Looking Down the Road

Today I am taking you to Costa Rica. Several months after my husband died in January of 2017, and after dealing with more details and issues than I could count or want to remember now, I knew I just had to get away from home and find myself again. Fortunately, I was able to sign up for a photo workshop in Costa Rica for early June. I have never been an animal/bird photographer and probably would not have picked this location had I not been desperately needing to reconnect with my own life. It was quite an adventure! The resort that was home base for us that week was amazing. We were all treated like family members. Other than a few deep sea fisherman, the only visitors there were us. Every day we would head out under the guidance of fabulous guides to find monkeys of several varieties, macaws and other exotic birds, snakes, and much more. This wasn't a trip where you could usually use tripods, so managing hand-held with a large telephoto lens on your camera could be a bit of a challenge. You see, most of our subjects were high up in the jungle canopy, often moving fast. So a tripod was useless. It was hot and humid, and I mean HOT and HUMID. So we were always glad to be able to get back into the air conditioned vans to travel to our next location. Some days we picnicked out in the wilds. Afternoons were usually spent inside working on our images under Matt's guidance. Our homework assignment at the end of the week was to create a book using the Lightroom Blurb interface. It was a great week that included making an entirely new group of photographer friends, many of whom I am still in contact regularly. I could have selected an image for today of monkeys or birds, but this image taken of the road down which we headed the first morning seems the best representative of my week. Since that January my life's travels had diverged onto a different road, one which was unknown, and yet, especially thanks to this trip, was well now well lit. I returned home knowing that I was not able to take charge of my life again.