So much for starry nights...

The Texas Star Party (TSP) was a great idea, but Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate. We had some great skies the night we arrived, but the clouds and rain moved in on Monday. Wednesday found us still dry inside our tent, but the grounds were getting pretty muddy. The weather prediction showed no relief in sight for a week so we took advantage of a brief break in the rain to pack up our gear and hit the road. We left the TSP looking for drier climes and settled on a cave. Actually, we drove to New Mexico Wednesday afternoon and went to see Carlsbad Caverns on Thursday morning. Carlsbad claims they have 350 days of sunshine a year, we just happened to get there on one of the other 15 days. Lucky us, but we didn't see a drop of rain in the caverns.

Here are a couple of the photos John took inside the cavern.

We took a leisurely pace on our way back home, stopping in Fredericksburg and San Antonio for some good food and a little shopping. Needless to say, the dogs were sure happy to see us pull in the driveway Saturday afternoon.

Read the whole story...

The stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas

Star Gazing in West Texas...

We are on vacation, headed to the Davis Mountains and the darkest skies in North America. We will be joining hundreds of other star gazers at the annual Texas Star Party where amature astronomers gather to spend the nights looking at celestial objects in the night sky.

We'll be pitching our tent and camping for the week. These photos are from last year but we'll post more when we get back.

Now, all together, sing....

The stars at night, are big and bright,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The prairie sky is wide and high,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom is like perfume,
deep in the heart of Texas,
Reminds me of, the one I love,
deep in the heart of Texas.

The coyotes wail, along the trail,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The rabbits rush, around the brush,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The cowboys cry, "Ki-yip-pee-yi,"
deep in the heart of Texas,
The dogies bawl, and bawl and bawl,
deep in the heart of Texas.

Read the whole story...

A Change in Lifestyle...

We've decided we need to get in better shape. We plan to have an active lifestyle once we make the move to Costa Rica and we want to be fit. This means we intend to eat healthier. In January we changed our diet and started cutting out a few of our favorite things: sugar, white flour, potatoes, pineapple, bananas, tortilla chips and junk food in general. We've both lost 15+ lbs, but its slow going. They say slow is better. It will take us more than a year to get to where we want to be weight wise.

The second part of the plan is to get more exercise. We started out by walking the trails along Buffalo Bayou. This is a series of both paved and dirt trails stretching across 15 miles here in West Houston. There is an entrance to the trails about a ½ mile from the house. This is a favorite haunt for walkers and bikers. Since John's favorite form of exercise is cycling, we decided to buy me a bike so we could both ride.

Four days after we bought my bike, John tripped! He didn't trip exercising, he tripped over the handicapped curb at lunch one day. The x-rays showed a hair line fracture at the tip of the leg bone, where it joins the ankle. I suspect he also cracked the orbital socket bone of his right eye too. But my "tough guy" John, passed on getting medical attention for it. (See John's eye in photo with granddaughter Cali)

Needless to say, this put a crimp in the exercise plan for a short time. After 3 weeks of rest and being chauffeured to and from work, the doctor gave him the go ahead to get rid of the Velcro leg brace. The plan is to get back on the bike and ride with me this week.
Read the whole story...

The end of another wonderful trip draws to a close

The time has just flown by again. I can't believe its time to pack up and return to the States tomorrow!

Monday we made the trek back to San Jose to see the Audiologist and picked up John's hearing aid. He now hears so clearly that we plan on getting another hearing aid for the left ear on our next trip.

After the doctor visit we checked out new SUV prices with a couple of local dealers to get an idea of what to expect when we move. The taxes run about 40%, so a small KIA or Nissan is going to run over $32,000. We've done a little research and, unless the import tax laws change, it will make more more sense to buy in Costa Rica rather than import a vehicle from the States.

Once again Maritza & Vinicio opened up their home to us for the past week so we decided to give them a gift. We purchased a wireless router so Maritza could use her laptop anywhere in the house and not just in Vinicio's office. Little did we know how difficult it would be to install! We finally broke down on Tuesday and got a local tech to come over to the house and configure it for us. Turns out ICE (the national Costa Rican Telephone & Power company) has a different way of providing DSL service than the States. This information will come in handy when we have to configure one for ourselves when we make the move. Would you believe the tech only charged us $12USD for a house call?

We spent our last day in our future hometown, Atenas, getting to know the area a little better. We had lunch in the little open-air restaurant, Tipico Camario, located across from the park. You can just barely see the steps to the restaurant behind the blue car in this photo.

After lunch we did some people watching and took a few more pictures. Take a look at this beautiful blue sky that is so typical of a summer day. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Atenas and taking every hi-way and bi-way we could find. We found some interesting sights, but many roads were just gravel roads to nowhere. We are headed back to Texas tomorrow to get back into the daily grind.
Read the whole story...

A Busy Weekend...

We left Trogon Lodge Friday morning and took a leisurely drive back toward San Jose so that John could make his appointment with the Audiologist in the afternoon. We found state-of-the-art hearing aids cost half of what they cost in the States! John went ahead and placed an order that we will pick-up on Monday. Friday night Marco and Carolina took us to dinner at a wonderful resort near Alajuela called Xandari. We managed to get a table on the open balcony with a fabulous view of the Central Valley.

Saturday we went shopping with Maritza for souvenirs and took a drive up to Zarcero (dairy country) for lunch. While we were there we took some of the topiary photos you see here. Sunday we spent some time in the central park of Alajuela and then we went for a drive with Vinicio & Maritza stopping for dinner along the way. After dinner we went to meet Maritza neice's husband, Minor, who just happens to be a builder. We took a look at his portfolio and discussed what it will take to build our house in Costa Rica. At first we would like to build a detached garage with a studio apartment upstairs that we can live in while the actual house is being built. Minor is going to work up a proposal for us so that we'll have an idea of what it will take to make this happen.
Read the whole story...

Trogon Lodge in San Gerardo de Dota

Thursday we took of to drive up into the mountains along the Pan-American Highway that leads to Panama. Carolina had told us about some cabins that are owned by her friends so we decided to check it out. Trogon Lodge is located in San Gerardo de Dota, a steep valley near "Cerro de la Muerte," Costa Rica's highest peak. The lodge itself is located at an altitude of 7,000 feet in the middle of an incredible forest of oak trees and jungle vegetation with a river flowing through the property. This area is called the "Cuna del Quetzal" (Cradle of the Quetzal). Here is a picture of this magnificient bird.

The lodge also hosts an aireal canopy tour. This peaceful scenery is really beyond description. After sunset the temperature dropped down several degrees to perfect sleeping weather. This is one place we'd really like to go back and spend so more time.

We arrived in time for lunch and a woman in the office said we needed to hurry over to the restaurant for lunch before they closed and she would send the manager over later with a key for our cabin. When the manager came to our table he gave us our key and told us about their services, rates and invited us to go on the Quetzal hunt Friday morning at 6:15 AM. I kept looking at this man, thinking that he looked familiar to me. He said his name was Lio and to ask for him if we needed anything during our stay.

As soon as he left the table, I told John I felt I knew Lio and I'd be right back. I found Lio in the kitchen and I asked him for his last name. When he gave it to me I realized this was the same Lionel I had worked with for 4 years more than 30 years ago. When I gave Lio my last name he suddenly recognized me too. We had such a good time catching up on each others' lives and remembering all our old friends. It really is a very small world!

This morning we met with Lio and several other lodge guest to go in search of the elusive Quetzal. We spent 2 hours searching and were about to give up when we ran into another guide that had just spotted a pair looking to build a nest.

We managed to get a good glimpse of the pair, but the photos we took came out too dark. If John can work some magic with PhotoShop we will post them here later.

Read the whole story...

Our own little piece of paradise

Well, its official, we now own a little piece of Costa Rica. We met with our attorney yesterday evening and Carolina signed the documents to transfer title to us. It will take about 2 weeks for the property to appear in our name in the "Registro Nacional de Costa Rica".

While we were with the attorney we went ahead and set up a Sociadad Anonima (the equivalent of a corporation) in the name of "Heger y Wegner S.A." This will make it easier for Vinicio to act on our behalf until we actually make the move.
Read the whole story...

Volcan Irazu

We did a little sightseeing today and headed out toward Cartago and the Irazu Volcano. Irazu is the highest volcano in Costa Rica. There have been at least 23 eruptions since 1723. The most recent was from 1963 to 1965. It showered San Jose and the neighboring towns with ashes for about 2 years.








Here is a view looking down into the crater. Its about 300 meters deep with a diameter of 1,050 meters.













It was such a clear day you could actually see the Atlantic Ocean in the distance.









Later in the afternoon we went to the Jade Museum in San Jose to view acient Costa Rican arts and crafts.
Read the whole story...