Well, time for us to head back up! Couple GREAT dives on the Eagle, a fantastic wreck. Hope I get to dive it again before I leave! 

Okay, so back to Panama! This time, we didn't do the whirlwind tour. Instead, we took a little time for ourselves, and just enjoyed hanging out and being together while she worked and stuff. Very cool, a much more relaxing trip this time. There is one day that isn't even blogged, because we just puttered all day -- didn't bring the camera! It was very nice. Now, I know it's kinda funny that the first picture I have of Melissa this trip is of her holding a giant beetle, but that's only if you don't know her. Her family is nodding right now and saying, "That's our girl!" When we pulled into the drive, the lawnmowers (two guys with weed-wackers) were there, just mowing away. We both noticed a giant beetle upside down on the sidewalk, but Melissa beat me to it! She thinks it's great how excited the lawnmowers get about all the weird things they find in the yard; I mean, they grew up down here, but they still flip out whenever they find a cool bug or reptile. This beetle was one they found in the grass and moved over to the sidewalk, flipping him over so he wouldn't wander back where they were cutting (and to be fair, "cutting the grass" doesn't really describe it. More like waging botannical warfare, really.) We picked him up and were playing with him immediately. I love this picture. How cute is my girl? Like seriously, how cute? 

Awww, lookat that face! How cute is he?! And the best part is, he makes little huffing noises while he crawls on you! He's GREAT! Unfortunately, he's also in danger with the lawnmowers around -- we're gonna have to box him upstairs until they finish up! 

"Meh! Let me OUT! Meh!" Okay, so maybe he's a little stronger than he looks. This is the third time he escaped -- the first time, he lifted the flap of the box; the second time, he lifted the flap of the box AND A BOOK! Not exactly a dictionary, but still! Put a napkin holder on top, and...he doesn't come out! Nope. He goes THROUGH! Pretty impressive. He doesn't look like he's ever in much of a hurry to get anywhere, but this guy is UNSTOPPABLE! 

Okay dude, I guess you can go now! The lawnmowers are gone! Man, it's kinda hard to let him go. No really, I can't get the hooks off my arm! Man, if he weren't so cute... Okay, got him off! He would make a great pet, but I bet customs would have a hissy fit. Yeah, as if all the species in South Florida are native. Heck, you can't even FIND anything native anymore, and these are a hell of a lot cooler than starlings! Well, anyway, bye dude. Hope you like the flower bed! 

Awww, here's my girl in our hammock! She found this at one of the craft markets for SUPER cheap, and it is beautiful (not to mention, INCREDIBLY comfy!). See, she's HIDING! I see you!!!! 

So, as a few people have heard, I surprised Melissa with a pair of earrings...but not just ANY earrings! While we were in NC for our big northern road trip (see WAY below, like, February or something), we stopped by Emerald Hollow and did some mining for gemstones. One of the stones we found was a very pretty chunk of Amazonite, a blue-green stone with white "ripples" running through it. Shortly thereafter, we happened to bump into a guy at a crafts fair here who did custom gold jewelry. About a month before I came down, I contacted the guy about a special project. He cut the stone into two miniature cabochons and set them in the back of two tiny, custom gold sea turtles. How's that for a one-of-a-kind gift? Hee-hee! I think they went over well! And they do look great on her... 

Awww, there's a smiley girl! I must have done good, whaddya think? I love you, babe! 

Pretty sweet, huh? Pretty suite, huh? Sorry, sorry. Somehow, Melissa's connections got us all hooked up with a private suite with queen-sized bed, private bathroom, and our own porch looking directly out into our own patch of forest! Nice stuff! 

Sunset over the rainforest; time for dinner and then bed! We have a LONG day ahead of us tomorrow! 

Our first full day in the forest, and today's first job is netting! There is a pair of Slatey Antshrikes who have built a nest but have never been captured and banded, so we are out to catch them before the eggs hatch. Melissa is carrying the mist net here; the poles are in her arms, the net is in her bag. The whole net rolls up a bit bigger than a softball, and when unrolled covers and area about the same as my apartment. It is SUPER fine, black mesh, and the name "mist net" is deceptive -- mist is A LOT easier to see than this net! Off we go up the hill, heading back towards today's working plot! 

AWWWWW!!!! Lookat what Melissa spotted! This is Dendrobates auratus, the local variety of poison arrow frog, and a super-cool one at that. This is one of my big sightings, the animals I REALLY wanted to see in the wild. Score! He's pretty tiny maybe half the size of my thumb, but that's full-grown. If you think THIS is cool, Melissa got some shots the other day of another poison arrow frog variety carrying tadpoles on his back! They usually lay eggs in the water pockets in bromeliads up in the trees. When the water level drops, they may have to move them to a new bromeliad, and when they get old enough, they may be moved to a stream. This is done by having the tadpoles swim onto the back of the adult, who then hops off with the babies stuck to him! Neat stuff! 

Arrived on site and set up the net around the Slatey Antshrike nest, then prepared the supplies for dealing with netted birds. The idea is to capture a known pair, get all sorts of measurements and health information on them as well as blood samples for parasites and genetic work, and then band the pair so they can be easily identified in the future. Kinda easier said than done. They sit the nest one at a time, taking breaks in between, OFTEN alternating (but not always). Once they settle down, they have to be spooked off in such a way that they go into the net. Now, you don't have to worry about them seeing the net (says the guy who walked into it three times despite knowing where it was!), but they do occaisionally bounce off it if they hit it wrong, which means at least another half hour of waiting before a bird comes back to the nest (more, if it happens to be the one you've already measured!). Fun stuff! We settled in and began the wait... 

While we were waiting for the birdies to return to the nest (so as to be flushed into the net), we heard a funky buzzing in the leaves. Melissa went to investigate, and found this awesome cicada! He was huge, and the sap on his wings made it tough for him to fly. Instead, he decided to buzz around as loudly as he could so as to let all the birds in the area know that he was helpless. Brilliant creatures, cicadas. We gave him a stern talking-to and set him on a vine, where he stayed for about 30 seconds before deciding to jump back in the leaves and resume buzzing. Stupid bug. 

Alright! We got the first of the pair, the female, virtually right off the bat! Flew right into the net! Good job, Missa! Guess this isn't gonna take so long after all, right? Guess again. The male was a total poohead -- we ended up spending half the day here waiting to finish up the pair. 

So, while we waited a couple HOURS for the stupid male to fly into the net, I amused myself by looking up birds in my copy of the Birds of Panama! Melissa got a cool picture here. No, that's not sunlight -- the book actually GLOWS with an ethereal light! My left knee does, too; it can be pretty embarassing sometimes. 

Here is Melissa laughing hysterically for absolutely NO REASON at all. Certainly not anything I did. 

FINALLY got the male, after about three false tries. Here, he gets weighed, measured, and banded... 

And now comes the Slatey's favorite part, the BLOOD SAMPLE! ("Oooooohhh!!!") He made a good fuss about it, but Melissa made it as painless as possible. First, a little stick... 

Oh, quit your whining! Honestly, you're worse than I am! It's only ONE PIPETTE of blood! 

A succesful Missa! That's the smile of a girl who knows we don't have to wait another hour to catch this pair! I can see how this job could drive you nuts. 

And here's the patient, all banded and measured and ready to go! He was a little bastard about it, but isn't he cute? 

Well, while the male Slatey Antshrike was getting uncaught from the net, we had another little drama. Another bird had gotten caught up without us seeing him, and had thrashed himself into the bottom of the net SERIOUSLY entangled (what they call "double bagged"). Melissa immediately turned her attention to this one while I held the Slatey, and once she got him free handed him over to me. I took him up the hill to try and get him going, but there honestly wasn't much hope. This is an adult Ruddy-Tailed Flycatcher, one of the smallest birds in the rainforest (excepting hummingbrids, of course), and as you can kinda see, his eyes are closed. Closed eyes are bad. Basically (as Melissa explained to me), when the birds get all caught up in the net, they get VERY stressed out, and can work themselves up past simple exhaustion to the point where the stress basically causes their system to just kinda...shut down. This ain't a nap, folks. A bird that has reached this point usually has a pretty slim chance of making it. Well, I held the little dude in the palm of my hand (weighed about the same as a quarter), tried to keep him warm, and prepared for the worst... 

...but after about twenty minutes of TLC, he came back! Still looks a little out of it, but he managed to fly away safely. A couple little bugs and a drink of water, and he'll be back on his feet in no time. Sorry, little dude! 

YAY, I found a BIRDIE! This is a male Masked Trogon, a first for me, and absolutely BEAUTIFUL bird. Sorry about the poor picture quality, but he wasn't real interested in letting me get ANY closer! Had to zoom and crop from forty feet away. 

A 'NAKE! Melissa saw this dude; she was walking point! This is probably the same one she saw here a while back, and she got some SUPER cool pictures of him before. Our best guess is, some sort of rat snake. Doesn't look much like any listed poisonous snake down there, but the snakes there don't follow North American rules of head shape or anything like that. Very cool. 

Oooh, another critter! This is a Leaf Toad, and although we've seen a lot of these, this dude was cool. Not only was he huge for a Leaf Toad, but he all sat still and did a leaf impression for us! You could tell his leg was cramping up; he's like "Take the damn picture and leave! I can't feel my toes!" 

Melissa found this cool spider towards the end of the time on the last plot. Pretty sweet. She has better pictures of these; check out her blog at http://www.iateabugtoo.blogspot.com . 

Got back to the lab, and Melissa showed me something cool -- they have bats that hang out right outside the labs! If you look carefully, the one in the middle even has a baby underneath. The Bat Lab is right next to this little hallway, and of course they couldn't resist the easy availability of research subjects -- If you take a close look, you will see little colored bands on the wing of each! They didn't seem to care much; actually, we figured they were showing them off ("Ha-ha! You got RED! I can't believe they gave you red! Loser. Check mine out, a sweet turquoise! I'm gonna go back and get a matching one for my other wing."). 

Second full day on the island, and we're off to a reasonably on-time start. Close enough, anyway. Hee-hee! As we head up to the path from the lab, we saw this dude on the wall: a Red-Headed Gecko. Pretty cool! Just wish he had his tail, but I guess he probably had a good reason for ditching it. You can see where the new one is growing in! 

As we left the old headquarters building where we fill up the water bottles each morning, we found a new friend! Pretty sweet, huh? He was MASSIVE. You kinda have to enlarge the picture to understand how frickin' HUGE this spider was. Tarantulas are okay, but they just look so bulk and slow. This guy moved like the wind -- you honestly couldn't even see him until he stood still again. I know that we are now giving certain Blog-viewers full-body shivvers...on to the next picture. 

At our second stop this morning, I hung out on the path and started playing around with my camera. The sunlight was just starting to come through the canopy, and I started trying to capture the way that light played down through the forest, the total greeness of everything around me, and the sort of violent growth that you see everywhere. I think I got three pictures that did an okay job of capturing what I saw when I looked at the rainforest as a whole. This first one was a macro, looking at the life that continually springs up from every crevice on the forest floor, and showing how a small plant can even make use of the three-inch height difference offered by a falling limb to put himself ahead and shade out his neighbors. Most forests, you have a feeling of peace and quiet. Here, you can never escape the fact that this is an active environment, these are trees on the move. You don't need fast-motion video to see how the plants are battling for space and light; it's right up in your face. This is wild in a way rarely seen in temperate zones. I tried to capture this in these three pictures, as well as the unique shades and highlights that come from each ray of light filtering down through thousands of leaves before it hits the forest floor. 

Picture #2, light falling through a gap in the canopy, filtering down through layers of understory. I really liked this one. 

As I continued to play with my camera, I started hearing some suspiciously monkey-like crashing-around in the trees down the path (near the base of the hill). I shot one more picture of the way the path disappears into the shade of the trees, then headed down the hill here to see if I could get a closer look... 

Ah-HAH! Found the source of the noise: a troop of White-Chinned Capuchins! Yes, this is the monkey that was used as an African Green Monkey for the movie Outbreak. They were crossing the path, I decided to get closer...and so began what I shall term my "Extreme Monkey Experience." 

Capuchin In Motion! Their jumping abilities are really something to see...and talk about gutsy! Three or four times, I would see a monkey go for a gap and think, "Oh man, he ain't gonna make it! There's NO WAY." Every single time, no mistake! 

I like this picture: the Noble Monkey! He was cute (at least so far...). 

Wow! Everything was going very well here! I was getting a closer look at these guys than I ever expected! Then... I got a really close look. Apparently, there were two females with babies RIGHT OVERHEAD. So, this guy and his buddy rushed me. Yep. Now, understand, we aren't talking about HUGE monkeys here, maybe a bit bigger than the average cat, but Capuchins are the only monkeys around here that have really been recorded to attack humans. In many areas (like on Pipeline Road, for example), if you see Capuchins, you book it in the opposite direction. The ones on the island SUPPOSEDLY are so studied and so used to humans that they have lost this aggresion. Um, yeah. So, basically, when there are babies around, ALL BETS ARE OFF. These guys got UP IN MY FACE, maybe five or six feet away (easy jumping distance -- I've seen them clear fifteen feet when they need to), shaking saplings at me, baring teeth and screeching... Believe me, I could have gotten an extreme closeup of a Capuchin nostril, but I decided that the flash (along with any sudden movements or noises) would probably be a BAD idea. I slowly backed away up the path, and while I was doing this, the two females safely crossed the tree above me and moved further away from the path. I escaped unscathed, although a couple continued to drop and throw stuff near me, and scooted back up the path. The funny thing is, it turned out that I never needed to go down the path at all. The troop turned and went right over my head! I sat very still on my rock, and they apparently accepted that this time, I was there first, and went along their way. Pretty cool, although a bit unnerving for a few seconds! Not really sure that I wanted to deal with a monkey bite! 

On the next plot we visited, I just hung out towards the edge of the path, hoping to avoid any more extreme monkey confrontations that way. Found a few cool ants and other bugs, identified the cicada that makes the cracking-branch noise (turns out, it was the same one that Melissa found yesterday!), and then heard something fall to the ground near me. I looked up, and... Yep! Whole troop of Howler Monkeys right overhead. If you look carefully, you can see at least six or seven in this picture. Pretty cool! 

Here's one of the females with a baby (see! the baby's all curious and stuff!). As soon as I got this shot, one of the males started getting worried about me, and said "woo-woo." I said, that's cool dude, I was just leaving! If you let them get warmed up, Howlers go for ten or fifteen minutes, and the sound is deafening. More importantly, it would make it all but impossible for Melissa to track the pair of antshrikes in this area to their nest for at least the next half-hour. I booked it up the path, and he let me go with just the "Woo-woo." 

Well, I had to run back and pack before the boat, so I went back early and grabbed lunch. On the way back, I got a few cool shots -- I liked this guy, another big cicada molt. 

Bye-bye, Barro Colorado! We're off to Gamboa again! This shot shows most of the buildings on the whole island -- it really is almost all preserve. See the big tree to the right of the center building? (I know, it's all trees.) Anyway, our place was back behind there a ways. 

End of our last day on the island, and I have a tired girl! Melissa took a nap on my lap on the ferry back to Gamboa -- nice leisurely ride, and I got to see a lot more of the area than I had before. Now, to be fair, she wasn't the only one napping. Not only did I kinda fall asleep a couple times on the way back, but I was all falling asleep back in the forest. There were a couple times that Melissa would come back to the trail and find me on a rock passed out and snoring. Hey now, no laughing! The rainforest is a tough place to work! 

So, last morning here (again!), and we decided to make the most of it! We're going EXPLORING! Took a drive over to the Gamboa Rainforest Resort, and a little walk down the hill to the annex where they have a lot of other Enviro-Education facilities. Checked out the herpetarium (mainly a lot of ex-pet constrictors and other boids, with a couple vipers thrown in) and gave the orchid garden a quick glance, but the coolest thing we found on the main annex grounds was this tree. Despite its appearance, this tree is almost dead. ALL of the green that you see is a crop of epiphytes, including orchids and bromeliads. 

A close-up of the tree. How cool is this? And there were a bunch of birdies hanging out around these, too, including my first flame-rumped tanagers! 

Nice little hike up the hill (lots of butterflies!), and we came to the Gamboa Rainforest Resort Canopy Tower! They we refurbishing the lower levels, but after climbing the gentle slope of the ramp up about 98 feet above the forest floor, you really can't hear the work going on below. It was very peaceful, with a nice breeze blowing through. I ran off to get another picture, and then turned around and snuck one of Melissa looking at butterflies right below the canopy level (around 80 feet or so). I think this is a really cute Melissa picture! Just wish I'd gotten someone to take one like this of both of us! 

Got to the top, and under the peak of the roof, we found a kinkajou curled up having a nap above the beam! The view from the top was awesome -- here is the Bridge of Doom that we cross over every time we come into Gamboa (the only paved parts are "tracks" that you have to keep your tires balanced on -- a little hairy, trust me!), which crosses the entrance of the Chagres River (left) into the Panama Canal. El Rio Chagres provides most of the water for the Panama Canal. Out beyond the bridge, you can see the drive out towards Albrook and Panama City... 

...and here's Gamboa! Our house (the research house) is almost right in the middle of the picture. 

I didn't get a good picture of the kinkajou, but I got one better: MY GIRL! Whatchu think, Melissa, time for lunch at the Rainforest Resort? Sounds like a good plan! 

So, end of the last day, time to go to the airport, so we hit the pool at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort for a little while and then called Jose, Melissa's personal transportation guardian (taxi driver). Jose comes and picks us up, sets off for the airport, and (surprise, surprise) we make FANTASTIC time. So, Jose announces that he has a treat for us, since I'm not going to be back to Panama anytime soon. He turns off the main road and up a funky hill that kinda overlooks the town of Albrook (we never even realized there was a road that goes up it!). Lo and behold, there is an ANCON park on the top of the hill-not-quite-a-mountain, with viewing stations all around. On one side, you can see most of the Panama Canal, stretching all the way past the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks, with the boat traffic running through the canal in both directions, and the contryside of Panama stretching out towards the Caribbean on the far side.

On the other side of the hill, we have the view of the Old Quarter of Panama City, some of which dates right back to the sacking of the original Panama City... 

...and new Panama City! This is a big, modern city, folks, reminiscent of Miami on a nice day. Beautiful view! 

Bridge of the Americas, the bridge that connects North and South America. We went over it last time on the way to El Cope. I have video. Pretty cool, huh? 

It's JOSE! Hi, Jose! Whatcha got there? Some cool flowers? Nice! Thanks for taking us on this side trip! Jose is one cool taxi driver! 

Last stop before the airport...Panama Viejo (Old Panama City)! We took the road right through the ruins of the city that was sacked and burned by the English pirate Captain Morgan in the 1700s. We even got to see the bell tower (here), which is the most recognizable feature of the ruins and the national symbol! Pretty sweet. Another great visit comes to a close, but not for too long -- I'll have my girl back on August first! Yaayyyyy!!!! 

So, I've recently been finding little ways to keep myself occupied down here (especially because I miss my girl!), and this one came up the other day. I was messing around with some spare line, and I made a little bracelet-sized ring. Hmmm, what can we use this for... Of course! Narrator Ring Toss!!! As you can see, the object is to fling the ring from a distance of ten feet in such a way that it hooks on the other narrator's microphone. Of course, you are not required by the rules to notify the other narrator that you are intending to start a game; you can just wing it at him or her while they are narrating or talking to a customer. The best part is, the vast majority of the time you miss, smacking the other narrator in the nose with the rope ring...and then they'll toss it back so you can do it AGAIN! Great, huh? Of course, you do occaisionally have to actually aim for the microphone, or they'll stop playing. 

GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!! Yeah, so the customers enjoyed this one almost as much as I did. (I won, 26 to 4). 

How about something a little more organized? Dineke and Jonathan had a game night over at there place the other night and invited me, Adrian and Dylan (Jonathan's friends), and their parents. We played Tip It, Chinese Checkers, Connect Four, and the most unorganized Clue game in history (the winner ended up being the kid who was losing -- all the rest of us gave up and made random guesses after an hour and a half. My carefully collected information indicated that the murder ocurred in the Dining Room, using both the Knife and Lead Pipe, and that no one was guilty. My probable suicide theory didn't go over well.) 

Summer weather in the Keys. We're now in the season of the daily afternoon thundershower, but some days are more impressive than others. This was one of the largest supercell cumulonimbus I've ever seen -- this is only the leading edge, and the top of the anvil aparently reached almost to Ft. Lauderdale, north of Miami. The funny part is, these very rarely rain on us. They dump on the island, and if you're out on a boat, you end up untouched! 

Dunno if you can see it, but there is a waterspout rapidly spiraling down right in the middle of this picture. This supercell ended up forming three good ones before it petered out. 

Okay, a little present for anyone who still checks my blog periodically... Some Keys sunsets! This is the time of year for the best ones, with the haze left over from the afternoon thundershowers. I liked this one because of the neon pink on the edge of the clouds at the bottom. 

This one was great, with almost a full rainbow of colors across the sky. This turned every window in the house blood-red, so I came out to check it! 

Here's a neat, kinda moody dark one. 

Had an iguana on the fence yesterday. We see them around pretty often (they are an invasive exotic, but then again so are we), but this one was a juvenile that was really cool-looking. Very nice colors. Thunder tried to make friends, in doggie fashion, but the lizard wasn't too big on butt-sniffing. He ran and spent the rest of the afternoon in the palm tree. 

So, we lost two narrators recently. Overboard. No, seriously! Both Steve and Colleen left at the end of last month, and we have a tradition on the Spirit where, on the crew's last day, they jump off the top deck. It's something everyone would like to try, but they are usually afraid of doing for fear of getting in trouble with the captain until their last day (I say usually because both Matt and I have done it...); on the other end, because of insurance reasons, we can't let anyone do it unless they are a current park employee. So, what we do is wait until the last day, and they jump off the top rail at the last moment of their employment with the Company! As far as I know, this is the first double-jumping ceremony we've ever had (narrators tend to leave one at a time). It's one of those things that sounds like a great idea a day ahead of time, but when they actually start looking over the railing, you frequently have to remind them that the original ceremony was to be THROWN off by the remaining crew... Here, Steve and Colleen are looking down at the ledge that happens to come within six feet of the surface directly under the railing of the boat and calculating how far they'll have to jump out to reach safe water. 

They're ready, and over the railing we go! Positions everyone! Roll camera! Music! How about...Ozzy Ozzbourne, "Crazy Train"? ALLLLLLLL AAABOOOOOAAAARRRRRD!!!!!! AHHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!! Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!!!!! Matt on the microphone, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the drumming out ceremony for the Spirit of Pennekamp!" 

Whatcha think, Colleen? No, we didn't catch Colleen at a bad moment. She's afraid of heights, so she had her eyes closed the entire time. Needless to say, the side rail of the Spirit is NOT the best place to be if you aren't big on heights, but she did great! (By the way, she reports that having your eyes closed makes the whole experience A LOT scarier). 

Think Steve looks cool, calm, and relaxed? Yeah...check out his arm down by the railing. He has a death grip on that top rail. We're lucky we could get the fingerprints out of the paint. He's trying to look studly because his girlfriend had the camera! 

AaaaiiiiirrrrrBORNE!!! Now, I'm making fun of the whole thing, but it is REALLY a pretty good ways down from here. Once you push off the rails, it makes the three-meter board at the pool look like nothing. It's actually long enough to briefly reflect on how STUPID it was to push off the boat and how much you wish you were back up on the rails...then you hit! Water up the nose, in your ears, in your mouth and eyes, in your...everywhere; anyways, fun stuff. Colleen is holding her nose because she is sick and her doctor last night told her that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should she speak unnecessarily or swim. So...she narrated two reefs and is jumping off the boat now! She'll listen to the doctor TOMORROW! 

IMPACT! We had someone standing by to clock them out as they hit! They are now both OFFICIALLY ex-Narrators. No, I'm not sure why Steve made three times the splash that Colleen did. 

How's the water, guys? Apparently it hasn't been warming up in the marina QUITE as fast as we had been told... 

Hep me!!! Hep me!!! Hep me!!! 

Steve was not content to merely jump from the top deck; no, he had to be rescued. Man Overboard, Starboard Side! Marker Buoy is in the water! Man overboard is 15 feet from starboard quarter; cut engines! Ring Buoy is in the water! Ring Buoy is on board! Man is on board, all is clear! Don't worry, Captain Troy. We washed all the salt off the buoy! 

So the other evening, as I was about to get online to chat with Melissa, the windows of my appartment lit up with this incredible pink color. I stepped outside, and got to watch one of the best Keys sunsets I've gotten to see down here. 

As the sunset faded, it shifted through the whole spectrum, an incredible lightshow. Going...going... 

Bye-bye, sun! This part turned every window in the house blood-red. Pretty cool. 

So, on the way back in the other evening, we picked up a hitchhiker. This little dude (a Prarie Warbler) was migrating north through the Keys and couldn't...make...it...one...more...mile! So, he landed on the top deck, and immediately started making friends with everyone up there, hopping from shoulder to shoulder. He hung out on mine for a while (sorry, folks, no pictures), and as soon as we got close to land, flew off! He had stayed with us for about half an hour by the time he left!

Finding a little shade and getting away from the crowd... Don't worry, about 30 seconds later, he decided that he'd had enough alone time and flew back out in search of another buddy! 

Here's a nice perch! Oh wait, this won't work...I clash horribly with her shirt! Must find something yellow... 

Yeah, that's closer! 

Awww, how cute is this? We got the little kid, and I think the little birdie works fine instead of a puppy. You know if this was an advertisement, you would buy whatever I was selling! Wasted opportunity -- should have had the kid hold a Sprite... 

Later that afternoon, me driving the Spirit. Don't ask me what that expression is, I have no idea. Maybe something's in my teeth... 

So I'm back from my trip (actually, at the time I'm writing this, I'm getting ready to head down again!), and I brought back some cool souveniers. Most of them I'm not gonna blog, so if you want to see them you're just gonna have to come out to our place in Arizona (hee-hee!), but I will put up pictures of the hat and tagua nut carving. This is the hat, a true Panama hat, the national hat of Panama. Yes, I know it doesn't look quite like what most people think of as Panama hats -- the plain white loose-weave ones are actually Ecuadorean. These ones are made in Penome (can't put in the accent -- that's "Pen-oh-may"), and so are also known as "Penome hats", and are woven with the black-dyed fibers to make cool designs (the weavers use all-natural, traditional dyes for this). High-quality ones are so tightly-woven that they will hold water! This one was pretty good, but not too expensive. As you can see, most Panamanians have slightly smaller heads than I do! I like it, tho -- it's as much a piece of art as it is headwear! 

Here's the tagua nut (ivory nut) carving! I liked it a lot -- it's a keel-billed toucan, the one bird I most wanted to see in Panama, which we got a great look at in the cloud forest at El Cope! The carving was well-done, and I love the way it was painted.