Daydreams

Do you have a daydream?  No, not the kind where your brain checks out and you suddenly can understand the whole Zac Efron weirdness - that would be more like a day-mare to me!

No, a dream, something that used to occupy your thoughts - only you never acted upon?  For my father, it was to be an accordion player in an oom-pah-pah band.  Really?  Not designing bigger and better toys that go boom and flatten square miles of terrain (with associated loss of life, of course!)?  Just an accordion player?  Dutchman always wanted to build his own boat and set sail to distant lands.  We built the boat - it just never set sail.  Now that is the stuff daydreams are made of.

For me, it was to drive a VW van from the most northern point to the most southern point.  When I lived in Europe that would have been from probably Murmansk, Russia to the Cape of Good Hope.  Living in America, it was modified to be a run from Barrow, Alaska - down the CANAM, then hop on the PANAM series of roads forming a trail all of the way to the tip of Terra del Fuego - on the Argentina side.  Why?  Well, I read an old magazine, circa 1960, about a guy whom did this for his honeymoon.  It took them one year and about $10,000 US at the time.  Yeah, I could totally see me doing this - though was a little unsure as to the whole traveling companion part.  Probably would do better to have a spare engine than a "skirt" along I imagined.....

One Whom Made It!

I had long ago forgotten that dream, but I was in about as happy a mood last night as I have been in years.  So, I guess, as I slept, and the old dream worked its magic back to the surface of my mind.  Oh, yeah, though long forgotten - I still want to do this!  That school boy has re-awaken within me!  And given decades of road building, it is probably all the more doable today than it was when I was in high school!

When I was in high school I even researched out the route and got trip reports on various sections of the PANAM Highway which seemed problematic.  All I needed was one year free and about $30,000.  Yeah, that dream faded away through a lifetime so busy that I failed to keep in touch with dreams.

I wonder where all of those papers are that I kept on this trip?  Gotta be in the basement somewhere......