Stage 1: Read Island to Richmond and dinner with friends last night.  Fabulous meal.  Lots of fun sitting around and discussing geriatric issues and minor travails of life.  Seems everyone is getting old and crotchety.  We really know how to have a good time talking inconvenience, fatigue, aches and pains. Maybe we took a few swipes at the BC ferry corporation, traffic congestion, gas prices, irresponsible dog owners and taxes, of course. All with a grin, a joke, a wry expression.  Fun, actually.  In bed by 9:30.

Flying into LA

Stage 2:  YVR to LAX.  We were on the airport shuttle bus with another retired couple our age.  She was in the same category of cute as Sal but, of course, not in the same league.  Smiley.  Chirpy.  And full of ‘travel’  talk. Real cute in a California-Whole-Foods-Pilates kinda way.  Ya know?  Really white teeth? I liked them.  Kinda.  (The couple, not the teeth.)  But they were leaving Canada and going to Thailand with a tan!  How is that possible?

That kind of thing disturbs me in a weird kind of way.

They are on their way to Thailand again.  Ninth time.  Golfing.  They made the town of Bang Pa-In sound pretty good, though.  The king has a palace there.  Lots of inexpensive, good golf.  May have to reconsider next trip.  I like golf.  I like the king.  I like cute.  And I love Thai food.  We’ll see.

I’ve been communicating with my son by way of his and his partner’s new blog.  It is: World Tour 2012 – K,B.C and will chronicle their round the world trip over the next four months. They are in Belize and we all plan to meet up in Guatemala in a few days.That is kind of neat if we manage to pull it off but it is sometimes hard to execute plans when Belizean and Guatemalan chicken buses are involved.  We’ll see how it goes.

More travel stuff still to come.  But, as you know, there is not much interest in airports and hotels.  Well, there is, actually, but I am sure that Homeland Security is watching us and tapping into our Wi-fi.  Gotta play it smart.  Guatemala, not Guantanamo is the desired destination.

We think we know how to ‘dip’ below the radar.  We’ll settle into a ‘comatose-like’ state and just try to get through our day without getting involved with the CIA, FBI, LAPD or the US health care system.  One step at a time.  Low profile.  Discrete. Heavily insured.  I didn’t even comment when Security had me take off my shoes!  Security camera sees me and Sal:  “Duh….(hold luggage while standing in the middle of a crowd while looking stupid and harmless saying)….which way is our gate?”

Funny.  Travel is so much different these days.  Not all of it good.