Driving Dubrovnik-Korcula

We hired a car for the trip from Dubrovnik to the island of Korcula. It was a beautiful winding drive along the coast and a short ferry ride. We stopped for a bit and saw the cool flower that is pictured here.

R&R - Dubrovnik, Croatia

Loyal Readers (hi Mom) -- We have been remiss at updating our blog since returning from R&R in mid June. We had a long and wonderful R&R in which we visited Croatia, Bulgaria, London and New York. Since then, Kellee started a new job in the Consular section and is generally too tired at night to update the blog. Anyway, here we go. We flew from Panama-Newark-London-Dubrovnik and arrived very late and stinky to the cute apartment that we rented in the middle of Dubrov. Derick and his friend Grant came by that night and drank some Scotch with us, and the next day we hooked up with Tim and Melissa, who had arrived from Phnom Penh. Dubrovnik is a beautiful little walled city, nicely restored and teeming with tourists. We walked the length of the old city walls and through the city.

Kuna Yala

Island Village of the Kuna

Crossing the Continental Divide on the Way to Kuna Yala

Kel and I along with about two dozen colleagues drove east of Panama City, over the Continental Divide, into the Kuna Indian Reservation (aka San Blas), and through a river to the Caribbean Coast. We arrived at a jumping off point (which consisted of a dock, a landing strip which we were forced to drive on, and one administrative building with a restaurant) to the nearby islands of Kuna Yala. Despite a necessary ten minute stop due to smoking brakes, the drive in our ugly teal colored 1995 Jeep Cherokee presented us with awesome scenery of the jungle during dry season. We saw fifty foot tall trees shooting up through the jungle canopy that had hundreds of brilliant bluish purple flowers.

While the river looks pretty tame, there were big "potholes" created by the large amount of traffic that drives through the river every day. I was not happy to see water coming over my hood, but we made it. If not, I am sure the heavy equipment operators building a hairpin rode in the area could have been paid $20 to pull us out. A bonus of driving through the river is that it significantly dropped the temperature of my brakes - hopefully none of the metal parts cracked from the tempature differiental....

Playing Croquet on a Saturday Afternoon

Kellee and I invited a dozen friends to play Croquet last Saturday. We played on the Amador Causeway - which is a man-made Causeway created by the Americans to protect the Pacific Approach to the Panama Canal. We had good weather, good drinks and food, and even played a little Croquet. A very good Saturday afternoon.

Kellee at the gates of Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal

We were at the Miraflores Locks (the Panama Canal locks closest to the city) last weekend with some visitors from Washington. Because they were VIPs, we got to visit the platform between the two lanes of the locks (first photo) and got to cross over one lane of locks on a metal bridge (second picture). It was late, and the pics are dark, so this is the best we could do....