Planting Sugar Cane

A profoundly back-breaking honeymoon

At the age of 28 one of my biggest goals in life was to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was my personal El Dorado. I got married that year and my goal became “our goal.” (I was a good salesman back then.) We were married in Texas where I was working at a tie-wearing indoor corporate job. The first couple of months of the marriage we saved money to move to Santa Fe but before moving there we decided that we first needed a honeymoon.

The honeymoon was a bit belated but it lasted for six weeks. I joyfully quit my job and we went to the bayou country of Southern Louisiana where my new mother-in-law was living at the time. Visiting a mother-in-law is not a normal way to spend a honeymoon but for us it was fine. She was by no means a typical mother-in-law. She and I had been good friends for six years before I ever married her daughter. Choosing Southern Louisiana as a honeymoon destination gave my new bride a chance to be with her mother for a while before moving far away and it gave me a chance to visit with a friend. It was a cheap honeymoon because we had a place to stay for free while we went sight-seeing and did honeymoon-type things.

But only two of those six weeks could really be called a honeymoon.