We are all travellers

Vacations. Vacating. It puts a real spin on things to leave one's home for another and adapt so readily as we humans do to the next place we stand in.  One takes everything that one is to each new situation and so it is like one never left home at all.  Wherever you go, there you are.

Awake at 1 a.m. and on the plane by 6 a.m., I was excited and ready for my trip of a lifetime.

I had little reason to suspect that de-icing the plane would set off a chain of events that would cause my checked-in suitcase to miss my connecting flight in Miami and be delivered about 28 hours later to our little casita in Playa Grande on the Pacific coast of the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica where my friend, Connie, and I would stay for the next 2 weeks.

Nothing can compare to being above the clouds. Nothing.

I have many shots of this ethereal landscape.  It will be an exercise in self-discipline to keep from showing you every photograph I took.

 

Flying over Central America, I realized that we were, in fact, over Nicaragua, which has many volcanoes of its own. This was my first sighting, as you can see, in the top third of this picture.

 

Little was I to know that volcanoes are everywhere. And that Nicaragua has more than Costa Rica.

Here is a lake-filled crater. I'm going to guess that this is still Nicaragua. Most of the darker blue spots are made by cloud shadow.

As I said, I have a ridiculous amount of shots, often because my camera has a one second delay that nearly drove me "'round the bend".   I compensated by taking many shots in a row so that I might get a full frame picture rather than the tail end of some animal or bird,  or someone's smile wafting off because they thought the picture-taking was over.

I will share some of my best pictures over the next little while as well as whatever new projects I will be working on.  As for my Daily Project, I'm afraid it has bitten the dust.  Our household is in transition now as we prepare to...move.  Where we don't know. This all came up the week before I was to leave.  It has created a certain chaos around here. I would never have gone away on holiday if I had known that this was about to happen.  Fortunately we have a broad lead time so we can do the packing up and the editing with some sanity.  Still, it is an emotional time as I weigh through the lessons I have learned from travelling just at the time when my home is to be upended.  The big one that hits me most is: 

We are all travellers

 

It amazes me that I am home for 4 days already. If I had used my time this poorly while I was away I never would have seen anything. Exhaustion has set in and one afternoon I found myself flopped sideways on my bed, fully dressed and passed out. Slowly I am pulling the house back together even while I am thinking about pulling it apart. There is still time.



The mornig sky has since brought snow, lots of it.

 

A graphite sketch I did one hot afternoon in Costa Rica.

The bird is an interpretation of the magpie bluejay that I hand fed.

 

I send you tropical dreams from this snowy morning.