As Promised … More from Panama

While Stephen and Jen were gone, as mentioned our (and their) friends, Heidi and Edgardo and Raleigh's best friend Eliot spent a few days with us. One afternoon we went to a Smithsonian Institute Research Park at the end of the Causeway that goes out into the Pacific at the end of the canal.  It was built with spoil from the construction of the canal. There are numerous exhibits of saline and jungle wildlife at the site and we got a good tour as Heidi and Edgardo certainly are knowledgeable about this stuff.  

And for once one of the telescopes actually worked and we were fortunate that a large cargo ship just emerged from the canal that we were able to observe especially close up.

Raleigh and kitten playing in castle/fort made from washing machine cardboard box.

These next two photos show a bit of the different personalities of the two boys. Raleigh is a bit more quiet and inquisitive and Clinton is a bit more loud and wide open and rambunctious.

I think I mentioned that I liked Clinton's smile, well here is one of them.

Patt has good ideas. Here is one of them. As we are not going to be in Panama for Christmas this year, she decided to take our Christmas gifts early and even wanted to take a Christmas tree to complete the festivities. Raleigh unfortunately no longer calls it a "Crissman tree" (oh-well, I am no longer called Grannanny either).

Raleigh laughed quietly and almost continuously in a most happy way the entire time Patt and he were straightening out the limbs and as I was putting on the lights. When it came time to put on decorations, serious work began. This is serious stuff now. Certain places for certain decorations.

Patt found somewhere (AC Moore?) a bunch of small little decorations and such a good time we had putting them on. Towards the end of the pile, Raleigh slowed down considerably like he did not want it to end.

And this is where meal taking was taken ever since the tree went up. Note the cars from Cars around the tree. I found the set at Target if you need a good gift idea for someone.

Two boys who are slow on the waking up side of the morning.

Clinton found a random piece of wire sticking out of the ground in the playground. Note how the light catches the few hairs on his head. He continues a long line of bald headed Crissman babies. We seem to possess hair only a few short years.

Raleigh likes it when I bring him home from school. We stop for interesting sights.

Clinton found the kitten once again and is bring him to Grandmama.

Clinton likes to share the kitten too, and kitten even puts up with that.

got yogurt and fruit?

In Panama

Yes it is a jump and I shoulda put in a transition blog and I shoulda blogged before now and I should brush after every meal and that is about it. Well I might miss a few Spanish verb conjugations but other than that— good to go.

We are here and on the 24th floor. We have new additions to a place that needed something else. Not one but two kittens. (technically one belongs to the intern but I am not thinking the intern is not taking the cat back to the US of A).  The kittens are amazing!! do not tell PETA but these cats must be masochists. They come looking for the children, ride in their grocery carts, tolerate every and anything.  

Clinton especially tolerates his Mom, here he is blissfully unaware that she was about to leave for a few days in Boston and Vermont.

Fortunate for me. We actually got along very well, we could "aaaahhhhhh" and "hhhhooooooo" at one another quite loudly, especially in the elevator.

Clinton preparing to pester, yes he does pester older brother. Older brother allows "his goat", as Dad would have said, to be gotten about once every 30 or forty minutes.  Clinton knows a few things about pushing buttons, of course Raleigh is no novice about pushing buttons either.

I have seen this behavior with matchbox cars before. Cousin Isaac all the way around the world did the exact same thing. Intricate play while laying on his side with matchbox cars — all the while very very quiet. The pillow is the famous and important 'blue bear'.

Grandmama has tons of patience and is willing to put up with a helper when it comes to cooking and making things that little boys and guys who walk through the kitchen like.

Patt and I like quiet mornings — we do not have quiet mornings in Panama very often unless we get up very early and sometimes not even then but they are sometimes very interesting. A drama in a few photos follow

Clinton with his bedtime toy, pacifier which is not supposed to be out of his bed (oh well, Mom is in Boston), the cat and Deuce. Deuce likes the cat, the cat plays with Deuce.

Patt enters with Raleigh who is in need of some TLC as is often the case in the morning. A pop out of the bed, lets-go-get'em boy in the morning he is NOT.  Slow and gentle, easy does it is the order of the morning.

Clinton sees Grandmama with Raleigh getting some TLC.

Clinton takes grocery cart with bedtime toy, leaving Deuce and cat and climbs on couch to push a button or two.

Clintons makes presence known.

Point made. Disruption accomplished, done all I need to do here.

Leaves Raleigh to snuggle with Grandmama and look at videos Patt took yesterday and pass judgment. Raleigh loves his grandmama.

And our next to youngest grandchild may be our best actor.  This the expression when we learn there are no cupcakes on the menu.

More later now that the dam has broken, Heidi, Edgardo and Eliot have been here, Stephen and Jen are back and things are in their natural order once more.

Niagara Falls, Frank Lloyd Wright, and home

We are back in Raleigh now and the last couple of days on the road were much like the rest of the trip, we were doing things. After leaving Huron we headed south to the Canadian Niagara Falls.  They are as advertised. Stunning is one word that is appropriate. The number of languages we heard spoken was amazing. People from all over the world were there.  

We were fortunate with our accommodations and with the moon phase too. This is the view from our room the first evening we were there - and that is a full moon.

And in the early, well sorta early morning, the mist and fog from the falls makes a huge shadow.

The boat ride from the Canadian side is not on the "Maid of the Mist" but on the "Hornblower".  The boat gets quite close and despite the rain gear, you're gonna get wet.

The American Falls with Bridal Veil Falls to the right. 

Just prior to getting off of the "Hornblower" 

We also went down "below the falls", loud, is another word, to describe the falls as well as powerful, very very powerful.

The powerful word also describes the the rapids below the falls. They are classified as Class VI Rapids which means they are impossible to survive.

In past years a few thrill seekers, barrel riders have made successful rides through the rapids, several have not. The same is true for going over the falls. Both activities are now prohibited. Shucks!

Rainbows are fairly regular occurrences.

Bridal Veil Falls on the American side has a jagged edge. In a couple of thousand years the American Falls will have eroded back and merged into the Canadian Falls. America, we have a problem— Obama's fault.

In Buffalo, New York is one of the first houses the Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the prairie design.  It was for Darwin Martin of the Larkin Soap Company in 1905 when Buffalo was a big time manufacturing center and Wright was getting started. The prairie design has many features that I think you can see in the house we grew up in in Graham.

The wide eaves, small, inconsequential front porch, lots of windows in the living room to open to a family space in the back of the house, high windows and open connections between rooms. Note the slight opening for the front door entrance in the picture below to the left of the planter in the long brick wall from the left.

These are the across the street neighbors. In Raleigh, they would have had a hissy fit if Wright had tried to build in their neighborhood.

And in south western Pennsylvania just east and south of Pittsburgh is Falling Waters, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's later houses. It was built in 1938.

This was built for Edgar Kaufmann of Kaufmann's Department Store of Pittsburgh. As the name implies, it is over falling water and is some kind of impressive.

And the country side in southern Pennsylvania is pretty. We avoided the interstate a good bit on our drive south from Lake Erie in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Both place have lots of pretty countryside, poor looking small towns and a few houses with Trump yard signs.

As stated above, we are home, Kate kept the party evidence fairly well concealed, and other than being dry, all here looks good. We will be here for most of the fall, planning a trip to Panama in October I think, and then it is time to start thinking of 2017. Got places to go.

Lake Huron

Actually this photo was taken from our deck at the B&B where we were staying in Blind River on the shore of Lake Huron - or the North Bay of the lake. 

We went to an island just off the coast to go for a hike and on the road to the trail, we saw a dark animal down the road. It stayed on the road as we slowly drove closer, ...

and finally as we got very close the young bear ran back across the road into the brush. Patt was not too enthusiastic about going very far on our hike knowing mama bear was around too.

We drove up to Lake Elliot just to the north a bit, which was one of the worlds leading mining sites for uranium at one time. It is now just sort of remote.

One reason we were in the Lake Huron area such a short time is that we took a ferry across a good part of it rather than drive around it. As we were loading I enjoyed watching people, especially this group of Mennonites. There are a lot of Mennonite farms in southern Ontario. There were a couple of boys who were fun to watch too as they explored around the ship. (I walk all over a ferry boat so I happen to see others who do the same.)

As obvious in the above photo it was a rainy day and at times quite stormy. As we crossed part of the lake the high (?) front proceeded us here in this photo pushing the rain out of the way.  

So as we got closer to land the lighthouse was visible and not just a light.

and the wind really got fierce, which I enjoyed. Patt took these pictures out of the window in the lounge. I was one of the few who would walk out into the wind. The boys and one of two other men were about it. I also liked looking at the waves being kicked up by the ship. Lots to do on a ferry.

just checking to make sure we are going the right direction.  We were.