to myself for saving the day. A man standing near us pointed and softly spoke, "Hey hombre, your tent."

I turned around. "Shit!" Some of the smoldering debris had found it's way in the tent and the air mattress was ablaze. I blasted the tent with the extinguisher as the mattress shriveled up to nothing.

Despite the interruption, the hot dogs I was cooking turned out fine, but with the damage to the sleeping bags and tent, this camping adventure was toast. We arrived back at my parents house just 7 hours after leaving that day. I found the whole experience to be quite funny, while my mom was a little more shaken, exclaiming that she thought the entire desert was about to go up in flames. The probable cause of the fire was high wind gusts combined with a poor connection to the fuel line in the Coleman (mom's fault, not mine). My mom claims that the tent fire was my fault as the blast from the fire extinguisher (not the heavy wind, mind you) blew hot debris into the tent. She also went on to complain about the white dust I got on everything.

Oddly enough, camping with the family turned out to be just like I remembered it being as a kid. It's no wonder neither of my siblings like the outdoors.

Michigan

I love North Carolina, but there's no place better than northern Michigan in June. A cousin of mine got married in Charlevoix, MI last Saturday and I was able to make a 10 day trip up there to see my family, visit old friends from high school, and take in some awesome scenery. I'll be back in Raleigh for just a week before leaving to Arizona for the summer. Hopefully things will be just as serene out there.

Guatemala Trip

I got to spend an amazing spring break in Guatemala visiting my friend Leah and delivering paintings for Painting Lemonade. I brought down almost 200 portraits, painted by American high school students, and delivered them to the children of La Limonada. It was an incredible experience and a wonderful week.

A huge thanks to all the students and teachers who participated in Painting Lemonade. I hope to make it a reoccurring project. The children were mesmerized by their portraits, as were their parents. When I first walked into a shanty home in La Limonada, the first thing I saw was a Painting Lemonade portrait up on the wall that had been delivered earlier this year. An awesome sight and an incredible gift.

Remembering Alaska

Once again, is there a better blog entry than one taken straight from the journal? Probably not. So here it is. Written on the airplane as it took me home from my month long journey through Alaska (Pictures here).

July 15^th, 2008

Done. Another chapter of my life gone like the wind. It breaks my heart to leave. And yet there is nothing here that I miss outside of the very lifestyle I got to live for such a short period of time. Drifting in and out of cities, out of homes, riding by the seat of my pants and meeting loving, caring people all along the way.

“When you want something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.”

-Chris McCandless

I wish I knew what made me tick. Adventure, people, service, love…I don’t know. I was thinking that I came up here looking for something, and for a short while I thought I had found it. Something within uncertainty and community, between struggle and passion, that’s where life is. I see it in my friends Jessie and Mitch up in Homer. They live paycheck to paycheck, with hardly any possessions, struggling to find money and work, and even housing, but they have security within their friends old and young. It’s amazing to see. I want that!

In the introduction of “What Is The What” the Lost Boy author says:

“This book is a form of struggle, and it keeps my spirit alive to struggle. To struggle is to strengthen my faith, my hope and my belief in humanity. Since you and I exist, together we can make a difference!”

-Valentino Achak Deng

Life has been too easy for me. My struggle has been to keep up with the Jones’s, and to continually fall above or below the mark as I measure my personal success. I’m done with it! I don’t want to pay for things with money, but with friendship. I want to rely on the generosity and good will of my friends; that is the true test of your good will. And above all that, I want to be a giver. To spend my money on others and limit my possessions to only what is given to me from others.

I need to go back and learn to entertain with food and song and not with television. As I look back, I stayed with five CouchSurfing hosts in Alaska, four of them had no TV and the one who did have a TV had no cable. That’s how it’s done. There’s too much to live for to just sit back and watch from your couch.

So I read Leah’s blog today and she is now free from all of her possessions. She got to do this in dramatic fashion, with everything laid out on her front lawn. I suppose I will never really get to have this experience since my lawn sale wouldn’t amount to much. I moved to Carolina in a Ford Focus packed tight, whereas Leah moved down in an oversized Uhaul packed to the ceiling. But what a great day for her! Everything is behind her now, and once she sells her car she’ll be completely free. Free to move, free to travel, free to love. She finished her blog with a quote from Chris McCandless. How fitting. Cool girl, right?

When I get home tomorrow we’ll go out and celebrate Bill’s last day in the American workforce, as he has quit his job to work for Lemonade International full time. What a celebration it will be. I am jealous of Bill and of Leah, and my prayer today is not for them, but for me. That passion and opportunity will cross paths in my life as well.

And as for my lasting image of Alaska, go to the top of Flattop mountain on the outskirts of Anchorage and take your pick: the view of the city from up high, the setting sun at 11:30pm in the north, the view of Denali (Mt. McKinley), or seeing all three of these images blending together right next to each other. But my choice sits on a small rock at the top of the mountain peak; love rock...LOVE! Once man's graffiti is another man's lasting image of this great wonderful state. How perfect.