We were invited to a day in the country by a Peruvian family now living in Cuenca. Alberto Soriano is a well known Peruvian artist that Evelyn took painting classes from on our first trip here in 2012. He speaks almost no English, which means we get to practice our Spanish when talking to him. […]
SOLD
We decided to sell our California house in January 2013, and finally got it on the market in June 2013 (it took longer to pack & give away a lifetime of stuff, plus prep the house than I had expected). After five months of no offers, we took it off the market in November. […]
Lift Off!
Like many kids, I was enthralled with space exploration. I remember going outside at night to watch Sputnik go overhead in 1957. I saved extra copies of the newspaper when was I a paper-boy the day John Glen went around the earth in a Mercury capsule in 1961. And I actually helped design the mirror […]
Hit By Dragon Snot
Entering Hogsmead felt like Harry first showing up in town, not sure where to turn We are both fans of the Harry Potter books and movies, so when coming to Florida, we had to stop by and see the new Harry Potter World. We bought a two day pass to let us go to Adventure […]
Ringling Circus Museum
Sarasota, Florida was the home of Ringling Bros Circus, and now presents the Ringling Bros Art Museum. Upon entering, the first thing you see is a massive circus in miniature, covering 3700 square feet, reproducing in astonishing detail an early circus lot. The original circus would typically cover an area of 30 acres, requiring 1000 […]
Mommy, Where Do Fireworks Come From?
We have been eating our way across Southern Florida the last few days, as well as stopping in art stores, office supply stores and others, buying stuff we can’t get in Ecuador. Today, we were driving along the Tamiami Trail, heading North out of Naples, and I saw a humongous fireworks store. I had never […]
Everglades Airboat
This afternoon we drove from Miami to Naples, across the Florida Everglades. Along the way, we stopped at Buffalo Tiger’s Everglades Airboat tours. We have seen these airboats periodically on TV and in the movies, and this was our chance to see what they were like to ride. This tour guide had the highest rating […]
Lock and Load
Yesterday we went to a pistol firing range for the first time. Today we upped the ante, and went to a machine gun firing range called Lock and Load! We started out with nearly an hour of explanation of what the various gun choices were, and then training on how to stand and fire. These […]
Bulls Eye
We went this morning to the Stone Hart shooting range in Miami, and each fired 25 rounds of a Glock 9mm pistol for the first time in our lives. We have watched cop shows and action movies for years, and wondered “is it really that hard to hit something?” We decided to go try it […]
Tornado!
We flew from Cuenca to Quito, then on to Miami today. We are here to handle some legal issues that required being in the States (more details on that next week). When arriving, our first stop was a local Citibank branch, to handle closing out an obsolete account. While there, the wind whipped into […]