Belize was a welcome break for us after moving in rapid succession from Antigua to Copan to Utila to Comayagua. We rushed to catch the weekly ferry from Puerto Cortes, Honduras to Placencia, Belize early Monday morning and in spite of our worries about missing the ferry, the immigration officers held the boat for two hours before letting us leave. If you ever want to take this ferry, be prepared to wait, and wait, and wait. Arriving in Big Creek Shipyard in Belize the captain told us it would be easy to catch a bus from Mango Creek (about a 5 minute taxi ride) to Hopkins. It was sort of like a transportation board game: taxi to ferry in Puerto Cortes, shuttle to immigration back to ferry, ferry to Belize immigration at big creek, taxi to mango creek, bus to hopkins junction, hitch-hike in the back of a pick up truck to Hopkins, and a 3 mile walk walk to the house my uncle rented…but they found us before we walked all that way. By the time we arrived we were exhausted and happy to soak up our first air conditioned space in several weeks.

We spent the next day hiking around Cockscomb Wildlife Reserve, the first jaguar preserve in Belize. Unfortunately we saw no Jaguars, only some bugs, birds and lizards. Besides spending time with family and soaking up the air conditioning, it was nice to be in a country where other people spoke English. We spent the rest of our time in Belize hanging out by the pool, walking along the beach and generally exploring the area. For me it was great to spend time with Uncle Gary and Pam without the rest of the family, we haven’t seen them since our wedding and we never got to spend a lot of time together outside of big family events. Sometimes I have these experiences where I actually feel like an adult. Sounds funny, but often I feel like I’m still just a kid moving along in life. I hardly ever think of myself as an adult, which is probably why I’m on this trip in the first place. Sharing a beer and the sunset with my Uncle was one of those “adult” moments.

A perfect week of relaxation, good food and good company until Thursday at 2:30am. You’ve seen our immediate post about the earthquake, but the earthquake truly was the defining moment of our trip to Belize. For those of you that haven’t experienced an earthquake, Danny made this video to share our experience with you. (No, we did not grab the video camera during the earthquake, this is a “made for the web reenactment. No one has been hurt in the making of this video. )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLv3kH1BQeE

Belize was a great re-charging mini vacation for us. Even though the earthquake was scary, we never thought twice about moving forward and continuing our journey. Sometimes things happen and as we keep telling ourselves, things happen every day everywhere in the world. Coming back because of an earthquake defeats the purpose of traveling in the first place, so we’re plugging along, moving forward and maybe inspecting structures a little bit closer from now on!

One victory under our belts, we hit the road Monday morning during a snow storm. Yup, you read that right. A snow storm. 5 inches over night and an additional 4-5 inches after we left. We got up before 5am and shoveled out the car and the parking spots.

Around 5:50 am we left my parents house, hit our last wawa (the horror! 1000 miles without wawa!!) along the way and found ourselves on the PA turnpike in no time. The first two hours were rough, but after we passed Harrisburg there wasn’t even a snowflake in sight. 13 hours later we pulled up to my aunt and uncle’s in Illinois, ate dinner and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Got up Tuesday morning and went to my grandparents. After a brief visit, we headed out to see more family for dinner and a mini-bon voyage party. Check out our balloons, they even had out names on them!

As a special treat, we ate at one of my grandparents favorite restaurants downtown and enjoyed a delicious steak…prepared by fire at our table side.  It was delicious, but the show was even better.

It’s been an exhausting three days and we’re about an hour late hitting the road this morning so I better get going.  Today we head to Arkansas hopefully see my cousin at the University of Illinois on our way down.

Our trek around the eastern US looks like this:

A lot of places in not a lot of time. Probably heading out of the Philadelphia area around March 1st, spending a week or so driving before we sell the car and fly to California and cross the border into Baja. Its gonna be a trip!