On To Costa Rica

After a week in Guatemala and lighter by two wallets we flew to Costa Rica, rented a car and drove down to Sierpe, the sleepy little village where I had fished last November.  We caught the water taxi and slithered down 6 miles of jungle river where we had an exciting crossing of the bar into the Pacific and then boated on to Drake Bay where we spent 6 nights.  This area of Costa Rica is absolutely wild, it's a huge rain forest and Eco-travellers come to see the wildlife. We sure did!  Our first night there we took a frog tour and saw bunches of the famous little green, red-eyed tree frogs, not to mention other frogs, a snake, trap door spiders and a gawd awful Brazilian wandering spider which is extremely aggressive and if a it bites a man VERY BAD things happen to his very bad area. OUCH! (You can look it up! It's disgusting). Despite one of those hairy little beasts leaping to attack our guide, no one got bit and we returned safely to our little waterside hotel. On another hike we saw all four Costa Rican monkies, all sorts of birds, reptiles and mammals. We even were about to step out into a stream where it entered the ocean when our guide instantly cured us of that idea, by pointing out a 10-foot bull shark cruising out in front of us, inside of the breakers. It's a scary place.
Every other evening, about happy hour we were attacked my a nasty troop of white faced monkies that seemed to think they could join us and steal everything in sight while hissing and spitting and behaving like really bad 6th grade boys. It made for an interesting cocktail hour!

                                        Our Hotel

Our last day Mike and I were going to paddle some sit-on-top kayaks out to where we could catch some waves. It looked like fun but I wasn't sure if I got dumped, if I could clamber back on board, so Mike and I went about about 50 feet off the beach where I found I could indeed wrestle my wide body back on the kayak.  I practiced a few times then we came in to the beach for a while. Not long after we came in Sheryl (bless her soul) noticed that in the ocean, right where I had been floppin' around with Mike, there was now an 8-foot salt water crocodile prowling about. He seemed to be hoping to grab a wounded bird on the beach but it gave me the shivers to think just how juicy my fat arse must have looked to him.
It was a great trip...Thanks Mike and Patty.

                                 Night time is just scary!

                                   The famous little tree frog.

             One hairy scary bastard. The most deadly in the world!

                 That's the dorsal and tail fin of a bull shark!

                                      Mike and iguana

                       Yep, he was right outside our room!

                                        The Bad Boys

                                    Hey! It was a rain forest!

               This had been our swimming hole all week long!

Guatemala

                                We took a lot of pictures.

For years we have been hearing about the wonders of Guatemala from our friends the Stouts who were there in the Peace Corps a hundred years ago, and from Tyler and Meghan who spent a month there last summer studying Spanish.  Our good friends Mike and Patty Reeder had planned a week long vacation in Costa Rica so we decided that since we would be joining them in Central America we would stop off first for a week in Guatemala. Our first stop was Flores, a little island town that could have been Mediterranean from where we headed off to Tikal. Tyler had assured us it was spectacular and Wow! Was it ever! These are the best Mayan ruins in the world and we were truly impressed by their grandeur.

 

Mike and Patty

After Tikal we headed off to Antigua, a very charming city full of markets, restaurants and the local Guatemalans who live in the highlands, all seem to be around four feet tall and must dress in the most colorful garments in the world.

We had read about the colorful local market of Chichicastenango, so we hopped in a van and headed up into the highlands.  The market was a spectacular rainbow of Guatemalan weaving and handicrafts.  As we approached the crowded streets I reminded our group of how this looked like pick-pocket territory and we plunged right in.  Sheryl had buttoned her wallet into a front pocket. Mike zipped his into a front pocket.  Patty had her purse clutched to her chest and I stuck my hand into my pocket and held my wallet tightly.  The market was fabulous and we snapped photos, shopped and bulldozed our way through the tightly packed mass of humanity.  After about 45 minutes Sheryl shrieked, "My wallet's gone!"  Mike shouted, "mine too," and we were all just devastated by the thefts.  What could we do?  Quickly we realized, not a damned thing, we had been had.  It soon sunk in that we had better quickly cancel our cards and such which was difficult but with help from our friends the Pines, back in Oregon, we managed to get everything cancelled.  Thankfully they did not get our passports and no attempts were made with or cards so the real loss was the dollars in cash and the chaos it created in managing the money that Patty and I still had...so they stole our money, but not our trip.

  Patty quickly mastered all the Guatemalan musical instruments

         Lets see? Can you pick out which one is the tourist?

Marathoning

In 2011 Corvallis held it's first annual half marathon.  Sheryl's good buddy from college days, Debbie Vasallo did the race and it got Sheryl all fired up to try it this year.  She got a book on Marathoning for Mortals and began her daily regimen around Christmas. After a warm up Hangover Handicap on New Years morning with her good friend Patty Reeder, she trained on through the rainy winter.  The race this year was held on April 15th (her 65th Birthday)and she was joined by our son Tyler as well as both of our daughter-in-laws.  Her good friend from Klamath, Kathy Ward (who is a serious runner), joined in, and her regular training friend from Corvallis, Jane Casey. It was a beautiful day and she was supported by Andy, our two granddaughters and me on my bike as chief cheer leader. Things got tough around 10 miles but the grind was on and the entire troop finished together in the football stadium, completing an amazing event that made me VERY proud of that girl I married 42 years ago.

The "New" House of Tyler and Meghan

The Mud Trench

Sheryl ripping out carpet

The new French drain

The front of the house from the street

The back of the house and what's left of a boat shed.

Tyler and Meghan returned from their world travels in November of 2010. By April of 2011 Tyler had found a Spanish teaching Job at Colton, a little town about 40 miles southeast of Portland, but they moved into an apartment and felt very temporary. As this school year unfolded they again were apartment dwellers but were still unhappy about it and started to shop for a house to buy. Their only drawback seemed to be they had very little savings and clearly could only afford a “starter” house. They looked at some OK houses in dreadful neighborhoods. They looked at some dreadful houses in OK neighborhoods. They had been looking for over a year when they found their home. It was in West Linn, a highly desirable community on a wonderful street in a great little neighbor hood. On one side are nice homes, on the other side are jillion dollar mansions once owned by professional basketball players. The neighbors like to fish. It’s simply an amazing neighborhood and there, sitting on the corner in the middle of it all, is this little house we can gently call a “fixer-upper.” It had been vacant over a year as the price kept dropping as nobody was willing to tackle all the issues. Well, nobody other than Tyler and Meghan, who stepped in just as the price dropped once again. Drainage appears to be the number one issue as water gets under the house. Then it needs new bathrooms, kitchen, windows, insulation etc. You get the picture, but what Ty and Meghan have is lots of energy and enthusiasm but very little money so we think this is a good fit. Sometime at the end of summer, or maybe next year they are going to have a sweet little home that they will be very happy in.

The first weekend as owners T&M, in a driving rain, hand dug a three foot mud trench around the house. They already have “stories.” I wish I had photos of them, self-described at the end of it all as “mud turds.”

The photos show the trenching Ty and Meghan did to install a French drain to divert any water approaching the house. We have just returned after spending three days with them mostly shoveling dirt, and helping with drainage. Sheryl also managed to rip out all of the carpets, pads, and staples.

At the end of our first weekend of fixing we were all tired and sore but a feeling of warm accomplishment was felt by all. Sometimes hard physical work that yields results is very rewarding indeed.

RAKU

When we gave up potting 23 years ago we had primarily been making "domestic" ware; mugs, bowls, and that sort of thing, and it was either made of stoneware clay or porcelain. Sheryl had become quite efficient as a commercial potter, sometimes making dozens of pots a day.
Today making pots at the local community college she is no longer concerned with speed, efficiency and the sort of pressures she once felt and consequently she has branched out and is experimenting more. Yes, she has made some stoneware and salt glazed pieces, but her current direction is with Raku. Raku pots have first been bisque fired then she decorates them with various glazes. Next they are placed in a special Raku kiln that heats up very quickly. It is then opened and with flames licking everything and everybody she reaches in with tongs while wearing long fireproof gloves and snatches out her red hot pot and puts it in a large bucket filled with newspaper, sawdust, leaves...whatever and everything bursts into flames to the point it could be mistaken for idolatry of some sort. This burning material belches out raw carbon which blackens the clay and gives everything a distinctive "Raku" look. The drawback to this is that the pots are still porous and therefore will not hold water, but WOW has she ever got some stunning results. It's a slow technique that no commercial potter could afford but hey...time we got! She's clearly having fun and every evening when she comes home, covered in clay, she is juiced up with energy, creativity and excited to be potting again. Its been fun.

Thanksgiving

Kaylin enjoys doing everything with her BaDah (Early on she couldn't say "grandma" so BaDah it was.) Obviously she likes turkey as well.
When you lick the whipped cream bowl...Brooklyn REALLY likes whipped cream.
Kaylin learns new tricks all the time. She is in a Spanish immersion kindergarten but we can't yet convince her to speak in Spanish.
Early mornings watching the I-pad. Kaylin already has had to show me how to navigate around it.
Thanksgiving arrived on Friday once again, as we share the kids with the other side of their families this time of year.
Somehow I took no photos of Tyler and Meghan who spent many hours building frames and then mounting their Indonesian batiks. They have two large "pictures" and not only did they do a wonderful job of mounting them but it was a joy to us to see how well they worked together on the project. Gee wouldn't a couple of photos have been nice?
Andy, Madri and the girls were their usual high energy selves. Sheryl and Andy played golf one afternoon and the next morning their entire family got up and quietly sat on the couch and watched a movie on their I-pad. They are such a great little family.
As always, Sheryl supervised the feast and we were all thankful to have the family all here together.

Costa Rica

The River from our hotel
Our Hotel
Crocs!
Sierpe
Grant, aka "Mister Roosterfish"
Pablo's boat
Ed's Pompano
Dave, Pablo and trevalle


Last February my good friend, Dave Hummel, and I cooked up a scheme to go fish Costa Rica. We arranged to meet up with Pablo Chavez (who turned out to be a great guy) and fish out of the sleepy little town of Sierpe on the southwest coast. Grant Pine and Ed Holcomb agreed to join us and last week we were off. It was the rainy season and each morning was sunny but man did it pour every afternoon. We boated 6 miles down the muddy river to the ocean, crossed the bar, which was quite an undertaking, and fished the warm waters and mostly caught big eye tuna. Grant was the master of Roosterfish and caught a couple of 20 pounders chucking poppers as big as coke bottles. We swam from the beach in front of Mel Gibson's, saw lots of whales, caught a bunch of fish we had never seen before, spotted iguanas, talked to the howler monkeys, spied parrots, made friends with the locals, drank some imperial, and ate a lot of fresh fish.
Costa Rica is different. In Oregon when we clean our fish we toss the fish guts and heads to the sea gulls or seals. In Costa Rica it was to the crocodiles.
On the way home we all agreed that Sierpe was a nicer little town than expected and Pablo was a terrific guide, but the fishing was just so-so. Nevertheless it was a great trip and I think all four of us had a really good time.