The Other Trip

With my current obsession with South Korea and my upcoming trip, I've sort of neglected the other trip that DW has booked, which is just over a month away.

I'm not sure she is pleased that I've neglected our upcoming silver anniversary.

Wait... I shouldn't say that. She told me, in a text message last week, that she hasn't been telling anyone that our anniversary, in July, marks 25 years of wedded bliss.

"I don't want to let anyone know that we're this old," she told me (even though I'm a few years older—I'm just a year and two weeks away from being a senior citizen at Shoppers Drug Mart).

"Don't want anyone to know you've foolishly stuck around with me for so long, eh?" I've said to her. In fact, on my birthday, DW and I will be celebrating 30 years together.

Earlier this year, my family and I started thinking of vacations and it turned out that we all wanted to go somewhere different: I wanted to return to South Korea; DW wanted to go to Cuba or possibly Mexico, with a few days in New York City to boot. DD17 wanted to visit Germany, with some side trips to Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. And DD15 is headed to Greece with her best friend's family.

Tulum, 1989

DW really wants to swim with sea turtles, and so she booked a vacation to the Mayan Riviera. And because it's the year of our silver anniversary, she booked a ticket for me, too. Eight days at an all-inclusive resort near Akumal, Mexico.

This will be my second trip to this area: in 1989, just months after DW and I started dating, she and a good friend from high school had planned a European vacation and had bought their tickets before we started dating. Far be it from me to argue with that.

And I couldn't join them (I wasn't even invited). I was working full-time in a camera store and couldn't afford the six weeks of vacation. So I wished her a safe journey and would see her at the end of the summer.

The very day that DW and her friend flew out of Ottawa, her best friend (who I had known before I met DW), came to the camera store and invited me to go to Cancun, Mexico with her. She and two other friends (both women) were set to going but needed a fourth person.

Truthfully, I think she invited me because she wanted to keep an eye on me.

I hesitated for about two seconds before saying "yes."

That trip had us staying at a hotel on the lagoon side of the island: Cancun Island is shaped like a number 7 and we were on the north inside, just where the bend of the number lies. We didn't stay at an all-inclusive resort but food and drink were cheap. We would cross the street, to the Caribbean side of the island, where the waters were shallow, calm, and warm.

We purchased day trips to Chichen Itza, Tulum, and Xel-Há. It was a wonderful trip.

Chichen Itza, 1989

DW and I will be in an all-inclusive resort between Akumal and Tulum. Apparently, there's a bay where sea turtles come to graze and you can snorkel with them and other sea life. We plan to visit Tulum and Cobá, two ancient Mayan sites.

Just the two of us.

This weekend, DW and I sat down and researched this tiny region on the Yucatan Peninsula. She listed off places that she found in a Lonely Planet guide book while I searched online. We made a list. She mentioned a spot and I said, after looking at the photos and reading the write-ups, "Uh-huh."

She was happy to see me excited by this trip, to agreeing to everything. I think she was pleased to get me to stop talking about Seoul and Chŏnju. To see me psyched about something we would be doing together.

Mind you, I did tell her it would be nice for her to join me in Korea, to the last place we explored before kids, before a mortgage.

"Nope," was her response.

I don't have a lot of memories of Cancun. The ladies and I did a lot of drinking. And, it was one week almost 30 years ago. But I look at some of my old photos and a smile comes across my face. Oh, yeah, I sort of remember that night.

I'll share some stories with you as they come back into focus.

For now, it's best that I stick to the memories with DW: the ones we've had in the past and the ones we will make in the future.