All sorts of good news this weekend. My dengue is much improved, we enjoyed a visit from some trans-hemisphere drivers, and attended a snazzy fundraiser shindig on Saturday.

I'm finally feeling mostly human again. I still run out of energy rather quickly and have been sleeping about two or three hours more per night than I usually do, but at least most of the time I feel good, which is a big step in the right direction.

John Paul and Natalie are driving a big blue fj60 Landcruiser from Rhode Island to .... somewhere south of here (maybe Argentina). They've been on the road six months and were effusively thankful for the paucity of information that they could glean off of our site and a couple of emails from me about the journey itself. Its a little funny, every time someone gushes about how wonderful our site is, I feel a pang of guilt at how much info I've *intended* to post, but never got around to doing. Still, it is great to see people using the site to plan their own dreams. We almost missed seeing them entirely, as they read about my dengue episode and didn't want to intrude. We insisted they spend a night with us anyway and the four of us had a great time rehashing travel tales. Since any long-distance journey involves some level of mechanical breakdown, I spent a little qt helping fix a few minor things on their truck. Couldnt' figure out a repair on their window lifter, so I donated the one from Sandy so that John Paul would have an operational window. I can't believe he has put up with the broken one for as long as he has, that sort of minor but pernicious failure is the worst: A total breakdown forces you to attend to the problem, but something that simply annoys you day in and day out without justifying a complicated repair, that's the sort of thing that really drives you crazy. I also donated another couple of little bits to help with their door locks and the other window. It feels good to know that while the parts/repairs where minor to me, they will enjoy the change on an ongoing basis. The look of sheer pleasure on John Paul's face as he ran the window up and down was a great reminder of how easy it can be to help someone out, and how rewarding.

Which leads to an important and interesting conversation that we had regarding how travel helps remind us all of how much a difference it can make when people invest just a little bit of time or effort into helping others. We've all been the beneficiaries of various degrees of help from absolute strangers (and friends and family, of course!). We agreed that being out on the road is a constant reminder of just how easy it is to give or receive a little bit of kindness, and how much better the world is for the small kindnesses all around us. It was a much more pleasant chat than the ones we spent bemoaning the abhorrent ignorance that typifies the foreign relations policies of the US these days.

Another fringe benefit of having some travelers around was that they were willing to invest the modicum of energy necessary to take a few pictures of daily life. Of course, we should be better at taking more snaps of ourselves, but we aren't, so getting some pics from them gives us a chance to see both of our mugs on the blog here, not once, not twice, but THREE whole times. Didn't I tell you this was a good weekend? Well, it gets better! We even got a picture of us dressed up (a little) for the fundraiser on Saturday night. Exciting, no?

I'd love to say that we took our camera with us and got dozens of great pictures of ourselves and friends at the swanky Pinilla Academy charity fundraiser event at which BBA sponsored a corporate table, but we didn't take the camera. Sorry. There were some shutterbugs present, so there is a non-zero chance we'll get some pics up later, but you wouldn't want to hold your breath on that one. It was a fantastic event, replete with all the "society" folks of Tamarindo, if you can call anything in this relaxed little town "society", which you probably couldn't, if you had any notion of what real "society" is like... but I'm blissfully ignorant of the reality of blue-blooded hoity-toity society is like, so I'm going to stick with the notion that Saturday's event was the closest thing to a society gathering that we've yet seen in Tamarindo. Of course, it is Guanacaste: we had some mud issues to deal with and some last-minute "oops, someone forgot to do that" issues cropped up, but overall the event was a great time for all who attended and it seems that the auctions raised a bunch of money for the incipient non-profit private school for which the event was thrown. I took special pleasure in watching local ladies bidding against each other for some jewelry that Jocelyn Broyles donated to the event. I think one piece actually sold for more than it would have cost to buy retail! Which is always a fun affirmation of the appeal of Jocelyn's creations.

Sunday was a slow day. Despite drinking at a rate that can only be described as miserly, I was pretty worn out. Jocelyn was doing better than I, but still enjoyed a nice lazy morning. We reluctantly bid farewell to our new friends Natalie and John Paul as they loaded up to head southward, then Jocelyn spent some time figuring out how we are going to seat 10 or more people next thursday while I got some more work done on Louie. Sharp eyes will notice that the snorkel is finally on (drilling a 4" hole in the fender isn't any easier the second time around) and I've finally got the rear locker fully operational. Oh, big thanks to Soop for the map light that is finally not only installed, but also wired in! I'll spare you the details on the other very minor things I finished (12v power outlet, switch panel in the dash, some LED lights, driving lights switched by hi-beams), suffice it to say that for the first time since buying the new (to us) Cruiser, the list of things to do has actually gotten shorter every weekend instead of longer. Nothing motivates me to get work done on my own cruiser more than doing work on someone else's vehicle.

Labels: 4x4, expedition, jewelry, landcruiser, travel