Above the iguana. . .

Was the family of howler monkeys. Above are two of them that turned their backs to the camera (not very cooperative) and another that looked up to howl at us and the guests who were watching them (all the while keeping an eye on the iguana to see if it would move).

There was a baby hopping around with the adults and it was a cute little thing, moving really quickly through the trees.

Back to the jungle. . .

On a warmer topic, this little bugger was just lounging about on the footpath up to the rancho (where breakfast is served) a while back.

This was in the afternoon when the iguana was soaking up some heat from the rocks. Its tail is a bit longer than what is shown and it's not nearly the largest one that we've seen.

It's one of the few times we've seen them on the ground, rather than high up in the trees, so that was cool.

Right above the iguana were a bunch of monkeys, including a baby.

Snowtime IV

Here she is, chasing the elusive snow armadillo (perhaps the yeti of the dog world)?.

For a pooch that had never been in the cold before, she did really well and enjoyed getting out and into the white stuff a lot more than we did (especially when the temperature was in the single digits).

She has no problem burying herself in the snow and coming out covered in the white stuff.

When she went to shake off the snow, she didn't have much purchase on the icy driveway, and her legs would fly out in several different directions.

Snow time III

One of Mini-B's favorite things here in Costa Rica is to dig into holes and search for armadillos and other critters.

There was nothing like that back in Wisconsin, but that didn't stop her from seeking out something.

The little goober would go crazy and try to burrow her way into the snow bank in search of who knows what.

Snow time II

Once Mini-B found her footing, literally and figuratively,
she was a snow demon.

It seemed that she couldn't get enough of the white stuff, even though we were freezing while walking her.





She seemed to be on the prowl for something, but there was nothing moving out there in the white stuff, though that didn't stop her from perking up when she thought she heard or saw something.

Snow time, I

Two days after we got to Madison, 18 inches of snow came flying down.

This time we traveled with Mini-B (she actually did quite nicely on the flights--more on that later) and being a dog from Costa Rica, she wasn't quite sure what to make of the white stuff.

At times, she would take off at a full run, then try to stop. Imagine running across a skating rink and then trying to stop or make a sharp turn, and you'll get an idea of what happened to Mini on a couple of occasions. No injuries, just a lot of flying legs going in multiple directions and a confused look, followed by a soft landing in a snow bank.

Back in the saddle. . .

Thanks to the three faithful followers who wondered what the sam hill happened to the blog.

Nothing much, just a general lack of inertia on the editorial department's behalf. Around the last post, the editorial department came down with some type of crud, that has just recently cleared up.

And, the hotel is now using Gmail, which is nice. However, since Google owns everything in cyberspace, it seems, it means having to sign out of the e-mail account of the hotel to sign into the blog.

In the huge time gap between posts, we have been to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with the Eidson family in Madison and got more than a taste of snow and winter weather.

We're back, in the middle of high season and will be posting pics and news on, hopefully, a regular basis.