Saturday, May 30, 2009

Last journey

The travel bug has bitten me. It's really a great chance I got to take on this latest travel venture.

On Monday I leave for Costa Rica and I'll be there through Saturday. I am going on business and staying for pleasure. I'm a writer by trade and there's a big game down there that I'll be at, players that I'll talk to and write about before the game and of course provide on-the-spot coverage from the game itself. I've traveled before for games, went to the World Cup in Japan in 2002 and have been through various sites in the U.S. for games as well (Dallas, Salt Lake City, Chicago). My favorite trip until now was a trip I took to Trinidad & Tobago back in 2001. If I figure out my scanner, I'll have to scan in some pictures of there. That place was marvelous, and I was lucky enough to go for three weeks!

Still, work-related travel plans are few and far between. Usually if I travel, it's on my own dime and then I have to try and sell enough stories to cover the costs, but that is hardly ever a good idea. This time around though one site I work for paid for my trip so that was a stroke of good fortune.

Also, Mrs. LB will be joining me down there and we get to spend two days in the rainforests of Costa Rica! It's only two days but with children two days is a lot better than no days. We haven't traveled like this since 2006 when we took a road trip to Mexico. And while we weren't exactly world travelers before having children, we did have the freedom to go and do so before we became parents, and we spent time in Mexico and visited several other states here in the U.S.

Anyway, there is hope that some day I'll be able to travel more frequently. The girls are getting older and traveling with them won't be as difficult. I don't know what 8-year-old girls are like but I can't imagine them being more difficult to travel with than an 8-month-old baby as was the case in 2006 for us. We had fun then, though that trip had its harrowing moments. We actually drove down there (LB, Mrs. LB, Danny and his then-girlfriend, now-wife) while the girls flew with my parents. It's a long story about the mix-up at the airport, Mrs. LB having to fly back home and fly back down and us leaving early (the harrowing parts) but I'll blog about the wonders of notarized letters and traveling out of the country on a future post.

For now, here's one of the best parts of that trip, which was the drive down there. This was our route. We left here on a Thursday afternoon, drove through the night, got into Mazatlan on Friday, stayed the rest of the day and night there and drove the rest of the way on Saturday.


The red is our route. The yellow dot towards the end is Mazatlan. The graphics are great: print screen, paint and a red marker. We spare no expense at Muddy Runner.

And here's a more visual representation of the journey down there.



Mazatlan is beautiful. You could go to Cancun and Acapulco but Mazatlan is a lot less touristy than those places and a lot less crowded. You can't go wrong there. Hopefully we'll be back sooner rather than later.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Once the kids reach a certain age, let's say 7+, they become great travel companions. It will be so worth it when you can take them along!

Angie Eats Peace said...

Awesome video.
Have a safe and fun trip!

Lissaloo said...

Lucky duck, that sounds like a great trip!!! Have fun!

Willoughby said...

Traveling with your kids is the best! The memories (good and bad) are priceless!