Hello! How ya been! Long time no blog, eh? Well I have a small explanation - our main computer died. Hopfully not for long, although the first diagnosis (dead CMOS battery) was ruled out, and now we're going for a new motherboard. But that requires my computer specialist (aka Dan) to be home.

Actually, I haven't talked much about Dan this summer... He's participating on a team that's been selected as a semi-finalist for the DARPA Grand Challenge, a race of autonomous (robot) cars across the desert. The race isn't until October, but he's pretty much tied up between now and then - at least 2 nights a week and every weekend is spent in the Virginia countryside. That means a lot of alone time for me, which I'm alternately enjoying and annoyed by. There's a lot that's not getting done around the house because I can't (or don't feel like) doing it by myself. On the other hand, I'm doing a lot of knitting (yay!) and hanging out with my girlfriends. And Dan is having the time of his life on this project that he's really excited about.

OK, that was a bit of a detour. Anyway, I've been slow with getting the Panama pics up and organized because of this lack of computer. I'll work on those, because I really do want to share them.

I didn't knit very much on our vacation, but I did get a few rows (including the heel) done on the striped socks and started my Sockapal2za socks. Here they both are in front of the Bridge of the Americas, which is the bridge where Highway 1 (the Central American highway) crosses the Panama Canal.

(Click to make bigger)

And the most recent project (which has consumed most of my time since being back) is the Dreamcatcher Medallion Cardigan from Teva Durham's Loop-d-Loop. My goal is to finish it before Saturday to wear it to the Teva Durham class I'm taking at Stitch DC. I'm up to the armholes... pictures tomorrow (maybe!). I'm also making it from Artfiber's Suedish... and I'm going to Artfibers in two weeks, so I want to have it finished to show them as well. Extra motiviation!

- bus to El Valle
- El Valle market
- Zoo and golden frogs
- zipline and toucans and sloth

- bus to Gamboa
- boat trip in the canal
- Barro Colorado Island
- giant kapok tree with bats

another placeholder... must sleep!

-The canal - big boats, tiny locks!
- Casco viejo and the tourist police
- shopping in downtown PC
- Mi Ranchito
- early to bed

(this is a placeholder entry to fill in later with details and pictures... sometime when I have more time and don't need sleep!)

After I posted that last entry, Dan and I spent a few hours packing and getting everything ready for us to be gone. We finally made it to bed at 2:45. The alarm went off at 3:30 and the taxi arrived at 4. So we got a bit of a nap. The first flight (to Houston) went by quickly since we were both dead asleep. The Houston-Panama flight seemed to take a little longer, but we got good views of the Yucatan, and our first view of the Canal (although it was in the section that's part of a lake, so it wasn't the typical view).

We got into Tocumen International Airport and found a taxi to our hotel. We took the toll road which goes on a causeway giving good views of the city and financial district. It's a very cosmopolitan feel with a very diverse population.
After checking in to our hotel (comparable to an American hotel, including the high speed internet, hooray!) we got a taxi to take us to the Metropolitan National Park. It's the only rainforest inside city limits, and a good place to see some wildlife. I also wanted to find some letterboxes.

We arranged for our taxi driver to come back in three hours and set off down one of the trails. Despite what the link above says, we found it pretty successful in terms of wildlife. The highlight of the visit was when we saw a band of foraging coatis! With their tails pointing straight up in the air we first thought they were a kind of goose-like bird with a very small head. We soon figured it out, though. We watched and took photos for about 5 minutes until they finally caught wind of us and took off. Here're the best photos of the lot:

We also saw an agouti, a monkey (red-backed squirrel monkey), a "Jesus Christ" lizard running across a pond, what may or may not have been a sloth, and several cool birds. We saw and touched some very cool Cuipo "tank" trees, which are hollow and echo when you tap on them. There was an overlook with a great view of Panama City, and I got two of the three letterboxes.

Afterward, we came back to the hotel and showered (lots of humidity!), and then decided to just take it easy and eat at the hotel restaurant, even though it's a TGI Fridays. And looks and makes the same food as the TGI Friday's at home. You don't get the patio with the view of the Bridge of the Americas at home, though. And then it was back to the room, where we watched a subtitled 8 Mile, and I knit a bit on the sock (look! A knitting reference! On a knitting blog! Gosh, how crazy!). Then early to bed - easy after the day we had.