This is your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Several years ago I decided that I wanted to travel. But there has got to be a limit.

Yesterday, Deneen and I drove to Pittsburgh, spent the night, and this morning I am back on a plane to the TCI. Traveling back and forth between the US and the TCI is never strait forward. There is always some mission attached.

I have two missions on this return trip. First I have to buy a serving platter, next I have to find Jessica. Then I have to get them both back to Grand Turk safely.

When we bought the serving platter at Pier One on the way to Pittsburgh it did not seem so big. Then it got bigger and would not fit into the suitcase. The it got bigger and had to be put in the overhead compartment on the airplane. Now look at it. It is bigger than Jessica. Oh, by the way, I found Jessica. I thought I would have to look around for a while to see if I could recognize her. We have only met once. But no. I easily found her at the airport in Charlotte.

I should have told her to look for me. I'll be the guy with the ginormous ceramic serving platter.

If I can get this serving platter to Grand Turk I will be amazed. It is a gift, a replacement if you will, for the serving platter lost in Lucas' fight with Alessio. I hope it will be nice enough to gain us an invite back.

Who is Jessica? you ask.

Jessica is an archivist that I met 15 days ago. Like most cultural institutions, the Turks and Caicos National Museum is struggling with professional staffing options. Basically, I don't have a budget to hire the qualified staff that I need to do the mission of the museum.

What I do have is 7 miles of white sand beach and 350 days of sunshine a year.

Jessica is one of the seven archivists that responded to my job posting at the Society of American Archivist annual conference in Austin. The posting read, “Are you interested in an Adventure instead of a Job?” Two of the archivist that I interviewed are going to come volunteer at the museum. Jessica will be here for the next seven weeks cataloging and describing archival collections.

We talked a lot today about what our goals were and how we are going to achieve them. She asked if she was going to have a couple days to review and become comfortable with our operations. I told her if we made a plan to do this some big emergency would come up and ruin our plans, so maybe we would just play it by ear.

Anyway, a big welcome to Jessica, the adventure begins.