Adios

Time to leave la hermosa Costa Rica. We hope to return but the future is unknown. We depart with a few final shots of Horizontes del Mar where we stay.

The pool overlooks the ocean, refreshed by concrete fish. Mrs. C takes a final dip and then relaxes with a piña colada. Her shirt has a quotation from Gertrude Stein: you can either buy clothes or buy pictures. That's right up to a point. Even better if you can make pictures.

Oh, and I was going to get back to my friends blogs, right? Well, our friendly electric company was digging up about everything in front of our house yesterday and cut our water service. One thing led to another... 

                

Les jours rallongent... surtout quand il fait beau !

A look at Tuesday's sunset on Avenue de Paris... It was also sunset this week for Tina and her husband Tom. VDP is so sad, her blog was wonderful.

Le coucher du soleil mardi avenue de Paris...

Tell A Fairy Tale Day

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Tell A Fairy Tale Day is being celebrated today!

What better time than now to tell you about a unique experience I enjoyed while staying with the Franziskusgemeinschaft in Austria last November.
The community invited Eva Meierhofer, a professional storyteller, for an evening of fairy tales!

Eva came with a thick book of  "the world's most beautiful fairy tales."

Also a strange little book, "Tales of Idiots, Poor, Beggars, Jews, and Gypsies."

Since I didn't understand all that much of the German, I could concentrate on Eva's pointy shoes and special umbrella.

The Feenhaar, literally fairy hair, played with a bow, gave ethereal music.
I think it is also called a psalter.
You can hear a sample of its music and see beautiful photos of how the instruments are made in Switzerland here: http://bit.ly/1UoNHu0

All the members of the Franciscan farming community gave it a try.
It was really a magical evening in rural Austria.
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You can look for Eva Meierhofer on Facebook and see more of her special work.
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The "Honeymoon" Cottage Is About Over

This old shack, an iconic Cedar Key landmark, is not much longer for this world. As I recall, the bottom photo was taken in 1988, the first time we vacationed in Cedar Key.

It is known as the "Honeymoon Cottage," and was built by Henry Taylor in 1959 for Phillip and Margaret Thomas of Gainesville.

Constructed on stilts about 300 feet from the shore, it was connected to land by a long narrow boardwalk also on stilts.

Over the years, various storms have taken their toll. In 1985, the cottage was pretty much destroyed by Hurricane Elena. Since then, other storms have destroyed bit and pieces of it until there is nothing left except a few of the stilts and a few boards.

Personally, I think the city of Cedar Key should rebuild the cottage for it has become such an important part of Cedar Key's soul!


RIP.  The entire photo blogging community is in mourning today after learning of the death of Tina and Tom Forrester who were killed in a car accident a couple of days ago in southern Ontario.  Tina, known as EG, or Cameral Girl, was a good friend and an excellent photographer.  We will miss her greatly.  Our deepest sympathy goes out to their families.

[This was cross-posted to Ocala & Central Florida Photos].

Free Gym

No need to pay hefty gym fees, just pop down to your local park and take advantage of the equipment  in the great outdoors.  More and more parks are opting to provide these facilities.