We left the tropics at the end of March,

Lush greenness embedded in our minds.

The swaying palms and the flowering shrubs

Showing colors of all kinds.

As we traveled north the colors changed,

From Kelly Green to Forest.

Higher elevations brought changes as we drove,

We began seeing branches at their barest.

Traveling with our RV in 2004, we found PaaMul, which was an RV park in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It was located south of Playa del Carmen, a small beach town that catered to tourists on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. We were looking for a place to camp that would have access to a dive shop, and PaaMul fit those needs.

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.”

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.