First full day.....great day in Costa Rica, February 26

Today we woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the central valley with 4 volcanoes in the distance, 3 of which are still active.

We are at a B n B of only 9 rooms and have met some very nice and interesting people,

mostly Canadians and mostly very knowledgable birders which is great for us as rookies. They are incredibly generous with their time and knowledge.

We relaxed all morning and had a fabulous breakfast. In mid morning we drove into Atenas, found a bank, the post office for stamps, bought some food. It is definitely hot, but not humid. Can't complain after the winter that Nantucket is having.

We had two dips in the pool and I looked over the proofs of the book Frank and I have just written.  A hard day at work on the terrace in front of our room, overlooking the valley.

We had wonderful chat with the Belgian owner, Vera who moved here on a whim 10 years ago. She is warm and welcoming, as is the place. The internet was out a good deal of the day, but we weren't bothered at all; it is nice to be cut off from tv etc etc.

We also tried to Skype with Nick, Cole and Sage, but Nick's computer was not cooperating, so will try again tomorrow.

In the evening we went into town with the Canadian biologist, Christine, to La  Trancha which was recommended by Vera. Yum! Mark and I had their specialty salsa sauce with shrimp. Plus, we ate outside in an atmosphere that reminded us of restaurants in Egypt.

Birds galore for us and almost all "life birds."  Brown jay, Rufus naped wren (my favorite and with a great song), 3 unidentifiable hummingbirds, social or grey capped flycatcher, painted and indigo bunting, (living together in sin?), black and turkey vultures, blue grey tanagers (maybe another favorite of mine)

A really love first full day in Costa Rica!

Arrival in Costa Rica! February 25

Leaving the hotel in ft.lauderdale for the airpoto

   We had a good night's sleep at the Cambria Suites in Dania and got the shuttle to the Fort Lauderdale airport. We flew JetBlue to San Jose in just under 3 hours on a very smooth flight. We paid for extra leg room seats which were well worth it. We flew over Lake Arenal and Arenal Volcano, which was a treat, but we did not get to the camera quickly enough to get a photo, so it will have to remain in our mind's eye.

   Arrival in San Jose was very easy. We found the Economy rental car and took a shuttle to get the car, a mid-size SUV, a Hyundai. The price was considerably more than we had anticipated because of the mandatory insurance and we worried that we were getting scammed, but other travelers seemed to be paying the same, so....we went with the flow. It was also confusing trying to figure out how to use longitude and latitude in the Garmin, but, with the help of one of the guys at the rental car place, we figured it out.

    We stopped at a Walmart {ugh - yes, a Walmart] to get some essentials, like a little knife, a case of water.....
     Then, we put in the coordinates, or so we thought, for Vista Atenas B n B, 30 miles from the airport. Well, as we have heard, the roads are a bit rough, narrow, no shoulders, hairpin turns...and, I think we were on pretty main roads, Route 1 and Route 3. The GPS took us past Atenas and we just followed. Then, we went up a really narrow mountain road and took a fork which took us onto pretty much just a rock track. Mark turned around (not easily) and we took the other fork which took us to a remote cement business, or something. Clearly, we were quite lost. So, I tried to put in the B n B into the nearby lodging mode on the GPS and it took us back 8 miles to the right spot. It is still up a major hill, but.....not a rock track. We are in a B n B with 9 rooms; ours is called Orion. Our terrace overlooks the valley of San Jose, beautiful. We were too tired to cope with finding a place to eat, so we went to the supermercado, got some lettuce, a roasted chicken etc and ate it in our room. Whew.

   First impressions: really mountainous, beautiful vegetation and flowers, already seen some colorful birds, drier than we thought it would be - more like southern California than the Amazon rainforest, but that may just be the region we are in.

More Florida photos

Cold Nantucket....we've not forgotten you!

Ole friends

Family

.j

Florida photos friends, boids and relations

Crazy hungry reddish egret

 

Good ole friend

Nesting sand hill crane

Florida Summary - days with family and friends

We have spent the last almost 3 weeks with family. We were mostly in Vero Beach with Mark's parents, Cal and Alice. When we arrived, John, Mark's brother was also there as he drove the folks down to Florida in November and had been working there since. Two mornings, I got up with John to go with him to his daily sunrise Qi Gong on the beach. The first morning, it was only 48 degrees!

Old Florida

Either I just finished a big meal or I need to diet!

We also spent some time with Michael and Nancy, Mark's twin brother and his wife, who live in Lake Worth. They had some company from Canada visiting, too, which was fun and one night, we all went out for dinner, joined by John and his friend, Rose. Nancy, unfortunately, had a tooth abcess and was not feeling great.

Alice took Mark, me and John out for lunch, after a shopping trip to Beall's, on Valentines' Day.

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For my 65th {ugh} birthday, we drove over to Cape Coral to stay with Ted and Bev for two nights. We celebrated by going on a bird walk at Ding Darling National Park on Sanibel Island and by a wonderful lunch at Fish Tales.

On the birding front:

Burrowing owl 

We took 2  trips to Pelican Island in north Vero where we saw a bald eagle the first time when we went with Diane and Bob Robusto. The next time, we met up with 4 Canadian birders who pointed out a fairly rare Reddish Egret (a life bird for us, meaning one we have never seen before].
Weirdly, we saw our second Reddish Egret at Ding Darling....what are the odds? And, we also saw a blue grey gnat catcher, thanks to the knowledgable Canadians.
And when we were in Lake Worth, we also visited Green Cay with Mike and Nancy's company from Canada (Walt and Colleen) and met up with John and Rose, too.

February 1st. Sad day on Nantucket as well as a Super Bowl win

Today we drove the 200+ miles from Atlantic Beach to Vero Beach, arriving in mid-afternoon. John has been here since November. He made ribs and apple pie for the Super Bowl which all five of us watched to the very end. The Pats played Seattle and won it at the very end. Even for a non-football watcher like me, it was an exciting and strange game with changes of leaders etc.

But, on a very tragic and personal note, we heard from Nick that the wonderful, generous, caring Robin Harvey had just been struck and killed while running on Nantucket. The entire island is in mourning for a very special person.

M

January 31- a wonderful day at Atlantic Beach

What a great day. I, Barbara, started the day with a morning going to yard sales with Chris and Nancy. It was slim pickings although Nancy did buy a cute little fish chair for James. meanwhile, Mark and Michael did errands at the lumber company, the post office etc.

In the afternoon, the four of us took a fun bike ride through their neighborhood, and eventually to Mike and Chris's.

Later, Chris and Mark cooked everyone a great meal from two of Mark's America's Test Kitchen recipes. We has a lemon chicken dish with cauliflower and a fried rice with pork dish. The two cooks had fun, and the rest of us enjoyed the fruits of their labor. In the process, it was discovered that James likes tomatoes. The evening's entertainment was James.

January 30.....Florida!

Today we drove from Florence to Atlantic Beach, Florida and finally shed our winter clothes. Yay!
We are at Michael and Nancy's new condo. They are in the start of fixing it up to their taste and they worked incredibly hard getting the guest room and bathroom ready for us. We walked over to Cristina and Mike's place and had a lovely visit with them in the outside gazebo with toddler, James. Afterwards, we all had a wonderful pulled pork dinner back at Mike and Nancy's.