Florida in September was warm and balmy, I discovered as we, my sister-in-law Alice and I, disembarked from the plane outside the terminal at Orlando. We were to meet our husbands, Marty and Carl, who had headed out on a 'manly' trip on their motorcycles two weeks prior from Colorado. We flew to meet and ride with them down to the point of the peninsula and camp along the way.

One of our heart-stopping Mexico adventures was when we decided to stay a night not far from the growing town of Bacalar, located on the lagoon side on the southern end of the coastal state of Quintana Roo, which is on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula.

My husband Marty, our daughter Bella, and I had been traveling in our pick-up truck pulling our tiny RV along the southern coast of Mexico for a few weeks and had just come into Quintana Roo. We needed a place to stay for the night. In our ‘RVing in Mexico’ guidebook, we read about an RV park located down a dirt road just before Bacalar that had been dubbed ‘The Goat Farm’.

"I thought that because both my wallet and phone were still missing, it was likely a somebody, not something, stole my things, and that made me feel very ill.”

We thought we'd found our piece of paradise at an RV park in the tropics of the Yucatan; however, it didn't take long to realize that the 'paradise' part may be a myth.

“And so, when I heard a noise that woke me up, knowing that a bomb could go off and Clark wouldn’t hear it, I slowly opened my eyes to look around and was startled to see this huge man silhouetted in front of our opened patio doors.”

I don’t know why exploring an empty house excited me so much since I would likely never know who had lived there or any of its history. But I could make up all kinds of stories of a macabre nature to make the kids squeal in fright and even frighten myself to a point when we’d all turn and run out the door. At the time, it was a silly yet fun moment.

After my class reunion, I told my husband Jonny about the invitations I’d extended to practically the whole class to visit us in Mexico. He just laughed and said, “Well, babe, you can get yourself, or us in this case, into some pretty good predicaments. I hope they don’t all come at once.”

At a recent class reunion in Kansas, when a group of old friends gathered, chatting about our lives since we’d last met, our families, new interests, hobbies, and jobs — or lack of because of retirement — the usual ‘catch-ups’, I mentioned that we live in Mexico during the winter months. Most were interested in that concept and asked lots of questions about where we stay and what we do while there for such a long period of time. Some even seemed interested in possibly doing the same thing. Yet there were a couple of friends who looked at me as if I had just sprouted a tail, from the flummoxed looks on their faces.

A scream pierced that quiet night as I ran from the church in search of my beloved Maria. She was to meet me after mass for a clandestine night alone, away from our families — even though we knew it was wrong — because we were deeply in love and tried to find every opportunity to be together. But she did not show up at our meeting place after waiting and waiting.

Nobody, to my knowledge, ever said that birth of anything was easy: birth of a nation, birth of spring, childbirth, for example, and so, from the weather we’d been seeing on the days prior to the first day of spring this year, it was no surprise that this birth was to be a difficult one.

Alligator species, we were eager to see.

Would they be hidden,

Or would they just be

Out in the open, in water or on grass

A good chance they’d not be just scratching their ass.

There were three of us excited to have tickets for the world-renowned World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana: my companion and me and a good friend from New Orleans. Our friend had told us a lot about this place, and for my companion, who is an avid reader about that era in our nation’s history, his excitement was palpable.

Being an early riser, not having a clue what time the sun would decide to pop up, that first morning I went out with time enough not to miss a single minute of its arrival. After I got dressed and eased quietly out the door, I was surprised that it was still dark. No sign of possible daylight as I walked across the street to the beach.

“Likely, if the Federales are really part of the whole trafficking cartel, we can easily spot that fact by how they respond to the men coming out of the cave. If they turn out to be on their side, then I can try to disengage them with my taser and your shovel, the flare gun, and so on. They are good weapons if used right and in a timely manner. We don’t want to be stupid and put ourselves in the line of fire, but if we sneak up on them when they are preoccupied, then I think we can do some damage until the other help arrives.” Cecil told them.

The more dangerous wildlife came out at night to feed, for one thing, and another, we didn’t know what kind of two-legged creatures were lurking about. Rumors had milled around the community that there was some kind of encampment, deeper within the jungle’s density, of men who were less than civilized. Meaning, I had assumed, that they didn’t care what they took or who they hurt when it came to wanting something for themselves. No one had actually seen this camp, so I thought it was a made-up story to keep the masses away from the better swim areas.

At the end of my home-office day, at this newest questionable RV Park, I sat out under the awning, sipping wine, waiting. Our usual Happy Hour was unusually late. But I wasn't going to let myself stew about it too much and allow my imagination to boil over so that a fight would ensue, but as the time ticked away, squelching an over-active imagination was becoming more difficult. Did this lateness have anything to do with any of the babes I had seen at the restaurant bar? Was he becoming too fixated on those enhanced boobs to pay attention to time? I couldn't help but wonder.

The Hills & Plains, Oh my!

To travel ‘cross

This desert plain,

While heat is bearing down

Naught for miles

But shadow’s stain,

No water to be found.

‘Til we see a glistening sea

Just barely up ahead

Let’s hurry, I beseeched

For thirst doeth abound,

But no matter the hurried speed,

Or the distance we would go,

that sea would ne’er be reached,

a truth filled with woe.

On our taxi ride to the hotel, I was so enthralled at being in the tropics that I was feeling a great need to fuck my guy. I envisioned me straddling Marty in the water, getting him hard, and slipping his cock in through a leg opening of my bathing suit that I’d have pulled aside to receive him. That visual had me crossing and uncrossing my legs in hopes of relieving the craving since I couldn’t do much about it at that moment.

We were told that this beach was ‘clothing optional’ on that far side of the mountainous boulders.

“Let’s go look!” Isabelle exclaimed while we waited for my husband to return from putting our dog in the trailer at the RV Park across the road from the beach.

“But how will your dad find us?” I queried.

“No worries, Mom, he’ll know where to find us,” Isabelle reassured me. So off we went, following the path to nudists.