Packing

Day 0

I love traveling. I get to pick my hall of fame t-shirts. Element blue from '03, lived through all of college and didn't get stolen in the dorms. Element black, recent, makes me think of family. Holy Guinness, faithful in a completely unreligious way. Reliable friends when walls are white and pools are warm. We're going to Cozumel, Mexico. We being my girlfriend of one and a half years, Kim Shepherd, 23. My beautiful compatriot. Along with her father, sister, and her father's girlfriend.

I don't have any idea where I'm going. Its hot there, and near the coast, but Central America remains a place I've only read about in books and heard about in half hearted 'you had to have been there' stories. Cozumel is a tiny island city on the edge of the bathtub that is the Gulf of Mexico. We're bunking in what on the website looks like a conundrum of luxury, so spoiling that the tendency is to feel guilt, not pride. Fortunately I maintain a short interest in where I sleep versus how I roam awake. On first impression this looks like a quest for historical aptitude and general positive life-experience, marred by bouts of poolside alcohol abuse. The trip, courtesy of Kim's father Steve Shepherd, who I cannot thank enough, but will try with 2 bottles of Veeder Cab and two more of Sonoma's Russian River chard, is something of a commonality with the Shepherd family. I'm hoping to find outlet and solvency through word with this journal of travel. Time to pack my bags!


View Larger Map.