Back to Chicago
06-01-1974

John, Mary, Rainy and I travelled for a few months together. A whole new world of traveling and living opened up to us. Our first adventure was down a mud puddle of a road that was supposed to take us the beach where there was a hacienda named La Pesca. John had met a Mexican friend in Brownsville who said his family had a huge hacienda right on the beach, just 100 miles into Mexico. The road was little more than a track. It took us 3 days, a bumper, 2 tail lights and a lot of blue paint to go just 10 miles. When we got there, not only was there no “hacienda” which John repeatedly referred to el big-o house-o when asking for help in directions. He knew not one word of Spanish, but I believe he was trying to mimic it with the sense that the additional “-o” would make it seem more like Spanish. None of the Spanish speaking people ever corrected him. They were too polite.

The road stopped short of the beach, and was separated by a large, what appeared to be, a crocodile infested lagoon. All of our work, no plantation, no sipping pina coladas on our private veranda, and no beach! Still, I had to admit that we were having a great time. The adventure of just seeing a 50-passenger bus hung up as it tried to cross a riverbed, was impressive. The front end was resting on one bank while the patio end was resting on the other bank. The rear wheels were suspended about 2 feet about the rushing water. It gave me a good laugh until it became our turn to cross. We got only a few feet in to water until we became solidly stuck. None of this fazed John. He just got a sly smirk, pulled out the shovels, jacks and other tools, and we all got to work. From this disaster I learned that it is not always about the destination. Sometimes it was just about the path.

That path continued to lead us to even more great adventures. I have no idea what John saw in us. He was an experienced outdoorsman, while we were just about a citified as you could get. He taught us to love the outdoors and to have fun with its challenges. We raced around in the woods on his motorcycle, canoed across the lagoon, and used it, none too successfully, to surf in the oceans waves. We built the biggest bonfire on the beach that I have ever seen. It burned for 3 days!

After a few weeks it was time to leave and I was much more relaxed about any disasters that might befall us. We travelled down the coastal beach through Tampico and Veracruz until we hit the Yucatan peninsula. Back then there was no one guarding the Mayan ruins except maybe an occasional campesino who was all too willing to let us spend the days and sometimes the nights among the ancient buildings. We played in and on them like they were our own private theme park. What fun we all had! Tulum was the definitive highlight. Miles of beautiful beach with no one on it, all of the coconuts and lobster that you could eat while surrounded by ancient Mayan ruins.

By June we were running low on funds, but we knew that this was what we wanted our lives to be like so we hatched a plan and went back to Chicago to get it going.