Vacation Photographs

Before we went on this last trip, Bob said something to me that got me thinking. He asked me not to only take PERFECT images while we were on vacation. He said--even if you know the shot is not going to work out, please take it. This is where I'm going to be honest and say that I have a hard time taking normal photographs. You know the ones. The ones you always take when you are on vacation. The ones where you all stand in a row in front of some monument looking like a family on vacation. Well, we don't have many of those images. He asked me to try and take more of them. More of the imperfect. So, this was a day that was amazing, but the light was no where near perfect. It was horrible, in fact. I sat there wishing it was better, but the moment....it was perfect. So, I'm sharing with you the less than perfect shots and encouraging you to take your own. To embrace imperfection. And, to live in the moment.

In Honduras, we found that the locals really preferred swimming in the rivers over the ocean. At least where we were staying. So, we asked our driver to take us for ice cream and to a river to swim in. We stopped at the small house you see in the first images. Three rooms...a kitchen, the living room/ice cream parlour, and a bedroom. On the wall in the living room was a flat screen television playing Harry Potter. In English. They didn't speak a bit of it. Not one bit. The ice cream cost 24 Lempira(about $1.30). We gave them 30 because we had nothing smaller. Then we drove down the road until we came to the river. One way were women washing clothes and dishes...men bathing. The other way the kids were jumping into the deepest spot. When we joined them, word spread and soon the swimming hole was quite busy. No one spoke English. There was a lot of showing off. Some of it was by us ;) Just saying...

Now, here's the kicker...when we walked back to the truck with our driver, Fernando, there was some confusion about what we wanted. Bob pulled out his phone with his google translate app and there was some back and forth trying to work out what was next. Jack sighed and said, 'Navigating a third world country is exhausting. Maybe next time we could try a cruise.' Hahahahahaha...here I was feeling like such an amazing parent for giving him this crazy life experience and THAT is what he had to say. In his defence, it was the last day of our trip and he did add 'don't get me wrong--THAT was amazing, but a little luxury never hurt anyone.'

No luxury for us...as we were flying home the talks of future destinations were never luxurious ones. Sorry Jack.

Dana ;)