Hi All! Sorry for the delay in blogging but we've been pretty busy the last few days. Saturday morning we got up bright and early and loaded up the Jimmy (we gassed up the night before) and headed to the Border with Honduras. The trip was great despite 1.5 hours to get through Guatemala City. We were told later that that's actually pretty good.

Anyway we got to the Honduran border about noon and we decided then that we should go for it and try to get to La Ceiba that same night! The border crossing there was by far the lengthiest and most frustrating, taking a full hour and a half. A fitting welcome. After crossing over to the Patria Mater, we started to get a sense of accomplishment. We were in the home stretch of a 4000+ mile journey.

After leaving Antigua that morning, after Texas and Chihuahua, after Zacatecas and Jalisco, mountains and canyons, desert, ocean, forest and sun and rain, we were pulling into my grandmother's house in the neighborhood where I grew up just after 6 that evening! We made it and have spent the days since getting ourselves settled in and taking care of random business. While there's been work done, play has not been entirely absent. Without having any phone numbers or precise addresses, Pat managed to find us Sunday evening just in time for a barbecue. An even more fitting welcome I would say.

La Ceiba has definitely continued to grow in the four years since we were here last. There's certainly more commerce and activity, but also more people and chaos. I'll be spending many days here getting reacquainted with my home town and perhaps eventually reaching a state somewhere between visitor and local, but certainly never fully one nor the other.