Today we visited a park for a birthday party of one of James’s friends. A clear sun danced through the sky, pouring down light in the open gray-grassed park. A few of the guys taught me how to throw “lawn darts,” which are an ancient weapon that are four-foot-long arrows, thrown with a special handle shaped like a back-scratcher. The longer I practiced, the worse I got, hurling dart after dart into pathetic twelve-foot trajectories, but it was fun anyway.
A woman near the picnic pavilion asked what the guys were doing, and I explained (in a squeaky voice still racked with laryngitis) lawn darts to her. The next thing I knew, we were deep in conversation, learning about each other’s pasts and talking about solo travel. She was from Fiji, a woman of passion and deep family values that I admired. Her two sons played with Helena on the playground a few yards away At one point I said to the woman, “Man, I love travel: how else would I have met you?” Everyone crosses paths for a reason, and travel breeds chance conversations. This is a good reminder to me to speak to people back home. You never know who has a story to tell.~Lisa Shafter
P.S. I got horribly sunburned, but such is the price to pay for being Caucasian…
Money spent today: $0
Leeway so far: $114.05
Of course, you know what your old dad is going to say about playing out in the sun. Cover that Welsh skin dear dawhter. After five surgeries on me poor ear, this lad wishes the same upon no one else.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I talk about "lawn darts" all the time -- no one worried as much when we were kids -- our parents sent us outside to play Jarts -- you pitched a dart across the field and tried to land it in a small circle. Amazing we never hurt anyone as we hurled darts --
ReplyDeleteBlock that sun -- I don't know how something that feels so good can be so bad for you --??