i just told my mom

i just got off the phone with my mother. i waited until after 6 to tell her about the trip because by then her 5 o'clock 'jack on the rocks with a splash of water' has taken effect. all things seem doable after a cocktail.
basically i told her i was about to tell her something - something that's not bad - that she was going to have an opinion about. i summed up the whole thing in one short sentence - we've started raising money for a trip to central america to document our experience learning about farming. then handed the phone to tayloe. easy enough.
this trip is something tayloe and i have talked about for a long time in lots of different forms. every time it came up we were always looking for a way to turn it into an adventure that could last longer than a typical 2 week vacation. fantasy wanderlust. it's kind of a bad habit.
then one night i read an article about a family who took their two young kids (1 and 3) to costa rica for two weeks to work on organic farms. they did it cheap - the families hosted them and fed them in trade for work. they had afternoons off to play and swim and explore. i read the words and looked at the pictures and thought, 'hell. we can do that.'
a few days later we were driving in the truck, looking out the windows at miles and miles and miles of snow and bare trees and brown everything and it seemed like a good time to bring it up.
we could do it, i said. get plane tickets now. go for two weeks next winter. have a part vacation, part adventure. a vacventure.
it's my husband who thinks big in our family. and i've known him long enough to know what was coming.
wait for it ...
why would we fly when we can drive?
from there our plan started to come together. now here we are, raising money for a documentary film, writing blogs, sending out piles of letters trying to get sponsors.
there's tons to plan and lots of hoops and logistics to jump through and figure out.
will it all come together? will it happen? will i post an update to this blog on this date next year from a farm in costa rica? or belize? or guatemala?
i don't know. you're going to have to just come along and see.