This is the end! I promise!

Thursday we did little things - I had managed to acquire a bad cold from Curacao, and so relaxed most of the day - went to visit a couple of nurseries for plants and trees for the lot, drove on Kaminda Lagoen - this is worth a drive to the end - it ends with a great view of the rough water coming through a lagoon. You also pass the island's landfill on the right and a house being built to look like a castle on the left.

Thursday night we ate at a new restaurant for us -Blue Moon, which was very nice, we liked it very much. Friday night was PACKED at It Rains Fishes - but the food here was also very good.

Friday we had lunch at Kon Tiki - I told Patty we should develop our pictures on the island for a change. 4 rolls of pictures cost the incredible amount of $74.00!!! So she insisted we drive down the coast, the long way, and lunch at Kon Tiki, one of our favorite restaurants. We ate outside, on a very windy day, and a gust blew the salads all over the ground. Other than that, the food was marvelous.

Other than that, not much else is new. The latest information in the Bonaire Reporter was that in 2003 tourism on Bonaire was up 23%, while on the rest of the Netherlands Antilles, it was down or up just 2 or 3%. BonairExel or another airline will most likely begin direct flights to Miami in December 2004 or thereabouts.

Upon landing at Newark Airport, and wondering when we could excuse ourselves and come back again, our taxi/sedan showed up in a downpour and popped the trunk, but didn't get out of the car to help with the luggage. After a couple of minutes, we realized we were in New Jersey again, shrugged, and got soaking wet as we loaded our luggage into the trunk of the taxi for the $74 ride home. <sigh>

Can't wait to go back! Thanks for reading our miscellaneous ramblings.

Carl and Patty

Great report, Carl! Sounds like you and Patty had a great time...until you hit NJ and reality sank in...bummer! When will you start the construction phase? How exciting for you.

I don't think you're nuts at all...I probably would have camped out for a nite on the newly acquired property to "experience" 24/7! LOL. I know Patty would have left you a flashlight with your sleeping bag and headed right back to the nice air conditioned room, however! LOL.

Any photos to share with us?? We're ready if you are. Congrats on being a property owner now. It is one of our dreams....Carole

The castel is amazing!


I prefer the other side of the island :-)
A lot of debris in Lagun.




I love driving through the Kunuku though. Although you have to be even more careful then driving in Washington park.

Thank you Bob for adding pictures to my posts.
Next year I promise I will learn how to use
the scanner here at work. I'm sure it is easy,
even for a technophobe like me. :-)

Masha Danki

Carl

Denada. My pleasure.
I just use a simple digital camera.
I learned on this board, how to make them small enough to be able to post them.

Digitals are so convenient! I just love them. Still use the old Nikon(s) 35/film, however, too.

Carl...maybe you can pick up a digital for your next trip? The prices are really coming down like crazy compared to what they were a few years ago when I bought two. You'll become addicted like the rest of us. LOL. Carole

The have one disadvantage: I have to bring my laptop to store all the pictures I take.
I always take the pictures in the highest resolution. And I make so many.

In july we will be travelling the west coast of the west coast of the USA. I'm not sure a RV will be safe enough to bring my laptop with me.

Bob, you will love the West Coast! You have to take the drive up the coastline...at least from Santa Barbara and north of there through Big Sur, etc. If you can even get north or San Francisco to the Point Reyes National Seashore Park you will be in for a treat. Soooo beautiful!

What states will you be traveling in on the West/Left Coast? How long is your trip?

I'm sure others have traveled with laptops in their RV's...anyone out there who can jump in on this question?? Carole

Great Report!!!!

Any suggestions are more than welcome.
We just started preparing the trip.
I only have a KOA guide. KOA is pretty expensive.
My wife, our 5 children and me will start in San Francisco. We have 3 weeks, starting july 2nd. We will travel along the coast line to San Diego to see Sea world.
On our way we will stop at Monterey. We will try to avoid disney. From San Diego to the Grand canyon. Probably via Palm Springs. Then Las Vegas and some other Canyons. We will visit Yosemity.

Carl, ur a technophobe?
I thought juno was an ISP?

:-)

Bob, your trip sounds fabulous! Just remember it is verrrrry hot in the deserts of California/Nevada during July. Extremely hot and dry...bring tons of water with you and be certain the RV is in excellent condition for the hard haul you will be taking.

If you can manage to get to Lake Powell, Arizona/Utah while you are near the Grand Canyon it will be worth your while. Imagine the Grand Canyon dammed up with 9 trillion gallons of water in it...that is what Lake Powell is....it is north of the GRand Canyon and is near the Glen Canyon Dam. We went on a houseboat trip on Lake Powell in 1986 and it is an experience I will never forget for as long as I live and it is something I want to repeat before I die. You can go out for a day's trip, too, so you don't have to worry about staying there for an overnite stay. Just something to think about.

Yosemite is breathtaking, too. You will enjoy it. Can you get to Lake Tahoe will you are out there? We once did a "triangle" trip by car....San Francisco to Yosemite to Lake Tahoe and back to SF...took ten days to enjoy it. You could do San Francisco to Lake Tahoe to Yosemite...just reverse our path. You would not have to spend as much time as we did...we stayed in a house in Tahoe for a week to relax.

You should have so much fun planning your trip!! You must take lots of pics and post them on a website so we can enjoy them when you return. Carole

Bob, you could always get an ipod and put your pictures on it.
You might want to check out Bryce and Zion canyons.

Bob, the castle is owned by Farid Arubi, a taxi driver on Bonaire. His Bonaire tag is TX-7. You may read about him in Portraits of Bonaire. You may recall a number of portraits in Flaming Airport painted by Henk Roozendaal with stories written by Guus Gerritsen. We bought the book. In Farid's portrait, Farid and his model sailboat are in the foreground, his castle is in the background. The text explains that Farid's castle is based on his ancestor's castle in Trinidad.
Farid Arubi was most helpful to Seb and me when
ALM lost our luggage almost ten years ago. He took us back and forth from Divi to the airport because ALM kept on promising us that our luggage 'would be on the next plane.' It never arrived. I've told this tale on another thread.
Mary W

Great suggestions for Bob, Seb! I forgot about those two gorgeous spots. Just soooo many to choose from out West and so little time to explore it all. Carole

Also Bob, Kings Canyon, in CA, if you don't get into northern california sequoia country, they have a mess of sequoias down there, we passed through on our way to Bryce/Zion from Yosemite.

thank you seb. We probably wont make it into Northern california. Kings sounds like a good alternative.

Mary, when I look at his castle, being a taxidriver on Bonaire is a better job than I thought.

I even saw a cow in is front "garden". If you watch carefully you will see part of the cow in the picture.

Yes, that cow was walking along the road, I have
a picture of that too. Must learn to use that scanner. :-) He seems a bit thin...

Bob, let me offer a couple of tips for you on your trip to the west coast. You mentioned KOA campgrounds, these are not very nice they are geared towards RV's and not much more than glorified parking lots. The plus is that they have full hookups for the RV's. You can stay in public campgrounds which are much nicer, more natural beauty, but they will likely not have RV hookups. A good source for info on just about every campground in California is: the book California Camping

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566914868/qid=1085415751/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-2006629-7604004?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Another option you may want to think about is renting a van instead of an RV and staying in motels, there are motels around all of the major national and state parks in CA. This would be easier than driving an RV (think altitude, curvy roads, traffic...) and probably cost less. You could even buy or rent some camping gear (REI rents camping gear) and camp out at a few places and get a room at others.

Let me know if you have any more questions, I have traveled all over the area you are talking about and know it well. I love this place and want you to have a good trip! You can email me at gianos @ usc.edu

Bob,
Instead of bringing your laptop, invest in a RoadStor. One step backup to CD from any kind of media chip. You can also view your photos on a TV, and it plays DVDs, CDs or MP3s. You can get them for about $260.

We brought ours to Bonaire in February and it worked like a champ. It writes to CD multi-session so you can keep on adding to a CD until it's full. It's pretty sturdy, and if someone steals it - at least you aren't out the cost of a laptop.

See http://www.micro-solutions.com/product_info/roadstor/lit-401010.html

Thanks for the tip Susan

Chris,

The book looks like a great source indeed.
Thank for the offer of helping me out. I will sent you a private e-mail shortly.

Bob - You asked before about the property -
it is a lot on the hill in Santa Barbara,
no house yet (still in the dream stage)... :-)

Needed a loan just to pay for the land! :-)

C

Sanata Barabara is a very nice neighbourhood.
I was astonished to see the number of luxurious houses there. IMHO the number of luxurious houses does not correspond with the "normal" purchasing power on the island. Must be a lot penshionados who could afford such a house because of the tax advantages.

It will be a challenge for you to keep u with your neighbours :-)