Day one

- Need an eight letter word, starts with a 'v', ends with 'ion'.

It's just a little after midnight and we're just 15 minutes into our highly anticipated trip to Belize. My day started at 3 AM, had to be to work by 4 in hopes to put out enough fires (or as my co-worker, Ryan, put it "to start enough fires to create a sufficient diversion) so I could sneak out of work for a measly 10 days.

Somehow, after 20 hours of frantic working, packing, last minute shopping at REI, and a shearing off of the winter beard, I still can't sleep on the plane. It doesn't help that my "personal TV" placed on the back of the seat ahead of me won't shut off (the flight attendant said he'd "write it up" with a tone that sounded way too much like the one I was using as I ran out of the office earlier today...) The promo stuck on repeat playing on the screen claims that for $6 swipe of the credit card I can stop the suffering, but Continental Airlines has underestimated the cheapskatedness of this tired traveller.

Eventually I manage to drift off into a sort of dazed conciousness, too sleepy to read or fill out a crossword puzzle, but too overwhelmed with visual sensory overload and the comfortable coach seating arrangements to doze off. Now if I could only stop thinking about all the things I forgot to do on my way out of work today...

- Hmm, five letter word for fried slice of pork

We just spent our Thursday morning scavenging the Houston / George Bush International Airport for breakfast at 6 AM (that's 4 AM Seattle time). After an hour of wandering through the great expanse that is IAH, we settled on Bubba's Seafood Grill, which really doesn't serve much seafood in the morning. We split a couple plates of eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, pancakes, and bacon and wash it all down with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice while we watch the Snowpocalypse II unfold on CNN. Anna offhandedly mentions that our original plan was to take a trip back east to tour the capital but decided against it because she was afraid the weather could be unpleasant in February (solid call Anna!) In spite of our sleep deprived and overall traveller's state of airport grogginess (okay, Anna slept the whole flight, I'm the only one sleep deprived), vacation mode is starting to settle in - I mean, come on, bacon AND sausage in the same meal! With an MD in the house, these things don't happen everyday.

We head back to the terminal and try to fidget away the rest of our three hour layover, Anna's reading a book about French cooking (look out, I think she's taking notes and already planning our next vacation...) while I bumble my way through a crossword puzzle and actually manage a 15 minute nap before the flight boards...

The gods are good, I wake up to a apple cinnamon muffin from the flight attendant and an announcement that we are 30 minutes outside of Belize, I managed to finally sleep during some of this "red-eye" trip! We fill out a set of custom forms that look disturbingly similar to the itinerary form our mothers' required for us to fill out prior to leaving the country in the first place (where will you be staying, don't do/transport illegal drugs, ...) The pilot makes an announcement that it is 77 degrees and a little cloudy in Belize City, which will be a far cry from the 45 degrees and rainy we left behind in Seattle. From Belize City, we hope to hop a van to San Ignacio and spend the next three days exploring the ruins, caves, and jungle that is inland Belize.

The pilot makes another announcement that we are on final approach, and a group of older ladies in front that have held down their bloody Mary's long enough break into a raspy, smoker's laughter. The sound is both terrifying, and disturbingly contagious. We're dropping through the clouds into what tropical jungle that looks ...

- Four letter word for "not cold", starts with ... 'w'