Ten Day Time-Out

Image by Clare H-P via Flickr

Just a note to say that Pat and I were gone for 10 days on a cruise in the Caribbean. We hit the high spots in Aruba, Curacao, Panama and Costa Rica. It was an excellent vacation but I'm glad to be back here to get my garden going.

Panama has changed a great deal. The Bridge of the Americas is still there, but the traffic now goes by a huge concrete and wire bridge that crosses the canal on the Atlantic side of Pedro Miguel Locks. The new one, called the Puente Centenario Bridge is fairly close to where Engineer's Point used to be. I say "used to be" because they have blown a good 200 feet off the bluff making room for the great expansion which is to take place in 2014. They are really working. I couldn't find out if the Chinese were the money behind the expansion.

A lot of the forts/bases that were turned over are private property now. The Panamanians are doing a fair job of keeping the canal trimmed (using "grass ninjas" and at least one John Deere tractor with a bush-hog. ) It doesn't look like it did when the US was in charge.

I guess that at some point in the not to distant future, we are going to have to suffer some casualties in order to keep it open. Damn Jimmy Carter! And the horse he rode in on!