Caio, Caio, Caio UK, Bonjourno Sicily!

We left the cold and miserable UK for warm and sunny Sicily. We are spending four days in Palermo, then Trapani for 2 weeks, and then Cefalu for a month. It's gonna be tough, but someone's gotta do it. However, if you do it, don't do Palermo. As they say here, "ees a dump" or something like that. The main airport is here, so if you fly in to Palermo, get out as soon as you can. Palermo was bombed heavily during WWII and it hasn't been fully rebuilt to this day.
The traffic is Palermo is as crazy as I remembered it from Rome. Lanes are more a suggestion, as are traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks. If the crosswalk is not controlled by a light, you just walk out in the street and stare at someone until they stop, then others (usually) follow suit for the briefest of moments. It is not uncommon to have traffic whizzing by on all sides of you as a group od pedestrians moves across the street. I liken it to the fish in the sea: they all swim around each other, rarely hitting one another. Except these urban fish have horns in their cars and motorcycles, which they use frequently to let you know that you are doing something wrong, or in their way, or they are passing you or whatever. We even saw an old gentleman walking down the street with a air horn tied to his neck.
When a motorcycle (and most times a car) enters a street from a side lane, the don't stop before entering. Rather they flow into the traffic, around the cars and cycles whizzing by. They sometimes go into the opposing lanes of traffic as they weave into their spot in traffic. And if they want to go across the lanes, well, then one just does. Whatever is behind you is behind you. How not to hit you is their problem to work out. Fun stuff!!
And no baby seats either in the cars. Toddlers stand up in the front or back seats, practicing their best balancing act. Maybe this toughens them up for the time when they are hurtling down the streets in their own vehicles!
One saving grace is the open air markets!!!

 Calamari salad!

 Swordfish is all over the place here. No charge for the cigarette ash.

 Just gross.

 Fresh fish abound!

 A mixture of North African and Italian vendors.

 Prickly pear.

 Heaps of shrimp.

 Smoked mozzarella as large as a basketball.

Look, a swordfish!

The buildings are a hodgepodge of sorts, as the building codes are, how should I put it, not strictly enforced. Wink, wink.

 This owner is trying for the artsy look.

 Lots of graffiti here, usually political.

 Many, many gutted rooms above the ground floor businesses.

 A bajillion motorcycles and scooters here.

 Contrast of the old and new, side-by-side, is very common here.

 Park anywhere you want, facing any way. Double-parked, triple-parked, on the sidewalk is okay.

 Here is a car pulling onto the main street from a side street. No stopping, just pulls in front of the motorcycle and cuts in front of the car, causing it to brake sharply, then speed up and so it goes.

 Trash is everywhere, overflowing the bins, and dumped anywhere there is space.

Not sure what is going on here. . .

Last picture is a nice one of the grapes!

Peace my friends!

A Wee Bit O'Rain

I washed Sharry's car here and apparently triggered a rainstorm that left more than a month's worth of rain in a day around Yorkshire. Flooding was widespread throughout this neck of the woods.

Kirsty, Sharry and I walked around York today and we stopped at a bridge and looked at the river Ouse that has flooded a part of York.

Here is a bit of a closeup of the previous picture. You can seen the top of the street-side door below the white part of the building and the tops of the streets signs just out of the water. That is a passenger ramp (mid-picture at the right side) for loading and unloading boats where the river normally runs.

Peace my friends!

Petrol Prices

If you think your petrol (or gas to you foreigners), prices are high in your neighborhood, take a look at the prices in the west of Ireland:

Now, that is 1.71 Euros, or about $2.20. And funnily enough, that's for a litre of petrol. So, times that by 4 and you get a gallon of gas for close to $9.

Peace my friends!

Back In The Old Sod

After two weeks of camping in Wanda (in Oregon and California), we hopped on a jet and flew across the pond to Amsterdam, then back on another jet to Ireland. Safely ensconced in Connemara with Nicola and J.P., we took a ride out to our favorite beach, Coral Beach. The internet is a bit problematic out in the hinterland, so just a few pictures now, with more to follow later.

The coral is very small in size. This 10 cent coin is about the same size as an American dime.

 The variety of shells and coral is amazing!

Barbed wire and stone in a sad attempt to keep the sheep and cows out of the road!

Peace to you my friends!

We Bid Sitka Adieu

As that hack Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . ." So it was with our time in Sitka (if not quite as far on each end of the scale). There is no finer place to be than Sitka when the weather is good and the smell of the trees is in the air. However, a year of rain, cold and dampness that went deep into the bones made for a rather dreary, ill-spent twelve months time. And, to make matters worse, this place is run by a committee of clowns who fancy themselves city administrators. The constant bickering between the charter fisherman, commercial fishermen, and the old guard who fondly remember the great days of the sawmill can get tiring as well. One bumper sticker fairly well sums it up: "I'd rather have a daughter working in a whorehouse than a son working on a charter boat."
Still, it wasn't all thorns and no roses. Here is Sitka, August 2011-August 2012 (in no particular order):

 Having my son Corey up in January was great! Unfortunately he came up when the temperatures was -5 or colder. We froze our butts off!

He's tough!

 Fortunately, there were bagels to be made!

Yummy!!

I finally saw a bear out at the estuary. This young bear was munching on the grass, while waiting for the berries to ripen.

 The wind can be fierce here, often up to 70 mph. Lots of trees blow over (due to the shallow roots) and some, like this one, snap in two!

The WWII bunkers still on some of the islands around here are very interesting to explore.

 Christmas decorations on the Cross Trail path!

Devil's club thorns will pierce just about anything!

 Bald Eagles still give me a thrill when I see them in flight!

 Snow at the estuary.

 Kirsty took to knitting during the dreary winter. Here are two felted bunnies she made for her nieces, Eryn and Isla, in England.

 Dem bones!

 The colors here are amazing!

 Lots of ice on the house this winter.

 Indian River with light snow falling.

 One of my favorite views in Sitka!

Indian River in the spring.

 Kirsty and our friend Fonda heading to the WWII bunkers.

 Standing in a bunker.

 Kirsty's 40th birthday party with Kiki and Cecilia at Ludvig's restaurant.

 Damn, Kirsty is going to miss those XtraTuffs!

 Making mango chutney.

 Sitting pretty on the Columbia ferry.

 Good stuff!!

Not in Sitka, but the Mendenhall Glacier (in Juneau), was one of our highlights this year.

 Mt. Edgecumbe is an awesome sight to behold when crowned with snow.

 A couple of my favorite colors.

 Patrick the starfish.

 Patrick the tomato peeler (for canning).

 They grow big and beautiful here!

 Delicious!!!!!

 Eye candy.

 So many salmon, one could almost walk across the river on their backs!

 We had a bit of snow this year. Everyone kept saying "we don't usually have this much snow, this early."

Our Christmas reindeer.

 Frozen grass at the river.

 First snow.

 We usually don't get this much snow, this early.

 Snow on the beach.

 Storms passing through.

 The spot prawns are simply delicious!

 We were very glad to see the signs of spring!

 Sunset at the grocery store. Nicest view of any grocery store we've ever been to.

 Iced-up lake.

 Happy couple on the Columbia!

Wanda, with the new curtains Kirsty made.

1st Anniversary dinner: white king salmon of course, cooked to perfection by my lovely bride!

Beautiful Sitka! As we hope to remember her.

We sail away next week, back on the Columbia down to Bellingham. Followed by a couple of weeks camping in Wanda. Then we are off to Europe for a few months. See you soon!

Peace my friends!