Category Archives: Personal stuff

I’ve only been gone 5 days but you get into “travel mode” and feels like “home” is a concept, not real

Personal stuff

I would hate to suggest that every trip has a Starbucks embedded somewhere, but that’s typically true. Only exception was Singapore, a real surprise that we saw none there a month ago. The trip I’m writing about now started Saturday night/Sunday morning at 12:45am. The destination? The Peruvian Amazon.

Most of my trips involve a lot of flights and appear at least slightly convoluted. This one, with my daughter (Becky), a bit less so. 7 hour flight from SFO to Panama City, an hour to change planes there, 3+ hour flight to Lima, 2.5 hrs there, then a 2 hour flight to Iquito, gateway to the Amazon.

Nothing too noteworthy about the flights; even the Peruvian Air segment was as bad as some reports would say it had the potential to be. Old aircraft with non-existent shock absorbers, sure… they hit the runway HARD! But reasonably on time and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

I’ll start getting more up shortly. Meantime need to get ready to sleep; we leave tomorrow, thankfully not too early (1:48ppm via Copa Airlines, which is a lot more sane schedule than taking the 2am flight on United!).

There are no references to Sunflowers flowering this time of year. It’s challenging us to do more.

Personal stuff, ,

img_3271sunflower_11_26_16_1200wIs it that this little guy doesn’t know any better, staying in full bloom on a cold wet night in late November, or is it simply more brave, more daring, unwilling to accept as assumed fate?

I salute this Sunflower because it dares to run counter to the norm. It sees opportunity continuing. Perhaps it’s adapting to its environment. Perhaps I see something of myself in this Sunflower. My refusal to see winter as an excuse to hibernate, but rather get out there and continue to ride, despite the cold, despite the wet, despite even the opportunity to actually get in a good workout on an indoor trainer (made tolerable only because you can imagine, using a copious amount of computer hardware and a connection to the internet, that you’re actually riding outside).

We are made to be outdoors. Some of us anyway. Which brings me to that Sunflower. Why can’t our customers be more like that Sunflower? Why do so many either stop or seriously curtail their riding as if they’ve been programmed to since birth, like a plant that can’t possibly survive the winter? Well, if that Sunflower can do it, so can we!