Mills River, NC

 We’re off to the mountains for a few days. I’m going to accompany my mom to her 8th chemo treatment. All the daughters and daughter-in-laws are taking turns helping out. 

A view of snow capped mountains approaching Asheville. Chilly here!!

And just an odd photo that I thought was neat  I apparently placed my phone down on my leg in the car… this is a very up close view of my blue jeans!!

Pittsboro,NC

 Another “we’re still alive and kicking “ post. I seem to be tugged back into the business just by proximity I suppose. 

While we were in Costa Rica, one of the local pilots had a mishap. His engine failed and he did not get his gear extended in time to make a nice landing.

Today, they moved his airplane down the ramp to have some repairs done I assume. A little spooky looking!

Pittsboro, NC

I don't want anyone to think we've gotten lost!!  Just normal days, not a lot to photograph.  

I am enjoying the daffies!  I have my book club coming over tonight for our monthly meeting so I'm getting ready for that.

One interesting thing happening around the house is that the power company is putting in power lines for a couple of new neighbors.  Will be fun to see the progress after the power is up and running.  This is at the corner of our driveway.

We're just tickled that they haven't disrupted either power or our fiber internet.....knock wood!!

Pittsboro, NC

 We arrived home just in time for a little snowstorm!  The sad little daffodils will have to endure the hard freeze over the next three days.  There is a warm up into the 70’s next week but no fun until then!!

Miami!

 The trip is winding down!  No rush to depart from the lodging…no plans today other than the 3+ hour drive back to the capital city, San Jose for our departure back to NC.

We stopped along the way for one last casada meal. Nice and fresh and consistently priced between $6 and $8 USD. 

No real spectacular scenery along the way but there were some good views of the mountains from the car. 

The city streets are crowded and hilly. 

We rented our last Airbnb just a Mike from the airport for a 6AM departure.  Sweet little house but it was really locked down tight!  Every window and door had thick iron bars. (All the neighbors did also).  Even the rental car was locked up.

We all set our alarms for 3:45AM and were out the door by 4AM.  So far the travels have been as expected.  Just an hour delay.  Not looking forward to arrival RDU tonight.  Forecast 45 degrees F and snow tomorrow!!!

Quepos, Costa Rica

 Time for our last National Park tour. This time to the very popular Manual Antonio NP. We had read that parking is crazy there so opted to take a local bus. Just 380 colones or something like 75 cents USD for the 35 minute ride. Waited at the bus station for about 10 minutes. 

The bus eventually filled with local workers along the steep curvy road. 

Heavy overcast skies but nicely kept the temps reasonable. 

Public beach outside the park. 

Last night we had gone online and got our tickets ( the only way to enter). By this morning they were completely sold out. They limit entry and you get a 1 hour slot to arrive. 

Lots of normal floura.  

And lots of weird vines. 

Little waterfall we walked a mile round trip to see. A little underwhelming, haha. 

Strange very sharp spikes on a palm tree I’d never seen before. I guess the tree wants no climbers!  I walked off the path to test them. Really hard and sharp!

We did see lots of fauna in this park. Really hard to get good photos as they were often far away or hidden in the dense growth.  I believe this is an agouti. 

This is a photo from the web for reference. They’re  related to the guinea pig.

Cool palm trees with dangling fruit  

I believe this is a coati like we’d seen in the side of the road in La Fortuna. 

And we saw several white faced monkeys. They did not appear to be too frightened of us but they also weren’t begging for food. The park searched backpacks as there is a strict no food policy. 

Really cool colorful land crab. 

More monkeys. 

And a couple of small whitetail deer that were not afraid of us. 

Very nice trails, not muddy like several we’ve been on.  This is the most visited park in CR so I guess gets lots of attention. 

A cool double termite mound. This one has what appears to be a tunnel connecting the two pods. 

Another agouti nibbling on a nut. 

And more white faced monkeys. 

We also saw a sloth and a howler monkey up very high in the canopy. My photos were not detailed enough to bother showing. 

Walking back along the pretty coastline. 

A few more animal encounters.

And after 4.5 miles of trails, we easily caught the bus back to Quepos. This time it was eventually standing room only as it appeared many workers shift had ended at 3pm and they were heading home. 

We were in for the night and we’ll have to pack up to start our journey back to San Jose for our flight home the next day. 

Quepos, Costa Rica

 Today was a busy travel/hiking day…moving from Jacó further south to Quepos.  I apologize in advance for the long post here   

Driving along the coastal road we passed acres and acres of palm trees. We looked them up - since no coconuts were visible. They are African palms and the fruit is a large bundle of nuts that is ground up and used to make palm oil.  They were planted in abundance in the 1950’s when a banana blight took out all the banana trees.  Apparently they have devastated a huge amount of rainforest to plant these tree so not a great environmental thing.

We had plenty of time to spare as we couldn’t check in to our next house until 3pm so we took a side tour at Rainmaker Nature Preserve.  The road up the mountain was a mix of nice pavement and rutted dirt road.  

Lots of local folks out along the way  

Paid our entrance fees and started the 2.2 mile walk along well maintained

paths. 

Lots of pretty waterfalls although none were terribly large  

Interesting formations of the millions of vines  

This park has about 20 hanging bridges.  I’m not really a fan, haha!

Beautiful views though!!

Duane enjoyed joking with me about the unsteady footing.

Pretty flowers along the way 

More waterfalls.

Cool trees. 

Sounds of the rainforest!! Loud!

There were loads of butterflies but very difficult to capture a photo they were so quick   

Finished with the park, we got a message from our next lodging that it was clean and ready. Back down the mountain over a few sketchy bridges. 

On the highway we saw the farm workers with their extremely long saw-poles leaving the palm tree fields. 

We got settled in our nice house for the evening, then went on a walkabout to make sure we knew how to catch the bus in the morning (to go south to Manual Antonio NP tomorrow). That accomplished, we walked back to the house.  Busy downtown with bars on all doors. 

This is the street for our rental house. Bars on all doors and even the car is inside a locked gate. I don’t feel unsafe be we won’t be going out at night!