Costa Rica

When I did the American Lung Association stair climb in May 2009 I was the second highest fund raiser. For every $500.00 raised you got your name entered for 2 First Class Tickets on Continental to the 48 states, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean. Well I don't win things very often but I was thrilled to win a set of these airline tickets.

I had decided to take my best friend Sheryl with me and the two of us decided to visit Costa Rica. We had a fantastic week long trip where we visited an active erupting volcano at Arenal for a couple days while staying at the Volcano Observatory. Then we headed west to the Cloud Forest in Monteverde where we stayed at the preserve. We wrapped up our trip in Manuel Antonio which is located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

The rest can be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtwildflower

















Sheryl and I in front of one of the water falls on our hike at Arenal

Arenal Volcano which was always hidden in the clouds. We could hear it erupting but never actually saw the activity

This is one of the many humming birds we saw in Monteverde. The turquoise color is the feathers on the top of its head

The monkey's in the national park in Manuel Antonio used to be fed and since they don't feed them anymore, the monkey's have learned to steal from the tourists... this little guy grabbed a juice box and has figured out how to drink from it

Ziplining Costa Rica Style

One of the things we did in Costa Rica was go on a Rain Forest Canopy zipline tour in Monteverde. Here are a few pictures from this adventure. In all there were 15 stops and the entire tour lasted just over 2.5 hours. It was a blast and I will continue to find zipline activities on all my future travels.

Quito, Cotopaxi and the Galapagos Islands

Alison and I had a fantastic time exploring some of the treasures that Ecuador has to offer. We flew down to Quito, the capital of Ecuador on Feb 24. Our first full day at 9,400 ft was spent exploring the old colonial part of Quito. The second full day was spent about 2 hrs southwest of Quito at Cotopaxi National Park where we climbed a bit of Cotopaxi mountain. Who knew that it could sleet on you at 15,000 ft at the equator!! Our final day before flying to the Galapagos Islands was spent walking around Quito and catching all that we missed on the first day there.

Then Sunday Feb 28 we flew from Quito to Guayaquil which is a short 30 min flight. In Guayaquil we picked up some more people travelling to the Galapagos Islands. The flight from Guayaquil to San Cristobal was about 1 hr 30 min. We landed in paradise just after 12:30 pm mainland time.

From Feb 28 to Mar 7 we spent our time hiking, snorkeling and enjoying our adventure on 9 different islands in the Galapagos. We met 17 amazing and wonderful people that I will always remember fondly.

Here are a few great shots and you can find the rest at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtwildflower

Trip to Seattle

We had a great trip to Seattle. Aislin very much enjoyed our time at tha park as evident by these pictures. She is getting soooo big.

April Field Training in South Carolina

Sorry it's been a while since my last blog. A lot has happened since San Antonio. One big event was my recent training field trip to South Carolina. Here are just a few pictures of what field work and field trips are like for a geologist working in the oil industry. Not a bad life if I say so myself.



Scraping the walls smooth in a trench that we just dug. We are looking at the wave formed sand dunes along the beach.



























Here with my new friend Tom after our intense mud fight that left mud in places mud should never be... i.e. ears, teeth... well you get the picture.






















Stewart, Emily and me posing with one of the drowned trees.























My new gang of geology friends: Stewart, Natasha, Tom, Me, and Emily after our mud fight.



















Digging a trench.. see geologists do actual hard physical labor while they are on field trips... ok, it was the only physical labor we did all week.