I’ve written before about my father’s best friend when he was growing up. They both lived in the little dusty west Texas town of Truscott, but since their school burned down, they were bused to the nearby town of Crowell. It was there at the Crowell high school that my father met my mother. The [...]
COSTA RICA BIRD SPECIES Bold type indicates new life species for me (40 out of 82 total species IDed) San Jose Volcun Poas Hwy to Tortuguera Tortuguera Arenal Volcano area Los Chiles Boat Trip Hanging Bridges Guanacaste Rock Dove (Common Pigeon) x House Sparrow x [...]
ANNA’S HUMMINGBIRD A male Anna’s Hummingbird showing his bright, irridescent gorget. This color is not contained in any pigment in the feathers, but is caused by the refraction of the light which is caused by the physical structure of the feathers. ANNA’S HUMMINGBIRD A side view of the same Anna’s Hummingbird. The gorget on his chin [...]
Central America is the site of contending crustal plates–notably the Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean which is being subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate right off the western coast of central america at a rate of 72-81 mm/yr. It’s this area where the Central America Volcanic Arc exists which forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, [...]
This is Concepcion, a volcano, forming part of an island (Ometepe) in the middle of Lake Nicarauga. It was putting forth steam and smoke just as our plane flew over. There was a heavier cloud of material that you can just see on the other side of the volcano which was proceeding [...]
I had a fantastic time in Costa Rica. It was over too soon! I added lots of new species of birds to my life list, and saw lots of wildlife and terrific scenery. I’ll try and talk about the trip in the future. It’s too much to talk about all at once, so I’ll probably [...]
I’ve never been on a tour before. I’ve always looked down on them for some reason. However, I’ll be leaving tomorrow night to meet my father in Houston where we will fly down and tour Costa Rica. Not like the Panama trip a few years ago when we made up our own itinerary and [...]
My father returned home from the hospital today! He had open heart surgery last Monday (Jan 25) which went very well. I guess they said that he could have gone home yesterday (Friday), but he said he wasn’t ready to leave yet! Four days seems like a very short stay after such major surgery, [...]
Last Thursday (Jan 21) my father had some chest pain after returning from the store. It wouldn’t go away, and soon my father realized that this wasn’t the normal discomfort that he sometimes felt from the acid reflux which he sometimes has. Then he did something out of character–he asked his next door neighbor to [...]
Recently I was going through my chest-of-drawers in a long-delayed effort to clean them out. As I sorted through some of the clothes I realized that my entire way of thinking about clothes has changed over the years. I have always kept any clothes that I had until they literally fell apart or were outgrown. [...]
