THE BIGGEST DRAGONFLY EVER

Ellie and I marched with the Artica crew down the route of the People's Joy Parade. I didn't get out to visit the other groups because she isn't old enough to go on her own but the two of us still had a good time. Artica's entry was a giant dragonfly mounted on the back of a pickup truck. The wings moved and two of the marchers guided them with ropes so they didn't get torn off in the trees. This took a lot of work.                       

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - A BIRTHDAY - TRAVEL'S END - TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Tuesday was our last night in Tamarindo. Flying home today via Miami. Everyone had a great time. Ellie just wrote something in the guestbook about the nightly gecko party on the patio,

Yesterday was also Mrs. C's birthday. She chose to have dinner at one of our local favorites, Dragonfly, https://www.dragonflybarandgrill.com , where the sesame crusted tuna is as good  as ever. Since I gave them a little hint, the staff brought something special at the end.

I do not know how this picture will look on your end. The video display on my laptop is on the edge of failure so I'm using a minimally edited phone cam pic. Might be offline until I can get this fixed.     

DRAGONFLY

A shot that almost didn't happen, and would not have but for the alert vision of Mrs. C. We had walked around the corner of the reflecting pool in yesterday's photo and sat on a bench. Dragonflies buzzed all over the water and she noticed one standing still on the low concrete wall. I had the same wide angle lens on my camera, hardly ideal for a close up, and leaned in as far as I could. What you see here is a tiny, tiny fraction of the original image. Cleaned up with de-noise software for sure, but it says something about the image quality of my camera, a Fujifilm X-T3, and lens, a FF 10-24 mm f4.          

Dragonfly, Gecko, Mini Golf

We had dinner Monday night at Dragonfly, one of Tamarindo's best restaurants. Excellent food, nice people, and, away from the center of town, reasonable prices. However, there were interesting things off the menu.

Just beside where we were sitting was a row of red Chinese lanterns, hung from the ceiling over a long table. A party of 20 was seated there. Carolyn pointed up at two of the lanterns - there were geckos crawling around inside them. Heaven knows how they got there, as the only opening points down. One of them was right at the bottom, looking like it was about to make its escape.

What does one do in such circumstances? Lean over to the diner under the lantern, tap her on the shoulder, and say excuse me, please, but I think there's a gecko about to fall down the back of your dress? What would Emily Post advise?

The other curiosity was a very new, utterly empty miniature golf course next to the restaurant. It was blazing with light. An attendant was on duty. Not a customer on the course. Looked like the mini golf of the spirit world.

Afternoon to sunset boat ride today on a big catamaran. Lunch and open bar included in the price. They call it the booze cruise. Stand by the rail at your own risk.