Hey Y'all, Karen left out or lost a few of the photos of our tour of Colon. The Panamanians are making a new set of locks at both ends of the canal.

 Here are a few photos of the excavation that you can see on the Colon side. now they were planning on opening this in 2014 but as any of you can see they still have 3 or 4 to go. best laid plan and all that.

 Panama isn't doing any of the construction but are taking the credit for it until the delay came and then it all changed. Most of the financing is coming from China but not a well known fact.

 We are going on a little tour today of another fort, like we haven't seen any of them before. I guess I have seen damn nearly every fort in the eastern and now the western Caribbean.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.  You are getting Karen today instead of Mike.  Wednesday we took a tour of Colon and we saw parts of that city that we had no idea were there.  The picture above is at a battery and it shows how the Panama Canal was built.  It's truly an amazing sight.

The gentleman in the picture with Mike is a friend of ours named Jerry and he gave us the tour.  He has been here for over a year and had a marina at the Rio Dolce.  This shows a picture of Lake Gatun that made the Canal.  It is truly beautiful.

Here is a picture of a hotel swimming pool on the lake.  It is 2 tiered and has a bar in the water.  I could see my granddaughter Rebecca and grandson Josh having the time of their life there.  Panama is full of beautiful birds and lots and lots of monkeys.  I had a picture of me but lost it so I thought I'd write this blog to let Mike Haskins know I am alive and well.  

See Y'all Down the Road

Karen & Mike

Chagres

 Hey Y'all, Karen & I spent a few days on the Chagres River. This is the river that feeds the man made lake Gatun for the canal. The river is part of the rain forest and is full of birds and monkeys.

I've tried to upload all the photos but it has taken 1 hour to put these on the blog. We ran up and down the river to look at the wild life. Plenty of Toucans and parrots. We looked for this trail that was suppose to be at a certain location and we could not find it. I guess I'm not much of a nimrod or pathfinder. Well without the trail we could not get to where the monkeys are located. I kind of thought that they would travel to the edge of the river but they don't. You can here them just inside the jungle but you can't see them. Well not to be out done by a bunch of Karen's relatives I found a few inlets that go inland. One of these are in the guide book so I guess I wasn't the first, anyway up one was suppose to be an old concrete bridge( not there) and no monkeys. We went up and down these inlets and could here the damn things but could not see them. We where so disappointed that we could not get monkeyed. I guess y'all don't know what monkeyed is, so here goes. Being monkeyed is when they either move over the top of you are you move under them.When they see you they get all excited and all bodily functions start to happen. Some of this is thrown at you plus leafs and sticks. Well for 2 days we could not get monkeyed. Now remember I'm not going to be out done. The day before we left late in the evening we jumped in the dingy and went to an inlet that we could here the monkeys. Guess what we were under a troop of howlers. The first thing that happened was they became excited and started to monkey around. After the first splash Karen is howling as loud as the monkeys letting me know that she wanted me to back the dingy up. We hung around fer a little while just to say we were monkeyed. I don't think we need to do that again.
        We are setting in the marina waiting on parts again and can't leave just yet so I can't say when the next update will be so.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, I tried to download some photos from our canal trip this morning but the Internet is too slow.
     We are sitting on the boat waiting on our new stack pack and paying out more money to the marina.
      This Shelter Bay marina is the most expensive we have been in.
I'll try to finish the canal trip tomorrow if I can load the photos, so don't think I have forgot about y'all.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen