Even though it has been a while since I wrote on my blog, I want you to know I have been writing every day. About what? You ask… About Puerto Rico of course.
You see, I love to travel, but since I rarely get the chance I tend to go a little overboard. For me, the days leading up to a trip are often just as exciting as the trip itself. There is definitely something to be said for anticipation. I look at the pre-trip days as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn everything I possibly can about the people and places I am going to see and the upcoming trip to Puerto Rico is no exception.
I guess you could say I am a tad bit excited…
Or maybe you could say I’m really looking forward to it…
Ok, you could say I’m thrilled right out of my Ariat boots!!! My suitcase has been packed for 2 months and I now have a collection of swimsuits that I’m pretty sure will rival all others in a 5 state region!
The main reason I’m soooo excited about this trip is because I finally have the chance to travel to a tropical island and snorkel in the Caribbean. That has been right up there at the top of my bucket list since birth. What can I say? White sand beaches and large bodies of water have called to me my whole life. I love the smell of the water, the power of the waves, the spray in my face and even the creatures that wash up on shore. And strange as it may seem (since I live just about as far from an ocean as a person can get) sea shells have always found their way to me. I find them everywhere – rummage sales, sandboxes in public parks, second-hand stores, in boxes at farm auctions, in antique stores and my all-time favorite – fossilized shells I literally stumbled over in a road ditch while I my pickup was broke down beside a lonely Wyoming highway one night.
I have inherited sea shells and found them while cleaning out my grandparents house. You know, I never realized til right now just how many shells I have. It’s amazing.
Not only have I filled a display case with these tiny treasures but they sit on shelves and window sills throughout the house. They cover the soil in the houseplant pots. I put them in terrariums and I send them away as gifts but I still have thousands more in boxes, tucked into cupboards and closets and under my bed. Even my jewelery box is full of shell shaped baubles.
And it’s not just shells. I have brought home bottles of water from each of the oceans I have traveled to and there are bottles from each of the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls to back up the pictures of me barefooted and grinning like an idiot ankle-deep in the icy waters. There are bottles of sand too – coarse sand, fine sand, white sand and one beautiful bottle of ‘singing’ sand, the color of brown sugar from a beach on Lake Superior. My son, Dalton and his wife Dani brought that one home for me from a trip to her Grandparents home. They also brought driftwood and fresh water shells – fragile little works of art worthy of any great art museum. I love them all! And I dream of someday building a huge glass fronted case that would cover one entire wall of the dining room to fill with these miracles of nature.
Yes, I’m obsessed. Maybe I am really a mermaid born by mistake in the midwest. It makes perfect sense to me but then a lot of strange things do.
As if that’s not strange enough we also have a large collection of pirate/Caribbean/ocean themed movies. My favorite picks – any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Cutthroat Island, Captain Ron and an oldie but a goodie Nate and Hayes starring Tommy Lee Jones. When the winters get long in South Dakota my tropical movies have always gotten me through.
Yes, just 31 days and we will fly off to the Caribbean. You can bet I’ll have empty water bottles on hand to fill with ocean water and sand. I will probably have to mail home boxes of sea shells because I will pick up so many that my suitcase will be overweight by the time we head for home. I am really looking forward to eating and drinking all the wonderful things I have been reading about and I know there will be several memory cards full of photos of everything from beautiful sunsets to the guy who waits on us at the bar. We will dance to the beat of the local music and I will lay in the sand like a beached whale. Best of all I will wear the bikinis a 50-year-old woman probably shouldn’t wear but damn – who’s gonna care anyway! Life is much to short to worry about the little things like age. 50 is smack dab in the middle so I figure I am finally an adult and as such I have given myself permission to enjoy life more than ever.
This should be fun.
RanchDaze 