A Visitor

Today we had a lovely visitor! Again. You see, they actually visit us everyday, several times a day. The hummingbirds love us! Between our feeder and our flowers, especially the orange tree, they are always stopping by, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. It is always really cool to wake up to the buzz of a hummingbird's wings or their high pitched chirps!

Oops!

Why I forgot to post last night: Sea World's evening fireworks show! They just started doing them for the summer and I have to admit, they are pretty cool! Between the fireworks and an evening with friends around a fire it was a pretty good evening last night. Hope you all have a great one!

Spring...

Is here!! And this little family with it! This hen duck has SEVEN ducklings that she is keeping a close and loving eye on and so far has been successful in protecting from the numerous birds, dogs, cats, children and vehicles that live with them in the park.

They are explorers though!

And she doesn't always keep up with them!

What a beautiful season! :)

Jenny

Playing ball out at Fiesta Island.

Have a great day!

Texas

Joe and I had a great time in Texas last weekend. We visited for two reasons: to see Paul and to check out Joe's Dad's 39 ft fifth wheel.

We had a great time with Paul. He has such a beautiful place there in San Antonio. Great gardener too, he has some awesome plants and a lot of knowledge. We spent two full days with Paul and the evening of our arrival and morning of our departure too. We had so much fun helping do some yard work! He and Joe went to town cutting down limbs and pruning trees while I tried to focus on pruning and cleaning up the potted plants instead of how high they were climbing or how they were scrambling around limbs to cut from or, well anyway, you get the general idea! We don't get to do that kind of stuff that often (my potted plants are probably suffering from too much attention) so it was a blast and a real treat! The next day we touristed around a bit of San Antonio. We went to the Alamo, which was crowded but still impressive.

I never realized that it was a mission. I've always heard about the California missions, but never thought that they were really anywhere else. Crazy me! After the Alamo we headed down to the Riverwalk. COOL! It's just a walkway built on the river with neat delicious looking restaurants and cute shops and things winding through San Antonio. Really fun and pretty. Paul says it is stunning at Christmas with all the lights that go up and all and I believe it! And after that, we went to the botanical gardens, which we all really enjoyed. Beautiful place and well worth stopping into.

We also ventured outside of San Antonio down to Del Rio to look at the fifth wheel. Del Rio is a pretty small town surrounded by scrub brush but it has most of the conviences you could really need. The area was pretty in its way (as all areas are) though I'm glad we were there in the spring instead of high summer or something! It was pretty green and there were a couple of flowers blooming so it was nice. The fifth wheel is HUGE, bigger than some of the apartments we've seen, but unfortunately a little old and pretty happy where it is I think. I have to admit though, I don't think I've ever been in an RV that was that BIG. I think for the first time in our marriage Joe and I had to raise our voices to hear each other at opposite ends of the RV! Nice place.

Anyway, Texas was great between touristing around and relaxing with Paul (his Playstation is addictive by the way) and it would be a treat to visit again! And you'll never guess what two birds I added to my list!! A crested caracara

and a black-bellied whistling duck!

Hooray for birds!

April

Happy April everyone! In honor of this beautiful month of spring and because my sister has finally convinced me that even a picture post a day is worth putting up, I am going to try to put up at least a picture a day. I know, what a crazy thing for me to do with my posting history, huh?! But who knows, maybe it will help make it a habit and that couldn't be a bad thing, could it?I took this picture of these pretty pansies at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens last weekend when we were in Texas visiting Paul. Beatiful gardens with LOTS of flowers blooming. I couldn't help but think of Jennifer, Dad, and Mom especially when we came to the annual beds (which I didn't get any pictures of, can you believe it?!)which also happened to be next to a very scentful citrus grove. How much more beautiful can it get? We had a great time in Texas and I promise, I will do a longer post about that. But I'm pretty tired after a busy day so I'm going to wish you all a good night!

Happy Birthday!

Once a year I get the chance

To wish you birthday cheer.

It pleases me no end to say,

I wish you another great year.
So happy birthday to you Jennifer and Vanessa,

From the bottom of my heart.

And may your good times multiply,

Till they’re flying off the chart!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope you all are having a wonderful, happy, Irishy day!

OMG!!!

Oh my gosh! You'll never guess what Joe and I did yesterday!! We went sailing!!!!! Like I told you a couple of weeks ago, Joe challenged and passed the boat exams at the Navy MWR so that he could check a boat out. Yesterday, we went and did the little check out exam (they wanted to make sure that he knew what an outboard is and how to work it, etc) and then we went sailing in the Bay!! We were on a Capri 22, which was a pretty fun, fast little boat. We were out for three and a half hours and had a great time. Sailing down the channel towards downtown to the Midway, the Star of India and the Master and Commander ship took probably 2 hours, but sailing back took only 45 minutes or so. I have to admit I was a little scared (ok, a LOT scared!) when the boat keeled over far enough for me to put my hand in the water from where I was sitting at the tiller, but it was super exciting too! I was at the tiller almost the whole time, which was pretty sweet, and Joe worked the sails for me. We successfully managed to tack and gybe and even managed to outrace a couple of other boats! Gybing scared me a little the first time because we came down to what felt like a full stop and I looked around and it felt like there were a million bigger boats racing towards us and I admit it, I had a slight panic moment ("Ah! Joe, we're sitting ducks, they're going to get us, I can't look, what happened to the wind, are you sure this is safe.....?!") but we survived and it actually became fun to tack and gybe. Tacking into the wind was a little more fun and seemed to maintain our speed a little more than gybing away from the wind, but we got them both down pretty decent. Hopefully, we can get back out on the water once a month or so because I think I'm hooked on it!! Hope you all have a great week!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Hope your day is filled with lots of sweetness and love!

Love to you all,

Veronica

More Birds

Let me take this first line to apologize to all my non-birdy family and friends for subjecting them to yet another post about, yep you guessed it, birds! I can't help it! They are so pretty and engaging! Take these mallards for instance.I was down on the beach taking yet more bird pictures (sorry Joe, I'll go through them all some day!) when this trio came running over to see what was going on and to make sure they weren't missing out on anything.Look at the determination in that waddle! And then before I knew it, we were getting intimately acquanted with each other's faces.They were not shy at all! Upon realizing that I did not, in fact, have anything at all for them, they shook in disbelief,and peered woefully over their shoulders as they waddled dismally away.Never have I felt so guilty for not having a crust of bread handy or anything! But luckily, my naturalist instincts kicked in and the guilt didn't last.

Anyway, see how engaging they can be?! I also was able to mark a species on my list that I didn't think I would ever see: a white-cheeked pintail!All my guides say that they are strays from the West Indies that occur only in Florida and the Gulf states. So what is he doing here?? Maybe he's an escapee from the zoo or something. Anyway, pretty little bird.

I also got some nice shots of a couple of other birds when I was on the beach.I think wigeons are pretty with their blue bills, white foreheads, and green eyestripes. This flock of grebes has been around a couple of days. Any guesses on what type they are?I never realized how much red coots have on their faces.These three white-fronted geese were sleeping, so I was able to sneak up pretty close.They were very relaxed and weren't really bothered by me at all.When they look right at you they look so funny with that white shield round their bills!Very pretty birds.Have a nice day y'all!

Travels Part 1: Honeymoon!

Well, I decided it is finally time to update you guys on all the adventures that Joe and I have had since we were married in October. Our first BIG adventure was our 10 day honeymoon in the Riveria Maya, Mexico. It was fantastic! I got a passport, (even has a decent picture of me along with my first stamp!) had to speak another language for those ten days and immerse myself in the history and culture of Mexico. We had so much fun, I highly recommend Mexico as a travel destination!

Where to start...how about the beginning! Mexicana airlines is a nice airline. They were comfortable and friendly and fairly affordable and had decent food-at least in first class! The only nerve racking part was our layover in Mexico City because all the staff new only rudimentary English, we knew only rudimentary Spanish, there were intimidating cops and security folk roaming around rapidly speaking a blur of Spanish into their radios and it took us a while to figure out where our gate was. We had to walk around the airport for probably 45 minutes or so before we found our gate, but luckily we had a longish layover just for such an event! I was surprised at how cold it was in Mexico City, but I guess it is surrounded by mountains. There was snow on some of the peaks.

After Mexico City it was absolutely fantastic to get into Cancun. We could feel the humidity in the plane increase as we descended and were eager to get out of our pants and sweaters by the time we landed! Baggage came through just fine and pretty quickly as I remember. It was crazy walking out of the terminal because we were immediately assualted by car rental people, taxi drivers, time share folks all clamoring for our attention. It was a little intimidating, at least for me, because I'd never experienced anything like it before. Luckily we had our car all lined up and ready to go through Budget, who were very calm and professional and had a van waiting for us and everything. If nothing else, the service is pretty darn good in Mexico!

The first thing I noticed about our car, besides the fact that it was smaller than Vanessa's and my Ford Escort, was that it had kilometers on the outer ring of the speedometer instead of miles. The first time I looked over and saw Joe doing 70 I almost had a heart attack before I realized it was kilometers! I was so glad that Joe drove the whole time we were down there instead of me! All the signs, of course, are in Spanish and while you do drive on the same side of the road as in the U.S., the drivers have completely different ideas of what is appropriate driving. The shoulders are really wide down there on the main roads and people just use the shoulders as an extra lane. They use their blinkers more to tell you it is ok to pass than to indicate that they are turning or moving over a lane and slower vehicles almost always use their hazard lights. If they have them and they are working! We saw several vehicles that had one working tail light and that was it! Scooters are popular down there too, but as family vehicles, not as single person transportation. It was common to see a man, woman and kid or baby on one scooter on the main road and not a one with a helmet. Crazy! The other crazy thing about the roads down there, besides the major potholes (they could have swallowed our little car!), is many of them have speed bumps every couple of miles or so, even on the two or three lane major roads! I suppose it works, but it was kind of annoying, especially if you had a sunburned, or stoveup back (which we did) and had to endure them all!

Anyway, our condo was pretty sweet at the Riveria Maya Resort. Huge grounds that really gave you a lot of exercise getting around, but a lot of nice, though expensive, amenities. They had a beach and, get this, SEVEN pools! But you know what, we were so busy running around we only swam in the pools once, though they were very nice.

We didn't really spend a lot of time at the resort because we didn't feel like we were really experiencing Mexico, which is the whole point of going to another country, right?! We had a great time in Playa del Carmen on (I think) Fifth Avenue, which is like the Duval Street, Front Street, or Gaslamp District of Playa del Carmen. Lots of crazy little shops, great restuarants, and a neat aviary (careful the birds in the flight cage are crazy, especially the toucans!). The wonderful thing about Mexico is, especially if you can find your way out of the tourist areas, it is soo cheap! We had lots of great meals for under ten or fifteen dollars out away from the resort. In fact, the staff at an Argentenian (?spelling?) grill in Tulum recognized us after a couple of days and were very friendly and helpful with places to see and helping us with our Spanish. The resort was ridiculously expensive so we ate there as little as possible. We even found a Wal Mart and enjoyed some fruit, roast chicken and salad a couple of times. We didn't really have any problems with any of the food, though we were careful to stick to bottled water.

We spent over half our time in Tulum, which was about two hours south of our resort. It was a small town that hadn't gone totally to tourism so we really got to experience untouristy Mexican culture right up close and it was cheaper and friendlier than Cancun or Playa del Carmen. We stayed a night at an environmentally friendly, self sufficient place called CESiaK that was located in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere, which is a UNESCO or World Heritage sight or something. Very cool place. We had a bungalow right on the beach with fantastic ocean and lagoon views. There was no light pollution, no noise pollution, no nothing. Our bungalow didn't have electricity, a bathroom or anything. Basically it was a big tent on a raised deck with a bed, a rocking chair, and a hammock. The sheets were rough with salt and the bed was hard, but what a fantastic experience! The only thing is I was pretty sick with a bad cold and was a little miserable then so I didn't enjoy roughing it as much as I normally would have. The accomodations may have been lacking a little, but the food was great. Those cooks really outdid themselves in everything they did. They hand squeezed or pressed their juice (we had orange and watermelon juice-yum!) and the food was by far the best we had in Mexico. They caught all their fish right off the beach, pretty cool! The only bad thing about CESiaK was the mosquitos. It was kind of in a swamp/ lagoon area so there were a lot. I think they really liked me, unfortunately.

While we were at CESiaK we did a lagoon tour. There were probably eight or nine of us plus a fantastic guide who, though he'd only been working there for four days, did a superb job on the tour. He was VERY knowledgeable. We hiked out to some motorboats that had no draft whatsoever and took off into the lagoon and up into a canal. We saw all kinds of birds, fish and plant life and I never would've believed it, but it is really obvious when you pass from brackish water to fresh. The fresh water is so much clearer and cleaner! One of the cool things about the lagoon is there are a ton of freshwater springs scattered throughout it. So in the middle of this big brown lake there are little circles of the bluest, clearest water you can imagine just gushing out from the bed of the lagoon. Very cool. We sped up this narrow canal at what seemed an impossible speed-of course the captains had been doing it their whole life so knew the canals well- to an ancient Mayan ruin. Actually, one of the fascinating things about this particular canal is that the Mayans had cut and dredged it out of the limestone to get to the other/further inland side of the lagoon/swamp. And it was still a usuable canal! Amazing! Anyway, this Mayan ruin we stopped at was, they were guessing, a toll or tax station and was pretty neat. My first ruin! It wasn't really renovated, but that made it that much more mysterious, a little building reaching out of the past to captivate people. All I can say is that the Mayans were sure short people! The guide said that actually they were short and squat, but incredibly powerfully built, because the water they drank has so much limestone and calcium in it that it calcified their bones early in life so that they just didn't grow longer, they couldn't because they were so dense. But those dense bones could support a lot of heavy muscle or fat or whatever so they were a pretty physically strong people. I tried not to swallow any water when we went swimming. lol! After we had finished poking around the ruin, we all jumped in the canal and floated back to the lagoon. It was FANTASTIC! The water was warm and clear and sweet (oops, I swallowed some!) and it was just one of those experiences that you will never forget. We saw hummingbird nests and all kinds of neat stuff. And it started to rain when we were floating down the canal, which was kind of cool because we were wet anyway! You wouldn't believe how much rain splashes UP though. Then we headed to an old historic bridge, which was kind of cool but definitely not the highlight, and back to CESiaK for lunch. We were supposed to go on to swim in a cenote-underwater spring/river-but I was pretty sick and we were both ready to find accomodations with a bathroom in the room and clean sheets. So we headed back to Tulum and found Don Diego de la Selva.

Don Diego de la Selva became our favorite spot and we ended up spending more time there than at the resort! It was owned and run by French people who were very nice. We were able to communicate in an odd mixture of English, Spanish, and French (Joe remembers some of his high school French) and had a really nice time there. Not nearly as fancy as the resort, but much friendlier and more relaxed. They served a free continental (French) breakfast every morning which was superb and always came out to say hello and talk a little and were extremely friendly and helpful. A very nice place that we highly recommend.

We used Don Diego de la Selva as a base point to explore the area around Tulum. We visited three different archealogical sites in the area: Coba, Tulum, and Muyil. Coba was the most excavated and restored and definitely the most crowded. We had a fantastic guide there though who really did a great job in not only telling us about the ruins at Coba, but the ruins at other sites like Chichen Itza so that, between him and our fantastic Moon guidebook, we didn't need another guide for any of the other ruins we visited. He also taught us a lot about the plants and animals around there and the Mayan culture in general. It was a fantastic experience. The ruins are HUGE and the city is really spread out, so we got a lot of exercise that day. The Mayans arranged their cities around their temples and ballcourts. The priests and rulers lived in or nearest the temples, then the aristocracy and craftsmen, and then the lay people got the fringes. And that was how it worked at ceremonies, ballgames and any other important function. The Mayans made some fantastic stele, or tomblike blocks of stone with histories, legends and other important things carved into them. That is probably one of the more notable things about Coba, all the stele. Also important is that Coba was at the center of the Mayan road system. The roads, called sacbe, were raised two or three feet off the ground-so it was level-and were made of rock. They shoot basically straight through the jungle to other major cities, like Chichen Itza. You would think these roads would've been used for carts and wheelbarrows and things, but they were used by people on foot carrying packs on their heads and backs. The Maya knew of the wheel but believed it was sacred, so they never used it as an actual working wheel. Coba also boasts the tallest ruin in the Yucatan Peninsula: Nohoch Mul or "large hill"at 138 feet. We were able to climb it and it was pretty crazy! Very steep and a little scary, but well worth it. Coba was a nice site.

Unfortunately, it is getting on towards bedtime so I will have to do a "Part 2"! Hopefully this isn't too wordy. I will try to get pictures up on Photobucket soon too! Anyway, enjoy and goodnight!

Campland

I know that the whole point of living in an RV is to travel, but it is so nice to be fixed in one location for a while! Don't get me wrong, I love to travel, but packing and unpacking every three, four days or so does get a little old. And having laundry close by and shore power, water, and a dump included in our site is a blessing that I really didn't appreciate until we spent those three weeks in Yosemite (more on that later). At any rate, our space here at Campland is pretty sweet. Our rear end-the bedroom windows-is facing a wide canal that is really part of the bay and I love it! Being able to leave the curtains open most of the time is wonderful and (my favorite part!!) I get to watch all the waterbirds that frequent the canal at different times of the day!! I feel like I am living in the middle of one of the bird refuges up in northern California. There aren't the sheer numbers, but the variety is astounding. I think I see a new species every three days or so. Just yesterday I saw my first ruddy ducks. Very cool, but they were in winter plumage. Not nearly as colorful as their breeding plumage. Some of my favorites are the little blue-winged teals and cinnamon teals, the Northern pintails, the American wigeons (they squeak instead of quack!) and these little brant geese.

And those are just some of my favorites! You can check out all the others I've seen here at Campland on my list to the left. I think I've just about worn Joe out with birds though. He used to at least pretend excitement when I would squeal from the bed in the morning that "There's a new species!! New species!! Where's the book?!!" But I think I've overused that particular phrase because now he doesn't even put down his coffee and come running, just asks me what it was I saw. I have to admit though, he's catching on to the whole bird identification thing pretty quickly (hahaha, success!!). Of course, my totally sweet computer field guide with its completely awesome quizzes and fantastic pictures helps a lot - thank you, Mom, Dad, and Vanessa!

On to other happenings... Joe challenged and passed two of the three sailing certification exams today! Now we can rent a sailboat from MWR off the bases here and float around the bay! We are both pretty excited, but I will definitely need to take some dramamine before we head out. Maybe it was just because we'd had a HUGE breakfast, but just the docks moving with the water were making me feel a little funny! He's got to go do a hands on exam within the next two weeks to officially be able to rent a boat, but for a Navy man who's lived on a sailboat for the past 15 years or so that shouldn't be a problem. Very exciting!!

Well, I think I am going to find my way back to bed and flip through some of those sailing magazines that came in yesterday... :)

Hello Again!!

I am so sorry it has been so long since I have posted! There has been so much stuff going on that I just haven't had the time! As you may or may not know, Joe and I have been traveling around California for the past three and a half months in our 27ft '87 Southwind motorhome. It has been great! I've always heard how incredibly diverse this state is but never really believed it until these last three months. We were expecting to be back in Key West, FL by now, but it looks like we aren't even going to make it out of California! We finally made it to San Diego about two weeks ago to spend the weekend with Joe's brother and we are still in San Diego and pretty excited about staying here! We found a nice rv park (Campland on the Bay) right on the water which is great and have been checking the area out for jobs and schools. It looks pretty promising! The hardest part is getting our resumes up to date. :)

Other big news...I cut my hair! I didn't realize how long it was getting until the lady cut off about six inches of it and I couldn't reach behind and grab it anymore. It is so much lighter now and easier to care for. I really like it!

Well, I have so much more to tell you about our travels, but I'm afraid that will have to wait as Jenny is bound and determined that she needs to go for a walk NOW. Oh well, I guess she deserves an evening of playing ball as she's been alone for a lot here lately since Joe and I have been exploring San Diego. Will post more soon, I promise!