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Jim and I went to the Santiago airport last night, waited for a couple of hours, flew to Dallas, and connected to Seattle. We did it!!!!

We spent the last night in the Andes south east of Santiago, reluctant to get too close. We stayed at a family style cabana resort that suited us perfectly. The owner spoke good English, as he had retired from the Chilean navy and had spent some time at Bangor on submarines.

We asked about dinner and he said they were closed until the following weekend. We returned to our room and pretty soon his little Indian gal showed up with chicken sandwiches for dinner and hot water in a real Thermos for morning coffee. Surprise, the water was still piping hot this morning.

We departed for Santiago about 8:00 and Jim did a magnificent job of navigating through this town of 12000000. We got to Juan Carlos's warehouse about 10:00. The drop-off was too easy. Juan did a power of attorney, and made copies of a few other papers and then drove us to the airport. We were there at noon.

We then took a bus to Santiago for lunch. Three hours in this place was perfect. We finished lunch and went to the park to sleep. Surprising how many young kids we saw smoking. In fact, in affluent Chile, we saw way more tattoos, body piercing, obesity and smoking. Wow, the benefits of being rich.

It over, except for the memories. Jim and I both agreed it was a hard trip but one that exceeded all expectations. If you don't go down that dirt road that you don't know where it goes, then you will never discover what we did. Two months and we were tired, but we could have gone on for much longer. If you are young, do it now. Nothing like being an old guy wondering why you can fall asleep at 8 pm and not wake up until 7 the next morning.

Hope those of you that have followed our blog have shared in some of the fun we've had. I told Jim, I could not have gotten along with anyone as easily as I did with him. It was a lot of great conversation, experiences and the list goes on.

Thinking about the Balkans on rented machines with our wives on the back seat. Life is partly dreams.