Belize City to Placencia

Williams Shuttle met us at the airport. As we drove along the highway we passed a Coke stand. The bottling facility is only a mile away. They use sugar cane derived sugar.

Many of the buildings are very colorful. Cheery blue.

Belize's only prison is called Central Prison, it used to be called the Hattieville Prison or Hattieville Ramada. The 1,370 residents, men, women and youth of the prison work there creating products, get to keep some of what they earn and also grow some of their own food. The USA has 1,800 times more prisoners per capita.

Central Prison is close to the Western Highway. It passes the "Female sleeping giant" mountain and the Hattieville Police station. The yellow is the standard color for police stations in Belize.

The shuttle stopped at the supermarket shown below. There was a bathroom and we were strongly advised to pick up supplies. Since Kathy and I were the only passengers in the shuttle, there was plenty of room for supplies.

As we turned towards the capital into the Hummingbird highway we passed a game reserve.  Now I know why they call them howler monkeys. They say you can hear them from two miles away. The Hummingbird highway is not for the faint of heart, one section was being repaved, one lane bridges, not lighted except in towns, pedestrians and bikes share the road with cars, buses and trucks.

The Williams van driver was really pushing it at the end. But the Southern Highway is a bit easier driving. I think he was tired and just wanted to rest. The folks here are nice and the place is first class. Our room is right on the beach.

We ate in the resort restaurant, (picture is from their web site). We shared their local rendition of guacamole. The feta cheese is a nice touch. Kathy had the shrimp casserole and I had the snapper. I don't normally like a sauce on my fish but this was done well

Getting ready to fly

Crazy day. The Mustang would not start. I used my charger on max and after an hour it was enough to turn over. Geico road service sent a tow truck and they took it to Riverside. I drove by and gave them a credit card.

It snowed.

When we got everything done, we opened a 2012 Apex Cellars red blend called Catalyst. Didn't really move me, but after today a glass of wine was nice.

Final Aloha Oe for Pastor Lyle Birkey, (Pastor B)

Lyle Birkey, February 5, 1927 - March 4. 2016. I am not going into much detail, if you didn't know him, he was a man of God, if you did, you already know whatever I can write. The cover of the bulletin for the service was from Matthew 25:21

Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

It was great seeing the folks from Lake Tapps Community Church. Pastor Tim Heath "preached it" including a call to know Jesus.  This was something he promised Lyle he would do.

Back in Seattle

Since we have been in Kauai it has been a really long stretch of great weather - incredible. Then the day before we flew this strange mist rolled in on the South wind. It was like 24 hours of being in a cloud, though it was gusty sometimes. Our plane, Alaska 832, was two hours late. The previous flight had been battling 100mph headwinds and had to land early in San Francisco to have enough fuel.

No problem, we did not have a connecting flight so we just left two hours later for the airport. Now we had > 100 mph tailwinds. Wow. And not much turbulence either. We flew from Lihue to Seattle in about 4 hours, not quite Concorde speeds, but the fastest I have clocked to date.

It is raining here, not hard, just a grey drizzle. For lunch we had GF Crispy Cod. I rarely eat beef, but there was a really good looking piece of top sirloin at Winco; it is soaked in a marinade at the moment.

We met with the fencing contractor after the annual SANS state of the union address, and we have a plan shaping up so that Yogi can run safely in the backyard.  Kathy is no longer concerned that an eagle will scoop him up and fly away with him, (remember the movie, The Proposal? ), but I do have concerns regarding the coyote and the deer who frequent this property.  

Kathy woke up this morning with that familiar set of travel set of questions:  where am I?   where do I need to be next?  when are we flying out again?..  This sequence lasts about 15 seconds while I clear the sleep out of her eyes..  

According to Kathy, I, (Stephen), on the other hand, wakes up and goes 0-60 before his feet hit the floor, lol.

Aloha Oe Glenn Morgan

We went to Oahu for Glenn's memorial. I had some fried rice in the Lihue Airport snackbar.

We took bus 20 to our hotel, Hyatt Regency Waikiki.

While there was still light I snapped a picture of the skyline.

And then the sun set.

It was a touching memorial service. About 100 people came. The guy in the middle with the ukalele is the pastor, a former county lifeguard and Waikiki beach boy.

When we flew home I took a selfie of Kathy and tried to get a farewell to Oahu shot.

Valentines Couples Dance

We thought it would be fun to host a dance, so many couples just quit dancing.
I called all the DJs in the Yellow pages and the ones I could find using Google. No one returned my calls, so I bought a Bluetooth speaker from Crutchfield and made up a dancing playlist.

We set out lots of finger food, far more than you see on the table and came through with serving trays.

We had adult beverages, (in moderation), and I also made mint tea and lemonade.

There was more talking than dancing, but it was great to see people catch up.

Early supper with Jim Manico

Jim is now living the life I used to lead so it was great to have a chance to catch up with him. I brought a bottle of Washington State wine, (we didn't finish it), and got some food from Chicken and a Barrel. It was fun to hear how he is doing.

Just before the end of our time, a rainbow appeared out to sea.

Then I jumped on my trike, pedaled like the dickens and managed to pull into the garage just as the rain came.