Memorial Day Weekend

The week before memorial day weekend is a big week of events in our house. May 21st is my birthday, and the 24th is our anniversary. So we booked off a couple days and went home to Salmon Arm to celebrate those two events with our families. The drive to Salmon Arm takes us through Hope, BC, which is one of my favorite places to drive through. The views never disappoint me. Now in the spring the mountainsides are striped with waterfalls.




So this is me as a fresh faced 28 year old on my birthday. I look a little sour actually. I wonder of the years are catching up to me. Heck nah! I'm still in my twenties, life is good! I'm still within the age bracket of people who win Nobel prizes and stuff like that. Not that I'm aiming for a Nobel. I'm older then Spielberg was when he made Jaws. That bothers me sometimes. But I'm younger then Da Vinci was when he painted the last supper, so there's still hope I can influence the art world in some way.



Had to photograph the clematis blossom's just opening in time for us leaving home for the weekend.



So we arrived home to Salmon Arm where my Dad gave me this for my birthday...



If it looks familiar, it's because we've blogged it before. It's Salmon arm from above. Dad took me on a great plane ride as a birthday present. It was fun since my Dad and I are both into photography. I borrowed his lens and we aimed at shooting a few key locations around town, including some of the flooding around the salmon river.

Unfortunately, all the bending backwards to shoot out the window, combined with looking through the viewfinder as I zoomed in and out, combined with the bumpy weather, caused our flight to last only half an hour before I begged Dad to land. blech! sick! What a wimp I am!



After we left town, Dad took a few of the photos we took to the local paper who bought them and printed them on the front page the next week! Pretty funny. My first photograph in print! Can't take much of the credit though. It was Dad's lens, Dad's access to the plane, and Dad's idea.

For our anniversary (five years now!) we stayed at the Prestige Inn on the water in town. Ruth's Dad, Eric won a free night at the prestige and gave it to us as a gift. Thanks Dad! It was great!

This is the Prestige and the wharf from the sky...



And our view from the room...



And my 300mm's view from the room...



I'm pretty sure she' sitting on some eggs there.

Here are some evening pictures from our walk down the wharf.



I've also been playing with Eric's 580ex speedlite for the last week or so. Here's a picture of a bride-to-be as I prepare to shoot her wedding with equipment that I need to learn how to use.



A professional trials, mountain biker rode through town while we were there, and stopped for a show downtown. He did some crazy things on a mountain bike.




I practiced shooting more humming birds...





We visited with family lots, ate some delicious meals, and headed home. Not much else to report.

I feel like I haven't been taking as many photos lately. One of these days I need to blog a random day in our week like I used to, instead of trips and vacation. Costa Rica must have thrown me off.

Until then, here's some closing roller skating photos from an evening with our community group a few weeks ago.

Crazy Squirrel!

I looked out the window the other day and saw this squirrel literally spinning around a branch. I don't know what was going on.

We found the beach!: Manuel Antonio

I'm sorry I've taken so long to update this poor blog. I've had a few other blog worthy weekends that took up my time. Now I need to catch up on those too. This is kind of a good exercise for me though. It's refreshing to go back through these photos and remember the incredible trip we had just over a month ago. So now...the final installment of our trip to Costa Rica!

In a somewhat last ditch attempt to find a white sand beach with a lush jungle behind it, we made the decision to travel from Monteverde to Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is a national park on the west coast that encompasses the most lush jungle, gorgeous beach, and sunshine. It was a full days drive south from the mountains of Monteverde. I want to describe what the road was like from Monteverde, but I don't have the words or pictures. I bounced around so much that it was impossible to hold onto anything, let alone a camera.

But once we arrived...we were in paradise!




And there's that coconut and that white sand we were looking for. This was the best way to end vacation. Up until this point it had been a frenzy of tours, shuttles, buses, hikes, and adventures. All of which were a blast, non of which were particularly relaxing. This was relaxing!



Let it go on the record! This is me wandering into the open water of the ocean on my own without any coaxing. Apparently I have the reputation of never going in any body of water without arm twisting and teasing. Ruth says she has many memories of me going to the beach in high school with jeans and shoes on. I don't often expose my skin to the sun, let alone the open water.

Lakes are cold! What can I say? This was not cold, this was like a cool bath tub amidst 100 degree heat. It was absolutely refreshing. I'll do it again someday, but not likely at Canoe beach in Salmon Arm. Too cold!



This male iguana was huge. And he was chasing this female...



...all over the beach and around our towel.

And this basilisk was watching intently.


What a gorgeous animal.

We scheduled an early morning hike through the park on our last day in Manuel Antonio. The park was like a zoo. It was full of wildlife! The tour guides were incredibly knowledgeable, and had the most amazing ability to spot animals through the dense forest.

I however had the amazing ability to not check the setting on my camera when ever any monkey landed directly in front of me. This photo was brought back from the dead. :(



A sleeping sloth!



The amazing stump bird. Shaped and colored like the end of a stump, so when it sleeps through the day on the end of an actual tree stump, it's completely camouflaged.

And this trip would not have been complete without bugs!



One of several amazing orb weaver or golden web spiders. They were huge and gorgeous, and everywhere!




This is what leaf cutter ants do to leaves. The leaf cutter ant was the one bug I didn't get to photograph. We saw some, but the pictures didn't turn out.



Touching this caterpillar would've caused a severe rash that would be painful and itchy. It warns you with it's color.

And this guy...oh this bug... was by far the largest wild bug I've ever seen in my life. I actually photographed it in La Fortuna but I thought I'd save it for last. It's a harlequin beetle. It's front legs are huge! It's leg span was easily the length of my forearm or longer! It's body was roughly the size of a wallet.



Amazing!

Well, we had one more banana colada before we left at one of the many beautiful, open air restaurants.


And while we were there, we were visited by a traveling pack of squirrel monkeys. A species we hadn't seen before. At first this little guy landed right in front of us, and I took a blaze of photos without checking the setting (once again). But I was still able to get a few good shots when I calmed down and realised he was going to stick around for a few minutes.



One of the females was carrying a tiny little baby around on her belly. Again with the baby theme!

Well that was our last experience in Manuel Antonio. From there we began the long drive north back to Playa Del Coco. Of course along the way, Ruth's hypocratic oath was put into practice as we came along a motorcycle accident on the side of the highway.



The wind blew him off his bike. Ruth held his head and neck steady until the paramedics arrived...and stood around on their cell phones for a while until more paramedics arrived. It made me thankful for our medical system, even though Costa Rica is probably far more advanced then most developing countries. The guy was in a lot of pain, but didn't seem to have any life altering injuries.

Two birds on the Costa Rican travelers 'check list' are the local Toucan, as well as the great Macaw's. Ruth caught a few glimpses of a toucan from our vehicles. We saw some from a distance in a sort of "there goes a touc- ah it's gone" kind of spotting. But at our final rest stop before Coco Beach, we actually saw a gaggle of Macaw's in the trees outside the gift shop. Blue and golds, as well as scarlett's. They were incredible to see wild like that..well right above the rest rooms anyway.



One... last...final...banana colada before we got on the plane. We enjoyed it in Ocotal, just a few minutes from the airport. We sipped and watched the sun set on our incredible adventure together.




And that was our trip to Costa Rica.

Since my original post, we received some photos from our friends that we met on our canyoneering adventure in La Fortuna. Martin and Catherine from Vienna, put their little digital camera at great risk in two zip lock bags, and took pictures of us all and sent them to us. Thank you guys so much for sending these! They're much better then our little disposable!

Ah. I want to go back.

One more photo of that incredible lizard on the beach!