Trees on the Beach, a Blog

 So I've now had both my COVID vaccination shots (Moderna).  That was a few weeks ago.  I am soooo tired of the job.  How do people work into their 70s and 80s?  I cannot imagine.  I am just 51 and feel completely burnt out.  I calculated my pension, and I could leave at the end of May and take a $200/month penalty.  Or I could wait until the end of July, and take a $100/month penalty.  It is starting to feel real, but the weird thing is the closer it gets, the farther away it feels.  Even the end of May feels like quite a ways off, and the end of July an eternity.  Full retirement with no penalty is a number of months after that, even.  I know sitting at this desk wears on a person, both physically and mentally.  I am lucky enough to be working from home, and that helps a bit.  I make sure to always say "I am lucky" when I talk about working from home, because I don't want myself to ever forget that I really am lucky...

I had an itinerary set for my Ecuador trip that starts out flying into Guayaquil, driving to Posojra, then up the coast possibly as far an Tonsupa.  However, I have fallen in love from afar with Santa Marianita.  It's only about 15-20 minutes outside of Manta, which is a fairly major city of 250,000 people, and provides all the luxuries you would expect from a similarly sized American city.  You can even eat American fast food chains like KFC or Papa John's, if you're so inclined.  (I'm not.  I've had enough of that drek.) Many years ago, I saw a picture of a dirt road, still unpaved, going down to the beach in Ecuador.  I found it exciting and beautiful, but did not know where it actually was in Ecuador.  I could imagine myself driving that road in my Jeep.  I saved that picture, but can't seem to locate it now.  Looking at a YouTube video the other day, I realized the video is of the same road I was fixated on so many years ago!  ...