I love Belize. My friend Caroline from Jr. College told me in 1988 that I would, and she was right. Wish I could find her and tell her so.

Standing in the laundry room of the marina one morning I had a 15 minute conversation with a man who works in communications for the American Embassy in Belmopan, 45 minutes south of Old Belize where we live. His is the boat in dry dock that my fostered potlicka little mama chose to have her pups under, and that’s what got the two of us talking. He and his family have traveled extensively, but it’s the Caribbean that has captured his heart. We both say it at the same time,

“There’s no stress”

I, of course, make the motion of gliding my hands out from the sides of my body. He just stays, leaned against a door jam as he’s been since the beginning of the conversation. I’m telling you folks, seriously, come to Belize to unwind, it happens quickly.

Keith had his Belizean work permit, I had a dependency Visa from just about the time we arrived. Both are good until mid-2009, this makes us Belizean. We get a “locals” discount. This cracks me up. Keith shrugged off the potential savings at one of the ruin sites, something about the difference in the few bucks meaning more to the caretakers of the ruin than to us. Little did he know, the trick is to not take the ticket issued…that’s where the real difference is made. The corruption of this country is nothing if it is not completely on the table. Ok?

One day we took a Sunday drive. We were not going far, or for long, but we just wanted to get out. Heading for one destination, we turned at another, Jaguar Paw, a place we’d been meaning to explore for awhile. Isn’t that the definition of a Sunday Drive?

Surprisingly, the road was fantastic. Paved and not potholed, this means big money in this country, and for us, it meant we could relax and just keep going. We missed the Jaguar Paw - tourism is not at its finest around here, signage is a problem and businesses are often behind shut gates. Fortunately, in Belize, where you end up is equally as good as where you intended to be - insert Western cliche - “It’s all good”.

The road ended at an Archaeological Reserve. A ticket booth had been built between the end of the road and the parking lot.

“You going tubing?” The guy behind the glass asked.

“No. We live here.” Keith replied.

“Ohhhhhhh, You’re Belizean.” The ticket guy finished, waving us along to park.

We wished we had brought our suits, going tubing looked like a fine idea, and lots of people were partaking. All along a shaded gravel walk-way were small corrals filled with inner-tubes, and “guides” offering to take us tubing. By now we had the phrasing down,

“Nah, s’ok, we live here”

Off we went to walk into the jungle, waded into the river, and explored like locals. Keith convinced me to follow him “off trail” (I swear from one time to the next I am not going too…but I always do) to look for what might have been coatimundi, or even a tapir, for sure a toucan that we had heard earlier was back in that way. Soon enough, I lost sight of him, and began feeling less than prepared to be trekking in the jungle. I mean, most people at least have a machete to hack along this growth, not to mention that I’d forgotten bug spray, was walking in open toed shoes and had no water….this went on inside my head for a few minutes as I stood atop a vine claimed tree stump under the shade of a banana tree.

Butterflies were surfing on the refreshing breeze, I scanned the tree tops for Toucans (and glanced at my feet occasionally looking for a Fer De Lance, the aggressive and deadly snake I’d learned about). When Keith emerged from the distance, he did so clutching a beautiful purple flower, like a morning glory but 15 times the size. It’s like that here in the jungle, take any common house plant of garden flower and expand it 15 times. A person could wrap themselves in a single philodendron leaf here. I put the lovely flower behind my ear and we trekked on out.

Before we left the reserve, we assured the guide, Lewis, that had approached us before the others, that we would call and arrange a tubing expedition. He offered that we could get in on a “night” tubing tour - and though I don’t know the real difference between tubing through a cave in the night or in the day, I suspect it’s because we are Belizean that we received the offer.

If you were to run mapquest to get mileage on a trip from Fresno California to Independence California, the results would yield a driving trip just a hair under 295 miles - at least a 6 hour drive (though mapquest does it in four). Not surprisingly, putting in coordinates on a GPS from the Fresno airport to the Independence airport results in a completely different set of numbers - try a 72 mile trip, less than a 40 minute flight. Though it’s not necessarily news, this makes Keith and I smile. Just a couple glimpse’s of what it looks like at 11,000 ft. over the mid-section of the Kings Canyon Sequoia National Forest.

And I do mean glimpses…just as I was oooohhhing and awwwing at the scenery in the above photos, straight ahead was a view that was somehow so very familiar - just something I had never seen aerially and from this direction. Before me lay my beloved Owens Valley - the deepest valley in North America.

Our time in the valley was cut short - we’d ended up overnighting Thursday night in Fresno to give the mechanics a bit of extra time to complete the required maintenance…..such as a new engine and rotor blades….all pretty important stuff, no need to rush ‘em! Keith was set to start flying tours later that Friday afternoon, so no setting down for any visits. This next picture, where the X marks the spot is where the Manzanar Relocation Camp once stood. And if you look closely - the white spot in the upper left hand corner is the Owens Dry Lake.

From this vantage, if you were to turn your head to the right would be the magnificent view of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States measuring 14,491′.

Which completes our sightseeing of my old stomping grounds. In the time it takes me to snap a few photos, we begin our climb into the Saline Valley and then over Death Valley. An hour earlier, we’d pushed closed the vents and windows, it was just so dang cold that high up in the mountains - ahhhh how quickly things warm up in the desert.

On our United flight Las Vegas to Fresno, the Captain welcomed us, advised that we would be reaching cruising altitude of 24,000′ and that unfortunately there was not going to be many landmarks to point out, other than we would fly over Death Valley National park. Well, he was not wrong, but at 8,000′ this landscape keeps the ole’ eyeballs busy. My pictures don’t do any justice to the stark contrasts of the barren volcanic landscape shaped by tectonics, alluvial fans and mysterious sand dunes. Morning sun burns the ground, but today there is slight reprieve with mottled harmless puffs of cloud.

Keith tells me I’m spoiled to fly over this part of the country and not have to suffer the normal rough riding turbulence. I smile, yes, yes, I am a pretty lucky girl, no doubt about that

I snapped a few photos of the Vegas urban sprawl, but the one I will post is a close up of just one of the hundreds of zero lot line developments…..pretty much couldn’t pay Keith or I to inhabit one of these places…puhleaze!!!

No disrespect intended to anyone reading this who lives in one of these, no doubt, beautifully decorated homes - but there’s not even room to raise chickens …….no thanks. Here is the space we have - crazy that it’s more than the people living here full time. Ours is the space with the big tree….shading our driveway. We were hoping for a space with a view of Lake Mead, but ya know, sometimes you just can’t have everything -we are happy here.

That about wraps up our 2.5 hour flight, it was a really nice morning