Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Costa Rica "rich coast" got its name from Spanish explorers due to rumors of gold and vast riches in this section of Central America. The dreams of wealth never materialized however the area is rich in natural beauty. Costa Rica occupies a unique position, lying between two oceans and two continents. Tropical rain forests occupy both coasts while mountains in the interior rise over 13,000 feet above sea level.
I wanted to have our picture taken with these girls, when we got off the ship, because the dresses were so beautiful. Later on our tour we learned that the dress design and/or colors have specific meaning. For example, if a women has a black band around the bottom of her skirt it means she is a widow, but is available to date again.

This church was across the street from Central Park in Esparza, the second stop on our tour.
The interior of the church was very beautiful.

These local children entertained us in Central Park while we learned about local traditions from our tour guide. Only children with superior grades in school can participate in these dances for the tourists.

In Ortina, we stopped at the farmers' market for a chance to see some exotic tropical fruits, such as caimitos, cashews, and mangoes. Chocolate was the first and only crop produced in 1790.

This is a cashew tree. There is only one cashew in each pod.

The capitol of Costa Rica is San Jose. There are 168 volcanoes in Costa Rica and seven of them are currently active. The annual rainfall in Costa Rica is 8 meters - that's 26.24 feet!

Most fences, like the one shown below, are natural fences made from fallen branches or trees.

These are coffee seeds. A lot of bananas are produced in this area as well.

This plant contains Achiote seeds. You may have heard of it as Mexican Saffron. Susan and I have some in our pantry. The plant looks lethal but it is very soft and fuzzy.

Early settlers used it as a dye for face paint and clothing and today it is used as a spice. It is very easy to get the dye on your skin and very hard to get it off.

Our next Port of Call is Huatulco, Mexico.

Panama Canal

Just before entering the canal, an expert on Panama and the Canal was brought on board to explain how the Canal works. Since our stateroom had a balcony, we could sit outside and watch the action while listening to the expert talk on our stateroom TV.

The Panama Canal unites the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at one of the narrowest point of both the Isthmus of Panama and the American Continent.

The Canal officially opened its doors to international trade on August 15, 1914 and since then over 970,000 vessels have transited the waterway. It is estimated that by October of this year, that figure will top 1 million. Our ship was charged $500,000 to pass through the Canal. The next picture was taken by looking straight down from our balcony. You can see that very little space is left between the side of the ship and the edge of the locks. A larger canal is being built to accommodate wider vessels.

The Canal has three locks, each with two lanes, that operate as water lifts to elevate ships 26 meters above sea level to the level of Gatun Lake in transit through the Continental Divide and then lower them back down to sea level on the opposite side of the Isthmus.
At each lock, water obtained from Gatun Lake is sealed by the gates in the lock chamber and then gravity drains the water to the lower levels. Approximately 197 million liters of fresh water is used for each lock and ultimately flushed into the sea.

A Control House, located on the center wall of the upper chamber, operates the locks for every ship passing through. Ships use their own power while going through the locks, but they are assisted by electric locomotives. Working in pairs, the locomotives keep the vessels in position within each chamber. Depending on the size of the vessel, from four to eight locomotives are required. Our ship used six, three on each side.

Row boats are used to go out to each vessel and bring the lines back for the trains.

Interesting Facts about the Panama Canal:

• During construction of the Canal, over 152.9 million cubic meters of material were removed. Were this material to be placed on railroad flatcars, it would circle the globe four times.


• On August 15, 1914, the SS Ancon officially inaugurated the Panama Canal.


• The Canal initiated round-the-clock operations on May 12, 1953, with the installation of new fluorescent lighting in the Culebra Cut and the three locks.


• The new Panama Canal locks will be 427 meters long and 55 meters wide, the size of four football fields. The present Canal is 80 kilometers in length.


• At noon on December 31, 1999, Panama assumed full responsibility for the administration, operation and maintenance of the Panama Canal.

Cartagena, Columbia

Cartagena is a city of remarkable contrast. The Old City has been preserved, yet it is surrounded by modern skyscrapers. Over 1 million people live in Columbia, which covers 220 square miles. The capitol is Bogota, which is a short 45 minute flight from Cartagena, but to travel the route by car takes 23 hours. This was our first view of Cartagena as the ship was making it way into port.

Cartagena was founded in 1533 by Don Pedro de Heredia. When the Spanish conquistadors discovered that the interior of Columbia was rich in gold and emeralds, these items flowed into Cartagena for shipment to Spain. To defend against pirate attacks, King Felipe II ordered a protective wall to be build around the city.

The investment in the wall paid off in 1741 when England attacked with a force of 24,000 men and 186 ships, but Cartagena successfully defended itself.

The San Felipe de Barajas Fortress situated just outside the walled city. This enormous fort is considered to be the most outstanding feat of Spanish military engineering in the new world.
On our tour we visited the Heredia Theater built in 1911 from the ruins of the old Mercy Church. The inside of the church, including the ceiling (shown below) was just beautiful.

We were treated to a folkloric show of music and dance by local artists in the main auditorium. The show consisted of dances from the three most important regions of Columbia - the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast and the Los Andes Region.

Today, Cartagena's economy is largely centered around platinum and timber, coffee and oil products. Tourism, roses and emeralds also contribute.

Statues like the one shown below are numerous around the old city. They mostly represent past customs. There were also living statues present. A man and a little boy would stand perfectly still until someone gave them a tip and then they would change their positions.

Baseball is the favorite sport in Cartagena and people still dress up when going out to shop, etc. They can always spot a tourist because of the casual dress, especially in the old city. There are thousands of motor bikes in Cartagena. Not only are they used for personal transportation, but they are also taxis. Every other Friday there are no motor bikes allowed in the city.

We also visited the San Pedro Claver monastery built in homage to the protector of slaves. It is ironic that Cartagena spent so much of its past trying to break free of Spain. Our tour guide explained that a large percentage of land, buildings and businesses are now owned by Spaniards.

Port Everglades & Aruba

There was one big advantage to staying at the Best Western Oceanside. It was extremely close to Port Everglades where we boarded the ship. Neither one of us prefers to take taxis, but we decided we could handle potentially dangerous driving for one mile. As it turned out, we got one of the sweetest guys in the world and he got a large tip.

We are use to the cruise lines taking your picture when you board the ship, but this time the backdrop to the picture was awful. Usually, they have an elaborate setup for the pictures, but there were only two fern plants, nothing else. No sign, no pictures of the ship, nothing, and even more surprising was that the people behind us in line were in the picture. I was really curious how it would turn out. As you can see, digital photography does have its advantages.

This is a picture of the Intercoastal Waterway. Did you know that you can travel by boat all the way from Florida to New York in this waterway, without going out into the ocean?

Aruba was our first port of call. We arrived at 7:00 AM and had to be back on board at noon. This did not give us time to take a shore excursion and shop. We had attended the shopping talk the day before, where Tiffany told us that if we planned on doing any shopping during the cruise to shop in Aruba. We canceled our shore excursion and went shopping instead.

The harbor was very pretty and the clear, clean water was beautiful.

Anyone from the Sea Princess taking a helicopter tour in Aruba did not have to go very far. We took this picture from our balcony on the ship.

I would love to return to Aruba and see more of the island. The island is approximately 74 square miles and 30,000 people live in the capitol of Oranjestad. Aruba gained its independence from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. The language, Papiamento, is a unique combination of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, African and Indian words. It is spoken only on the Dutch "ABC" Islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

Aruba is one of the most prosperous islands in the Caribbean thanks to the Lago refinery located at the southeastern tip of the island. Surprisingly the interior of the island is arid and dotted with cactus and divi-divi trees, in sharp contrast to the coves and sandy beaches of the coast.

Fort Lauderdale

Traveling is always an adventure and even though we have traveled quite a bit, we always seem to see something that surprises us. This trip was no exception. We flew out of Yakima to Seattle to catch a red-eye flight to Miami. While we were waiting for our flight, a guy came running up to a nearby gate, swearing loudly because he had obviously missed his flight. The customer service agents were not at the desk and the plane was gone. Instead of walking down to the next staffed gate, or customer service desk, this guy opened the door to the jet way setting off all the alarms. Yep, the plane was still gone. Everyone in that end of the terminal is watching this guy and assuming that he would quit throwing his temper tantrum and go ask for help. Boy, were we wrong. This guy opened the jet way door multiple times until a service agent appeared to ask him what was wrong. Considering the fact that the alarm went off every time he opened the door, it took a long time for someone to check out the situation. Not only did we have to listed to the alarms, but he continued to swear the entire time. Some people should not travel.

The only non-stop flight we could get on Alaska landed in Miami. We arrived early in the morning and used a shuttle service to get to Fort Lauderdale. We stayed at the Best Western Oceanside Inn. When we made the reservations, they told us the hotel was on the beach and that there was a drug store across the street if we needed anything. Well, the hotel was not on the beach and the drug store, while indeed across the street, was 1.5 miles away. After relaxing for awhile we decide to go out and look for the beach. Not only did we find the beach, but we found the hotel where we wished we were staying.

This Marriott had beautiful grounds and a private beach.

We might not have been guests, but that did not stop us from eating dinner at the Sea Level Restaurant & Bar. This place was so fancy that the menu lit up when you opened it. We joked around about how funny it would be if the bill jacket did that. It did!

I loved this chess board and hammock.

We only had one full day in Fort Lauderdale before the start of the cruise, so the next day we bought all day tickets for the water taxi. With an all day pass, you can board the taxi as many times as you want. It stops 14 times on the Intercoastal Waterway and New River. The captain or the first officer would point out places of interest, or yachts and it was interesting to hear the facts change depending on what taxi you were on.

We got off the taxi at the stop downtown so we could walk along the shops on Las Olas Blvd.

We really were not in much of a shopping mood, but we did eat lunch at La Bonne Crepe. It was fun trying something new.

We saw many mansions and yachts while riding on the taxi. We saw homes owned at one time by Farrah Fawcett & Lee Majors, Lucille Ball, Sonny & Cher, and Chris Evert, just to name a few. We also walked down the main road in front of the public beach, where we saw just about everything from a guy with a giant cobra around his neck to another guy wearing practically nothing at all. His totally bare butt was just hanging out. I can't image what this place looks like during spring break!

Moving Renton to Selah

Thursday, May 27 was the day that Allied Van Lines was to move Janet's belongings from the storage facility in Renton to the house in Selah. The driver arrived almost 2 hours early and then suggested that we push the move back a few days due to the amount of mud present around the house. We rescheduled the move for Saturday morning, May 29.

Unfortunately, mud was still a major problem. The driver tried to get the truck close enough to the house to use a ramp between the truck and the front door, but the truck ended up stuck in the mud. Watching these three guys trying to free the truck was entertaining to say the least. At one point they tried to pull this moving van with 8300 pounds of load out of the mud with a pickup truck. We were sure we would be a witness to the axle being pulled right off the pickup. Fortunately they stopped before that happened. The guys ended up putting plywood and tarps down on the ground and they rolled the stuff into the house that way.


Joe is taking a break, sitting on one of the chairs we did not want to keep. He ended up taking the chair home.

With most of the furniture in the house, these are all the boxes we need to sort through to determine what we want to keep. The only problem left was the fact that there were no garage doors up yet, so we had no way of locking the contents up for safety. Our contractor came out in the afternoon and put plywood across the door openings. What a day.

Property Update

The last picture of the property posted, before we left for vacation, showed the ground leveled for the garage and shop. Mom and Dad were nice enough to continue going out to the property every few days and taking pictures, so we could share them with you. Right after we left, the cement truck showed up to pour the foundation.

Waiting for the foundation to dry.

Some of the supplies needed to build the garage and shop.

The walls are up! The room closest to the camera is the garage and the room in the background is the shop.

The garage has been insulated, the dry wall installed and the walls painted.

Ditto for the shop.

This is looking at the shop doors. You can see the house in the background. Next up - the siding.

Eventually, the siding will be painted to match the color of the house. Next, the garage doors will be installed and the electrical outlets completed.

Vacation Time

Good Bye Everyone! Check back at the end of May for new information.

The Panama Canal

Early Mother's Day

Mom and Dad arrived on Thursday afternoon from Arizona. Their trip was uneventful for the most part. They drove through hail, high winds, and rain, but did not experience any car trouble. We are so happy to have them here! Since we are going to be on our trip on Mother's Day, we celebrated with Mom over the weekend by taking her to brunch at the Hilton Garden Inn. Then we took Mom and Dad out to see the house for the first time.
Mom and Dad are going to dog sit for our while we are gone. Toby and Tillie and two very lucky little critters. Susan and I do not believe we will be missed at all.

New House Updates

Changes are occurring daily now out at our new house. We try to go out every other day and take a new set of pictures to document progress.

Most of the back-fill has been completed. The front yard looks much more like a yard than it did before. There are still several mounds of dirt in the back yard.

The ground has been leveled for the garage/shop and the trench has been dug for part of the foundation. The trench doesn't show very well in this picture, but the white water pipes are sticking up out of the trench.

The septic tank is in place. Now they are working to put down all the drain field pipes and get them connected to the rest of the septic system.