It is not so much the destination as the journey itself that matters.
FullTime Life has at last arrived back in blogland. The return journey is documented here. You can also read a bit about our real-life journey on this page. Some of our favorite memories from the old blog can easily be found here. We’re still making memories and blogging about them.
New posts are just below — latest on top. PLEASE NOTE: To comment on any post, you have to click on the post title.
Thank you for visiting.
I have been writing about the joys of travel and I love remembering those. But we’ve been home at the Canal Cottage for a while now so it’s time to share some everyday smiles. We don’t have to go far for them!
I love waking up to peach-colored skies — the top picture is blurry for a reason (besides my shaky camera hand). I took it through the screen on our porch about five minutes after I got up one morning. Bottom left is a reflected sunset and the moon also from the porch.
Even living in a warm and bright climate, it’s good sometimes to bring a little sunshine into the house. One way to do that is by visiting the traveling produce market that visits our snowbird community weekly.
The “haul” on this particular Tuesday was definitely a day brightener. I like visiting Farm Markets, but it is wonderful to know we have one visiting us — it’s about a city block length away to the front of our clubhouse, where these lovely people set up shop every Tuesday morning.
Here’s a sunny kitchen bouquet — these are supermarket flowers and they last forever!
On the way to that supermarket one day, we stopped at our local Eagle nest, just across the highway from the store. It’s interesting to visit occasionally. Their nest tree is located in a horse pasture next door to a welcoming churchyard which has plenty of parking — quite a few photographers and nature-lovers spend long hours there. You can actually follow the eagles from anywhere however as they have become internet famous on the SW Florida Eagle cam.
But it’s nice to take at least a couple of pictures every season. If you squint at this one, you can see one of the adult eagles on the “attic” branch, while the eaglet looks out over the edge of the nest, practicing independence for a not-too-distant future when it will fledge and eventually fly away.
The top picture is one of the adults (I have never been able to tell the male and female apart unless they are right next to each other), while the little one surveys the wide world below home, These pictures were taken a little over a week ago. Sadly, the mother eagle has died since these were taken — the male is doing a good job of caring for junior until it no longer needs him. Find more of the story by linking to SW Florida Eagle Cam or searching Facebook or Google.
We saw some more Florida birds last week, when we ventured across town driving to Sanibel and Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.
It was the usual suspects on the wildlife drive. But I never get tired of the usual. Here are white and brown pelicans looking as if they’re bored or as if they’re babysitting assorted shorebirds.
An osprey surveys his kingdom.
I did a double take when I looked at this downloaded picture and hesitated to include it , but it is the craziest thing. I am absolutely positive that the pelican(s) at the right are an illusion somehow, but eek, where is the other pair of legs? (I cropped the photo, but it is otherwise un-edited.)
It was a lovely day for a drive and short walks on the island, but as we drove home across the busy bridge we could see rain moving in. That’s OK — in fact that’s perfect. SW Florida needs it and evening is a good time for rain — we’re almost home by then and ready to stay there for the next few hours.
We are grateful.
Linking this week to the following sharing opportunities, Thank you to the hosts:
NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;
And on the seventh day (of our stay in Costa Rica) we moved from underneath the Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna to the mountains of Monte Verde in the province of Puntarenas. In the mountains, but we could see the Pacific Ocean clearly from our porch.
This is our room (cottage?) at Senda Monte Verde near the village of Santa Elena. We liked every one of the places where we stayed in Costa Rica and had no complaints, but this was probably our favorite.
On our first full day there, we enjoyed a half-day guided birding trip and on another day a walk in Monte Verde’s National Cloud Forest Reserve. Our knowledgeable guide would happily have made it a full-day hike in the mountains, but we opted for a shorter tour. (Once in a while you just have to act your age.) Instead of more time in the wild, we visited a hummingbird garden –a tourist attraction certainly, but a well-done one.
I’ve already showed in past posts some of the birds and some of the forest that we saw on those tours, but the rest of the birds and beasts in this post were all seen “accidentally” as we walked on the grounds at Monte Verde. Often just going to and from the on-site dining room (where the food was amazing.)
We saw spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys (a lot), but this white-faced capuchin was the only one I got a picture of.
The first picture of the Motmot is from the bird tour, but we also saw this bird several times on our own. There were hundreds of hummingbirds on the grounds here too — again, no pictures, but it was amazing to see them flitting between all the flowers.
These guys, the white-nosed Coatis, were common. We saw them here as well as back in Fortuna. They weren’t a bit afraid of people and would sometimes come up to the outdoor restaurant seating.
I learned that the males are usually solitary while females travel in packs, so I guess this is a picture of the ladies who lunch.
This is the village of Santa Elena, zoomed in from the porch in our cottage. In between our tours, we could have visited the village and I’m a bit sorry we didn’t — it was within walking distance. But the grounds were so lovely and the food was so good right where we were. Especially after those mountain tours! We felt very fortunate to spend three nights at Senda. On our fourth morning, we would be heading back to San Juan and the end of this lovely trip. Thankful for living in the moments and for reliving and remembering them here. Thank you to the hosts of these sharing opportunities:
SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY
We stayed for two nights at a beautiful resort outside the village of La Fortuna. Our hotel was located in a forested area at the base of the Arunal Volcano, which we could see clearly from our private deck.
I ‘m a little embarrassed to admit that I took pictures of our lodging when we arrived, but none of the volcano. I may have been temporarily stupefied … the amazing view was not the only highly-starred amenity offered by this hotel.
When the phone alarm woke us before first light the next morning, it was quite tempting to realize we could stay and enjoy the view and that private soaking pool, but we had scheduled a private birding tour and so it was rise and shine and out-the-door time.
We had a knowledgeable guide and a friendly driver who set out an early-lunch picnic for us to enjoy later. First, we climbed a small hill to an open meadow in the midst of a jungle — a perfect place to spend some quality birding time..
We couldn’t believe the number of birds that appeared. These are the best pictures, but we saw many more, nearly all new to us. Every time I thought about trying to take a picture myself, our guide would find another bird through his spotting scope and we would run to find and look at that one. We were able to spot nearly every one of the birds he saw with our own binoculars, but the view through his spotting scope was better.
This was quite a different experience. Unless we’re at a rookery where we know we’ll see wild birds, I’m strictly an accidental birder, happy to see (and hopefully take a picture) of whatever we happen to come across. Our guide took the pictures above after we’d looked at them through the scope. The picture below is my own accidental catch.
This was at the coffee and chocolate tourist experience where I also did the accidental birding shown in the previous post. We learned about chocolate and coffee too of course. (Which was the actual purpose of the tour.)
It was enjoyable to learn a bit about the process of growing these two crops. In the picture above it looks as if Bill is demonstrating the process of sorting cacao, but really he was the student.
We even made our own chocolate bars at the end of the tour, although our guide did the heavy stirring. Our candy was edible, but I can only say that Cadbury and Reeses are not in danger of losing our occasional patronage.
Thankful to keep on traveling and learning, and eventually blogging about it. And thankful for the hosts of the following sharing opportunities and for all visitors. Please note: If you are visiting from Google or Blogspot, you have to click on the title of this post to comment.
NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; SIGNS SIGNS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;
We passed acres of banana plantations on the road between San Jose and our hotel in Tortuguero. Bananas are a major part of Costa Rican economy — this small country is the third largest exporter worldwide.
The blue plastic hanging on the plants caught our eyes. We learned that these bags are used to protect developing fruit from insects, birds, sunburn, and such other “inconvenient” problems.
Almost everybody loves bananas and we all expect each one we purchase to be a perfect yellow picture book example. This leads to unfortunate downsides which can include use of fumicides and insecticides. We did learn that there is some movement toward more organic practices at least in parts of the country.
At first I thought this framework was some kind of elaborate play structure , but our guide explained that it was part of what he called “a banana train.”
A ton or more of loaded banana bags hangs on hooks on these railings. One worker walking alone pulls the loaded “train” along these narrow rail tracks. A hard job, but an efficient way to move heavy fruit through the often wet terrain to the docks where they will eventually be loaded onto trucks.
It can be quite thought-provoking to learn about what is involved in getting food to our table.
The banana plantations above were seen on the first full day in Costa Rica, when we were our way to Tortuguero (previous post).
The rest of these pictures feature bananas — and birds –seen in La Fortuna, which was where we stayed for a few days after we left Tortuguero.
We wouldn’t buy or eat bananas that looked like this, but these honeycreepers sure loved them. These bananas here were never meant for human consumption, but were grown as part of a demonstration garden, where we had gone to learn more about Costa Rican agriculture.
The Green Honeycreeper on the left above was certainly well camouflaged. I almost missed seeing it when downloading, even though I was looking for this particular picture because I remembered taking it.
The bananas attracted some creatures besides birds. This is a Central American Agouti. The picture is zoomed — it was about the size of a housecat.
We took two different excursions purposely to look at birds, but the ones we saw on this tour were all “accidental birding.” Quite often, I’ve found that those kind of sightings are every bit as rewarding. We enjoyed the part of the tour we came for and I was especially grateful to spot these interesting — and new to us — birds.
LINKING to the following sharing opportunities: Thank you to the hosts. And thank you to all visitors. I’m still trying to solve the problems with leaving comments. I have learned that you must click on the title of the individual post in order to find the comment form. I always appreciate comments and especially the extra work involved until I figure everything out. Thank you. .
SATURDAY CRITTERS NATURE NOTES; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY;
Very early in the morning after our first night in San Jose, we boarded a guided van at our hotel, and covered quite a few miles, passing some interesting countryside. We stopped for breakfast at a touristy place at a major crossroads, then drove some more to a riverfront docking place. There we boarded a boat that took us to Tortuguera. on a barrier island on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The village borders Tortuguero National Park, It is only accessible by boat. The whole area is basically rainforest on a lagoon It’s all stunningly beautiful and we loved it.
Above some scenes from our hotel — beautiful grounds, friendly staff, and delicious food. Before we even deposited our luggage we watched a mother spider monkey and her baby swinging among the trees– no picture, because I was still a bit disoriented from a couple of long travel days and couldn’t even remember how to do it! But an unforgettable memory nonetheless.
The next morning we had booked a guided boat tour of some of the canals bordering Tortuegero National Park (really the whole area is, I think, part of the Park). Our guide and the pilot both knew a lot about native fauna and flora and because we were the only two on the boat we had full advantage of their knowledge.
The boat was capable of gliding quietly into inlets near wetlands and we enjoyed sitting still and watching the water birds and other jungle denizens.
Some we saw were the same species we often see at our Canal Cottage — we’re in a subtropical climate there too. But Costa Rica leans a little more toward the tropical, because .we spotted some very different species, like the one in the picture just below:
I think the caption I gave this guy is correct — but even if it is a different kind of sloth, it is definitely a sloth and definitely a first-ever for us. We saw a few of them from the boat. It was pretty easy to get pictures — they don’t move very fast!
Lots of birds hiding out — our boat was quiet and I don’t think it disturbed them at all.
There were other “swamp creatures” as well– a couple kind of huge lizards and everybody’s favorite (not) reptiles, crocodiles, alligators and caymans. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them. Oddly we didn’t spot any turtles, even though the village and national park are named for the sea turtles that make the area their home.
We loved everything about our day on the water, even the crocodiles, but it was nice to be back to our home away from home too.
Because our flight from Eugene had been delayed, we had only the one full day to spend in Tortuguero and we were sorry to have to leave the next morning. But other adventures in this beautiful country awaited.
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We went to Costa Rica!
In real-time, we’re almost settled in at the Canal Cottage for another season. But we took a detour on the way from our Oregon home, spending a couple of weeks in the land of Pura Vida.
Pura Vida, the country’s motto, translates literally as ‘pure life’ but in Costa Rica it means even more. People say it often as a greeting or, I think, just a quick way to say ‘things are good here!’ In our (too brief) experience that’s very true.
The travel- planner of the family (above) did his usual magic arranging this long-time travel bucket list destination in a way that totally lived up to our expectations.
Bill does all the planning — I take the pictures. Except not even that sometimes. Our birding guide in Monte Verde took this through his spotting scope after I looked through in complete delight!
Lots more pictures to share in future posts, which I sincerely hope will be very soon, now that I’ve almost figured out again how to do this blogging thing.
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Thanks to the hosts of the sharing opportunities where I’ll share this post for the first time in a while. It’s good to be back.
It doesn’t really feel as if we are at home in Oregon until we spend a few days on the beautiful Pacific Coast. It is a yearly ritual.
It was a busy summer at home this year, so our trip to check on the Ocean was later than usual. It was Mid-October before we were able to get away for a few days.
So we missed the summery blue-sky cloudless summery beach days but there are no bad days at the Coast. And we were happy to be there for the onset of a huge storm — the ocean was wild! Spume from the wind-driven waves piled up against the rocky shores and looked almost like piles of snow!
We walked well above the sea where it was safe — no wading along the wet sand or exploring tide pools this time.
Our destination was the sweet little seaside village of Yachats, one of our favorite coastal areas. There are nice long perfectly safe walking paths with beautiful sea-views. It was only a bit windy on shore, but it didn’t rain until the morning we were leaving.
We stayed at a funny little historical inn in above a restaurant that has served Yachats since 1929, when it was a speakeasy bar with rooms available for the purposes of its patrons . Now it’s an eclectic family-friendly place. Each of the inn’s rooms is uniquely themed and decorated. I love lodging that isn’t chain-hotel-same and The Travel Planner* is great at finding these unique places. It was a fun place to stay and to eat — walking that crooked staircase to breakfast each morning was well worth it! We had a “stretching-it” sort of ocean view from our room but we didn’t need a better one since the weather let us spend the days outdoors!
On our way home, Autumn color and a few elk spotted at the Dean Creek preserve made a lovely end to our mid-week getaway.
Thank you for finding FullTime-Life at our new location. I am happy to be back in Blogland.. This new page Recovering the Blog explains what happened. We’re getting ready right now our Winter cross-country migration to Florida. I look forward to visiting other photo-bloggers after we settle in for the season.
(To comment, click the post title — the comment form will appear here.)
so wonderful to see you again and read about your adventures. i thought i had lost you and am happy to reconnect. i have printed much of my blog over the years and i am so happy i have. wishing you a warm, wonderful holiday and a very healthy 2026!!
Dear Sally
I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to comment but I have not been well and haven’t visited anyone, Your stay at the Oregan coast sounds so delightful and the area around the seaside village of Yachats looks lovey. Your photos show just how wild the sea can get and your accomodation feels like a wonderful experience,, unique and special.. cosy too. Lovely nature images that you took on your way home, and I so enjoyed getting back in touch Sally.
All the best and a happy and healthy New Year.
Sonjia.
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Looks like a great time at the coast 🙂
We’ve been back home in Oregon since the first of July. In real life we had an active summer — here in Blogland there’s a lot of missing time between the last full-time-life post and this one. Only partly because I almost lost my whole blog (side-bar). We didn’t learn about the shutdown until August, so the long absence is mostly because I took a digital detox break on purpose when we first got home and it dragged on a little longer than I’d planned. It’s good to be back — in Blogland as well as in real-life Oregon.
I’ m still learning about WordPress, but one way to do that is to just dive in. I couldn’t stop taking pictures on this September outing, so the Dahlia Farm is it’s a good place to start.
Canby is a small town less than two hours north of us, between here and Portland but (blessedly) off the freeway. Though not too far away for a day trip, this beautiful agricultural area is in a part of our home state where we haven’t spent much time. Last month we drove there to visit the family-owned Swan Island Dahlia Farm. It’s open to the public during the flower’s season and it was at its peak of perfection when we visited.
Summer always goes so fast. We spent good, if bittersweet, hours seeing family, many of those at a different farm much closer to where we live. I have blogged often about that acreage just five miles from where we live. Although a huge part of our heart is missing whether we visit or not, our son-in-law continues to make us feel welcome. Of course, it is always a delight to see our Oregon son and daughter-in-law and our great-grandchildren (and their parents!) whether at their Granddad’s farm or at our house or at theirs. I’m never particularly good at taking people pictures which means there are always a lot of blank happy spaces in my blog. It was a good summer.
Our son-in-law (whom I decided needed a break whether he knew it or not) went with us to Canby and I hope he enjoyed our company as much as we did his.
Autumn is a beautiful season in the Willamette Valley and we’re glad to be at home for it as our full-time life continues.
Blue sky days have been rare the last couple of weeks, but on one pretty morning I saw some interesting wild-flowers in the wetlands across the street. They were the tallest flowering plants I think I’ve ever seen. I zoomed in on the flowers. It’s easier to walk closer to the wetlands after the winter season because the RV lots along that side of the street are vacant.
I’m marginally better with bird ID than with wildflowers — keep meaning to install that app. I think the two ducks below are Lesser Scaups.
The Scaups were swimming on Merritt Island Parkway last month. We have been sticking closer to home this month. It’s a busy time for us and the weather is iffy anyway. The wet/rainy season is here and at the same time most days are very hot and humid. Weather is different here. The skies in the picture below are a good sample of what we’ve seen most days lately.
It’s going to pour down any minute now!
You really don’t want to be outside in a Florida rainstorm. It comes down in walls and buckets and this time of year it comes with thunder and lightning. And even though this is our umpteenth season here, I never get used to the other thing about Florida rain. Which is that it can come down in those buckets and with all that noise for an hour or two and then suddenly just stop completely. Then the sun comes out and you can’t even tell it rained. The picture below is the calm after the storm. It is taken from the end of the canal.
After the Rain
There are a few people who live here year-round, but most are snowbirds who head to their home “up north” by April. The snowbird season is typically November through March. We’re snowbirds too of course, but we come later and stay later than most. Autumn is beautiful where we live in Oregon so we love being there then. Late Spring is beautiful there too but grass-seed is a major crop and so it is also a hay-fever magnet. We are thankful to skip allergy season as long as we can.
Below is another memory from last month. The osprey didn’t seem to be impressed by the roseate spoonbill coming in for a perfect landing.
“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”
Chief Tecumseh
LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities, with thanks to the hosts:
SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; and THANKFUL THURSDAY
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