One Sunday afternoon in November, my youngest son called me. “Guess where I’m going next summer, Mom.” 

“Sri Lanka?” I knew he had been looking at volunteer opportunities there. 

“Chile. I’m going for the eclipse and plan to stay three months.” 

“I want to go with you!” 

Forrest hesitated. “I don’t know what my travel plans will be. It’ll be traveling around and staying in house-sharing situations. Couch-surfing. Maybe working different places as a volunteer.” 

“That’s fine. You go do whatever, and I’ll find a little casita to rent. Then when you take a break from traveling, you can come back to my little house while you decide what to do next. I’ve always wanted to go to South America!”

I was a new widow, and all my kids were being very good to me. Perhaps I took advantage of it in Forrest’s case, but South America! 

“Well, I guess so. If that’s what you want.” 

Over Forrest’s Christmas break from school, we decided to go online to see about flights. 

Delta had good flights at the best prices and offered an immediate discount if you applied for one of their credit cards. Forrest often utilized credit offers to get free money, being disciplined and organized enough to pay them off right away and avoid trouble. The best flight departed at four pm from Portland, where he lived at the time. It had a layover in Salt Lake and in Atlanta, then arriving in Santiago the next day at noon. 

We had vague ideas about what to do once landing in Chile. Forrest said he would look for couch-surfing opportunities. I searched Booking.com and was surprised by how inexpensive small hotels were in Santiago. We needed a place near the bus station since we planned to take a bus from Santiago to Coquimbo, which was on the direct path of totality. 

We would leave for Chile end of June and come back end of September—three glorious months. Forret would get his summer abroad and I would walk the earth for real. Not driving a car on American freeways. 

He booked the tickets.

 “Merry Christmas to us,” I said. 

“Yep, Merry Christmas to us, Mom. We’re going to South America.”