Small Thoughts for Small Minds

Kel bought a Power Rangers costume for Dyson. As if he didn’t have enough "dress up" crap scattered throughout the house. Since Dyson doesn’t watch the Power Rangers (except, perhaps, on occasion at school), he’s used this primarily to be Daredevil, and sometimes Spiderman…

Of course, he doesn’t need one o’ them fancy store-bought costumes to dress up. Sometimes all it takes is a pair of Kelleigh’s underwear….

(It’s going to be soooo easy to blackmail this kid when he’s a teenager….)

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Kel’s mom was having headaches and blood pressure issues, so she went in to the emergency room. While there, they found out she had shingles on her face. She spent around five days in the hospital before being released, but she’s still really weak. For a couple of days after getting out of the hospital, she was complaining of double vision, so we let her use Dyson’s pirate eye patch.

While she doesn’t have double vision any more, she has reduced vision in that eye. Her eye doctor says it is possible that she’ll permanently lose sight in that eye.

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Apparently someone forced another car off the road, and it hit our mailbox. You can see the mailbox (black, circled in red) in the far left of the picture, while the support is on the far right. That’s at least 25 feet away. The mailbox survived the impact, so I just put it back together, got it upright and propped it up with some rocks…

There were some pretty wild flowers near the spot the mailbox landed…

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I was in New Orleans last week. Because my time was mostly occupied by the conference I attended (including a reception & meal each evening), I didn’t get out of the French Quarter or the area near the conference center. My view from the hotel room was awesome (if you like the shipping industry):

Since downtown and the French Quarter are on "high" ground, they didn’t get flooded. But there are still businesses and restaurants that haven’t reopened. I’m sure the relative lack of tourists, a full year later, contributes to the problem. Bourbon Street was practically dead (compared to our last visit, but that was on a weekend.)

Kel and I got married on the 26th of August in 1995. This year, for our anniversary, we decided to go to Bermuda. Just for three nights, since Kel only has two weeks (total) of vacation each year.
We stayed at the Salt Kettle House in Paget, just across from the "capital city" of Hamilton.

The cottage we stayed in was simple, but roomy, and right on the water.

We arrived on Saturday, just after lunch. After a brief "orientation" by Hazel Lowe (the owner of Salt Kettle House), we took the ferry over to Hamilton for lunch and a bit of shopping in the rain. Well, Kel shopped. I bought a book and hung out in a pub.

We bought three day passes for the ferry & buses. (Which we ended up only using a couple of times.)

Here’s a picture of Kel and I on the way out for a very nice dinner at Silk, a Thai restaurant in Hamilton.

We finished the evening off with a pot of kopi luwak coffee.  If you don’t know what that is, definitely click on the link!

Sunday morning, after walking around looking for a bus stop, we decided to go for the flexibility of having a scooter. Here’s Kel hanging out in the front yard while we waited for the shuttle to the scooter rental shop.

I thought this shot of a hillside cemetery was interesting. Dunno why the graves (tombs?) are above ground, especially on high ground.

We went to the Bermuda Aquarium. Here’s Kel looking out over the bay, making use of the shade.

After the aquarium, we had lunch at Café Gio in St. George, and then went to the Crystal and Fantasy Caves (Here’s a video tour of the caves.) I’ll put another post later with some cave pictures. We drove around for awhile, then stopped at the North Rock Brewing Company for beer and appetizers. North Rock no longer brews their own beer. All their brewing equipment was sent to the Frog and Onion in The Dockyard, but at least they served the beer made in the Frog and Onion, so we did have local beer. In the place of the brewing equipment, they put in a sushi bar. Kel really liked the mango sushi. We went back to the cottage, drank some wine, read for a bit out by the waterside, and then turned in early.

Monday morning we went to Church Bay Beach, which some claim to have the best snorkeling in Bermuda.

It was funny how many people snorkeled within a dozen feet of the beach. And they were so excited to see one or two fish. "Hey Margaret! I saw a purple one!" You have to swim out a couple hundred feet to the large rock/coral formations. While not as good as many spots in the Caribbean, there was a nice variety of fish and coral. The surge over the formations was pretty rough, but usually deep enough (>18") to swim over. Kel went out with me once, and I went solo once. Then I went climbing on the rocks. The erosion caused some interesting formations in the volcanic rock.

For lunch we went to the Lighthouse Tea Room at the base of the Gibbs Hill lighthouse.

Then we climbed to the top to take in the view of the island. Here I am doing my "Tourist Guy" impression…

After lunch we went out to Warwick Long Beach. The water was a lot rougher with correspondingly lower visibility. Kel just hung out on the beach reading while I went snorkeling and climbing on the rocks.

I waded/swum out to this rock and climbed to the top. Getting up the first few feet was the toughest as I was standing in strong surf and the rocks were slick (and razor sharp at the same time).

It’s amazing where plants can get a foothold…

Here I am on one of the ubiquitous scooters. (Yes the scooter was still up on the kickstand. I was waiting for Kel…)

We then went to the Royal Naval Dockyard and had a beer at the Frog & Onion. We went back to the cottage, had a short nap, and then went out for an excellent (and really expensive) dinner at Port O’ Call in Hamilton.

Tuesday morning, we went for a walk on Elbow Bay beach before returning the scooter. Then, unfortunately, we had to pack up and head to the airport.

Oh well. We still packed a lot in those three days…