El Avion Reading the news today, I saw that Oliver North was stepping down as the President of the National Rifle Association. This reminded me of something that made the Hotel Costa Verde unique and fun. You may recall that when we were staying there, we spent one night in the cockpit cottage. They also …
Ceding Control on a West Coast Jaunt
Usually I am writing about my decisions or my future decisions about travel or how we decide what we're going to do and where we're going to do it, but much of my next trip will not be up to me. I did decide to go to Oakland, Calif., to see a very dear friend …
Opening Day!
The spring has arrived. I know this, not because it has stopped snowing in Chicago, but because baseball season has arrived. As Josh & I continue our tour of stadiums, we are attending opening weekend at Chase Field in Phoenix. Number 18 on our tour. We decided to attend the first two games of the …
Hotel Costa Verde
After our night at El Toledo Coffee Farm, we headed to Karl's suggested spot: Hotel Costa Verde. We loved it there, it's beautiful and the views are spectacular, but we--of course--did have some quibbles. We loved the fact that there was an adults-only building and swimming pool. Nothing wrong with kids, but I don't really …
So Long, Costa Rica
We arrived at the hotel late in the afternoon and decided to hit the pool bar for a quick drink. Unfortunately, the hotel had closed the pool bar for a private party :-(. Oh well, we wandered down to the lobby restaurant, had a drink and planned dinner. There was an Italian restaurant called Lo …
Last Full Day :(
We said goodbye to our gracious hosts, Karl and Guiselle, and headed back around the lake to La Fortuna. We wanted to hike the old lava flows that remain from the Arenal Volcano. Somehow, we passed by our original target (the Costa Ricans haven't quite gotten the hang of giant signs and billboards with arrows …
Water World Part 4—with bridges
On Thursday we drove from Quepos to Arenal. Sue has a friend, Karl, who lives outside of a town called Tejona. It is around the other side Lake Arenal from Arenal National Park. The four-hour drive was uneventful. As I mentioned before, the roads in Costa Rica are quite good, just small and winding. …
Water World Part 3 Plus
We're a couple of days behind on the blog, but it's tough settling down to write in paradise. So pretend it's still Wednesday. On that day, we took a tour of Manuel Antonio National Park. We weren't planning to do a tour, but because we booked all our other tours through Iguana Tours, they threw …
Water World Part 2
Yesterday morning we set off on our second water adventure. Sue booked us an ocean kayak and snorkeling trip. We decided to drive to the tour company rather than have them pick us up as the drive home from the white water rafting included about an hour extra to drop off the other rafters. …
Water World, Part 1
Yesterday, we had our first water adventure: white water rafting. We thought we were getting class V rapids but the trip we were on only had class II and III. I'm still not sure we got the tour we originally booked (or thought we booked); nevertheless, we had a blast. We took a bus ride …
Doing It On The Road 