Carl's Off Again

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Dear Friends and Family,

I'm on the road again. First let me preface: if you are receiving this in error or simply do not want my traveling spam, please tell me.
I'm more than happy to remove you from my list.

That being said...

Hello my loyal friends and family! I'm on the road again. Some of you recieving this letter may not have heard from me since I arrived home from the far east a year and a half ago. Perhaps those among you are surprised I would ever think to leave the soil of my dear homeland again. Some of you know of my trip but were not expecting to hear from me in this form. And I believe that still some of you weren't sure if I was planning on send out letters again, but gosh darn it, you were sure hoping I would.

Well, here I am, I'm off again and I'm sending letters. Let me first tell you this trip is no where near the length of my last. I will be spending only a paltry single month on foreign land. I thought to myself, "who would want to hear only a handfull of letter from a single month of travel?" But alas, the desperate cries and consistant requests from you, my adoring fans have proven, where ever I go, you folks want to know!

And that brings me to my next point, Carl, where on earth are you off to? Back to the Orient, the land of the rising sun? Perhaps the barren hills of the Mongolian Steppe? Perhaps the magnificent ruins of Rome, or the temples of Turkey? To see the wildlife of Africa, or the snow of the arctic? But no, my crosshairs have been aimed elsewhere. I'll be in Guatemala for the next 30 days, Tromping through temples, basking on beaches, hiking through highlands!

Folks, the most spectacular part of the trip, for me, anyway, is not it's length nor its distance, but it's planning. I have but one companion for this trip, and we have done all the planning ourselves. We have a tentative itinerary and plan to make a large loop through the country, but otherwise, like Don Quixote, we can let our horse choose our path. We are entering the wilds and plan to survive on nothing but our wits, our feet, and our inexhaustable ATM cards.

I leave tomorrow morning at 3AM. I have a direct flight from Chicago O'hare to Guatemala City. We plan to take a bus from there to Quetzeltenango and barge in on my companion, Lizzie Steinert's surrogate Guatemalan family (she's been here before), before we really leave to the wilds.

Guatemala is a well travelled yet inexpensive country in Central America below Mexico and above Honduras. I should have as much internet access as I had before, so I plan to send about six letters. As before, if you know anyone who would like to be added to my list, feel free to distribute my email and have them drop me a line. Wish me luck friends, I'll need it. Keep me in your prayers.

Until I can write again,

Carl

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