I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
-Beatles

When I was in college I spent a semester in Veracruz, Mexico where I, of course, met and started dating a local. For about 2 years I would trek back and forth visiting him and the various Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Every time I made the trip over, I would ask my dad if he wanted me to bring anything back, and every time he said “a guitar!” He always wanted another handmade acoustic, after the one he purchased as an exchange student in Saltillo, was destroyed (another story altogether).

There was no way I was going to know what kind of guitar to buy, lug it all over the country and somehow bring it back with me on the plane. One trip I came back and got him all riled up when I told him I had bought him one… Of course, it was just a little guitar key chain, emblazoned with some touristic city name on the front of it. Yes, I know, I can be evil at times.

AND THEN there was this trip I took to Guanajuato. Usually, I don’t like to make too many plans when I travel, this way I can go with the flow and take suggestions from the locals. That trip it just so turned out, that a day excursion we took placed us in another small town near one of the most famous cities in Mexico known for it’s hand crafted guitars- Paracho. I thought to myself, if ever the chance to get that guitar for my dad, it would be now.

I must have looked through hundreds if not a thousand guitars that day, in search of… well, I don’t know what really. I was not a guitar player and had no idea what to look for, but I figured I would know when I saw it…And I did! It was a gorgeous piece, not just musically, but good enough to hang on the wall. Everything handcrafted, and the detail was just beautiful. The back of the piece is my favorite, really showing the beauty of the wood. You can tell the maker picked every piece with purpose.

And so it was, and now here it is, Day 194: