Weekend Road Trip!

I never meant to be this busy! I'm off to the heart of Maya country for a weekend road trip, invited to join Marta for the baptism of her niece at St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Sacalum. We will take the 5:30am ferry Saturday and a bus to Merida, then a commuter bus to Ticul and a cab three miles to Sacalum and stay with her sister.
The two have a special bond, with her sister placed in charge of raising the baby Marta after their mother died, until they were placed with grandparents. That didn't work out so well but it served to bond the sisters even more.
Picking up Day of the Dead goodies is a must do. For Marta, cleaning and visiting her mother's grave is also very important, as she did in 2006, pictured here.
This is also a chance for me to buy young Maya tree trunks, straight as an arrow, to use as the background for shade cloth on upper deck, aka rooftop patio. Marta's father makes the trip to Cancun twice a week carrying fruits and produce, so that is a way to get the lumber here without paying Cancun lumberyard prices. Very pricey.
I am continuing to work on passages for the "newsies before the papers died in Cleveland" book that John Tidyman is compiling. Funny, how I'm doing this approaching Day of the Dead. I'm up in the middle of the night, so day of the dead may be my reality in the morning!
For the road trip, I'm going to take a little cooler and hopefully bring back some venison to keep frozen until Christmas. I never really new how much I liked venison until I started eating it here, where it is farm raised now. Hunting Bambi is no longer permitted in Maya country because the deer is an endangered species.
How different from North of the border!