each day an adventure in alaska: Honduras and Mexico...

more from the cruise. these are of us leaving Honduras. funny to sit and watch those rushing to the ship before they close it up. would not want to have been left behind. many stood on the ship watching and applauding the late arrivals. would have been easy to do as we were required to use "ship time" instead of Honduras time. not the same.

they do have pretty clear waters. progress seen. looks like they are making it more attractive to tourism. happy we got there before it got too touristy..our stops got more touristy as we went back north so nice to see one that was pretty basic as far as tourism goes. plus seeing this clear water and knowing how delicate the reefs are, it's kind of sad to see the progress and know what it may do. everyone deserves to have their chance to make a living so it's always a balance between the environment and some level of progress. i guess for me it's when it becomes grossly materialistic and you see greed has eclipsed all.

had plans for a longer walk, but my gut wasn't really having it today. don't think my breakfast set well. so we just hit the dog park. really the dogs don't care. chilled and watched a few episodes of "Northern exposure" the old show from the early '90's. it wasn't filmed in Alaska and they got a lot of details wrong. the characters were good though. we do have more than our share of quirky folks up here. i know I'm one of them.

in Ketchikan a co-worker had just started and you got so you could tell who was going to make it here and who was going to book. i could tell she was going to make it. when the discussion came up, i told her she was independent and quirky, which was a good sign for longevity here. she was a bit offended that i thought she was quirky. i tried to explain that it wasn't meant as a bad thing at all...i mean you really have to be a bit quirky to live out in the bush up here especially. some 6-7 months later she brought it up again, laughing this time, and admitting that she now understood and yes, she was probably quirky like the rest of us.

the mix the stuff of natives in the lower 48 with those up here. they don't have names like they had in South Dakota when i lived there...names like you heard from that old movie filmed there, Dances with Wolves. they did have names like that. up here, not true.

there is talk of doing a remake of it. would be nice if they filmed up here and took more time to get the details right.

it was nice to have the dogs all clean today...of course, that made me hesitant to take them out walking because i knew they would get a wee bit dirty...it's break up and the snow is falling and melting and mud is everywhere.

did manage to get out for a few errands and got my second wind this evening. it's now after 1 am and i just finished doing some spring cleaning projects. still want to de-clutter and organize the garage and the upstairs closets. crap just piles up and it's time to just get rid of it....if it can't be used or organized. put stuff in bags that i haven't worn for years. i think we all hang onto things and then one day you look at the thing you've looked at for years and you finally realize that it is no longer useful or meaningful or something. we all just have too much crap.

it always feels so good to organize and purge that extra crap. it really can weigh you down.

need to get stuff ready for the lecture this coming week as well.

guess there were some suicide attacks in Sri Lanka. no one has claimed responsibility, but i think it hit some church services for Easter Sunday. so very sad. so much violence and hatred in this world. just too many people...too many too rich and too many too poor.

some young woman flew from Florida to Colorado and bought a shot gun with plans to head to Columbine High School, maybe try to repeat what happened 20 years ago...but in the end she killed herself.

plane taking off down the island from our ship. looked windy out there.

Georgette (Georgia Engel) from Mary Tyler Moore show has passed away. they said the cause of death is unknown because she was Christian Scientist and didn't see doctors. interesting.

this is our arrival the next day in Costa Maya. another beautiful morning.

looking green. we were headed to Mayan ruins, Dzibanche and Kohunlich.

a bit of a long dock.

a bit more built up than Roatan was.

so on to Mexico. another warm day....this Alaskan was not used to the heat.

if anyone wants a cockatiel, a man died suddenly leaving hundreds behind. they are being adopted out by the non-profit group, Alaska Bird Club.

i sometimes work with people who are really off their rocker. it's not easy...i mean it's their reality. they believe the stuff they are saying. they come in for stuff, which i mean you gotta laugh at but it's also super sad that for some their delusions are so real it drives them to hospitals because they are scared.

waves and pelicans as we neared the port town

my niece and her kids

we walked to our next tour, go to the ruin and turn left were the directions

then we had a 2 hour drive out to the ruins.

always fun to watch the sights along the way...at least for me. i think the kids slept or read.

nice to get a sense of the places beyond the port where it's beautified for tourists.

we really loved all these pretty flowers on these trees

we saw one sad monkey. it lives on this chain in this front yard.

lots of indoor/outdoor living

i think they grow sugar and stuff for thatched roofs, which can last like 40 years i was surprised to learn...of course, that would probably be 40 years in normal rainy weather, not hurricane type weather.

here is the delivery system

we stopped at the visitor depot to check in at both places then walked on into the parks. we were super lucky in that we had our own guides and basically had both places to ourselves for most of the time we were there.

random dogs are all over the place.

just so you know where we are. :-)

it was great to get out and walk after the drive, also after having been on the ship.

i felt pretty wimpy....walking in the heat of Mexico very different than walking in the cool of Alaska.

we approach our first ruin...there were several in the area and again several in the second area. my niece picked these because you can still climb on them. many of the other places are more popular and have stopped allowing climbing on the ruins...great choice i think.