Costa Rica, Day 2, March 25

Day 2: March 25

The airport for Nature Air was the smallest I had ever been in. First our luggage was weighed, then we had to step on the scale while holding our carry-on bag. The young man wrote out our boarding passes by hand. Then we waited. There weren’t many seats in the waiting area. After a bit, we wandered upstairs to take the view from there.

The entire airport for Nature Air

At the boarding call, we marched across the tarmac and packed into the tiny plane. There were two seats on one side of the aisle and one on the other. I suspected there would be no beverage service.\

Boarding the plane. The pilot (white shirt) is walking behind Terry (blue checked shirt)

The inside of the plane

The view from the plane was spectacular. I tried to figure out what kind of farms were below. There were shrubs, which I thought were probably coffee, and palms, which could have been bananas or oil palms. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Costa Rica coast from the plane

We landed on a grassy airstrip near Drake Bay. A driver awaited up in an old Toyota Land Cruiser. He climbed on top to position our bags on the roof rack. We climbed inside for a bumpy trek over dirt roads and through a sizeable stream to get us to the north end of Drake Bay.

Ground transport from the airstrip (Tom, left, Jerome, center, Terry, right)

Diane had warned us that there was a “water landing,” and we should wear sandals and shorts. Sure enough, we got out of the van and into a boat. Bronzed young men hopped off the boat and commandeered the luggage. I was not accustomed to having people do this for me. It felt positively British colonial.

The first of many water landings

After a short and choppy boat ride across the ocean bay, we entered a river, passed by several landings for other resorts, and debarked at the La Paloma Lodge landing. Our bags were loaded into a trailer behind a Kubota tractor while we started hiking up the hill. And quite a hill it was. Also, it was hot and humid. My clothes were soaked when we reached the sign to La Paloma. Whew, I thought, thank goodness that hill is over. But there were more stairs!

The hill and "main road" from the dock

The entrance to La Paloma Lodge from the main road

But there were more stairs!

We went to the main Lodge for check-in and orientation. We were warned about the capuchin monkeys. Don’t leave shiny things in the bathrooms. The tap water was okay for teeth brushing, but drink the water from the pitchers. Jerome and Barbara’s rooms were ready. The ranchero that we would be sharing with Diane and Tom wasn’t cleaned from the last guests. We could wait in the owner’s house until ours was ready. While there, we saw a pair of scarlet-rumped tanagers (recently renamed cherry tanagers).

Male scarlet-rumped tanager

After lunch, we walked to our home for the week. Diane and Tom took the upstairs with the better view and no deck. We had the deck with a hammock. We had separate bathrooms. The monkey warning made more sense to me after I’d seen the accommodations. There were no windows in the bathrooms. There were no screens. It was just open. To my surprise and delight there were no mosquitos.

Our deck and hammock

The grounds around La Paloma were spectacularly landscaped. There were all sorts of birds-of-paradise in flower. Some flowers stood upright. Some hung upside down. Some were red, some orange, some pink.

There were many, many flowers I’d never seen anything like.

One of many birds-of-paradise

Beehive ginger

After we got settled, we walked down to the beach.

The beach

And then we walked up again. Did I mention it was hot? I don’t know how hot. We had no thermometer. Maybe 85-90 degrees. In any case, we went for a swim in the pool when we got back. It felt great to stretch out in the cool water. Diane informed us that the habit was to have a cocktail by the pool at 5:00. Hors d’oeuvres were served at the Lodge at 5:45, and a four-course dinner was served family-style at 6:45. She recommended the mojitos.

We changed out of our swim suits and into casual clothes for dinner. I decided I didn’t need my camera. Ha! While we were having happy hour, a band of capuchins came by. So I went back to get my camera. Also, the sunset was spectacular.

Mother capuchin with her baby on her back

Sunset over the Pacific

Dinner was excellent. The tables were set with three forks. The napkins were folded decoratively in the wine glasses. The first course was tomato soup with basil and Parmesan. The salad was red lettuce with papaya (I think—it was orange) and strawberries with a balsamic vinaigrette that packed a powerful punch of garlic. I’d picked the fish curry with rice for my entre. It came with optional garnishes of coconut, pineapple, and raisins. The pineapple was surprisingly good. The raisins, not so much. Our dessert was chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

When we got back to the ranchero, a gecko was hunting for ants in the porch light. I took a shower and went to bed.

Gecko stalks an ant (left). A few seconds later, the ant was gone.

March 24, 1 a.m. O’Hare Airport

Our flight for San Jose, Costa Rica via Mexico City left at 2:00 a.m. Jane, being a true friend, dropped us off at the airport at 11:00. We left our winter coats in the car. We checked our bags and went through security, removing all fluids from our carry-on bags and contents of our pockets, and taking off our shoes and belts. Silly me, I forgot about my watch, but the guard just asked if I was wearing one. I pulled back my sleeve, and she let me pass. We reassembled and went to our gate to begin the first of many waits of the day.

O'Hare, one of the busiest airports in the world, at 1:00 in the morning.

Our flight went off without a hitch. We arrived in Mexico City at 5:00 a.m. Diane told me that Mexico and Costa Rica were on the same time zone, but it turned out that they weren't because they had not yet switched to daylight savings time. It was still a long time until our next flight left at 8:30 P.M. Lord. I did not possess sufficient joie de vivre to even consider trying to go through security in and out to try to spend the day in Mexico City itself. And so we hung around the airport. By the end of 15 hours, we knew where to get the best food and the cheapest bottled water. We challenged ourselves by trying to get comfortable enough on the hard plastic chairs to take a nap. Not having been able to nap in the afternoon before we left, I was tired enough to fall asleep for a brief period of time.

The Return of Mr. Hankyhead: Terry tries to nap in the Mexico City Airport

At long last, we were back in the air. We arrived in San Jose at 11:30, retrieved our bags and got through customs without incident. We were set upon by taxi vultures desperate for American dollars. We fended them off as best we could as I tried to read the directions I’d been sent from Casa Bella Rita, our B&B for what was left of the night, for where to meet their driver. The most obnoxious of the vultures insisted on helping us find our driver over my protestations and then had the gall to ask for a tip. I was tempted to say, “My tip for you is to stop being such a pain in the ass,” but I gave him a dollar instead. Grr.

Compared to Illinois, San Jose was hot. Our bedroom at Casa Bella Rita was stuffy. The window above the shower in the bathroom opened, but the window in the bedroom did not. I had to turn off the ceiling fan because it squeaked. No matter. We were so exhausted, the bed felt so comfortable, and it was so very lovely to lie flat that we were both deeply asleep in short order.

The balcony at Casa Bella Rita

A knock came on the door much too soon the next morning. It was Diane, telling us it was 6:15, that breakfast was in 15 minutes, and we had to be ready to leave for Nature Air at 7:00. I set a personal best for fastest shower and was dressed, packed, and at the table at 6:30. In the daylight, Casa Bella Rita had a lovely view of a canyon and a hay field. How ironic, I thought, to travel halfway around the world to have breakfast while looking at half-ton bales.

The view from Casa Bella Rita. The hay bales are on the flat part at the top of the valley.

Coming soon!

Spring break in Costa Rica! Stay tuned....

Signs of spring

I was at my computer yesterday when a terrible racket caught my attention. A large flock of blackbirds had settled momentarily in the third oak, and boy howdy, they were raising a ruckus!

Noisy blackbirds in the third oak

I have yet to see my first robin, but Terry tells me they’re back. The Canada geese are everywhere. While one would expect them to be flying north at this time of year, I see them flying in all directions. I’m guessing migratory patterns have broken down as geese have adapted to suburban life.

Sara is displaying odd behavior. She pulls her head in and walks backwards. I think she might be at the bottom of the pecking order, and that this is defensive behavior. We’ll have to keep an eye on it. As the snow melts, the chickens have more room to run around outside. Hopefully that will take care of the pecking problem.

Della is holding her own in the face of her terminal kidney disease.  She loves Terry the best. It’s not fair. I feed her! I also am the one who pokes her with a needle every night to give her fluids. Maybe that has something to do with the way she ignores me. Every morning (and often in the middle of the night) she cries and cries for Terry. As soon as he sits down, there she is, ready to settle into his lap. Here’s a picture of them working on an order from Gardeners Supply.

Della sits with her head on Terry's knee while he makes notations in the Gardeners Supply catalog

Forensic Ecology

No pictures this week. Today was as dreary as it could be. We had some good rain, and I am still grateful for every drop that falls. Our water table can use the recharge. It’s nice to have a rainy day when you have nowhere to go. I sat at my desk most of the day (after making waffles for breakfast) writing and drinking ginger tea.

I went to a McHenry County Conservation District (MCCD) workshop yesterday called “Forensic Ecology.” The purpose of the training was to teach us how to research a piece of land from the original Illinois land survey in 1837. We also got a fair amount of pre-European settlement history. One of our instructors, Ginevra, gave us the history from the Silurian 500,000 million years ago when Illinois was a shallow inland sea to the retreat of the Wisconsin glacier 10,000 years ago. She connected this extremely early history with our soil types and topography.

Our guest speaker for the morning, John, was one of the men who does a lot of restoration work for MCCD. He told us about dredging a pond at Rush Creek in Harvard. Not surprisingly, the end of the pond next to the gravel pit was gravel. On the other end, though, he was digging in blue clay. He started hitting solid objects. They turned out to be spruce trees with the needles still on the branches. He worked carefully to get a big chunk of trunk out intact. He sent a sample for carbon dating. The results showed that the wood was 14,700 years old! The trees must have gone down in a huge flood that buried them in sediment and, in the absence of oxygen, preserved them forever. Our other instructor, Gail, rummaged in a back room and brought the log out. I got to see it with my own eyes and touch it with my own hands. 14,700 years!

Gail brought a collection of Native American artifacts that she had found on her family’s farm while she was growing up. Through her work on some historic restorations, she got to know some archeologists. She was able to get approximate dates for the tools she had found. She passed around a hand ax that was 3000 years old. I held it in my hand too, feeling a peculiar sense of connection to the other hands that held that ax so long ago. We passed around a scraper and a point (a.k.a. arrowhead) from 1000 years ago. Yes, indeed, if you don’t think our ancestors were smart and strong, you go out and try to kill a deer with a rock.

Gail took us through recorded history, explaining various sources of information. Lots of court records are digitized and available online. During lunch, I was able to look up the survey record of our farm. It was surveyed sometime between July 7 and July 10, 1837. Part of the area was “land thinly covered with bur oak timber. Soil good and fit for cultivation.” Much of it, though, was “land swampy prairies and unfit for cultivation.”

And then came John Johnstone, the father of modern drain tiles. By the 1850’s swamps were being drained like crazy, with ever more mechanized means of digging the trenches. Before it was all over, 800,000,000 feet of drain tile was installed in Illinois, and we’ve got some on our land. I have seen the pipe draining into the Piscasaw Creek.

In the afternoon, Ginevra took us through some sites to access GIS databases. The technology has come a long way since I was in graduate school. Lots of maps are available for free. I can hardly wait to start poking around.

Winter Storm Saturn

I had an even better visit from the Goddess of Unexpected Free Time today. She called my cell phone at 4:23 a.m. to tell me the college was closed. I went back to bed, but didn't fall asleep for a long time. I must have dozed off, though, because one minute it was 5:30 and next it was 6:45. Goodness! The day was half over.
I had a leisurely morning. I unpacked my new laptop and tried to configure it. As with all new systems, it will ruin my life for awhile. It opens up to a screen that looks like an iPad. I have no idea how to deal with it. As I was putzing with it, it suddenly popped up with the more familiar Windows screen. It was a relief, but I have no idea how to get to it intentionally. I'll figure it out.
I worked on my memoirs for an hour after breakfast while sipping on my second cup of tea. It was even harder to talk myself into exercising today than usual. I did it and am a better person for it. By 11:00, I was showered and ready to sit down to some real work, namely recording some videos on Mendelian genetics for my blended class. That took up the rest of my day.
The snow is still coming down right lively. We have more than 6" by now, I'm sure. Here's the view of the fifth oak that I took in the early afternoon.

The fifth oak in the snow

Kenosha, Knishes

Jane and I took a day trip to Kenosha, WI for the first time in over two years on Saturday. We’ve been shopping the outlet malls up there for over 25 years. The original outlet mall, which really was outlet stores with good bargains, is long gone. I still have the navy cardigan sweater I got for $5. Oh, the good old days. It’s been several (probably many) years since the new Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlet Mall opened. The “premium” part is a hint that these stores are not outlets at all. Most of the merchandise was not bargain priced, although we did occasionally find some good deals. We still went there to look around after we were done at the original outlet mall. We always stopped at the Gourmet Chef to check out the latest gadgets. Sometimes we found good deals on shoes at Timberland.

As time passed, one store after another vacated the original outlet mall until nothing was left.  Winona Knits and Socks Galore closed forever; Jockey, Eddie Bauer, and Corningware/Corelle/Revere moved to the new mall. The building was torn down and replaced with an automall.

Because it had been so long since our last trip, we didn’t know what to expect. The last time we were up Timberland was having their going-out-of-business sale. The older part of Pleasant Prairie was nearly a ghost town. Gourmet Chef was gone. Lots of storefronts were empty with promises of some store “coming soon.” I wonder.  We stopped at Jockey, where undergarments were get 40% off on two or more. We found some fun colors and bought two packages each, as if either of us needed more underwear. I went to Corelle to replace a serving bowl that broke. I got suckered into buying a set because the bowl I needed was $7, but I could get two bowls like that plus a larger bowl for $15. We went to Coldwater Creek and Eddie Bauer, but did not find anything appropriate to our age in either place. I will be so happy when fashion returns to pants that come to the waist as God intended.

Our other favorite stop in Kenosha was the Jockey factory, which often had really tremendously discounted factory seconds in the days when they actually made clothing. Production has gone overseas long since. Jane did some research before our trip and discovered that the factory store had moved downtown, giving up all pretense of being a factory at all. The website promised that they had tried to keep the same ambience by having a backroom of discounted items.

Jockey store in downtown Kenosha

We had never been to downtown Kenosha before. The prices at the Jockey store were the same as at the outlet mall. There wasn’t anything of interest in the back room. It’s a nice store in a renovated historic building. I wish them well.

Trolley Dogs entrance

We had lunch at Trolley Dogs across the street. An older man (well, probably my age) was working the front while wearing a hot dog hat. While he waited on the couple ahead of us, he quickly made a dog out of a pink balloon for a little girl in her mother’s arms. When it was my turn, I ordered a Chicago-style hot dog for Jane with everything but tomatoes.

“We don’t have butt tomatoes,” the guy said.

“Ha.” I replied.

“I’m just trying to buy some time to reset my ketchup bottle,” he explained.

I noticed that he was stuffing a long shoelace into a red squeeze bottle. The shoelace had a knot in the end.

I finished our order with a chili cheese dog and two bottles of water.

“Onions?” he asked.

“Of course,” I replied.

“Hot peppers?”

“Yes, please!” I  never had anyone offer me hot peppers with my chili cheese dog. What a great idea! Meanwhile, Mr. Hotdog Hat asked the people behind me if they wanted ketchup and squirted the shoelace at them. Nice to see a guy who loves his job.

I had been puzzled by “wrapped in fries” on the menu. When the hot dogs came, they had two layers of wax paper. The fries were inside the first layer, wrapped around the wax paper in which the hot dog resided. The bun was cottony soft and had been squished by the fry wrapping process. I assumed that squished bread was part of the Trolley Dog mystique.

Fries (left) wrapped outside squished chili cheese dog (right) with most of  Cheese Whiz smeared all over the wax paper.

When we sat down at a booth to wait for our order, I noticed that the bench was pretty chilly. After visiting the restroom, I appreciated that the bench was warm compared to the toilet seat. The interior of Trolly Dogs was painted mustard yellow. A yellow and black trolley circled overhead on a suspended track.

Trolley on suspended track

My chili dog was tasty. It didn’t have much chili on it, and the cheese was processed. It was a mess as it was. Jane pointed out that if there had been any more chili it would have been impossible to eat. True that. I had onion breath the rest of the afternoon, and my fingers smelled strongly of chili dog.

On our way home, we stopped at the River Valley Ranch mushroom farm in Slades Corners. I thought I bought two pounds of cremini mushrooms for Hilda and three pounds of white mushrooms to split with Jane. When I got home, both bags were white mushrooms. How do these things happen? We were distressed that there were no homemade caramels by the checkout. When I asked, the salesgirl told me they were in the cooler. Jane found them and brought them up to me. They are the very best caramels in the whole world, even cold.

Mushroom on the side of the mushroom store

Rustic entrance of River Valley Ranch Mushroom Store

Hilda and I have talked forever about trying new recipes together. We are finally following through. Two weeks ago we made cinnamon swirl raisin bread from a recipe in Fine Cooking. Today it is potato, pastrami, and Gruyere knishes from Cook’s Country. I had my misgivings when I looked at the huge mound of stuffing that was supposed to go into the tiny ball of dough. 

Apparent mismatch between huge amount of stuffing (left) and tiny ball of dough to wrap it in (right)

The dough really did roll out to a 16”x16” square (the second one was more square-like than the first, which was rather more amoeboid), and the stuffing really did all fit in it. We brushed the dough with olive oil to make layers as we rolled the stuffing in it. 

Hilda brushes the dough with olive oil

Rolling the filling in the oiled dough

We measured off 2” lengths and separated them with dental floss (a trick to keep the sections round—a knife will make the bottom side flat). 

Cutting with dental floss (unflavored) 

We then pushed them down to 1” and they were ready to bake. I thought it would take all afternoon, but we were done in two hours, with an hour for resting the dough in the middle of that time. 

Pressing down the knishes to 1" height

The finished knish, which was delicious. It's about 3" across.

 Hilda looked out the window this afternoon to see three of the chickens in the snow. They must have flown there as there were no tracks up to them. I suspect something spooked them. I was worried that Nigella, who was on top of a pretty deep drift, would not be able to get out and might get frostbitten feet. After I took some pictures, I talked to her a bit. She didn't move. About the time I was thinking I should get my boots and go in after her, she fluttered back to the safety of the open ground.

Nigella (far left), Ingrid (upper left), and Ina (center) in the snow while others look on from the windbreak