There was an episode of “Andy Griffith” in which Howard Sprague moved to a Caribbean island and was living in a grass shack drinking rum.
I think that Howard looked like this in that episode:
This is me, during our last Cabo trip. For some years, we were alternating – Cabo one year, and Isla Mujeres the alternating year. Last year was supposed to be Isla, but we wound up moving to Montana (you might have heard) and that used up money, time and energy that we would have needed to hit Isla for three weeks.
So this year, even though Ethel is training for (and has already signed up for!) a Half Ironman 70.3, and I’ve got a Half in June and a mumblemumble (we don’t actually use the term Ironman in this house, unless we’re referring to a Half – if we’re talking about a Full, we just mumble incoherently rather than let the phrase “Ironman 140.6” pass our lips) in August, we’ve already set aside three weeks for Cozumel.
Cozumel is NOT Isla – it’s not the sleepy town that we’re used to. Heck, when we go to Cabo, we don’t go to Cabo San Lucas, which is “drunks naked on the beach covered in whipped cream” Cabo; we go to San Jose del Cabo, which is “walking on the square and buying empenadas from the little old lady with the cart’ Cabo. And Isla is like that, only moreso.
But this trip is in July, rather than the April or August/September trips that we’ve taken before, and the problem is that Isla will be even sleepier in the hotter months, which means – probably nobody at the English-speaking AA meetings. So we decided to drop down the coast to Cozumel instead.
Cozumel has a lot more people, and it has the cruise ships stopping in – but it does have a lot more meetings, and a lot of diving, as well. We’ve gone through AirBnB to get a condo owned by a local, and we’re hoping to miss the crowds and stick to the local areas….
Now, when I started typing this, I started watching the aforementioned Andy Griffith episode…and now, 7:52 into the episode, Howard has bought his ticket and is headed for St Benedict’s – “land in Trinidad, and get there by boat.” And the thing that talked him into it, really, was Andy’s assumption that “nobody really does that sort of thing. People talk about it, but they don’t do it.”
My friend George Ritter once told me that “Lots of people talk about moving to a ski town, but nobody ever really does it.”
Today, they delivered seven trees from the nursery – now I get to dig a bunch of big holes and plant them. I get to do that in between working, and meeting my service commitments, and training for a MumbleMumble, and paying my mortgage, and then I get to take care of the trees, and paint the house….
….Okay, Ethel. Just let me know when you’re ready. We’ll go live in a grass shack 🙂