It’s hot! Temperatures in the 90’s with heat indexes well into the 100’s. Whew! Here are just a few ways some of us are coping.

Sam’s idea is to stretch out his body as far as he can for maximum cooling.

Alex’s advice is to stick your head under the tablecloth while eating outside to shield your face from the sun. Also lay with your back legs spread in frog-style to keep the belly cool.

And here is the best way to cope that I know of. Stay inside in the air conditioning until the sun goes down. Jump in.

The Panama Canal is a must-see for anyone visiting Panama City.  I even went twice: once with Rick on our first day there since he would not get another chance to go with full day meetings; and once with the wives as part of a sightseeing tour. Each time I learned something more about this amazing feat of construction and engineering. Alas, somehow I got home without my little pamphlet with all the facts. Boo hoo! Now I’ll just have to go on memory and whatever facts I can find online to fill in the gaps. However, much of the information online does not include what I learned about it! Kind of strange ...

The Panama Canal opened in 1914 after many grueling years of construction. Laborers arrived from all over the Caribbean islands to work on the canal, and today you can see that “melting pot” in all the faces of the people of Panama. Not an easy task whacking your way through mosquito infested jungle and dredging out all that land. Thousands of people died during those years, and mostly from mosquito borne diseases such as yellow fever and malaria. The poor French (who started construction of the canal before it was turned over to the Americans to finish) made their situation much worse by assuming that the deaths were coming from disease-ridden rodents instead of the mosquitoes, and put the legs of their beds in buckets of water to keep the rodents away. Instead, they were creating a breeding ground for the very thing that was killing them.

From the balcony of our room at the Playa Bonita Resort we could see the ships lined up and waiting for entry into the canal each morning. By early afternoon they would all be gone and the next group of ships would start queuing up for the following day. I later learned that as each ship arrived it was given a number in the queue.

The Miraflores Locks are the best place to see the locks in action. They have a tourist center there complete with a viewing deck, informative museum, a short film about the history of the canal, and a restaurant.

From the viewing deck you have a bird’s eye view of the locks. There are two sets of locks, side by side to allow two large ships passage through at the same time. Here is a container ship in the far first lock.

And another ship preparing to move into the other lock.

The container ship has the help of a “mule” (heavy duty small trains that run on a track next to the locks) to keep it centered in the narrow space so it doesn’t hit the sides. See the guide wires running from the mule to the ship? I really wanted the job of driving one these mules. It looks like fun! You know me—Ms. Heavy-Equipment-Operator-Wannabe.

Meanwhile, while the container ship is in the second lock, the other ship makes its approach to the first lock with the help of a tug. Can you imagine trying to line up a huge ship to fit into a space just wide enough to hold it? I have a great deal of difficulty just trying to parallel park for pete’s sake!

And here is the container ship in the second and final lock along with its tug, and then leaving the lock on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Here are some more shots of the tanker as it comes into the first lock.

Almost in the first lock completely.

It takes about 12 minutes or so for the water level come up to completely. That is incredible considering there is no pumping done—it all works magically by gravity alone! Think of all that water! They rely on the plentiful rainfall they get to replenish the man-made lakes that they made to “run” the water for the canals. Trust me. They get plenty of rain!

Here’s a photo just to show you the scale and how big these ships really are.

Rick made this short video of the tanker coming into the lock.

Traffic is one-way through the canal. Usually in the mornings the ships move from South to North, or from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side. The locks close for several hours midday to allow the passage of the ships through the narrow Gaillard Cut which is only wide enough for one ship to pass through. Then the locks are opened back up and the ships are let through going the opposite direction. Only about 12 or so large ships go through each way, each day. 24 ships is not really a lot when you consider how popular the Canal is! When they can they put other smaller boats in with the big ones. I don’t really want to be on one of those small boats in there with some big ship!

It takes about eight hours for a ship to make the complete transit through the canal. Here is a map so you can see the route.

Transit through the canal may save a ton (no pun intended) of money in fuel (compared to going around the whole continent of South America), but it doesn’t come cheap either. A typical toll for the average container/tanker is around $200,000 per transit. The highest toll ever paid goes to a Norwegian cruise ship that paid $450,000 one-way. The lowest toll ever collected was in 1928 from a man named Richard Halliburton when he swam the canal for 36 cents.

Let’s face it, the canal is showing its age. What the average size of ships was in 1914 is no longer true today. Many of the bigger ships being built today simply do not fit. Work is underway to complete a new set of bigger locks and is due for completion around 2014 or 2015. This will allow more ships—and bigger ships—to pass through.

Now you just might be wondering how skilled a pilot you have to be to navigate your ship through the locks? Every ship that passes through the locks has a certified Panama Canal boat captain board their ship prior to their approach of the locks and pilot it through. Pretty cool, huh? With an annual salary of $85,000 it’s a coveted career in Panama. Here is a class of young pilots taking a break from their studies.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your transit through the Panama Canal! I’ve tried to tell you everything I learned or remember about the canal from my two visits there. I’m sure I’m forgetting something but I didn’t want to weigh you down in details. I hope that you learned some things today that you didn’t know before!

I found this great time lapse video of a complete transit through the canal.  Take a few minutes and watch it. Enjoy!

 

Or here is the link.

Those my thoughts yesterday as I bobbed around the pool. What a perfect day for it! Blue sky, hot and slightly humid, cicadas starting up. The pool temperature was perfection! Here is Rick before I nabbed his hat.

We did get up early though and go into the Warwick Farmer’s Market. It’s a great drive in Mia over all the back roads.

 

The rest of the day was spent around the pool. Here’s to lazy summer days!

Side note: I know it’s not the Panama Canal but at least it’s something!

Really, I do. I need something or someone to kick start me back to blogging on a more regular basis. Every time I sit down to compose the entry on the Panama Canal I end up staring at my brand new HD computer screen. No words come. I end up playing one of my “hidden object” games instead and zone out for an hour or so. What is wrong with me? Summertime blues? Sheer laziness? Maybe a little of both. To quote one of the blogs I read every now and then, her excuse for not blogging was that “I guess I am living the life instead of blogging about it.” That about sums it up for me, but mine is pretty boring.

My camera is gathering dust. I did go to the Botanical Gardens a week or so ago and what you see in this entry is the result of that visit. But there wasn’t much to aim the camera at and I threw away all but a few of the photos that I did take. I am in a rut there too.

Yesterday I read a book. One whole book in one whole day. (It was a light read.)

Let’s see ... what else have I done?

Last week Rick and I went to a “gala” reception at the Lincoln Center in New York City. We got dressed up, had a nice dinner and then went to the event. A lovely night! Going in to the city is always exciting and fun. Such energy in those sidewalks filled with people!

At home we’ve been enjoying the pool which is now above 80 degrees and very comfortable. It’s not even the weather that is making me lazy as the days have been sunny and warm. Delightful. Our last rain/thunderstorm was a week ago.

The fireflies are far and few between now but the cicadas have started up ever so slowly. In fact, as I type there are two going out there now. Ah, the sound of summer.

We have at least three bats in our winnowed-down bat population. They swoop and dip over our heads when we take our nighttime swims. It’s good to see them.

The turkeys bring their cute little babies around almost every day—the end result of all that turkey sex in my front yard this spring. Sometimes just one of the hens with her brood will show up, while other times it looks more like a turkey day care center and all ten or so of the babies.

I also went with neighbor Kim this week to see a litter of six week old Irish Terrier puppies that they will getting a new puppy from. The breeder was halfway out on Long Island and I have to tell you that it’s a nasty drive! Yikes, I won’t be going out there again anytime soon. The traffic! The puppies were adorable though and it was nice to breathe in puppy breath and talk dogs again.

We also had a six o’clock a.m. visitor yesterday. We were still asleep when Alex started barking downstairs. It is not his norm to bark for no reason, so I got out of bed and looked out the front window. Nothing. Rick got up and took a look around too but he also didn’t see anything. After laying there for a fitful twenty minutes more I got up and went down to feed the dogs and cats. I looked out on the back deck and saw that one of the planter boxes that was on our deck railing had been knocked down and the poor petunias were out of their pots, the nearly indestructible Squirrel Buster Plus bird feeder pulled around in an abnormal position, the iron hanger it was on slightly bent. Okay, a bear for sure. A pretty brazen one too to come onto our high deck. It’s only happened twice before in our five years here that we’ve had bears on the deck. It’s not a good feeling. I have to say that I am more than impressed with this bird feeder. Not only do the squirrels not bother it but it held up to the bear mauling with not a scratch!

So, I go to feed the cats and eBay is nowhere to be found. I call her, searching high and low but I can’t find her. She is always ready to to eat so I figure something must be wrong. Finally I hear a tiny mew coming from the laundry room. When I pull out the washer, there she is. She ventures out very tentatively into the kitchen. She peeks around the corner into the sun room and out to the deck where the bear was with her eyes wide and her tail all puffed up. Aha! She saw the bear too and it scared her so badly she was hiding from it. Poor kitty! So, the bird feeder comes in at night and when I am not at home.

One of my daily routines is to water all the outside plants before taking a shower, check on the pool temperature and add chlorine every other day. I slip on a pair of shorts and t-shirt and head out with the watering can. It’s a nice way to start the day, especially with the weather we’ve been having. I don’t even mind if the humidity is high that time of the day. Bella usually helps me with this particular job. Every other day or so I’ll tip all the water out of her wading pool and refresh it. She loves this! The minute I start adding fresh water she’s in there wading around, scooping up mouthfuls of the cold water straight from the well.  I’ve also gotten into the habit of letting one of the dogs come with me out in the front as a special treat for them. No leash, just hanging out with mom while she waters. I check on the progress of the figs daily and I have to say I can’t wait until we can eat them.

You never know what you might see while watering. The little clearwing hummingbird moths have started hovering around as I water. I just love them! While I was watering the deck flowers the other day I found this moth clinging to the petunias. Isn’t it pretty? I have never seen this particular kind of moth before so I looked him up. I think it’s some kind of Sphinx moth—possibly a Virginia (hog) Creeper Sphinx Moth. No matter what it’s name is, it’s beautiful.

For those of you that I’ve talked to over the past week, I apologize for re-hashing all this boring, trivial stuff about my life again. Ho hum. Which brings me to another topic of conversation. I have no idea who is reading this blog anymore other than family members and a few close friends and those of you that comment from time to time (thank you Debra, Maggie & Joyce!). I get numerous “junk” comments every single day that I have to delete which is very disheartening. You should read some of them! They always include a link to whatever website selling some garbage. I am so very tired of them. It’s long been in my mind to make this blog private and if Rick can figure out how to do that without too much trouble on the part of anyone then we will do so. If you still want to read all you will have to do is sign up to be a member. You don’t have to comment, you can still continue to read as you’ve always done. The only change will be that not all those crazies out there will be able to read things about my private life anymore. Because this blog really is about my daily life. But, that’s all in the future and hopefully we can make it happen.

Okay, so I’ve sat here long enough this morning filling this entry up with boring tidbits, neglecting my watering duties which are calling me, so I will close this entry now. If you are still awake after reading this, bless you. Hopefully this will kick start me to finish my vacation blogging. Check back in a day or so to find out!

I had forgotten all about them. The little gold box of letters we found when we cleaned out my mom’s house after her death. Letters written by my father to my mother after he moved to Florida, while we stayed behind in New York preparing for the move. Letters written from March 1967 through April 1967; 10 letters in all. Letters also written by my father to my mother when he went back to Florida in 1980 to work and my mother stayed on in Colorado, spanning time from January 1980 through June 1980; 15 letters in all.

I came across the little gold Godiva chocolate box bound by a rubber band tucked away inside a box of miscellaneous old photos and memorabilia. I held it in my hands for a few minutes, debating. Do I read them? Yes? No? It would be like reading their personal diary, or at least my father’s side of things. A one-way window into the world of the adults that were my parents together, as a couple, and not just the"mommy and daddy” I was familiar with. Do I really want to know? Especially the 1980 period which might contain things I don’t want to hear about. That was in the middle of what I call my father’s “dark period.” I finally decided that I needed to read what my father had written all those years ago that made my mother keep them. After all, both my parents are gone now so I can no longer judge them for whatever might be written on all those folded pages neatly tucked inside their envelopes.

And so, the decision was made. I brought the little box of letters upstairs and sat down to read.