Whitman boys.

Oregon, that is! A paradise beyond compare! Although when we left Oregon several days ago to soak up a week’s worth of sun in Belize, we were ready to compare mid-30s temperatures and rain mixed with snow with… well, with about anything. So we went to a place that looks like a Corona commercial:

There, we encountered temperatures in the 80s, friendly people who kept saying “welcome to Paradise” (obviously having never been to Portland), and indigenous fauna:

The vacation was not without its challenges. At various points, each of us but The Gus had a relapse of our Oregon-based sinus cold, and while The Gus was a joy to travel with (sleeping! on an airplane!) there were times when TDW and I wished that we could wander into the sunset hand-in-hand without worrying that the local crocodile would take the opportunity to lurch out of the lagoon for a tasty The Gus-shaped snack. But overall, we had nothing to complain about. We stayed at a lovely place, White Sands Cove, which we recommend to anyone. The Gus enjoyed both the pool and the sand, and grew attached to the mandatory bucket hat:

We spent much time at the bar:

Where we drank the local Belikin beer, which was curiously unsatisfying, volumetrically speaking, until we realized that the metric-labeled bottles were less than 9 oz. each. But it left us jolly:

There are a paucity of pictures of me and TDW together, or family pics. I have no good explanation.

Please check out my Flickr page (and Eric’s) to view lots of great pictures from the trip, including lots of artsy nature shots, as well as shots of the sometimes disturbing disjunction between the tropical vacation paradise that was our little resort and the adjacent beaches, which when unmaintained turned into nasty collections of jetsam. But golly, when it is gray outside it sure is nice to go someplace with blue ocean and skies and white sand. The sunburn is mostly done peeling.