On Adventure and Canals

I am going to Panama for real. I have bulked at my direction a couple of times now, but I am sure that I going south. Or so I assume. I never really know where I will end up. But I should be going into San Jose tomorrow to pick up the tickets.

I think that I am just going to make Panama City in one clean swoop from San Jose. I have a thing for canals, I grew up on the Erie. Maybe I will go to the Panama Canal and write home about it.

Canals, canals, canals I do not really know why I like them so much. My attraction to them is very ingrained in my childhood. When ever I would go out looking for mischief on my bicycle when I was a kid I would always ride down the Erie Canal. My first adventures happened right on the banks of that waterway. The canal was freedom. The canal was a direct route to the far away. The direct route to excitement.

I can remember my adventures on the Erie canal very vividly. I am reliving them as I write this:

I touched my first pair of boobies on the Erie Canal. I remember riding down the canal on my bicycle to meet my first love. The Erie canal was my escape route away from angry school teachers, angry parents, and the police. I have memories of hiding down in the lee of her banks as the police sirens howled over head. A girl and I once went to get marriage certificates by riding down the Erie Canal to the next town, we ended up eating apple pie at a diner instead. Later on, Erik the Pilot and I would go night fishing in the canal. I never caught anything but a hangover.

The Erie Canal is synonymous with the freedom of my youth. Riding my bicycle down its banks, catching water snakes, and even going jogging with my mother, the canal was the direct route to somewhere else.

It could be said that have a thing for canals. Perhaps this is part of my attraction to China? I wonder what adventure the Panama Canal will bring?

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Barva, Costa Rica
February 20, 2008