Studied Spanish. Pushed to the front. Barely.

Had lunch with Jon Paul. Always a blessing.

Every so often Walmart has to send me things rather than me just pick them up. Not sure why.

OYB!

About the time to get the insurance squared away. I hope we can figure out something for Ashley and Jessi.

I tweaked my back and had a headache all morning long. Not sure what was going on. Took a nap after I ate with Jon. Felt better after that. Still didn’t get to go out an enjoy the great weather.

I have potential jury duty next week. I signed up for text information from the jury web site last time. I reckon it’s still in effect because it sent me information.

Just keep going.

Just keep going!

Changed our Mint Mobile amount to just 5GB per month. Should be enough.

OYB!

Had a great talk with my old friend Rollin Hooper! He’s like a brother to me.

I called his little brother who is also one of my favorite people and left a VM.

I always enjoy talking with my buddy, Anthony in the UK. He’s hilarious.

Español!

Walked 3.58 miles. That’s 20 hills.

I saw this weird root like thing on this tree. It was about three feet up. The tree is dying.

Listened to Don Cheto while I drove.

Took the grandgirls to Pho 24. It’s one of our favorite places, but it’s gotten quite expensive especially to what it used to cost.

Helped the kids at the mission. She drew me the picture.

Deposited checks. Amen. It’s amazing how much better I feel when the bank account has more money.

Beautiful moon.

I’ve been ordering my groceries on line and picking them up for over three years now. BUT I still have to go inside to get bananas. For some reason the app doesn’t have that item.

Still working hard!

OYB!

Español!

Jessi’s birthday card came in from Nana.

Had a good walk, 2.97 miles. 17 hills.

Ordered groceries.

Ordered new shirts and shoes for K.

I watched this car back into a car at Azalea. Just drove off like no big deal. I left a note on the car he hit.

Helped the kids at the mission.

Ordered more melatonin for Kathy. Seems to help her sleep.

OYB!

Walk!

Good chat with Anthony about his teacher training course.

Worked on a video for Peachtree Corners BC to use for fund raising.

Went to the bank to deposit checks.

Azalea apartments are putting in some new hedges.

Picked up the girls and took them to Waffle House.

They like to pretend they’re riding the Waffle House Horse.

Helped the kids with their homework. I had a shorter day because of Jessi’s party this evening. We still got a lot of it done.

Listened to Don Cheto while driving.

K and I took Jessi to Provinos. It’s our favorite Italian restaurant and has free birthday meals!

The Speedway gas station had a price drop to 2.79. I stopped in to fill up, check fluids and clean my windows.

OYB!

Español!

Worked on cleaning off the glue residue from tape I had put there.

Cleaned the glass front door.

Walked 2.91 miles.

Sixteen hills.

Cleaned the leaves off the room and blowing the gutters. Solidly in the work category.

I like the way I stacked these limbs.

Many leaves landed on the deck.

Worked out with the blower .55 miles.

Driveway was next.

Listened to Don Cheto.

House sure looks better with the roof and driveway blown. The gutters were completely blocked by tree debris

I didn’t have enough time to take a shower before I went to the mission. Bahd luck. It was cool enough so luckily I didn’t sweat much.

I listened to Guatevision TV. They are now in the third week of protests. It started October 2nd while I was in Panajachel, Guatemala. I know the people are having a hard time. I saw video of the stores. Looked like almost all the shelves were empty.

The girls enjoyed singing and acting out this dance.

Watered the Pink Magnolia sapling. She sure has had a rough go. That white powder mildew really did a number on her. I think she’ll survive.

Helped the kids a the mission. Had a long talk with one of the girls about truancy.

Cleared out the trash can in my office. Picked up checks. Amen. Depositing those will be a tomorrow job.

Blake is one of my very favorite artists/authors.

OYB!

Español!

We ate breakfast at Bojangles.

Gorgeous weather!

We took the girls over to Miles’ folks house. Then came on home. Unfortunately, my stomach started acting up. Had some diarrhea. My guess is was from all the junk food I ate last night.

Played games. Nice nap.

Studied Spanish. I’ll come in the top ten. Can’t believe how much competition there was in the league this week.

I worked on getting my Mint Mobile accounts downgraded to just 5GB a month. I think that should be enough for us.

Beautiful weather.

OYB!

Got my new socks on line today!

Español!

Walked .53 miles.

Enjoyed watching Penelope’s soccer match.

After the game, we went to their house to pick up a few extra things then to my house to drop K off. Shot on over to Stone Mountain then.

We had fun at the Stone Mountain Village.

We enjoyed eating fried Oreos and funnel cakes.

Mini golf!

Train ride!

Glow Zone! Cool!

Wonderland. The glasses made the fluorescent paint appear 3D.

We enjoyed the juggler.

I always have fun making swishy lights.

The juggler at night was super cool.

The drone show and fireworks were really cool. Pumpkin themed.

Got the girls home, fed and bathed. Told them a short story and they were asleep.

My first night of using the software from WordPress for the blog. Hope everything turns out ok.

Delicious breakfast at Maya papaya. Two eggs, black beans as and  fruit. Topped off with banana pancakes.

Went to climb the hill of the cross outside of Antigua. Went up the hill back down the road.  One more loop up the mountain in then back down.

Went around the old town of Antigua. Went through the old Cathedral that had been demolished by an earthquake. Interesting  angels. Saw the arch of Saint Katrina. Ate at Copa de la Supa again for vegetarian quesadilla. Uploaded about 100 pictures while I was there. Came back to Maya papaya rested for about an hour.

Went back to the Hill of the Cross. Up and made a big loop back down through the road. And then walked up and down the hill another three times. Felt very strong. No altitude problem at all. Came back to maya papaya. Saw koon and we went over to Ulew for the secret speakeasy. Totally full. Weren’t able to get in. Had fun talking to him as well as two other girls from France. Got to speak some French with them. Coom came back after eating dinner with American and Israeli friend. Interesting conversation about Christmas traditions in Holland. Did some prep work on going to Lake Atitlán . Will catch the car at Maia papaya around 1230.

I had a good nights sleep at the Tequila sunrise hostel. I woke up around 6 AM. Tried to go back to sleep, but didn’t have much luck with that.

I took a shower, got dressed, and went upstairs to get breakfast. They had delicious pancakes and fruit to eat. I also had three cups of coffee.  After that I feel like I’d returned to the land of the living. 

I had a good talk with my buddy Anthony. He’s always good for a laugh. 

Also, had a great time with Jessi. I’d been trying to contact her several times during the trip. I was glad I finally got to talk to her today. Always interesting and conversation. 

I paid for my taxi driver earlier that morning. I told the reception guy that I needed to have him there about 10 AM. I was talking with Jessi and kind of lost track of time and realized it was already 10 till 10! I told Jessi I had to go, got the last of my stuff in my bags, went outside my door and sure enough the taxi driver was already there.

Got my bags into the car and about 20 minutes later we arrived at the airport. Nice smooth ride with no blockades. 

I got my bag checked in with no problem. I had to fill out some forms online before I went through Immigration. That was no big deal. Got all through the administration side of things very easily, and efficiently. I thought that airport was actually good.

I had saved some money to maybe buy some curios for the girls. But I looked through all that stuff and I thought I can find every bit of this in Plaza Fiesta. So why should I carry more of it in my bag? I didn’t think they’d really care one way or the other. 

I went off to a solitary part of the airport, and studied Spanish for about an hour. It’s the way of life. 

Later, I saw an officer that was dressed like the captain. I greeted him and found out that he was definitely the captain of our flight. 

We had a nice conversation. Later on, I saw him and the copilot sitting together. I asked them if they wanted Coke and chips. They said they had had a big breakfast and they weren’t hungry. Later, I went back to talk to them.

 I found out that the copilot was from South Africa. It was very interesting to swap stories from our days in the bush. Of course I had a lot of snake stories, and so did he. 

I boarded the flight no problem. The captain told me that the plane was only about halfway full. I’d say it was 95% Guatemalans. Hardly any tourists. 

I saw lots of helicopters at the airport. Apparently, there has been quite a lot of tourist evacuated by helicopter. I think they decided that that was better than trying to drive through blockades on mountain roads.

It’s hard to believe that this adventure is coming to an end. I’m sorry I didn’t get to climb the volcano. During my stay at Lake Atitlan I was glad that I had done a 12 mile hike. It took me about five hours up and down the hills between the villages. So I felt like I had done my due diligence and pushed myself as hard as I could.

I’m sorry that Guatemala is going through such political turmoil right now. Gives me insight into the people that I work with at Azalea. 

I do hope to go back to Guatemala one day. There are lots of areas yet to be explored. That includes Tikal with the Mayan pyramids and Flores, which has some unbelievable jungle from what I read. 

All in all it was a terrific trip. But I sure am ready to be home with my family. Amen.

Woke up even earlier than usual. Knowing how long my day was going to be, I tried to go back to sleep. Limited success on that. 

Studied Spanish. It’s a way of life. 

Had a good talk with Nana to let her know that this trip is going to be safe. I didn’t want her to worry. I have also had a talk with Kathy. Spelling out all the plans try to help her be comfortable about what’s going on as well. 

I cleaned up my room and got everything packed up. I put all the furniture back like it was when I found it.

I went to eat Thai food for lunch. It was absolutely delicious. I figured I needed at least one good meal today besides just 2 cups of coffee.

I went back to the hotel and said goodbye to the management and her family. Then got my bag and went back down to the boat docks. One things for sure, it’s easier to go downhill than uphill with that stuff. I weighed in at 42 pounds. That’s good. 

I waited for the boat for about an hour and a half. It was a private boat, but there was enough people going on it so that we all split the charge. It went from 350 to about 40 each. So that was good news. I was willing to have to pay the whole thing if I had to do it could get here to get my ride on to the capital. 

I had a long talk with the bus driver today. It’s really weird here because there’s hardly anybody in the streets. Almost all of the shops are closed. That’s because Panajachel runs on tourism and there’s hardly any tourists in town right now because of the protests. 

Seems like the driver knows what he’s doing and he’s done this multiple times. Apparently after a certain time at night, they pretty much let people just drive through. They’re not too worried about it after dark. They made it sound like we will probably leave around 7:30 or something like that so that’s good. That’s a little earlier than I was told to expect.

All of this is just part of the gig. I just take it one step at a time and don’t get too uptight about anything.  Not always easy to do. 

@@@@@@@@@@@

I enjoyed talking to the main driver and the head of the administrative part for Atitrans. There are the people that are in charge of transportation. 

I decided to get a piece of pizza and asked them “do you want a piece of pizza and a coke?” They said yeah so I bought them Coke and pizza.

Later on Marco who is one of the drivers said, “I think you should ride in this van here because it’s more comfortable and has a headrest. And it  can charge your phone. Go ahead and ride in front.” 

So I’ve got the first class accommodations for this trip. And it’s all because I invested like three dollars for pizza and drinks for these guys. It definitely pays off to be nice.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

That had to be one of the scariest road trips I’ve ever had in my life. We made a very circumspect way out of Panajachel. We finally got on this mountain road which was less than two cars wide. It reminded me a lot of Africa. 

There was absolutely no shoulder on the road. The hedge of bush came right to the edge of the tarmac. Many places there were branches that had broken off and fallen on the road. There were also big rocks from landslides that were taking up about a third of the road. 

It was raining heavily as we left the city. That made driving precarious. Combining that with the hairpin turns in the road and the stuff that was actually in the road made for a really scary trip. 

I thought that it was a great idea for me to be in the passenger seat upfront. I’m not so sure about that anymore. The rest of the people on the Van seem to be oblivious to what was going on. But I was looking at everything up close in personal. It was like being in a movie of some kind of scary adventure show. 

I tried to have extended conversation with the driver, Miguel to take my mind off of the danger. He was an older guy maybe in his mid 50s. 

He said he been driving these roads for over 30 years. Then he started talking about how his night vision wasn’t good anymore. But he was still doing it. That was way too much information for me. I don’t really want to know that you can’t see at night when we’re in this mountain, super curvy hairpin road in rain.

I knew we were taking this route because we were avoiding blocks in the road. My driver told methat we were going to see a blockade soon and it was going to be open. At least he hoped so. A little while later we came up to it. Traffic was coming our direction but none was going the our way. 

Finally, it was our turn to go. And then he started saying, “Oh no, they’re going to block the road.”Sure enough they brought up this big fence that completely block the road within. I kept thinking,  “Are we really gonna have to go back down the same road we just got through?” That just sounded like a complete nightmare.

Fortunately, they just keep kept going with the fence and let us through. I thought that that was really the hand of God.  I had the same exact feeling when the boat conked out in the middle of the lake and finally started up again.

We continued on through this windy, super scary road and not only had rain but as we got higher up, we also had very thick fog. It made visibility almost zero. 

He kept flipping the lights from dim to bright back-and-forth to try to see the road ahead. I know that just on the edge of the rope. Had to be a sheer cliff down to oblivion. It was terrifying.  And yet the rest of the van was calmly snoozing.

It really was two of the most frightening hours I’ve ever had of my life. 

Soon, we stopped and traded drivers. The new driver was to take us on into Guatemala city. He was way more aggressive than Miguel. Fortunately, we were on much better roads and not  in these mountain passes anymore.  I think he felt like it was his job to make up time.

He kept taking windy routes through the cities we went through. I’m sure it was to try avoid the blockades. I asked him how he was doing it. He said that he had the rest of his team that was ahead who was constantly giving him information as to what was blocked and what we could get through.  It was a really interesting partnership.

After about another hour and a half I started to see signs for the airport. I couldn’t believe we got there so fast. We were told we were probably going to get into Guatemala City around 2:00 AM and I started seeing signs for the airport around 11:00 PM! Sure enough about 30 minutes later we pulled up to Aurora airport and I got out the van thanking God for his protection. 

My bag was over forty pounds so it  kind of scary when he handed it down from the top of the van. I grabbed the bag and managed to wrestle it to the ground. 

The hardest part was actually going down two flights of stairs, which were very steep. But I ended up doing OK. 

I talked with some taxi drivers and they all said the same thing that it was about $14 to get to where I was going. I didn’t hassle with them. I was just too tired. I just said, “Let’s go.” 

It turned out to be about a 20 minute drive, I thought it was just down the road. So after that, I felt like it was definitely worth the money. 

I got to the Tequila Sunrise hostel about 11:30 PM . I already had my reservation so check-in was really smooth. I had a private room right in the front of the hostel. I got my stuff unpacked and  took a shower and got cleaned up. I think the water helped relax me so I could go to sleep because that trip was super stressful. I finally went to sleep about 1 o’clock in the morning.