Carara National Park, Costa Rica

One morning of our trip we spent hiking in Carara National Park. Even though we didn't see all the exotic birds we'd have liked to have seen, it was an incredibly beautiful hike.

One of the first things we saw was the chains of cutter ants that had established "highways" where they'd cross the trails with their leaf cuttings to take to their homes.

If I've done my online research correctly this is an agouti. We actually saw a pair first...one of which ran away before I saw it and this one who seemed to think itself invisible.

Then this one crossed the trail in front of us before pausing for photos a short distance off.

Okay, not the best shot in the world as it's tricky to get the telephoto to zoom on the right spot, but this is one of the howler monkeys we saw way up in the trees!

A cute little lizard we spotted.

Trips

I've been awfully busy of late with some new projects, not the least of which is related to a career change. I'll tell you all about that soon...and fill you in on the summer trip to Boston that I took...but jumping ahead, I'm going to start sharing pix from last week's dream vacation with LoML. We went to Costa Rica! He's been wanting to surf there for a long time and we finally got a chance to go. I fully intend to share details, but for this evening I'm just going to start you off with a few pix:

The view from our back patio at the resort

Just a view from the side of the road along the way to Playa Jaco & Playa Hermosa

Playa Hermosa above and below.

Sunset at the resort

 This iguana was sunning in the middle of a little side street and had no intention of moving.

I'll tell you all about the crocodiles soon.

Back at the resort

Hound Supervision

A hound's duties are numerous....around here one of the chief duties is keeping an eye on the baby kittehs. This is not always an easy chore as they can get up to a lot during those rigorous two to four hours a day that they're awake. Witness the background of the following video for an example of said supervision.

Serenity

Not exactly what it looks like out there right now, but we're grateful that it appears Hurricane Joaquin is going to bypass us!

Lunar Eclipse

Well, it's been raining for days on end and was very cloudy still last night, but I did get to see the lunar eclipse in and out of clouds and managed to get one decent shot of it before it was fully eclipsed.

I got a good look at it when it was fully eclipsed but couldn't withstand the mosquito attack long enough to figure out the correct camera settings to get a shot of it.

Happy Belated Birthday to Gwyneth!

Yep. It's been over a month with no posting from me. I may be negligent, but better late than never! Gwyn celebrated a birthday this past week. Hard to believe - our sweet girl is seven!

 I've had some extra commitments on me lately & so didn't have a lot of time to do anything special but managed to combine two of Gwyn's favorite activities: riding in the car and going for a walk.

 We drove down to the end of the island and then walked around.

It made us happy.

Happy National Dog Day!

Why, yes, I *am* spoiled! Why ever do you ask? 

Just Another Day at the Beach

I think maybe tomorrow I'll start telling you about my second out-of-state trip that I took in July, but for today I'll share a few more local pix:

The Dog in Dog Gone Right

Gwyn was afraid you've forgotten what she looks like.

 She's an incredibly sweet girl and loves her baby-kittehs very much....but she's been neglected here on the blog of late and it's high time there were some hound pix posted!

 This is her in her sneaky-dog space....she likes to lie in a hole that she's dug so that she's about level with the top of the grass....there she can hunt rabbits & squirrels and hope they don't notice her.

Of course, sometimes she gets a bit sleepy there....

Happy Birthday Spike!

Today is the day we somewhat arbitrarily assigned as Spike's birthday (having been a rescue we don't know his exact birthday). Hard to believe he's two years old! For your entertainment I'm recycling a couple of early pix:

Hard Rock Atlanta

Before I tell you about my second July trip I'll close Atlanta with a few pix from the Hard Rock cafe. We ate lunch there one day. It was fun looking at all the memorabilia.

The man in black:

Atlanta part two

Some more shots from my Atlanta trip...

Atlanta part one

I don't do a great deal of traveling, but have been on two trips in July. The first was to Atlanta. Met up with friends and had a fabulous time. This was the view from our hotel balcony:

The view straight down:

Looking about, still from the balcony...

This is a shot straight up from the inside atrium in the hotel...it was quite spectacular. That's one of the glassed-in elevators heading up that you see in the lower left of the photo.