We found out that there would be no power on Thursday, so we decided to go to Avellanas for the day. Just to make life interesting, we decided to take the "back road", which is an easy (albeit bumpy) ride in the dry season. It took us a little over three hours to travel to Playa Avellanas. That's only about 3 miles away along the beach, and about a 20 minute drive on the main road. Totally worth it.

Note: one of the many benefits of getting muddy with good friends who just so happen to be professional photographers is that you end up with better-than-average pictures for the site. For more of Michael's work, check out MichaelPisarri.com.

When Costa Rican maps define roads as "seasonal", that probably means that there isn't a road there in the wet season. We've taken this road hundreds of times in the dry months, and thought we would see just how bad it is this time of year. It's pretty bad.

The day's first casualty was Steve's flip flop.	Having fun in the muck. Note the front tire: completely encased in clay	We spent a lot of time facing in a direction other than the one we were moving- back tires stuck in a rut, spinning, front tires pulling us along the trail	"Sure... we can make it through this!"
Notice the size of the ruts in relation to the dog (she's about 50lbs, by the way, not tall, but not tiny)	Winching through the first soft patch		The girls ran ahead to scout out routes.
The ultimate offroad vehicles. They would have made it through the road without incident, but no A/C nor stereo either	Not just muddy, but the occasional fallen tree added some variety	Knowing that the water and muddy riverbank would be a challenge, we decided to set up the winch before we got into trouble this time. Caly was very helpful	Neither of the large trees in the foreground was any help to getting up the bank. Michael did the walking while Steve pays out more line
The river was easy, but we only made it a few feet up the bank, which appears to be made entirely of slimy, grimy, claylike muck	This may not look very deep, but it is	Winching uphill through sloppy mud. The ruts were about 30 inches deep when we were done	Made it to the top of the bank, spinning wheels and pushing piles of mud. Finally got a little bit of traction and drove out from here
Michael the winch monster	Mike and Bb scouting out a "difficult" section ahead, this little puddle in front didn't look like much (note where the stick is located on the right).	Oops. I guess the puddle was deeper than it looked! (again, note the stick on the left this time)
"C'mon Guys! Let's get that winch line hooked up and running!" This water eventually pooched my EDIC relay, which is an expensive part. Fortunately there was no permanent damage.	Here's another angle. This stuck had what I like to call a high pucker-factor. Not exactly a relaxing position.	After that last puddle, we took the scouting a little more seriously	Sitting under a swaying coconut palm, relaxing with good friends after the run
Good food. Good friends (who thought we were a little crazy to take the back road in August).	Nothing like a dip in the ocean to get the mud off	beach. stick. Happy Dog.

Photo Credits: Michael Pisarri and Steve Broyles

Labels: 4wd, 4x4, Costa Rica, day trip, landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

Had a great time driving an almost-impassable road this weekend. More pictures coming soon, I promise. Unfortunately, a very important part on the cruiser (the EDIC system) spent a lot of time underwater so I had to take it apart and fix it. Fortunately, the cruiser was perfectly driveable without this very important system... it just wouldn't turn off, which is rather important. Got it fixed, all is well. If you have any interest in some pictures... follow this link.

Labels: landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

While looking for some pictures of our current house (which is for sale, by the way, and a great deal - bbcostarica.com ) I came across a breakdown of some of the things that ExxxonMobil has been up to this year. Here's a little chart showing various oil companies' lobbying efforts from 1998-2005. That's a lot of money to spend on just trying to convince congress to pass laws in your favor. Seems like a good investment for them, according to this site, the oil industry receives about $113 billion dollars in subsidies every year. Whoa, that's a big number.
302,655,254 That's another big number. It represents the value on the Population Clock of the US Census bureau on the 20th of August, 2007 at about 3pm (gmt -06:00).
Based on those two numbers, it appears that the Oil and Gas industry receives somewhere around $375 per year from EVERY single person in the USA. That's in addition to the money that they receive at the pump and elsewhere.
Where does that subsidy money go? Well.... Exxon Mobil did post a $39.5 billion profit in 2006. That's the most profit EVER made by ANY US corporation. Ever. That's over $75,000 every MINUTE of every day for 2006. Yep, even while they sleep. Can you imagine? To put this into another perspective, we all "know" that Bill Gates is filthy rich, right? Well, the total amount of money represented by Bill Gates' stock holding at Microsoft as of 20 August 2007 are..... $24 Billion. Yup. Good old Bill's total net worth is pretty close to half of what Exxon made in profit in 2006. One year.

Now, don't get me wrong. I use fuel. I like using it. I drive a big, heavy SUV. I'm guilty, to some extent, of the rampant excess of petroleum use in the world. But something strikes me as funny. Not "ha, ha!" funny, but more like the smell in the car that was parked in the sun all month with somebodies food under the seat "that's a funny smell" funny. The thing that seems funny to me is that despite the fact we have spent over $450 Billion on a war that is certainly related to oil in some way, the government on of the USA is also shelling out over $375 per person to oil companies in subsidies. Why?!?!? What the heck is happening here folks? Airlines.... Ok, I get it, they are all declaring bankruptcy all over the place. Banks? Maybe, if they need it, to prevent us all from losing our life savings. Hospitals? Sure! Who is against hospitals?
But for crying out loud, they are GIVING free money to the industry dominated by the most profitable company that has ever existed in the history of the USA!!

I wish I could wrap this little rant up with some sage advice on how we can all make it all better. I can't. All I can do is suggest that next time you fill up the tank and it hurts, you might consider alternatives. You might consider a bicycle. You might consider carpooling. Or, perhaps, you might consider driving over to Shell, where they have invested $1.5 Billion into alternative fuels since 1999*. You might drive over to BP, where they have invested $500 million into Solar Power and have formed BP Alternative Energy with an $8 Billion budget over the next 10 years.
Personally, I prefer my fuel dollar to go towards companies investing in the future instead of going into pushing their profit margin even higher into the stratosphere.

*Some Exxon facts

Business took me back to Santa Cruz again yesterday (Monday), which would have been mildly inconvenient except for the fact that we've had rain of almost-biblical proportions all weekend. The last estimate I had heard was somewhere between three and five inches in three days. Regardless, it was a LOT of rain. The upside is that rain is good, it recharges aquifers. The downside is that too much rain is bad, it makes rivers flood their banks, washes out roads, gets backhoes stuck... and generally makes your day less pleasant if you've got to be out and about.

Note that this bridge is under construction, and the river is about seven feet deep in this photo. That's about 20 minutes of extra driving just to get to the other side.	Here I am rolling through about 6 inches of water on the highway.	But just when I thought I was having a bad day...
At least the clouds made for pretty green fields with misty mountains	Two more backhoes come to rescue the first	These are all the people stopping along the highway to watch the floundering backhoe

By the time I drove by a couple of hours later, the buried backhoe had made a lot of progress towards being free, the other two backhoes seemed to have avoided getting themselves stuck, and I was too tired/lazy to take more photos. Right after I passed the scene, the rain hit with a vengeance, I won't be surprised if I see one or more backhoes stuck there when I drive by tomorrow!

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser, mud, weather

Technically, Tamarindo is a suburb of the city of Santa Cruz. Which means that not-infrequently, we have to go to Santa Cruz to take care of things. That's where the seat of government is located, where the power company's office is, where property taxes get paid, etc. Since we had a planned power outage on Tuesday (they are upgrading the lines to the beach areas) I decided to take care of some minor errands in Santa Cruz (since they had power). As I was driving around I started to pay attention to the large number of older homes that were built in a more traditional (read: no air conditioners) way. Decided to snap a few photos and share them. I hope you enjoy the brief tour.

Please note, not all the homes in Santa Cruz look like this- I photographed the ones that caught my eye, not in any way the "most typical". Also note, I took several of the photos while driving, so they aren't particularly excellent quality.

Nothing like a few coats of teal with lavender accents	Bright paint, wooden plank siding, "petatillos"- the ventilation above windows and along the eaves to let hot air out without letting hot sun (nor animals/thieves) in
the modern courthouse, across the street from the houses pictured on the left	More subdued colors, but nice scrollwork over the doors and windows	This color combo is as close to "classic" as any
A much newer home, still has the bright colors. I think this is a prefab.	Not as well maintained as some, but combining pink with teal and green... that's a statement	Another bright combo- light blue and light green. Note the scrollwork and the details on the eaves
the old church belltower. No bells now, but a recorded hourly chime. Very modern, I prefer real bells	Church that sits beside the clock tower. Must have been 70's, right?	overexposed to show the stained glass at the church

Labels: Costa Rica, photo, travel

Had to go meet an appraiser out at one of the two farms that BBA owns, so I invited Caly to come along so that she could romp with the cows. Caly isn't so sure about romping with cows. But she loves running around on the short grass and sniffing all the various fun things to sniff. Almost makes me wish that we could keep the farm- it is beautiful, after all. Ahhhhh, someday. Maybe. But for now we are happy to sell it. If you know of anyone looking for a development parcel that is about 14 acres, within a mile of the beach of Tamarindo, please don't hesitate to send them in my direction!!

Despite Caly's unwillingness to "play" with the cows, there was one calf that was fascinated by Caly. I tried to get her to say hello, but Caly's attitude seemed to be something like "Do you see how BIG that thing is? I'm outta here." I sat down to show her how unconcerned I was... but she still wasn't buying and went to lay under the Cruiser (which, I suppose is about as cow-proof as you can get in the middle of a grassy field full of trees and cows). After a surprisingly short investigation, the inquisitive calf came up to check me out and ended up cleaning up my right food pretty much toe to heel. The left foot, apparently, wasn't to his liking.

"Howd ya like that right foot, buddy?"

Mmmm. Delicious.

Good times, my friends, good times.

Labels: real estate