Days 1&2 Portland to Buenos Aires, AR

Friday, March 20th -- Well, it takes two days to get to Buenos Aires.  We arrived today after an afternoon flight from Portland to Dallas/Ft. Worth taking 3 hours, two hours layover in Dallas, and then an overnight flight to Buenos Aires taking nearly 10 hours.  For perspective, it takes 10 hours or so to get to Sydney Australia or to Auckland, NZ.

I watched a couple of movies -- Dead of Winter, with Emma Thompson, playing a grieving wife in Upper Minnesota, with a Frances McDermott accent, F1, Brad Pitt as an old driver trying to make it again in Formula One racing, The Unholy Trinity, and Just Cause.  Betsy and I dined on good food and tried to sleep, somewhat successfully, for a few hours.  American Airlines fed us again about 90 minutes before landing (fruit plates with yogurt).

We arrive in Buenos Aires at around 9:00 am local time (4 hours later than Portland time), passed through passport control easily, reclaimed our checked luggage with no waiting, and exited the "secure" area.  Elaine, my sister who will be sharing our adventures on this trip, was waiting for us outside with the hordes of greeters.  She had scoped out how to transfer to our hotel.  The recommended firm did not have any vans suitable for the three of us, but we got setup by a neighboring company, which worked out well.  Diego, our driver, drove us to the Emperador Hotel, located in the center of downtown, taking about an hour -- lots of traffic and other "normal" stuff.   The last couple of miles was on a main thoroughfare and I snapped a few photos of what I thought might be important.

The Buenos Aires Airport

The Obelisk de Buenos Aires -- a national historic monument and icon of Buenos Aires, erected in 1936 to commemorate the quadricentennial of the city.

One of several buildings with Eva Peron "mural."  This is the one where she is smiling; the other one has her looking fierce and holding a microphone.  Some people thought the microphone was a hamburger which she was eating???

View from our 11th floor hotel room.

Ditto, looking NE over the train station/yard with the large estuary behind.

An enterprising dog walker....

After resting a bit and cleaning up, we went for a gentle stroll around the city, walking 2.4 miles northwest paralleling the water front, though the actual water was still a ways away across train tracks and the port facilities.

There is a large park area to the north of the walkway with a couple of statues.

Three photos of  Bunya Trees, a conifer native to Australia; not to be confused with a Banyan Tree which is a fig tree native to India. 

We took a drink break at this outdoor cafe - I had tea service complete with scones, ham and cheese sandwich, and several cakes, which I shared.  Betsy and Elaine had drinks.

We walked back to the hotel via a "busy" area of upscale shops and the like.  We stopped at a money exchange to get a few Argentinian pesos (ARS).  Strangely, one cannot purchase ARS's in the US (possible because the currency is very unstable), and the one ATM we looked at was unfathomable and not worth risking losing a credit card.  We stopped off for juice and water at a market and paid with our new pesos.  In the category of TMI but important for our recordkeeping, with $100 we got 132,000 ARS, which works out to be a $5.38 exchange fee.

A "record photo" of the Emperador hotel.

Day 0, Adventures Argentina & Chile

Wednesday, March 18th -- Betsy and I are geared up and ready for a new adventure.  We depart Portland tomorrow, flying to Buenos Aires via Dallas/Ft Worth.  We arrive in Argentina on Friday morning.

After a few days, first at Iguazu Falls and then Buenos Aires, we meet up with Hurtigurten Expeditions for a flight to Ushuaia, Argentina, located at the southern tip of South America (SA).  We board the MS Roald Amundsen for a 15-day cruise in and around the Chilean fjords, ending at Valparaiso, Chile.  After a few days of sightseeing in Valparaiso, we travel home to Portland, via Santiago, Miami, and Los Angeles.

I am not sure how good the internet service will be in SA or on board the ship, but I will record our adventures through blog posts like this.  And, I will attempt to send out emails with a link to the latest post.

This post is entitled "Day 0" since the trip has not quite begun, and allows me to "re-learn" the steps for writing them and for attaching photos.

As for a test photo, here is the latest progress on finishing our new Sunroom in Sisters, OR 

We laid the flooring and installed all of the wooden trim around the windows and the wainscoting.

As I have offered in the past, if you would prefer to be removed from the distribution list forwarding links to this blog, then reply to the email message with the word "unsubscribe" or tell me "to stop cluttering up your inbox."

Cheers, 

   Philip and Betsy

Betsy's Birthday Trip

Wednesday, February 25 -- We are spending three days on the Oregon Coast, staying at the Inn at Manzanita to celebrate Betsy's birthday.  Today, we drove from Portland to Cannon Beach to complete a 4.7-mile Volkswalk track around town and south along the beach past Haystack Rock and then returned.  Here is what we saw:

Ochre Sea Stars feasting on mussels.

Giant Green Anemone.

Ditto.

A Horned Nudibranch (or Sea Slug), captured by a naturalist.

Another Nudibranch in the tide pool, wild and a little smaller.  The horns are on the right side.

Ochre Sea Star.

Gooseneck Barnacles.

Pacific Acorn Barnacles.  The barnacles were stratified on the rock with these at the highest elevation, the Goosenecks below, and Mussels at the lowest level, over a vertical span of about 4 feet.

An Aggregating Anemone.

A Fiddler Crab.

All of the above critters were found in the tide pools at the base of Haystack Rock

After the tide pools, we continued walking along the beach and found the smallest sand dollar ever.  The sand dollar is on the right next to my keys, a keyfob, and a bottle opener.

We made in to the famous Stephanie Inn, which has lots of rabbits who keep the grasses mowed.

The elk also do some pruning of the bushes.

In fact, the rabbits have spread over a wider area.  This one looks almost like a "belted cow."

Ditto, but with a different color scheme.

After exiting the beach and turning north, we passed by more elk on the streets.

Wild Daffodil

Calla Lily

Green-winged Teal.

Some interesting birdhouses, with mushrooms, all wooden.

We arrived back to our car and drove south on the Oregon Coast Highway 101, which is also named the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq Veterans Memorial Highway (who knew), to the small town of Manzanita, OR.  

After checking in at the Inn, and resting a bit, we walked up the Main Street of Manzanita to the Offshore Grill for dinner,

which featured several brews for local breweries.  This is a particular favorite located in Astoria, OR.

Dinner was "Seafood Louie" for me,

and "Steamer Clams" and house salad for Betsy.

The critters, plants and the duck were all identified using the App 'Seek', adding to my list of observed species.  I have observed about 600 species of the 90,000 species that the latest version of Seek can identify -- lots more to do.

Cheers!

Christmas Evening

December 24th - Happy Christmas, almost....

Lots of fun with family and great eating.

On Sunday night, we went out to view neighborhood Christmas lights.  Our first stop was at a house which broadcasts a 45-minute music medley harmonized with house lights.  It is unique and well done - there is no sound outside of one's car, just flashing or pulsating lights.  The soundtrack comes through a limited FM broadcast -- note the frequency in the lower right side of this photo.

Brent and Stephanie's new car - a minivan!

Ditto.

But before today, Catherine, Betsy, and I took a brief excursion to Monterey, to give our hosts a break from hosting us.  We drove to Monterey on Monday, returning late on Tuesday.  We left Castro Valley in heavy rain but arrived in the Monterey Bay Area with vastly improved weather.  We drove the famous 17-mile drive past the majestic homes of Carmel and around parts of three or four notable golf courses (Pebble Beach, etc).  We had a memorable stop on the coast for sea otter and bird sightings.  We also stopped at the Lone Cypress tree.

Candelabra Aloe overlooking a Carmel beach.

A raft of Sea Otters, resting amidst the kelp.

Brown Pelicans.

Ditto.

The Lone Cypress, a famous landmark on the 17-mile drive.

The sisters.

Then we drove north along the coast past Asilomar, Pacific Grove and into Monterey.  We checked into the Cannery Row Inn, then walked to the Monterey Aquarium to buy entrance tickets for the next day.  We walked the main road along the Cannery Row, and stopped in a wine tasting room for drinks.  I bought snacks at a nearby Italian deli and brought them back to have them with the wine flight and meads.  For dinner, we went back to a favorite restaurant that Betsy and I had found several years ago -Wildfish.  The three of us enjoyed a relaxing dinner -- Betsy and Catherine had poke bowls and popovers; I had halibut.

Murals celebrating the canneries.

Ditto.

Wildfish Restaurant in Pacific Grove.

The next morning we checked out of the inn, but left the car in the inn parking lot, walked to a coffee shop before entering the flow into the aquarium.  It was busy with lots of families and small children,  not surprising given that school was on the Christmas break.  

The Monterey Aquarium.

We arrived shortly after opening and join the hordes for the 10:30 am sea otter feeding.  We then moved to the Deep Sea tank for its feeding (lots of white fin tuna, dolphin fish, and sardines cruising around the massive enclosure).  It was fun to watch the tuna and dolphin fish scarf up the nuggets of food -- the fish seem respectful of each other, never bumping into each other, and capturing every morsel before it fell much more than a foot or two below the surface.  These bigger fish were well fed before the sardines were fed a more typical powdery food.  Sardines are filter feeders.  They also form quite large schools of fish.

We toured the rest of the aquarium exhibits, enjoying the jellys, the kelp forest tank, and the tideland  aviary.

Pacific Sea Nettle

Purpled-striped Sea Nettle.

Blacksmith Chromis.

Olive Rockfish that seemed intrigued with Phil.

Yellow Fin Tuna.

Black Necked Stilt.

Marbled Godwit.

After the aquarium, we drove north to Moss Landing to meet up with our friend Ralph, a superior blogger that I wish to be, whom we met on our 2015 Japanese trip.  His wife, Donna, was away taking care of their older daughter who recently broke her ankle.  We met Ralph at their vacation house that overlooks dunes and Monterey Bay in one direction and artichoke fields in the other; their "first" home is in Emeryville,  just north of Oakland where we have met with him and Donna on other visits to the Bay Area.  We enjoyed a great lunch at the Woodward Marina Market at Moss Landing.

We dropped Ralph off at his home and then drove north to Santa Cruz, over the coast range to San Jose, and north up I-880, a miserable, congested ride of nearly 3 hours.  We picked up Thai food at a local restaurant to feed everyone at Brent's and Stephanie's.  Stephanie's mother, Debbie, arrived that afternoon, to join the Christmas festivities.

Today, Brent and I worked on a pullout rack/drawer for his kitchen, something he had not completed in four years.  On our last visit in May, we took measurements of the drawer opening.  I designed a rack for him and constructed the components in Portland.  Betsy and I brought the components with us on this trip, and Brent and I fitted the pieces to the drawer box.  This is the last unfinished bit of the kitchen -- he said "the island is now done."

The final, installed pegboard rack for hanging kitchen tools.

Christmas Eve dinner of appetizers, etc.  Logan, Catherine, Debbie, Stephanie, Cooper (behind Brent), Brent, Betsy and me.

Cooper (17 months), 'reading' a book.

Happy Christmas everyone!!!!