There used to be four small islands off of Panama City. Then they dug the Panama Canal, and needed somewhere to put all the rock that had been dug up. Very quickly the four small islands became The Amador Causeway. Now there are a variety of attractions on the causeway, including restaurants, duty free stores, a cruise ship terminal (under ( Read more... )

Birdie: "Mommy, I don't want you to talk to me anymore ever again. I have enough problems as it is."

She changed her mind pretty quickly, but that one has had us laughing for several days now.

CategoryFinished This MonthFinished YTD
Books951
Comics231
Poetry06
Kids33429
Total44517
Slush Pile
I track the books I read for three reasons ( Read more... )

We woke up, had another brunch, and then our guides drove us an hour to Gamboa National Park. The town of Gamboa was originally built to house employees of the Panama Canal. It's near where the Chagres River feeds into the Panama Canal and is relatively isolated, so the rain forests around it are comparatively undisturbed. Today it's a good place ( Read more... )

Earlier this week, we flipped Birdie's car seat around in M's car so that it faces forward instead of back. And by we, I mean the nice people at the children's hospital who offer car seat installation as a service took it out and put it back in for us. In the process, the seat was also moved from the center of the back seat to the passenger side ( Read more... )

Birdie's classes for the fall are starting to wrap up as we approach the holidays. This fall she did ( Read more... )

Our first day in Panama (February 17) set the model for the first four days of our trip. First, we'd have breakfast. The Panama City Hilton had an excellent breakfast. Most of the food was standard American breakfasts, done extremely well. The only thing particularly "Panamanian" about the meal was a veritable wall of fresh fruit, particularly ( Read more... )

On Friday, February 16, we all flew to Panama City. My sister's family had a direct from Atlanta. Our route was somewhat more circuitous. My parents drove to Cleveland the night before. We'd determined that trying to put a car seat in a taxi while dealing with all our luggage wasn't worth it, so the next morning all five of us squeezed into M's car ( Read more... )

My parents celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2023. They decided that for their anniversary they wanted to take their children and grandchildren on a big vacation. They chose Panama as the destination, and so the 9 of us flew to Panama on Friday, February 16 and returned to the United States on Sunday, February 25. I've already posted a fair ( Read more... )

So far this year I've seen Mavis Staples as well as Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. Mavis and Bob are both in their eighties. Willie is 91. Back when I bought the Willie Nelson tickets there was a brief discussion on Facebook about how old various musicians were when I saw them. After poking through my lists, I'm reasonably confident that Willie ( Read more... )