This poor fellow that I mentioned last time who was on our trip was always late and a little out of it most of the time or so it seemed to me.

We had a great guide who called himself “Flash” who did his best to keep our group on the move and seeing the sights.

He was a young fellow and did a great job.

He made a sushi breakfast for us on the beach on day and took us to a waterfall where we all jumped from the top into the small clear pool below us. It was a little scary, I must say. But he encouraged us to do it by jumping first.

Flash took us to his house and showed us all the wild plants that grew in his yard that could be eaten or smoked for an interesting effect.

Our son weighed 10 pounds 11 and a half ounces at birth and was 24 inches long. He was big guy. He looked like a toddler at just a few months of age.

The Japanese tourists we ran into were fascinated by our son and often traded their small squirrel like babies to us so they could take photos holding our behemoth. He was very cute in a lumbering way.

He is now 41 years of age and is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds.

The evening we left for home, we decided to eat in the airport, just in case. It seemed like a good idea at the time. That turned out to be quite an evening.

The large dinning room was beautiful. We were led to our table and seated on the main path from the kitchen to the dinning room. We were very hungry.

We ordered our food and had a drink. I did drink once in a while back then. Our drinks arrived as we waited to eat. I had an empty stomach.

The dinning room became noisier as the night progressed. It was filled with people who had ordered and had not yet received their meals.

As the evening progressed the room got noisier. I assume more alcohol was consumed as the people waited for their meals.

Each time a waiter walked past us I asked him where our meals were. The alcohol had kicked in and each time he passed I called him by a different name.

“Chuck, where’s our dinner?” I asked as one passed by.

“Ah Bob, where’s our dinner?” I asked as the next waiter walked quickly by empty handed.

The evening passed slowly in this manner.

We thought we had plenty of time for dinner before our plane was to take off. We were wrong.

By now I was three sheets to the wind on my one drink and feeling no pain. I had no idea where I was or what I was waiting for. My wife kept me sitting up straight as best she could. It was an interesting evening.

We finally were served and ate our meals quickly, hoping not to miss or plane.

My brother and I staggered down the stairs and to our plane with my wife’s help. We are light weights when it comes to drinking.

The staff apologized for the problems and mentioned that it was the first night that the restaurant had been operating. Great!

We were soon on our way home.

The older gentleman who had been cleaned out by his wife while in the hospital approached me as I was seated on the plane and spoke to me. We were now “travel buddies.”

“That was the best restaurant I have ever eaten in and the service was great.”

I thought, “What the heck?”

We had sat there for more than an hour waiting for our dinner as he apparently ate like a king.

Life is a funny thing.

We must accept the difficulties thrown at us from time to time and deal with them as best we can while others around us seem to sail through life.

That reminds me of a time I nearly drowned in The Sacramento River on a sinking rubber raft as others slowly passed by me drinking wine, singing and playing their guitars seemingly without seeing the distress we in the raft were all in.

But that’s another story for another time.

Such is life.

Many of my stories will be up on Audible soon.