Issue 08, Volume 38, February 19, 2010
Spring Travel Guide
mExiCo explOring thE mAyAn rUins in mExicO's yUcAtAn pEninsUlA by John Griffin SGN Contributing Writer As the years have started to slip by, almost as quickly as the pages of a flipbook, I’ve started to think more and more about retirement. My family history taught me not to expect a long life span – in my family, it’s called “the curse of the Demers.” That was my grandmother’s maiden name; and most of the members of her family in recent generations have died in their 60s, or earlier, of heart disease. I’ve never felt confident about my prospects for a lengthy retirement. This concern made me anxious to enjoy life while I could. I developed a pattern of working and saving money, then traveling as much as I could. My interest in far-off places had developed in early childhood, watching the then-popular travelogues, and looking at, and later reading from cover to cover, National Geographic Magazine. I enjoyed those years of traveling immensely, and called it my early retirement. That lifestyle satisfied my desire for new experiences, but left me ill prepared for the possibility of surviving long enough to en-
joy the meager benefits I had been expecting. So I began looking at the figures and trying to see if I could manage anything other than dropping to the pavement on my way to work, the way my Dad did at the age of 62 years and 24 days. First, I listed my priorities. Only two things made the top category on my list: my partner Joey and keeping warm. Everything else could be sacrificed. The obvious solution seemed to be the tropics. Expatriation would have been a less acceptable idea in my youth, but now it’s only a minor see mexico page 18
The Temple of Kukulkan, often referred to as El Castillo (The Castle), in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza
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photo by joseph p. herron
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