Back in February I posted about moments I look for in my daily life. This is a short follow up to that post, and a small distraction from my posts about my parents' visit...

Nearly everyday I make a point to walk along the beach here in Coco. Its a relaxing time for me, listening to the waves, and watching the dogs wrestle in the sand. This is a new moment I have found that brings me complete joy, and helps ease the loss of family and friends I left behind.

The back of my house, or I guess technically the front, overlooks the hills. This is another source of inspiration for me. I love to sit on the rooftop patio watching the dark rain clouds creep over the jungle and slink down into Coco, with the entire scene set against a brilliant blue sky. It can be very impressive when a rainbow makes a brief appearance.

I do miss my dog, her howl, and her beautiful blue eyes looking up at me with love. I miss a hug from my family, and a game of 9-ball with good friends. I miss a long ride on my bike, both bicycle & motorcycle, and I really miss a good American cheeseburger.

Although falling asleep to the sound of the ocean crashing along the shoreline will never replace a snuggle from my husky, this new life has brought me some very interesting people, some great food, and given me a chance to enjoy the journey. So for me, for now, life is as it should be... Filled with moments that take my breath away...

After all, life is just a series of moments...

Well its official, I have survived my first migraine, at least for now. Over the past 11 days, I have suffered from a steadily progressing headache. The past few days have been the worst, and have forced me into a dark, quiet room, with ice on my head & neck.

I stubbornly tried to let it run its course, but could take it no longer, and called Mom. She recommended simple aspirin, the one thing I hadn't tried. DayQuil, Aleve, non-aspirin painkillers, Tylenol, anything I had, and some I had to go buy, I tried. Once I knew what to buy, it was a piece-of-cake. Headache, conquered.

I haven't confirmed it yet, but I may have developed an allergy to the local milk. Each morning I would wake up feeling decent enough, and I even went on a run yesterday around 6am. However, after my morning cereal today, the headache returned with a vengeance, and milk is the prime suspect.

Anyways, so where were we... oh ya, the Panama Canal...

We finally came to the top lock on the Pacific side. The water was still brown, and cranes attached to barges were found everywhere we visited. I found it interesting to see them digging away at the sides of the canal, not so much to build the new locks, but to keep the earth at bay. Constant rain causes a great deal of erosion throughout the canal, and this is a never ending battle. I'm not sure what this crane in the picture is doing, I just liked the shot...

About half way through our cruise, the boat stopped at a small dock on the right side of the canal. When we bought our tickets, we had two options, either the full length, or just half. Most of our shipmates had chosen the half cruise, and our boat quickly emptied. It gave us a bit of breathing room, but also an uneasy feeling as if they knew something we did not.

Not long after this, the rain started. "Ah ha," we thought, "that's where everyone went..." The crew sprang into action, and lowered rain covers on both sides of the boat. It wasn't pouring, but it was enough to keep our cameras inside where it was dry. Although the weather had turned on us, my parents & I were still happy that we decided to take the full tour.

Over the next hour or so, it was pretty much all the same: a straight, flat, wet boat ride. The middle of the canal is occupied by Lake Gatun, which in-turn is situated in the valley of the Charges River.

The lake has an area of 164 square miles, and holds an astonishing 183 billion cubic feet of water. The point is, it took a while to cross. We settled into our seats, and listened to the announcer share small tidbits amongst the soft melody of light rain. It was quite pleasant.

Our patience was soon rewarded. The rain stopped, the sun came out in full force, and even the water returned to a beautiful blueish-green. It was at this point that I was glad I bought a souvenir hat early that morning.

There were a number of characters aboard, but one of the more memorable was the souvenir lady. From the early morning, until the halfway point, she relentlessly peddled her wares, ranging from t-shirts to beer. One of the best lines of the day was introducing the beers for sale around 9am. She stepped up from the galley, and with a basket of beer in hand, she shouted, "Ok, where's my drinkers at??" It was a great way to break the ice, and distract you from the fact that people were drinking at 9am. Classic...

Another eccentric figure was the announcer, who had personality to spare. Over the entire 9 hour tour, this guy didn't stop talking for more than 15 or 20 minutes. He was completely fluent in both English & Spanish, and therefor said everything twice. He also sang half a dozen songs at different parts of the canal, which made everyone on board smile.

He told us that the boat we were on was built in 1912, and was once owned by Al Capone, who used it as a rum runner during prohibition. Several years later it was owned by Jason Robards and Steve McQueen. Hay, if its good enough for The King of Cool, then its good enough for me...

Lunch was served on-board, and all went quiet for a short period. Then, around 2:30pm that afternoon, we finally arrived at the Caribbean locks that would take us back down to sea-level.

There was a large tanker in the lock ahead of us, and we were forced to wait a half hour while she did her thing. This was just fine with us, because we had a surprise waiting in the water not far from our boat. When the announcement came over the loud speakers that there were dolphins off our port side, everyone moved so quickly that we nearly capsized the boat. Well, ok, maybe not capsized, but you get the idea.

The best we could figure was they had swam into a lock alongside some yacht, following it in from the sea as dolphins tend to do. Once inside the lock however, they could not turn around, and were forced up and finally into the lake. Since they breath air and can sometimes live in fresh water, they have apparently made a home there. I just hope there is fish for them to eat.

Moving down the locks works much the same as moving up the locks, except in reverse. Water is let out, rather than let in, but the experience is somehow different than this simple explanation.

On our way up, we would sail up along side the lock walls, and they would slowly disappear into the water below us. On our way down the locks, we started with a clear view of the sky, and were slowly consumed by a concrete casket. I couldn't help but imagine the doors behind us giving way, and Lake Gatun emptying into our lock of death.

The immortal words of Chief Brody rang in my ears: You're gunna need a bigger boat...

We made it! Three up, three down, and we were now heading into the Atlantic ocean.

Before we reached the shores of Colon Harbor though, we were approached by the coastguard. This is standard operating procedure, because our canal captain needed to disembark. Each ship must be piloted by special captains assigned to the canal, no matter how big or small the vessel may be. The coastguard barely slowed down, and the captain literally jumped onto his official water taxi. It was a maneuver they have probably done hundreds of times before, but it was a special sight for us to see.

Back on land, what was left of our boating party piled into a large bus for the return to Panama City, which should have been a two hour journey. Luckily, it was not a local's bus, but rather an air-conditioned, comfortable bus, much like what we're accustomed to back in the US. The driver was a little nuts, and a whole lot of daredevil, but we made it back in one piece, in just under an hour, and set our sights on some dinner...

One last note... Over the course of the whole day, with hundreds of pictures between us, we failed to capture one of us three together; Mom, Dad, and myself. The Panama Canal was a great experience to be sure, one that will never be forgotten. But, I do wish we had taken that picture...

It was an early morning on our second day in Panama as we set out to rendezvous with the ship Isla Morada. She would be carrying us across all six locks of the Panama Canal over the next nine hours. We would board her by 7:15am and would not disembark until 4:30pm that afternoon. It was a long, and exciting day.

Our journey began with a jaunt under the Bridge of the Americas, the Pacific entrance to the canal. It seemed as though, among the obvious tourist such as ourselves, there were many local Panamanians aboard, which was a surprising find. However, if you visit Disneyland, you will find a lot of Californians, and apparently the same applies for major tourist attractions all over the world.

It wasn't long until we reached our first sea-lock. The engineering and forethought that went into the canal is astonishing. As you probably know, the canal spans the width of Panama, connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. 48 miles long, to be specific.

The canal has three locks going up, and three locks going down. Each lock has two lanes, which can switch directions to provide one-way traffic when needed. The locks have multiple doors for maximum flexibility, but at full length reach 1,050 feet. Additionally, each lock has a width of 110 feet, which is still not enough to accommodate modern mega-ships.

There is a lot going on in this picture. First, you might notice how brown the water is. We were told that this is due to the dynamite being used up-river. Since modern ships have outgrown the canal, the Panamanian government is building a new set of locks, ones that are 50% wider, and 50% longer. These new locks will run parallel to the current route, and the construction/destruction was easily visible from our modest boat ride.

At the far end of the picture you can see the massive doors which hold back the seawater. As it turns out, the water is not from the sea at all, but rather sourced from Lake Gatun, directly in the middle of the Panama Canal at its highest point, 85 feet above sea-level. Simple gravity is used to flood the locks and raise the ships. To replenish the water, the lake relies on rainfall. Genius.

Next I'd like to direct your attention to the electronic mules. My father and I were both under the misconseption that actual mules were used to pull the ships through the canal when it finished constructed in 1914. Animal mules were never used, and their electronic cousins don't actually pull ships through the canal.

These "mules" were never of the animal persuasion, and we saw pictures that were nearly a decade old to confirm this. They have always been, and will likely always be, electronic, powered by the electrified rails they live on. At each end of the line, there is another ingenious contraption, one that picks each mule off the ground and rotates it 180 degrees, sending it back from which it came.

Furthermore, every ship that passes through the canal is required to do so under its own power. The mules are simply there to center the ships, and keep them from hitting the walls. The largest ships which can still use the canal have only a matter of inches from either wall, and I can say without doubt that I am glad I do not drive a mule for a living, electronic or otherwise.

Well now that you have a good idea of how the canal works, lets move onto the more interesting moments of the day. If you have read my previous post, you'll know that I mentioned a yacht called the Remember When. It just so happens, that after seeing her in port, she would accompany us through the locks, and into the Atlantic.

We didn't know it at the time, but this is not just any yacht. This is a super-mega yacht, commissioned by auto dealer tycoon John Rosatti of New York. The 162 foot dream was christened in March 2010, and set to the high-seas for a tour of every major port in Mexico.

The interior is legendary among yachtsmen, and appropriately one of the most extravagant in the world. On its stern, we could count six jet skies, I guess for when your mega yacht is just not enough excitement. On top of its sheer decadence, is its electronic sophistication, which I found more interesting than marble bathrooms and mahogany cabinets.

This is a yacht equipped with a Dynamic Positioning system (DP). At the touch of a button, the DP system comes online to monitor its own GPS coordinates in relation to the censored ocean currents and water movements. The end result is that she can keep herself in a geo-synchronous position without any human intervention. This happens to include moving through the Panama Canal. When the captain says "sit, stay"... she follows orders.

However, she still required the mule's lanyards as a matter of protocol. If my ship was worth that much, I would do the same. We did notice that the rigging was very loose in the locks, and that raises the question as to how they rigged her up in the first place.

Here you can see two men in a small rowboat. They literally carry the ropes out to each vessel that passes. What a job that must be! We also noticed that the crew had placed protective blue coverings on the sides of Remember When, which you can see if you click on the picture and look towards her starboard stern.

I think I have drooled over the Remember When long enough, lets move on. As impressive as she was, her size held no pittance to the mother ships of the canal. These babies were holding nothing back, and I have the stats & pictures to prove it.

The canal itself is only 45 feet deep. This may sound like enough, but in the world of super-tankers, it is quickly becoming inadequate. Today's ships, those who are cleared for the canal, only make that depth by three feet. Given their huge LDT (Light Ton Displacement), this is a measurement they must track down to each container. Interestingly enough, each container's contents must be secured within the container, less the ship rolls, and its contents shift, which throws the entire manifesto off keel. Big, big, big job.

I think this is enough for one post, but we are only half way through the canal. As I said in the beginning of this post, it was a long, and exciting day, not to mention interesting. I did steal a few pictures from the end of our trip for the benefit of this post, but otherwise you can see that the water is still brown. When we reach our half-way point, the weather gets worst, and the water is cleared up....

More to follow...

Flying into Panama City from the north is a very cool experience. The plane flew right over the entrance to the Panama Canal, and I could see dozens of cargo ships waiting to traverse the canal. It is a very busy harbor to say the least.

Since I will not be home for Christmas this year, my parents surprised me with a special gift when we arrived at our hotel in Panama: a Canon Rebel t2i camera! What an amazing piece of machinery this thing is. With 18 megapixels, 1080p video, and some of the best optics in the industry, it is almost difficult to take a bad picture...

We spent our first day sightseeing around Panama. There is a long road leading out into the ocean at the south tip of Panama City. At the end is four small islands, and each has its own perfect view of downtown.

Pay special attention to the giant yacht on the left side of this picture. Its called the Remember When, and you'll see it again later on this blog...

Panama City is much more built up than I had imagined. I think we were all surprised by the amount of skyscrapers which make up its skyline, almost Manhattan-esque. Unfortunately the inner city is in shambles, and extremely overrun with garbage and dirty apartment buildings.

We took our first of many drives over the Bridge of the Americas. The GPS maps we had of Panama were missing a vital piece of information: levels. It would invariably instruct us to make a turn while going over or under a bridge, as if the entire map was 2D rather than 3D. After getting lost more than not with Scott driving around Costa Rica, it was certainly better to have the GPS with wrong info than to not have it at all.

Our hotel was on the edge of the canal, with a great view of the Bridge of the Americas. When the bridge was built in 1962, it was the only non-swinging bridge connecting south and north America. The bridge was originally called the Thatcher Ferry Bridge, named after the ferry which it replaced.

The Pan-American Highway, of which the bridge is a key part of, runs right along the south-east side of Panama City. This was a rare beauty within the city limits, and I truly enjoyed the drive. To me, the boardwalk downtown looked like a very exciting place to live. It certainly is a city under construction, since nearly every building had a crane mounted on its roof.

The lens on my new camera is fantastic. It has a very wide angle (18-55mm in case you're wondering). At 18mm, it is just on the edge of a fish-eye look. Although this picture make look fish-eyed, it is not. The light poles on the Pan-Am highway are actually curved slightly inward.

We quickly came to notice the buses around town. The best we could figure is that they are individually owned and operated. They are all brightly painted, with extravagant decorations all around. Some had trucker style tailpipes sticking out the back. Many had blinking lights on the front, sides & back. The strangest thing however, was the decals stuck right on the front windshield, covering the entire top half of the window. That can't be safe!

That evening the three of us took a very nice walk along the canal, snapping up a few photos along the way. We found this pier shortly before sunset, and strolled down for some evening HDR shots. My new toy does auto exposure bracketing, which is my favorite feature to use now. Combined with the optical image stabilizer in the lens, the need for a tripod is nearly eliminated. As I get to know the camera better, the power it possesses is starting to become clear.

Today the folks started their journey home, and once again I return to my blog to keep me company. It is always difficult, if not rude, to post while I have visitors here in Costa Rica. The time necessary to post is better spent with family and friends while I have the opportunity, and so the adventures continue with little proof other than our photos and memories.

The detailed memories of the Panama Canal, rain forests, Arenal volcano, getting lost in rental cars, and coming home to Coco with my parents will likely fade, but the photos and attached feelings will never leave me. For a person who has traveled a great deal of the world, the past two weeks was an experience that will not soon, if ever, find its equal.

Over the next few weeks, I hope that I can relay the stories, adventures, grand mishaps and perfect moments in a manner that rivals life itself. However much I would like to record our time together with immaculate precision, I must console myself with an idea I have had for sometime now, "does not translate."

This simply means that no amount of pictures or words can articulate the growth, bonding, and overall spice of life that is gained by actual travel among foreign lands & cultures.

However, I can promise to relieve our cameras of their most amazing photos, and to let them speak for themselves. If a photo is worth a thousand words, and given our plethora of pictures & videos, then I must take a humbled backseat, or at the very least, a backseat driver position.

The pictures will soon follow, but this is a rare post. No pictures. No videos. Simply my words to convey my thoughts. When I met my parents in the Panama airport, it was as if time had not passed. I imagined that I was seeing them shortly after my bon voyage trip up the escalator in Los Angeles.

This time however, we all carried luggage, and we managed to grace our faces with smiles. It was a hello rather than a good-bye, and a much needed hello on my part. I knew when I left California that it would be difficult to leave everything behind, but family is family, and it nearly brought me to tears when we hugged.

My Mom does not like to fly, to put it mildly. My mother had forced herself to board the plane, and this wouldn't be the last time during our trip she showed her commitment. Six flights for her & Dad in total, and I commend her for every ounce of panic she muffled.

Our car rental took much longer than we all expected, but t'is the Central American life style. The GPS my father had bought gave decent directions (aka, a compass and heading), had we actually used it directly from the airport. We ended up on some very shady back roads, where Americans are not always welcomed. Our safe passage was only granted because my Dad kept giving the car gas when we found ourselves in what should have been "territorio americano mala"....

After a lot of misdirection and a few wrong turns on our part, we found the Country Inn, who's motto is "I Love This Country".... Over the next few days, we learned that it was purely a marketing slogan, and that nobody actually loves Panama.

After an amazing couple of weeks, my parents & I are back in Coco, settling down for some well deserved rest on our last few days together. Tomorrow they will be traveling back to San Jose, Costa Rica, on their way north to their home in California. Their visit seems to have been cut short. Has it really been two weeks already? Why doesn't life have a rewind button?

Well perhaps it does... I have over 2,000 photos of my own from our travels together. Add to that my Mom's 2,000 photos, and lets not leave out my Dad's 2 photos from his iPhone... I have a feeling I will be very busy on this blog over the next month or so...

Posts coming soon............. :-)

My parents are here with me in Panama. We just finished a cruise down the Canal, through all the locks and into the Atlantic ocean... Very cool, the three of us are all having for so much fun together.

Just a temporary post, we're all exhausted, but just like when Scott was here, I'm keeping notes....

I'll post for reals very soon :-)