Sunday Morning Grab Bag - Tuesday Morning Edition

Lynn and Pete, friends from Seattle, arrived Thursday afternoon, just in time to sit around under the palapa and have a nice cold Belikin.

Pete and Lynn Arriving at Casa Winjama

Of course, they came down for a bit of vacationing, but their overall purpose was to check up on the lots that they own. It'll be a few years before they're ready to make the 'great escape' and move down here, so in the meantime, a quick getaway every now and then keeps them somewhat sane.

Lynn Under the Palapa

Pete Relaxing After the Trip

Then, about sunset, we headed over to Corozo Blues for a couple of nice wood-fired pizzas.

Allow me to digress for a smidge here. A couple of days before Lynn and Pete arrived, we had gone to Orange Walk Town with David and Elizabeth, who're working diligently to try and get their new kitchen cabinets installed and functional. One of the major goals of the trip was to visit a couple of hardware stores to see if they could find drawer pulls and cabinet handles - which, surprisingly, they were able to in short order.

Of course, we had to go to Family Market while we were there. We drove by Panifacadora La Popular Bakery but managed to resist going in. I'm not sure that was a good thing.

Since I was running low on tee shirts, I really wanted to stop at the American store and see what they had available in the mens gently used tee shirt department. It's not unusual there to find tee shirts still with tags attached. Generally, these finds go for around $3.00 to $5.00 BZD. Quite the bargain. I managed to find a couple. Dianna and Elizabeth found a few tops and some other things.

Then it was time for lunch. We went to one of our favorite eateries over there at Carlos' Pizzeria. A nice break for lunch. After that it was back on the road and heading for home.

It was on our way out of town when Elizabeth called our attention to the two restaurants. Hmmm, which one to choose? We've never eaten at either one. Too much of a decision I guess.

Which To Choose?

So, back on the topic at hand now. Lynn and Pete have arrived and gotten settled in. Naturally, they wanted to freshen up a bit. And of course, the hot water wasn't working. Not even a whimper. I piddled around with the heater for a bit, deciding that I'd take a crack at it in the morning.

Dianna and I had looked at it just a few days before they showed up and had gotten it working after brushing out all the carbon deposits, rust, dead bugs and other debris. Of course it wouldn't work when we actually have company.

Well, the following morning, I popped the cover and attacked it with my trusty retired tooth-brush, which is great for getting into those hard-to-reach places to get rid of the soot, rust and fried critters - all to no avail, however. I could get the igniter to spark once in a while, but that was about it. We tried new batteries, cuss words and other incantations. Nothing seemed to work, but that I hot-foot (no pun intended) it over to Lano's Hardware and plunk down about $395.00 BZD for a new on-demand water heater.

A bit more cussing and gluing and drilling (I had to get a power tool in there somewhere) and we had it done. The damned thing works like a charm. A bit too well, according to Lynn and Pete. I've been working to get the water temp down to a pleasant 52-55 (C). While you're at it, check out the spiffy connections. Mr. Lann suggested I use the braided hoses as it would allow me to disconnect the heater much quicker if I needed to do some repairs. He also included a shut-off valve on the cold water (inlet) side. The man's a genius I tell you. What an elegant solution. Much better than glued up pipes.

New Water Heater For Pool House

Wasn't it just a couple of days ago I was repairing a faucet at the other end of our place in the well house? I think so. Kinda makes one wonder what else is going to crap out next? Oh well. At least that's about the size of most of my projects now. Our days of huge construction-type projects seem to mostly be behind us, so these little challenges are kind of fun. Expensive but fun.

We were glad that Lynn and Pete would be here for Friday's happy hour. We had a fairly good crowd with several new folks in town, in addition to Lynn and Pete.

Chatting At Happy Hour

Enough folks arrived that we began to run short of chairs for everyone. I think we may have to request folks think about bringing their own chairs if this keeps up. Either that, or we move the seating from the deck down to the palapa patio and take advantage of the bench ringing the patio.

Everyone Huddled in the Shade

Pete Enjoying A Cool One

Some of the new arrivals were new faces in the crowd - not just folks returning from the north. There was John, who had been in touch with me by email for a couple of months before coming down, so I was glad to see him. We also had Darrell, a younger guy who was down visiting, looking at the business opportunities of the area. I'm afraid I was really no help there, so I hope he got some good poop from some of the other folks. Then there was Larry, who had ridden his bicycle from the Sea Breeze Hotel. He had heard about happy hour from Stan, another friend of ours. Quite a jaunt for someone who doesn't do it every day. They all seemed like nice guys. I'm glad they could make it.

The One That Got Away

Lynn and Pete Enjoying Happy Hour

Both Lynn and Pete seemed to enjoy themselves at happy hour. Hopefully when they move down here, they'll be among the regulars.

Chuck and Jamie came, as usual, all the way from Orchid Bay. Jamie was showing off her new craft design, some hand-made Swiffer-like hand wipe things.

Jamie Showing Her Swiffer-Like Mitt

In All Their Glory

Chuck had designed a handle thing for the mitts. He designed and made a cast plastic piece that looked like a tuning fork that went inside the mitt. That in turn connected to a turned wooden handle which allows the user to keep their hands dry while using the mitt.

Chuck Showing His Custom-Made Handle

Lynn cooked for us last night, whipping up some shrimp gumbo from a Zatterain's box that she had brought down. It was pretty yummy. We've been introducing them to some of the roadside fare that's available here in Corozal. Some small tacos from the stand that is right in front of Gomez' Cemento Maya, on 7th Avenue (just across from the Uno station), and this morning to some meat pies from Vivi's (just down towards the water from Caribbean Chicken.

I think Lynn's going to prepare another dish for us this evening. If I remember, it too is a taco dish. So, I'm looking forward to that, for sure.

Tomorrow morning, they take their leave of us. They're going to be flying down to Placencia to spend some time on the beaches there. They'll be flying back to the states from Belize City when they leave Placencia. I hope they enjoyed their stay with us. It was fun having them here. We're looking forward to the day when they finally get down here for good.

Won't be much rest for us however. Tomorrow evening Vivien comes in from the colds of Canada (-27 (C) I think she said in a recent email). We've already told her that the pool is ready to go. She'll only be staying with us the one night, as her house is across the street from ours. It's sure going to be good to have her and Denis (whenever he shows up) here for a few months.

Sounds like we're running a damned guest house. Well, we're not, so don't even inquire about rates and availabilities and all that stuff. We don't do that.

This morning we met Doug and Twyla down at Al's Cafe for breakfast burritos and coffee. It's been at least two years since we've been to Al's. The food was every bit as good as I remember it too. I see the lady who waited on us at the market just about every morning. I think she was wondering how come we haven't come in, but she was too polite to say anything.

Just after we got home, our intention of having pool time was interrupted because of a small thunderstorm moving through the area complete with a little rainfall. I hope it clears up quickly.

I guess that is pretty much it for this edition. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but whatever it was, will just have to wait for the next edition.

The Light Is Getting Brighter At the End Of the Tunnel

The four of us, Doug and Twyla, and Dianna and myself, made another trek to Belmopan to continue with our quest to obtain residency here in Belize (the US equivalent would be getting a green card).

We left bright and early yesterday morning at about 7:30 AM, in a pretty good drizzle, complete with rolling thunder. We made good time down the Northern Highway to the Burrell Boom Cutoff, which we took over to the Western Highway to Belmopan. All pretty non-eventful.

As we turned onto the Western Highway, the sun began to break through in spots, so it actually became quite nice.

I felt guilty about reneging on driving and leaving that all to Doug for the second or third time. I was quite sore from boating on Wednesday (you don't realize how many extra muscles you use keeping your balance on a moving boat and climbing up and down ladders, etc.). That was my excuse and I'm keeping to it.

We pulled in to Belmopan around 10:00 AM and headed directly for the Immigration Department office. Along the way, we passed the Chinese bakery that is supposed to be just excellent. We figured we'd stop on the way back so we weren't tortured too much by the smell of fresh-baked bread.

As we walked into Immigration and "bellied up to the bar", so to speak, Doug mentioned to the girl who motioned for us that we had come to do the next phase of our residency application. "Mr. Rider?" She said, looking right at me.
"Yes, that's me." I answered. It's always an ominous sign when someone you've never met before knows who you are.

Right away, I was wondering, Oh Lordy, what's wrong with our applications? I could just picture them passing our applications around the office, trying to hold back tears from laughing so hard. "Look what they put down as an answer for Number 4! Ah, Ha, Ha, Ha... It's priceless! They expect to get approval for that?!

I guess we actually we did better than that with our apps. She just wanted updated copies of our passports, and to give us the Security Bond forms that we have to fill out along with a Belizean citizen who will vouch for us that they will pay for a one-way air ticket to get us from Belize to the US (or wherever you might be from) in the event that sometime in the coming three years we turn into absolute deadbeats.

I'm going to check with a couple of folks we know here over the next few days, to see if they would be willing to sign the form for us. They would become, in effect, our sponsors, in US-style terminology. The form has to be signed in front of a Justice of the Peace, so, it's really a binding agreement. Something the Government of Belize will be sure that whoever signs it really does know you and is willing to vouch for you.

Once that's done, we return to Belmopan with the form and our passports. They keep the passports for a couple of weeks (giving us a receipt for the passports) while the Director evaluates the application packages. Then we return to Belmopan once the Director approves everything, pay them the required money (for US applicants, it's $1,000 per person) and we get our residency stamp in our passport. Then we head to Chetumal, Mexico for dinner and a movie to celebrate!

On with the tale of our trip. After we got done at Immigration, we left Belmopan and drove another 20 minutes or so over to Spanish Lookout to have lunch and scope out a hardware store I was interested in.

As we got into Spanish Lookout, we were all impressed with how clean the surrounding environment was and how spacious the layout of the town was. Almost, a store per block it seemed, really roomy.

We stopped at the Golden Corral Restaurant (http://www.spanishlookout.bz/goldencorral.htm) for a nice lunch, then we hopped over to the Midwest Steel and Agro (http://www.midweststeel.bz/) as I wanted to look at weed whackers. What's cool with them is you can order from their catalog on line too.

After a couple other stops at hardware stores, it was a short return to Belmopan to the Chun Fu bakery. Some folks say it's the best bakery in Belize. I don't think so. For my money, the selection and quality at the Panifacadora La Popular bakery in Orange Walk, is far better. Still, we all bought about 2 loaves each of Cheese bread and cinnamon bread from them. It is tasty stuff.

By then, we're beginning to run out of energy, and anyway, we wanted to get back to Corozal before dark to avoid the vampires and whatnot. So, Doug pointed their Isuzu down the highway and away we went.

Of course, the further we went, the more drizzle we ran into. On one stretch, we got to exercise our adrenalin muscles. It was on one of those white marl-topped sections of the highway. There was a piece of "yellow gear", a hughe loader of some sort, in front of us on the highway. He slowed down for a speed bump, as you do here in Belize. Doug began to brake as well. Only we didn't slow down directly. He broke traction on the white marl surface, and we slid quite a long ways... right at the massive back pusher bar of this piece of yellow gear. Doug managed to bring it to a halt about three feet before we would have plowed into his pusher bar. I doubt if the guy driving it would have even noticed that we clobbered him good. Well, thankfully, we didn't, and shortly thereafter, we managed to get around him and on our way.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, other than the four of us saying over and over how excited we were that we were nearing the end of our quest for residency. It really was an uplifting feeling to know we're near the end.

I must say that I have a much better appreciation for the work involved and the hassle folks must endure who come to the US looking for the "green card". I never fully appreciated just how hard it must be. I suspect getting a green card in the US is even harder than the residency program we're going through in Belize.

Only a couple or so weeks more to go. There really is light at the end of the tunnel!