Adventure South!

First day of class was good...all I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays is International Communication, which is from 1:10 to 2:25 in the afternoon, so that's pretty sweet. It's taught by my favorite professor (with whom I'm doing independent study) and it sounds like it will be a very valuable class, what with increasing awareness of and discussing global issues and such.
Now about my blog title...
My great-great uncle Kenneth VanHee (who I never met) has become an inspiration to me. I believe the year was around 1941, and he and two other men, funded by Plymouth, took a small four-door 1941 Plymouth on an expedition down the Richardson Panamerican Highway. The journey began in Detroit, Michigan, went down to Mexico, all the way down through Central and South America, until they reached Cape Horn, SA, the very southern tip. The purpose of this expedition was for Plymouth to market their car and show what a perilous journey it could survive (not to mention the men themselves). This was when most of the roads in Central and South America were still unpaved, and sometimes the men and the car had to catch a ride across rivers on a raft pulled by donkeys or oxen. Somehow they made it to Cape Horn, the automobile still alive, the men fulfilled after encountering so many interesting and amazing characters along the way (including the Presidents of Mexico and another CA country).
I hadn't given this jewel of family history much thought until a few weeks ago, when my dad did some research online and found the documentary on this expedition, where we are able to see video shots of my great-great uncle (who definitely looks much like my late great-grandma, his twin). Seeing the documentary inspired me, and I dug out the book that my family owns of the same expedition, called Adventure South! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the title). I browsed through the pages, smiling at the humor and crazy situations and hardships and the photos taken along the way, including shots of the travelers, the natives they meet, the animals...one could probably see the gears turning in my head, ideas forming, as I flipped through the pages, reading bits and pieces of this experience.
A couple months ago I was talking to my second cousin about my desire to do some traveling and cultural immersion, as well as my previous experiences doing so (like in Honduras and Costa Rica), and she told me, "You definitely have you Uncle Ken's travel genes." At this time I knew Ken had done some traveling in South America and that we had one of the copies of the book, but I didn't know much about it. So when my dad found the documentary and I actually sat down and looked through that book, I was amazed. It got my imagination worked up again, and I began thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if I cold retrace my great-great uncle's path to Cape Horn?" Obviously the journey would be easier, but perhaps more dangerous, with the political, economical, and other situations at hand in many Central and South American countries. A quote from an article about this expedition online (which was updated March of 2006) says, "The Richardson Pan American Highway Expedition was perhaps the last great automotive adventure undertaken on the face of this earth".

Wouldn't it be great if I could do it again?