Upgrades

The exterior side door of our house was actually just an interior door that was retro-fitted with a new window. It was also basically unusable and during the winter left that side of the house like an ice box.

I tore out the old door and jamb to make room for the new insulated steel door we special ordered from Menards several weeks earlier.

More than a dozen hours later, the new door!

Here is a one of the two modern Scandinavian side tables Christina spent untold hours refinishing.

Here is the pair as they appeared when my parents dropped them off after many years of storage in the basement and garage of their home in Wisconsin.

From left: Putin, Thatcher, Lincoln, Churchill, the Ayatollah, Castro, Henry VIII, Kim Jong, Marie Antoinette and a random Cleopatra who just happened to be at the party.

World leaders unite!!!

this year the group costume was world leader past and present. It proved to by a good theme because there were a lot of options for people from which to choose.

Also a random meeting with Reagan at one of the parties we went to.

Getting ready for winter

Well we have been busy doing a bunch of semi-uninteresting fall tasks. Now that the garden has done i've had a bit of time to reflect on the successes and the failures. probably won't grow peanuts again (see the one lonely peanut above), broccoli and basil did well, bumper crop of tomatoes once we moved them to the side of the house and also a lot of success with the peppers. Below are the teeny, tiny onions we reaped from the garden. so wee.


This past weekend i planted over 250 bulbs. Hopefully the squirrels won't get to all over them.

By far the biggest project we have been working on is the pergola and staining the fence. The pergola still has some finishing touches needed so hopefully we can finish that up before winter. We are planning on growing grapes and/or hops next year on the pergola. As for the fence, we didn't really want the fence to go gray just yet so we spent many days staining it. In 6 years when it is supposed to be redone, we are just going to leave it.

One nice thing about the staining is that we did the deck going up to the backdoor so now it all matches.

Mmm... Kristen, Cameron love donut

Our good friends got married on Friday night at the Mill City Museum. Area history was highlighted. All the tables were labeled with local landmarks. My meal included MN wild rice and duck (doubtful it was a loon since I think eating the state bird is illegal). No cutting wedding cake for these two – they had donuts. We had a great time and we're both super happy for them!

Panorama mania!

Click on them to see them better.

Copacabana!!

At christ the redeemer, rio

Rio. Not a great pic, it got weird in the sky area.

Sugarloaf (Pão de Açúcar) from below in Rio

On the sugarloaf, Rio at night (you can see Copacabana on the far left)

Rio

Soccer Game, Brazil

Iguazu fall, Argentina side

Iguassu Falls on the Brazilian side

Not a great panorama in Montevideo, subject matter is uninteresting

Out on a peninsula in Montevideo at sunset

Uruguay

More Uruguay

Palacio Salvo, Uruguay

Casapueblo in Uruguay

more Casapueblo in Uruguay

Polluted Santiago

Vina Del Mar

Valparaiso (photomerge added in a floating mast in the middle)

Showing up for the party in Chile

We noticed it was considerably cooler in Santiago. Winter still. Our hotel was in the main downtown area that recently has been nicknamed San-hattan because of the amount of skyscrapers being added to the skyline.

We noticed everyone had a flag in their car, on their home– they were everywhere. People were selling flags at the intersections. This, as we later found out, was because it was Chile's Independence day (in fact, it was their bicentennial year) and it was law everyone must have a flag. Forced patriotism, nice.

Here is our tour guide at the city center, called Plaza de Armas. He called us Mr. Stephens and lady the entire time.

The Monument to the Indigenous People is quite a strange but interesting sculpture on Plaza de Armas.

Ah, smog. Santiago is one of the most polluted cities in Latin America. Trapped in a valley surrounded by the Andes on the east and a coastal mountain range on the west, the capital suffers a thermal inversion during the winter which keeps pollutants from leaving (just like LA). I didn't notice a difference in air quality, but the photos certainly suffer.

As a result of the impending independence day, the markets were packed. Everyone stocked up on food for big family get togethers. Seafood.

Here we are crossing the Mapocho River downtown. Spices.

Fruit.

Grains and spices.

Makeshift shopping cart BBQ. I passed.

Homeless patriot taking a siesta. There were homeless dogs everywhere through out the city.

Christina phone home.

We took an excursion to Valparaiso. On the way we passed several world class vineyards and wineries. Chile is basically the equivalent of California in South America. This area is their Napa Valley.

We stopped at a rural restaurant and tried some corn liquor called Cheecha.

Valparaiso was kind of like San Francisco. It is nicknamed “The Jewel of the Pacific” and was very interesting and had many colorful buildings.

Flee market.

The port of Valparaiso is also an important hub for shipping and exports of many products Chile is known for including wine, copper, and fresh fruit.

On our way out of Valparaiso we stopped to see a moai statue from Easter Island. This is one of six that have been moved from the island, which is 2,180 miles off the Chile coast.

We left on Independence day and it seemed the entire city was deserted. Above is a photo from the plane as we left Santiago. Because of the smog it was only time I saw the Andes even though they were right next to the city.

Chillin' in Uruguay

We took the Buque Bus ferry from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. It was a very comfortable ride with free wifi and a nice change of pace to all the flights we took during our trip. When we arrived there was an immediate sense that life was much slower in Uruguay. Above is the Palacio Salvo that we saw during our city tour. It was South America's tallest building when it was built in 1927 and still is the tallest in Montevideo. Even in the downtown area everything felt quaint and small.

One day we took a full day excursion to Punta del Este, the famous beach resort city about a two hour drive from the capital Montevideo. On the way we stopped at the artist Carlos Paez Vilaro's home and subsequently a museum he built called Casapueblo.

His art work.

The city of Punta del Este has a permanent year round population of around 11,000; but in their summer (our winter) it swells to a million rich folks from Argentina, Brazil, and lately Europe. On the day we visited it was kind of a ghost town.

The symbol of Punta del Este is La Mano, a giant concrete hand sculpture rising out of the sands of the Atlantic. This was actually the first area in Uruguay the beach was against the Atlantic Ocean. Every time I thought it was the ocean I was told it was actually a river, the Río de la Plata. The river flowed along the coast for miles and miles and miles. Strange.

During our tour of Punta del Este our guide pointed out this bridge (click pic to enlarge for better viewing). Why would they build a wavy bridge? Our bus driver showed us... he gunned it. We were sitting in the back and I nearly lost my breakfast. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes as entertainment in Uruguay. We did meet a fellow American named Paul on our tour. He gave us his blog address before the day was over. Take a look at his impression of me on his blog; pretty ironic my reaction was to laugh out loud.

Christina woke up our last day in Uruguay with one goal and one goal only– to take a picture of one of the guys we'd seen collecting recycling with his horse. Success. Next stop Chile!