Home from Costa Rica and Panama - counting the feet of snow!!!!

 Added a few words to trip photos below!  And I did forget to mention that on 18 February there was an earthquake 2:45am and 5.5 magnitude and we didn't even feel it but others did.  There are 2,000 tremors a year and there are 3 plates called Cosco, Nasca and Carribean faults

Today is 10 March 2023 and we returned from our Costa Rica, Panama trip on 28 February and life is busy!  First off - the SNOW - we are at about 78 inches or so as of today and maybe 6 more inches arriving tomorrow.  It's kind of like a Snow Tournament as the hockey tournaments are now happening too!

It's pretty exciting as Alex's hockey team made it to the Jr. Gold state tournaments this weekend and we can stream to our big TV and could even watch it in Panama!

I can't believe this kid is a senior, last year of hockey after starting at 4 years old and has chosen his college - UND aka University of North Dakota the same place where his mom and dad met and Chris finished law school there.

The big win and so cool to see all these junior and senior hockey players hugging after the big win!

OK this is 6 March 2023 - "quite a bit of snow" as they say in MiniSnowda:

And this is this morning - yup fer shur ya betcha uffda - we got more!

I have a lot of stories, history and tales to tell but for a start I will post some photos from our trip.  We have now been home 10 days!

Yes this means stop and it made me wonder why the choir has alto voices along with soprano and bass - hmmmmm?????

Beautiful theatre 19th century.   President Cortes in 1930s wanted to follow like Hitler and Costa Rica has a lot of difficult history under different rulers.

I think these are some kind of exhaust or air pipes for whatever is below think and it is on museum property.

Visited the Gold Museum and this is solid gold!

Yup it is wrapped up corpse but not a real one just an example of how dead people were taken care of.

Example of a pierced ear in one of the Native statues.  I can't even imagine what that would feel like but this guy looks pretty fit and healthy.

30 years ago or so the crack, cocaine and drug dealers were breaking into all kinds of house most likely for money or whatever and a new law was put in place to allow electric fences.  Judges allowed 2 legal guns per house so it is thought that was part of the theft problem.  Now it is legal to kill if you are defending your house and family.  These wires were all over but just in this certain area of San Jose.

There are many mansion type homes of expats and retirees from all over and there are also very humble dwellings.

We saw a lot of roadside market stops and Costa Rica is known for the best strawberries in the world and I believe that!

We visited a craft village Sarchi who is known for woodworking and homemade painted carts at one time used to carry stuff and called ox carts and now used more for weddings and entertainment. This is homemade and absolutely beautiful