The English prefixes bi- and semi- are often mixed up by native speakers. A semi-annual reading of this lesson will help more than a bi-annual one: Bi- vs Semi-
…Being Here
After a week and a half, things are settling into a routine. The dial up is painfully slow, but I’m learning to do all of my writing offline and just connect to copy/paste and send. It’s great to work for a couple of hours, go for a swim, work some more, walk on the beach, work a bit, etc.
Our neighbor is a lodge with a great restaurant and one of the best views in the area – 180 degrees of surf, sand, river, and forest reserve. The beaches are gorgeous and the water is almost warm. Continue reading
…Arriving…
…and were happily surprised at the size. It’s a studio with a full kitchen and bath, and the half-covered terrace is just gorgeous. With the French doors open, it’s a big indoor/outdoor apartment. There’s a lovely pool that we didn’t expect to use, but have been going in on average twice a day, next to a barbecue area. The grounds are extremely lush, with different kinds of flowers as well as plantain, banana, papaya, mango, and avocado trees, and there’s a spot where we’ll be able to plant some tomatoes and lettuce.
It’s hot (80ish), breezy, and very humid, and it rains off and on throughout the day, sometimes quite unexpectedly. The beaches are gorgeous and pretty much deserted at the moment. The ocean water is fairly cool at the beach closest to us and warmer at the better surfing beach to the south, which is the one we can see from our terrace.
Getting there…
Wednesday was a very long day. I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I spent most of the day making sure both laptops were up to date and packing up my desk while my husband did the geometry required to stuff nearly everything we own into the slightly too small 10×10 foot storage space. We also had to deal with transferring the car title, make two post office runs, visit the accountant, go to one bank to withdraw money and another to fill up our safe deposit box (we didn’t get there until after it closed, so then had to ask a friend to do it for us the next day – let’s hope he’s honest! ;-)) All in all, we didn’t finish packing until 10pm and didn’t get dropped off at our hotel by the airport until 11. By the time we checked in and ate it was after midnight, and our wake-up call was for 3:45. Ugh. Continue reading
US Southwest, in sum
So that’s it. We spent 14 days in the US southwest, during which we visited 6 states: Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, plus the Mexican state of Chihuahua. We flew from Philadelphia to Las Vegas, drove 2,757 miles, hiked at least 15 miles, took over 200 pictures, and flew home from El Paso. I only went online once. We saved at least $20 by purchasing America The Beautiful, the national parks and federal recreational lands annual pass. We actually bought it after we’d already been to several parks, but since we had the receipts and it had been less than two weeks since our visit, they credited our entrance fees against the cost of the pass ($80).
We had a great time, but we felt pretty burnt out by around day 10. Now we’re back safe and sound, packing up for our move to Costa Rica next week. ¡Hasta luego!
El Paso, Juárez, Carslbad Caverns (days 12-14)
We spent our last three days in El Paso, visiting different friends. With one of them, we drove just south of the border into Juárez, Mexico, where we saw a fantastic dinner show at Viva Mexico.* Continue reading