Road trips have a certain air of familiarity, no matter the country. On the way home yesterday, I stopped midway through my four hour drive. Since I didn´t want to stop too long in order to avoid the worse of the worse rush hour traffic, I chose a grocery store.

I walked up and down the isles and found so little that was actually nutritious - chips, cookies, candy bars, and icky packages of crackers I have never grown to like over my 10 years in Costa Rica. What I really wanted was a candlelight dinner with a good cut of steak, but beef jerky would have sufficed. The sign on a door said: bolitos de cerdo, which literally translated means little balls of pork. I passed.

I remember a trip with my father about 15 years ago. We drove for two days to reach the East Coast. We stopped a lot, which I found ironic because when I was a child my father would stop only for stop signs and to pick up large equipment. (I hold no resentment here, only a fondness for my father´s endearing quirks.) Anyway…

Those Kwik Stop coffees….fake cappuccinos…now that´s what I wanted. I chose a pineapple/coconut/milk smoothie and a box of gum. I opened the oddly packaged beverage; toasted my father in the heavens he roams; and drove on into the rain.