And as I expected, it is very modern or contemporary and seems to be geared to preschool and younger primary school kids. My feature shot at top shows a young couple holding up their child to see the installation. Below is a shot of the workers installing the new play things and artificial turf which I guess is better than the gravel base installed earlier. 🙂 I made these shots yesterday and expect it to be several days before it is open for the kids to play on when I will make another cell phone shot of an active playground. 🙂 For new followers of this blog, this one area of the Atenas Central Park is just one of many very slow steps in this small town’s renovating the Central Park here for 3 or 4 years now. You can see all of my Park Renovation photos in the photo gallery: Remodeling Central Park Atenas.
Workers installing playground equipment and artificial turf in the new playground for the Central Park Atenas.
Another fun and silly holiday from an article in the Washington Post — April 12 – National Grilled Cheese Day! And maybe I will make my favorite combination of Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwich (just like Mom used to make)! 🙂
Half the fun of eating a grilled cheese is slowly pulling apart the halves to watch strings of the gooey cheese stretch and finally break. You may appreciate that cheesy reveal even more if you make it yourself. Ask an adult to help you master this lunchtime classic.
A fun holiday for school kids only if you can convince your teachers! 🙂 I discovered in the Washington Post article about fun and silly holidays . . . March 6 – No Homework Day!
At this point in the school year, you may be tired of homework. Share this holiday with your teachers, and they may give you a one-day breakto play soccer with friends or finish the book you started on Read Across America Day, March 2. (We also learned of a No Homework Day in May, but don’t count on getting two of these.) 🙂 I’ll try it on my Spanish teacher! 🙂
March 6 – No Homework Day!
¡Pura Vida!
Meet the Tayra
Tayra in Costa Rica
And to continue my usual emphasis on nature and wildlife, here’s a link to another Tico Times Wildlife Article “Meet the Tayra” which is Costa Rica’s version of a tropical weasel. The linked article has more of the Guanacaste Camera Trap Videos from which the above pix came.
I learned about the fun and silly holidays from a Washington Post article, including February 12 as Hug Day!
This celebration is part of someone’s idea to stretch Valentine’s Day into a week. No need to buy flowers or candy for this day, thankfully. Just offer friends and family something that has been scientifically shown to lift their mood: a hug.
February 12 – National Hug Day!
¡Pura Vida!
🙂
New Trip Blog Posts Start Tonight!
Also TODAY is the day that I fly on a little Sansa Airlines 12 passenger plane to one of my favorite wilderness places in Costa Rica, Tortuguero National Park, as mentioned yesterday. So most likely you will get a post from there tonight, assuming that their internet WiFi is as good at this most expensive lodge in Tortuguero as they claims it is. 🙂 Tortuga Lodge & Gardens
Much wildlife spotting is done from a boat at Tortuguero.
So expect a week or more of photos and comments from what travel magazines call “The Amazon of Costa Rica” and one of the few places in the country where travelers have actually seen a Jaguar (from a boat) though they are mostly nocturnal like all the wild cats here. Plus I expect a lot of birds, some butterflies and several other animals, along with the tropical rainforest and rivers/canals and of course some great Caribbean food and 4 good nights of sleep! 🙂
The park staff has finished everything for the playground quadrant except installing the new playground equipment which someone who knows says will be here in January. 🙂 Here’s the area of the playground with swings and monkey bars (or whatever) to go on that gravel area seen from two directions in these two photos.
There will be parent seating on three sides of this area.Playground area on left. Canopies were for vendors during the Christmas Parade.
REPORT ON THE RECENT ART SHOW: I sold more than a thousand dollars worth of photos when all was tabulated, much better than I expected! And I was even more pleased with how many local readers of my blog I have, with many showing up at the art show, and buying something and asking for my autograph in one of my photo books! It is nice to have your work appreciated, even when it is a hobby in retirement! 🙂
Last night, Friday, was the first annual Christmas Parade in two years thanks to the Covid Pandemic and the people came out for that and the fiesta in Central Park. I got too many photos to share on the blog, so just a sampling here and then please go to my:
I’ve divided the good photos into 4 sub-galleries which you can go directly to from the link on the 4 pix below representing the sub galleries. First a photo of the church just before dark and the beginning of the light parade, then the sample photos . . .
While Alajuela is finishing the reconstruction of the bus terminal for buses from surrounding towns like Atenas, our Atenas bus drops us off downtown and then we catch the return bus between a cemetery and neighborhood city park that I haven’t found a name for yet. For Christmas this year they hung brightly colored stars from all the trees in the park which doesn’t seem that special, but their “Walk-through Stars” on one of the sidewalks is kind of neat to me. Here’s three shots of it from different angles.
During the last few days of my walks around Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica I have been cellphone-snapping photos of Christmas decorations and the slideshow below this one shot is just a sample of many in homes and businesses. Ticos love Christmas! And it is in our Summer break from schools with graduations the middle of December and new school year starting in February. It’s also the time for family vacations with all the hotels full during Christmas, especially on the beaches. I had to make reservations for my Christmas trip a year ago to get a room at Arenal Observatory. It will be literally full! Tomorrow night (Friday) is our Atenas Christmas Parade and I’ll have photos in a Saturday blog post. A fun and happy time of year here!
I’m either “a child at heart,” a “simple-minded old man,” or maybe I just like good adventure stories and some of the best are written for children! 🙂
I wrote earlier about finishing The Wingfeather Saga series (4 books) of adventure stories for children written by a singer in Nashville and recommended to me by an old friend in Nashville. It was a good series and if he continues it, I will probably read the future stories, but right now that particular writer (I follow him) is too busy making an animated series of his first four books plus related merchandise and just making more money. 🙂
The same friend that recommended TheWingfeather Saga was later reading the The Green Embers series (I follow that friend on Goodreads) and so I thought I would try it. This one is about rabbits (& other animals) instead of people and the writer is a very good story teller with a good story, but my problem is that it is a war story and very gloomy and negative in some ways and I would not recommend it for young children. I read only the first book in the series and decided to go back to something that I already knew was good. But I may later continue that series in spite of the violence. (It is a good story!)
So now I am rereading The Chronicles of Narnia, all 7 books in one big electronic Kindle book! With a “bonus” book of Boxen (another children’s book by C.S. Lewis I never read). I’m reading Narnia in chronological order this time 🙂 , starting with The Magician’s Nephew to hopefully re-learn first how Narnia started (I forgot!). 🙂 So this series will keep me busy to sometime next year, if I don’t tire of it! 🙂 Then I might consider a reread of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Series in the right order again. A much longer and more challenging read! 🙂 But wonderful!
It’s fun to be an adventure-loving child again!
🙂
Which is okay for us old people!
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Join up with your fellow readers!
If you too like to read, you might consider joining Goodreads where all of your “friends” on Facebook (who are members of Goodreads) can be clicked into Goodreads as friends there (your choice). Then you might learn about some good new books that your friends are reading. 🙂 It’s free, informative, and occasionally helpful in evaluating books or deciding what to read next.
Plus their website has lots of very good book reviews which helps you evaluate before buying a book, plus news about new releases, information on book awards, and special discounts for Goodreads members. You also can “follow” your favorite writers to be the first to hear about their new releases or special discounts offered on their books. Another good bonus! I do recommend “Goodreads” (even with the disclaimer that they are connected to Amazon.com for obvious commercial reasons!). 🙂 Happy reading! ALWAYS BETTER THAN TV!
One day they were digging a hole where the playground equipment will go and then another adding big rocks. I thought to myself that the rocks were to help with water drainage underneath dirt they will put on top of them. Then another surprise! They put gravel over the rocks which will help even more with the water drainage, but children playing on gravel? Well, it seems to be a very fine gravel which will not hurt the child who falls on it and of course grass could never grow on an active playground! So it is looking good and hopefully my next update will be photos of the playground equipment. I’m expecting something contemporary and hopefully it will not be concrete like everything else built so far! 🙂 Here’s three progressive photos for this report . . .
