While we don't suffer hurricanes, storms like Gustav drop a lot of rain on us. We've had unusually heavy precipitation for the last three or four days. It is pretty at times, but as the ground gets soggier, things start flooding, and it gets to be not-that-fun.

We are looking forward to some more sunshine soon, in the mean time we've got some movies and plan to spend the weekend indoors.

Labels: Costa Rica, rain, tamarindo, weather

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, rain, weather

Holy Cow!
It rained. Just now. Not sure if it is still falling, but this is exceptionally early for us... two years ago the first rain was on Jocelyn's birthday, that's the end of May. April 4th?!?!
It'll be interesting to see if this is a strange fluke or if the weather patterns here really have gone berserk. On the plus side, if rain does become more common early in the year, it could be a huge boon for the development industry as people could rely more on rainwater catchment for their water needs (and use less water in the yard) which could help limit some of the stresses that local communities are experiencing with regards to water provision.

Labels: rain, tamarindo, weather

Just found out that it wasn't just our imagination that May was a tad
rainy--- reports say that we had nearly twice the 'normal' amount of
rain for the month of May. Yet it only rained about one week. When all
was said and done, it appears that we had a little over an inch per day
for the week Kate was here. That's more than half the
annual precipitation for San Diego county. One of the
local golf courses reports that in one day they had nearly three
inches of rain!

Labels: news, rain, tamarindo, weather

Yup. Rained today. Again.
So it was a slow and moist day around the Sandcruiser pad. On the plus side, rainy weather here makes for beautiful sunsets, which is nice.

Last night, on the other hand, was a blast! Ken and Kira were nice
enough to host a little gathering in celebration of Bb's birthday. We
enjoyed spending time with friends, great weather, and cooking up a
storm (as usual!)- the fare included bbq chicken, baked & stuffed
chicken, delicious cole slaw, green salad w/homemade cinammon dressing
(sounds funny, tastes great!), tuna steaks, bbq pineapple, fresh mango
avocado salsa and some delicious snacks and starters. It wasn't the
biggest broo-ha-ha that we've thrown for Bb's birthday, but it was
probably the most civilized. I guess we're getting older.

Labels: cooking, rain, tamarindo, weather