A Full-time Life

  • Texas to Colorado

    Please note: WordPress says you have to click on the post title to leave a comment.

    We couldn’t avoid torrential rainstorms that hit just as we got to the Texas coast. Unsurprisingly, just like our winter home in Florida, summer is the rainy season in this part of the country. Hot and wet — not a great combination.

    Leonalbelle Turner Birding Park, Port Aransas

    Most years we avoid the rainy season by traveling to Oregon during the summer. . This time we chose not to escape. It was worth it because the reason for our Texas detour on the way back home was to visit our oldest son and daughter-in-law, their son (our grandson) and his wife, and their two children.

    We had good memories of this part of the country from our RV years (before our family members moved there). And we’d hoped to re-visit some of those places with the family. But the weather was definitely not conducive to beach visits — especially not for small children or their great-grandparents. . So we enjoyed just visiting, getting to know these two great-grandchildren a little bit, and doing indoor things instead.

    We managed to squeeze in one short nature walk between downpours — this tri-colored heron posed nicely for us at the Leonabelle Turner Park in Port Aransas, a favorite birding spot from all those years ago. We used to see dozens of birds every time we went there — but that was during the wnter/spring season. On this hot and humid summer day most of them were hiding.

    The detour was certainly worth it because of the family visit but we could have done with less rain.

    When we left the gulf coast we drove pretty quickly (for us) toward Colorado, with just a couple more overnight stops in Texas and two more in New Mexico. We always look for the first mountain we see when we migrate from the flatlands. On our usual route when we drive, that first sighting would be in Colorado. But this year, the Albuquerque New Mexico area took the honor.

    And the mountains and blue sky just kept getting better. This is the little Colorado mouontain town of Silverton. We spent one night there before arriving at our Colorado goal.

    Driving the Million-Mile Highway we knew for sure we were back in real mountain country! We were very close to our next planned stop, where we’d see our Colorado family and find more mountain scenery to see and explore.

    More mountains to come!

    Linking to the following sharing opportunities, with thanks to the hosts. Thank you also to all visitors especially those who have left such encouraging comments and emails as I navigate this new blog and photo software.

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY;

  • OUR FULLTIME LIFE

    Newest posts are just below this one — latest on top. To comment on any post, you have to click on the POST TITLE..

    It is not so much the destination as the journey itself that matters.

    Welcome to the second version of our FullTime Life. We’re still making memories and still blogging about them.

    Featured collections can be found by clicking here. Blog history here. And a smidgen of our real-life retirement journey .

  • Roadtrip! Again

    For ten years, we explored all over the country while living in an RV. Later, after we settled on the Canal Cottage as our winter home, we “migrated” twice a year from coast-to-coast. When we got tired of driving pretty much that same route every time, we started to “commute” by plane, leaving our trusty RoadTrek camper van behind in Florida. It has been our reliable daily driver and occasional camping getaway rig every winter/spring season for years. More to the point, it has been living all by itself during Florida’s hot, wet rainy season (while we’re in Oregon). That subtropical climate is hard on cars so, because we wanted to save it, we needed to bring it home.

    We — the driver and fulltime-passenger — thought we were up for another road-trip. And we were — but this time it took us even longer than it used to.

    Here’s a random dinner-time view from our traveling home on wheels and a good example of why we still love RV camping. A road-trip motel room seldom has a view like this.

    People used to ask us how long it took to drive back and forth and we’ve never really had a good answer. We stop a lot! We take detours. We try to stay off the freeway. This trip was no exception as it took nearly the full month of June to cover a distance of 3579 miles. Obviously, for us ‘road trip’ doesn’t mean covering the most miles in the fewest hours.

    We weren’t in any hurry — on our traveling days we started off about 10 and pulled into our campground for the night by late afternoon.

    We didn’t explore many new places on this trip, but we did re-visit some favorite old ones. The collage and the picture above are from our visit to one of those favorite spots — Avery Island Louisiana. The island is a salt dome that extends about eight miles down into the ocean. For five generations, the McIlhenny family has grown peppers on this salty soil. Tabasco — the hot sauce the family developed — is still manufactured and bottled here.

    On our previous visit years ago, we toured the factory and museum, but we skipped those this time in favor of spending our day exploring the Island’s semi-tropical Jungle Gardens.

    In 1895, Edward McIlhaney (second generation of the founding family) became interested in the birds and wildlife the land attracted. He built an aviary and began by raising and breeding a few wild egrets. At the time, egrets had been hunted to near extinction. Their plumage was popular for fashionable ladies hats. McIlhaney freed the adult egrets after they had raised their hatchlings. They migrated and then returned the next spring. And they kept returning year after year. After all these generations, thousands of egrets still return to the island to nest every spring — their rookery is called Bird City.

    At this point we were definitely not driving on the fastest East-West route. But our detour had a purpose as we were heading toward the Texas Gulf Coast where we have family. From there we would travel to Colorado for more family time.

    We loved revisiting the beauty of Cajun Country (and the food was wonderful!) but we had miles to go and more good times ahead.

    More road(trip) ahead!

    #

    Linking to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you!!!

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY;

  • Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge

    Earlier this month we set out to explore another part of the State.. There really is a lot to Florida that is different from the sun-soaked beaches often pictured.

    We camped near three different National Wildlife Refuges: Loxahatchee NWR on the Northernmost end of the Everglades, Nathanial Reed Hobe Sound NWR, and Pelican Island NWR on the Indian River lagoon near the Atlantic Coast. These pictures are from the first one.

    The ongoing drought was still obvious at the beginning of our trip — very dry and not a lot of birds.

    It was good hiking weather though (and by hiking, I definitely mean walking on lovely boardwalks.)

    It was quite warm out, but there was enough greenery for shaded walks… the best kind.

    Thigmotropism examples
    (cypress tree trunk grown around fence post obstacle
    and cypress knees)

    We always learn new things from our walks. I’m as much a word nerd as I am a nature lover, so I enjoyed learning this new one and being able to take pictures showing it. The sign explains what thigmotropism is, but says nobody knows why it is. (A fun word to say, although I probably won’t use it too often in everyday conversation.)

    It was a joy to come across ponds that weren’t dried up.

    Boardwalks always have “rest stops,” usually a simple bench placed at an overlook. Loxahatchee was the first one I’ve ever seen that offered rocking chairs. Of course we tried them — and of course it was hard to get motivated again for the rest of the walk. We were grateful both for the rest and for being able to finish the walk.

    Drive-by shot in a pretty village on our way to Pelican Island — more on that interesting Refuge and the end of our trip in another post.

    #

    Linking to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts.

    NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY;  THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;

     

  • Six Mile Cypress 2026

    We walked at Six Mile Cypress Slough last week. We visit this County Preserve at least a couple of times every year and I’ve posted about it almost as often. It’s a treasure that feels familiar — and yet different — every time we go.

    Unfortunately, it has been extremely dry this year and the watery places that attract wildlife were either dried up or close to it. The pond above was much shallower than usual. I always hope to get the perfect picture of familiar birds but that didn’t happen this time. The collage below is a collection of herons from last year’s visits.

    Great blue herons, night herons, and Little Blue herons frequent the Slough (in a good year).

    ISix-Mile is located within Fort Myers city limits but it feels as if you’re in the middle of a wild place (except for the fact that you’re doing your hike on the well-built boardwalk shown above on the left.) There are several strategically placed “pull-outs” along the walk.

    .We took advantage of this one in order to find out whether Henry David Thoreau was correct when he said “You learn that if you sit down in the woods and wait, something happens.” It’s good of the park volunteers to place that sign right here because by that point in our walk we needed to rest wait for something to happen.

    While we “waited” we watched a couple of squirrels building a nest. They would stop to nibble on twigs and leaves as they worked. So Thoreau was proved right — something always happens.

    There’s a welcome update as I finish editing this post that I started last Sunday.. That morning, it began to rain (with crashing thunder and lightning). The cooler, wetter weather has continued as I finish writing the post a few days later. We really need the rain in this area and we are grateful.

    Linking this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts.

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY;  SIGNS SIGNS ; and THANKFUL THURSDAY;

     

  • Closer to home

    I have been writing about the joys of travel and I love remembering those. But we’ve been home at the Canal Cottage for a while now so it’s time to share some everyday smiles. We don’t have to go far for them!

    I love waking up to peach-colored skies — the top picture is blurry for a reason (besides my shaky camera hand). I took it through the screen on our porch about five minutes after I got up one morning. Bottom left is a reflected sunset and the moon also from the porch.

    Even living in a warm and bright climate, it’s good sometimes to bring a little sunshine into the house. One way to do that is by visiting the traveling produce market that visits our snowbird community weekly.

    The “haul” on this particular Tuesday was definitely a day brightener. I like visiting Farm Markets, but it is wonderful to know we have one visiting us — it’s about a city block length away to the front of our clubhouse, where these lovely people set up shop every Tuesday morning.

    Here’s a sunny kitchen bouquet — these are supermarket flowers and they last forever!

    On the way to that supermarket one day, we stopped at our local Eagle nest, just across the highway from the store. It’s interesting to visit occasionally. Their nest tree is located in a horse pasture next door to a welcoming churchyard which has plenty of parking — quite a few photographers and nature-lovers spend long hours there. You can actually follow the eagles from anywhere however as they have become internet famous on the SW Florida Eagle cam.

    But it’s nice to take at least a couple of pictures every season. If you squint at this one, you can see one of the adult eagles on the “attic” branch, while the eaglet looks out over the edge of the nest, practicing independence for a not-too-distant future when it will fledge and eventually fly away.

    The top picture is one of the adults (I have never been able to tell the male and female apart unless they are right next to each other), while the little one surveys the wide world below home, These pictures were taken a little over a week ago. Sadly, the mother eagle has died since these were taken — the male is doing a good job of caring for junior until it no longer needs him. Find more of the story by linking to SW Florida Eagle Cam or searching Facebook or Google.

    We saw some more Florida birds last week, when we ventured across town driving to Sanibel and Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.

    It was the usual suspects on the wildlife drive. But I never get tired of the usual. Here are white and brown pelicans looking as if they’re bored or as if they’re babysitting assorted shorebirds.

    An osprey surveys his kingdom.

    I did a double take when I looked at this downloaded picture and hesitated to include it , but it is the craziest thing. I am absolutely positive that the pelican(s) at the right are an illusion somehow, but eek, where is the other pair of legs? (I cropped the photo, but it is otherwise un-edited.)

    It was a lovely day for a drive and short walks on the island, but as we drove home across the busy bridge we could see rain moving in. That’s OK — in fact that’s perfect. SW Florida needs it and evening is a good time for rain — we’re almost home by then and ready to stay there for the next few hours.

    We are grateful.

    Linking this week to the following sharing opportunities, Thank you to the hosts:

    NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY;  THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;

     

  • Monte Verde

    And on the seventh day (of our stay in Costa Rica) we moved from underneath the Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna to the mountains of Monte Verde in the province of Puntarenas. In the mountains, but we could see the Pacific Ocean clearly from our porch.

    This is our room (cottage?) at Senda Monte Verde near the village of Santa Elena. We liked every one of the places where we stayed in Costa Rica and had no complaints, but this was probably our favorite.

    Lessons Motmot

    On our first full day there, we enjoyed a half-day guided birding trip and on another day a walk in Monte Verde’s National Cloud Forest Reserve. Our knowledgeable guide would happily have made it a full-day hike in the mountains, but we opted for a shorter tour. (Once in a while you just have to act your age.) Instead of more time in the wild, we visited a hummingbird garden –a tourist attraction certainly, but a well-done one.

    Capuchin (white-faced) Monkey

    I’ve already showed in past posts some of the birds and some of the forest that we saw on those tours, but the rest of the birds and beasts in this post were all seen “accidentally” as we walked on the grounds at Monte Verde. Often just going to and from the on-site dining room (where the food was amazing.)

    Capuchin Monkey

    We saw spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys (a lot), but this white-faced capuchin was the only one I got a picture of.

    Motmot (again, but a different one)

    The first picture of the Motmot is from the bird tour, but we also saw this bird several times on our own. There were hundreds of hummingbirds on the grounds here too — again, no pictures, but it was amazing to see them flitting between all the flowers.

    Coatimundi (white-nosed coati)

    These guys, the white-nosed Coatis, were common. We saw them here as well as back in Fortuna. They weren’t a bit afraid of people and would sometimes come up to the outdoor restaurant seating.

    Coatis

    I learned that the males are usually solitary while females travel in packs, so I guess this is a picture of the ladies who lunch.

    This is the village of Santa Elena, zoomed in from the porch in our cottage. In between our tours, we could have visited the village and I’m a bit sorry we didn’t — it was within walking distance. But the grounds were so lovely and the food was so good right where we were. Especially after those mountain tours! We felt very fortunate to spend three nights at Senda. On our fourth morning, we would be heading back to San Juan and the end of this lovely trip. Thankful for living in the moments and for reliving and remembering them here. Thank you to the hosts of these sharing opportunities:

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY

  • La Fortuna

    We stayed for two nights at a beautiful resort outside the village of La Fortuna. Our hotel was located in a forested area at the base of the Arunal Volcano, which we could see clearly from our private deck.

    Amor Arundal, La Fortuna

    I ‘m a little embarrassed to admit that I took pictures of our lodging when we arrived, but none of the volcano. I may have been temporarily stupefied … the amazing view was not the only highly-starred amenity offered by this hotel.

    Picmunnus

    When the phone alarm woke us before first light the next morning, it was quite tempting to realize we could stay and enjoy the view and that private soaking pool, but we had scheduled a private birding tour and so it was rise and shine and out-the-door time.

    Trogon

    We had a knowledgeable guide and a friendly driver who set out an early-lunch picnic for us to enjoy later. First, we climbed a small hill to an open meadow in the midst of a jungle — a perfect place to spend some quality birding time..

    Cinnammon Becard

    We couldn’t believe the number of birds that appeared. These are the best pictures, but we saw many more, nearly all new to us. Every time I thought about trying to take a picture myself, our guide would find another bird through his spotting scope and we would run to find and look at that one. We were able to spot nearly every one of the birds he saw with our own binoculars, but the view through his spotting scope was better.

    Yellow-throated Toucan

    This was quite a different experience. Unless we’re at a rookery where we know we’ll see wild birds, I’m strictly an accidental birder, happy to see (and hopefully take a picture) of whatever we happen to come across. Our guide took the pictures above after we’d looked at them through the scope. The picture below is my own accidental catch.

    Rufous-tailed hummingbird

    This was at the coffee and chocolate tourist experience where I also did the accidental birding shown in the previous post. We learned about chocolate and coffee too of course. (Which was the actual purpose of the tour.)

    It was enjoyable to learn a bit about the process of growing these two crops. In the picture above it looks as if Bill is demonstrating the process of sorting cacao, but really he was the student.

    We even made our own chocolate bars at the end of the tour, although our guide did the heavy stirring. Our candy was edible, but I can only say that Cadbury and Reeses are not in danger of losing our occasional patronage.

    Thankful to keep on traveling and learning, and eventually blogging about it. And thankful for the hosts of the following sharing opportunities and for all visitors. Please note: If you are visiting from Google or Blogspot, you have to click on the title of this post to comment.

    NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY;  THROUGH MY LENS; SIGNS SIGNS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;

     

  • Bananas — and Birds

    We passed acres of banana plantations on the road between San Jose and our hotel in Tortuguero. Bananas are a major part of Costa Rican economy — this small country is the third largest exporter worldwide.

    The blue plastic hanging on the plants caught our eyes. We learned that these bags are used to protect developing fruit from insects, birds, sunburn, and such other “inconvenient” problems.

    Almost everybody loves bananas and we all expect each one we purchase to be a perfect yellow picture book example. This leads to unfortunate downsides which can include use of fumicides and insecticides. We did learn that there is some movement toward more organic practices at least in parts of the country.

    At first I thought this framework was some kind of elaborate play structure , but our guide explained that it was part of what he called “a banana train.”

    A ton or more of loaded banana bags hangs on hooks on these railings. One worker walking alone pulls the loaded “train” along these narrow rail tracks. A hard job, but an efficient way to move heavy fruit through the often wet terrain to the docks where they will eventually be loaded onto trucks.

    It can be quite thought-provoking to learn about what is involved in getting food to our table.

    The banana plantations above were seen on the first full day in Costa Rica, when we were our way to Tortuguero (previous post).

    The rest of these pictures feature bananas — and birds –seen in La Fortuna, which was where we stayed for a few days after we left Tortuguero.

    Red-legged Honeycreeper

    We wouldn’t buy or eat bananas that looked like this, but these honeycreepers sure loved them. These bananas here were never meant for human consumption, but were grown as part of a demonstration garden, where we had gone to learn more about Costa Rican agriculture.

    The Green Honeycreeper on the left above was certainly well camouflaged. I almost missed seeing it when downloading, even though I was looking for this particular picture because I remembered taking it.

    The bananas attracted some creatures besides birds. This is a Central American Agouti. The picture is zoomed — it was about the size of a housecat.

    We took two different excursions purposely to look at birds, but the ones we saw on this tour were all “accidental birding.” Quite often, I’ve found that those kind of sightings are every bit as rewarding. We enjoyed the part of the tour we came for and I was especially grateful to spot these interesting — and new to us — birds.

    LINKING to the following sharing opportunities: Thank you to the hosts. And thank you to all visitors. I’m still trying to solve the problems with leaving comments. I have learned that you must click on the title of the individual post in order to find the comment form. I always appreciate comments and especially the extra work involved until I figure everything out. Thank you. .

    SATURDAY CRITTERS NATURE NOTES;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; 

     

  • Tortuguero

    Very early in the morning after our first night in San Jose, we boarded a guided van at our hotel, and covered quite a few miles, passing some interesting countryside. We stopped for breakfast at a touristy place at a major crossroads, then drove some more to a riverfront docking place. There we boarded a boat that took us to Tortuguera. on a barrier island on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The village borders Tortuguero National Park, It is only accessible by boat. The whole area is basically rainforest on a lagoon It’s all stunningly beautiful and we loved it.

    Above some scenes from our hotel — beautiful grounds, friendly staff, and delicious food. Before we even deposited our luggage we watched a mother spider monkey and her baby swinging among the trees– no picture, because I was still a bit disoriented from a couple of long travel days and couldn’t even remember how to do it! But an unforgettable memory nonetheless.

    The next morning we had booked a guided boat tour of some of the canals bordering Tortuegero National Park (really the whole area is, I think, part of the Park). Our guide and the pilot both knew a lot about native fauna and flora and because we were the only two on the boat we had full advantage of their knowledge.

    Northern Jacana

    The boat was capable of gliding quietly into inlets near wetlands and we enjoyed sitting still and watching the water birds and other jungle denizens.

    Blackcrowned night heron

    Some we saw were the same species we often see at our Canal Cottage — we’re in a subtropical climate there too. But Costa Rica leans a little more toward the tropical, because .we spotted some very different species, like the one in the picture just below:

    Brown-throated three toed sloth

    I think the caption I gave this guy is correct — but even if it is a different kind of sloth, it is definitely a sloth and definitely a first-ever for us. We saw a few of them from the boat. It was pretty easy to get pictures — they don’t move very fast!

    Lots of birds hiding out — our boat was quiet and I don’t think it disturbed them at all.

    There were other “swamp creatures” as well– a couple kind of huge lizards and everybody’s favorite (not) reptiles, crocodiles, alligators and caymans. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them. Oddly we didn’t spot any turtles, even though the village and national park are named for the sea turtles that make the area their home.

    We loved everything about our day on the water, even the crocodiles, but it was nice to be back to our home away from home too.

    Manatus Hotel, Torguguero, Costa Rica

    Because our flight from Eugene had been delayed, we had only the one full day to spend in Tortuguero and we were sorry to have to leave the next morning. But other adventures in this beautiful country awaited.

    ###

    Linking this post to the following sharing opportunities, with thanks to the hosts:

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY;

  • Pura Vida

    We went to Costa Rica!

    Sunset from our porch where we stayed in Monte Verde — looking over the bay and peninsula toward the Pacific Ocean.

    In real-time, we’re almost settled in at the Canal Cottage for another season. But we took a detour on the way from our Oregon home, spending a couple of weeks in the land of Pura Vida.

    Pura Vida, the country’s motto, translates literally as ‘pure life’ but in Costa Rica it means even more. People say it often as a greeting or, I think, just a quick way to say ‘things are good here!’ In our (too brief) experience that’s very true.

    Bill on our hike in the Monte Verde Cloud Forest

    The travel- planner of the family (above) did his usual magic arranging this long-time travel bucket list destination in a way that totally lived up to our expectations.

    yellow-throated toucan

    Bill does all the planning — I take the pictures. Except not even that sometimes. Our birding guide in Monte Verde took this through his spotting scope after I looked through in complete delight!

    Cinnamon Becard

    Lots more pictures to share in future posts, which I sincerely hope will be very soon, now that I’ve almost figured out again how to do this blogging thing.

    #

    Thanks to the hosts of the sharing opportunities where I’ll share this post for the first time in a while. It’s good to be back.

    THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  SATURDAY CRITTERS;