Old San Juan, February 2017

My wife and I took our first cruise, in this case to the Caribbean, in February.   We went early and stayed in Old San Juan an afternoon and full day before getting on the cruise ship the next day.   Unlike my wife, who had researched the place, I had modest expectations for Puerto Rico.

I wasn't impressed at first.   We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel on this tiny one-way street, then realized that all the streets in Old San Juan were like this.  In fact this was a lively main drag.

It was well below freezing when we left Minnesota earlier in the day so the lushness and warmth was a treat.   I captured this hummingbird working a small tree.

Despite being half dead from getting up to catch our plane at 3 a.m. and the long enough flight afterwards, we walked around the city the afternoon we arrived anyway.  We stopped at this tiny park overlooking the harbor.

We had several small showers at the park - note the rainbow.

We took refuge across the street from the park under an awning during another shower.

We had a good meal on a rooftop restaurant of the building housing our hotel with a fine view of nearby buildings.   My poor exhausted wife, along with me, is about eat a well-known plantain offering which we thought was interesting.

There was a fine view of our street from the restaurant near dusk.

The next day there were the two old forts in Old San Juan to tour, the big fort and the "little" fort.   This is a small piece of the big fort which is truly gigantic with a large field inside it.

Both forts were on hills with fine views off of all sides, this one looking south.

Now we're looking north to what I'm informally calling the little fort.   We ended up walking this street to the other fort; it wasn't that far, we needed our exercise, and we were too cheap to take a cab.

A couple of tourists (us) had or picture taken from an upper wall of the big fort, another view looking north.

The little fort had a large lawn, now a place for picnics and flying kites, but formally a killing field during colonial powers' battles.   Again, the views from this lawn and the fort itself were beautiful.

The front gate of the small fort was a lively place given the few entrances.

The fort had what once were tiny barracks and shops built into it.

We wore ourselves out with all the stairs in the two forts.   This is on the sea side looking up into the fort.

These windows undoubtedly had legitimate military uses in their heyday but now make fine observation points for tourists.

There were kites for sale and kids using them.

We trundled back to our hotel's street, foot weary but having seen all sorts of stuff.

I really appreciated sitting at a small sidewalk cafe, the food and fruit juice welcoming.

We had enough energy left to walk over toward the harbor after dark.

We walked more in the morning before boarding our ship.  The roots flowing out of a fig tree near the shore of the channel leading into San Juan's harbor was awfully exotic for us Minnesotans..

I've always thought that pelicans were quite the birds.

We sat down on a bench to enjoy tropical fruit sherbet - not shown - that is sold by street vendors all over town.  This charming park was uphill from an entrance through the fortified wall along the harbor.

We overdid the walking and sight-seeing but Old San Juan was genuinely charming.   Coming to the cruise early paid off.

St. Paul Women's March 2017

My family is well populated with women - my wife and three daughters - so us male supporters and their children joined them for January Women's March in St. Paul, Minnesota.   I don't have much of a history as a protester and wasn't expecting much of a crowd so I was amazed at the size of the crowd, 100,000 or so, perhaps the biggest crowd I've ever been in.

We joined the crowd near the cathedral in what turned out to be a major feeder to the main crowd on the capitol lawn.

The participants were genteelly raucous, a few dancing and chanting.

There was a diversity of sign and issues.

We kept streaming down the hill.

Once we reached the main crowd in front of the capitol, we milled around looking for a place to watch the speakers.

Looking around, there was quite a diversity in people.

A view of the speakers wasn't so hot, roughly a football-field-distance away.

Families with kids were the norm.

I spent some time wandering around the hall - I couldn't hear the speeches much but the people watching was excellent.

There was a patriotic theme in the march.   One of the reasons I was surprised at the size of the crowd was weather, which was above freezing but spitting rain.

Young women were well represented, some with more edgy signs.

Puddle jumping, thanks to the melting snow, was one of the group activities.

As the crowd started breaking up, we walked up to University Avenue, hoping to hop on the light rail for the ride home, but instead ended up walking several miles back to our car.   The point that women are important and matters was well made, I thought.

Street Work 2015

Street Work 2015

We'd been warned that chaos was planned for our street - it was our turn to have the streets and utilities updated.   What ensued was mass disruption and a stream of machines, mostly big ones. Now that we can look back, it was worth it.  

It started with gas line works and there were multiple holes in our yard, as if a large gopher had invaded.  This was what our corner looked like.

The new plastic gas lines were punched through the soil using this contraption.

There was quite a hole in our street for a few days.  The smaller machine on the right - a hydraulic tamper - shook our whole house and irritated my wife.

I was fascinated with the work rebuilding the sewers.

A drain basin was added so that part of the storm sewer water would soak into our soil, pure sand actually.

We decided to replace our asphalt driveway with cement and using this machine, the crew made quick work of the old driveway.

The cement crew made impressive speed with the new driveway.

There was a good-sized crew and everyone had a job.  Because cement sets so quickly, quick work was essential.

A substantial amount of sod had to be put down and again, a large machine helped.

Replanting mailboxes was done with dispatch.  They did a much higher-quality job than I would have but they had the tools.

My grandson was fascinated by all the big machines.   I had him sitting or draped over six different machines, this just one of them.

The summer project was beautifully orchestrated and came out well.   The workers were considerate and friendly so the experience wasn't that painful.   Unless you paid attention, you wouldn't notice much difference in our street but we know that maintenance is now up to snuff.

Glacier National Park 2014

Glacier National Park 2014

As readers have undoubtedly realized by now, I adore Glacier Park and return to it often to absorb more of its beauty.  Two years ago we took part of our family with us; several of the newcomers had never seen the mountains.   Because we had a small tyke with us, we didn't take big hikes and although we enjoyed the great vistas, we looked at the smaller life in the park too.

Visiting Glacier wasn't an original idea - we had considerable company.  Logan Pass at the top of the Going to the Sun road was packed with jammer buses and other vehicles.  

We took the Hidden Lake hike behind and above the visitors' center at Logan Pass.

Us hardier souls reached the Hidden Lake overlook.

Chipmunks scurried around, shadowing tourists.

Mountain goats ambled about and watched us.

The Avalanche Lake hike is well worth it - the wall shown here below Sperry Glacier is quite a site.

I hadn't seen a coyote in the park before this.  This fellow went loping beside our car - I stuck my head out of the window to catch this shot of him.

This is part of our family including our grandson.  I'm the guy on the right.

I caught this bear from a sight-seeing boat in the middle of a lake near Many Glacier Chalet.  This looks like a black bear to me although I'm no expert.  I was nice and safe, roughly a half mile away.

This is the bulk of our family coming back to the parking lot after visiting the Many Glacier Lodge.   There were forest fires farther west - the haze was smoke.

Part of my time in Glacier was spent chasing birds, this one a sparrow.

I also spent time chasing insects, this butterfly a great spangled fritilary,

Running Eagle Falls in the Two Medicine area of Glacier is a short walk from the road and picturesque.

The Two Medicine area, shown here, was a long ways from Lake McDonald Lodge where I worked in the late 1960s so I saw little of it until recently.

There is always something striking to be found in Glacier.  This is part of what we saw in 2014.  And based on all the fellow tourists we saw, this jewel of a park is a poorly-kept secret.