More Flooding

A dairy farm on McGuire Road was hit hard. Notice the boat next to the mobile home. Makes farming just that much harder when stuff like this happens.

Our friends, Dan & Marlene Kooyman, now have 'lake front property!'

Flooding near Sumas, Washington

The water was rising in Northwest Washington as well. My sister Nancy's place was surrounded, right up to the steps going into the house. Their farm was inundated with water as well so the cows and calves had to be moved to higher ground, aka neighboring farms. Dirt banks/dikes were constructed, lots of gravel was hauled in and things were starting to look a bit better by the next day.

First snow...and now RAIN!

After all the snow we had, it started raining...on frozen ground. With the rain, the snow melted but had nowhere to go. And so the rains came down and the floods came up!

More snow!

Wow, what a winter! Snow, snow and more snow.

Saturday - going home

The last day of the trip arrived. Saturday we took some family pictures and lounged around on the beach. Our transfer vehicle arrived at the hotel at 4 p.m. to take us back to the airport.

Our plane was an hour late arriving in Cancun. After a 6 hour flight we had to wait another hour on the tarmac in Vancouver as there were 4 planes in front of us...all waiting for a gate and for baggage handlers. Air Canada baggage handlers were in the middle of a dispute so the managers were unloading cargo. We waited another hour for our luggage and then were finally on our way to Park 'n Fly to retrieve our vehicle out of a snowbank!

Friday - Jungle Tour

On Friday we went on a Jungle Tour. In the end we agreed, Yes - it was a tour...but JUNGLE?? That was questionable. We took a city bus to the Marina Sunset were we met our guide, were fitted for snorkel gear.

After we had all our gear we were shown to our boats...small beat up fiberglass boats. Joel and Dustin were in one. John, Sarah and I were in another. Our guide was in the lead boat, and we were followed by a couple from Texas on their honeymoon.

We headed out of the lagoon area through a bunch of trees and bushes growing in the water. THAT was our Jungle Tour! The only creature we saw was a pink flamingo!!

Once we were through the "jungle" we heade out into wide open ocean. The waves were kind of big and the water was pretty rough. But we finally arrived at our destination...30 minutes later. A reef out in the middle of nowhere that was good for snorkelling. We saw several different colors of fish, a stingray and an octopus so it was well worth it.

On the way back, Joel's boat quit and even though we whistled and waved and yelled to get our guide's attention, he drove on...unaware that we were not following him anymore! He never looked back to check on us! We took beach towels and tied Joel's boat to ours and to the boat from the Texan couple and began limping back to the resort.

About 15 minutes later we saw our guide heading back out toward us. He almost made it back to the marina before he noticed we were no longer following him! He checked Joel's boat motor and then told them to get into his boat. When Joel asked 'what about my boat?' he motioned for them to 'just leave it' and then asked Joel if he wanted to drive his (the guide's) boat. I think Gideon had to much Tequila the night before!!

So we left Joel's boat afloat all alone, out in the ocean.

Wednesday, Isle Mujeres

We followed a tour guide at a fast pace, zig-zagging through the streets to a little shop where he rented out golf carts.

Yes, these are actually streets that you drive on. People often live above the businesses.

On our 'golf cart tour' around the island we had to stop and admire the huge, crashing waves.


Just can't seem to escape that HONDA thing!

Thursday, back at our own beach, John started his next project...a giant sea turtle. And that's a plastic spoon handle in his mouth, not a cigarette! :-)

Sarah showing Dustin the sea urchins she found...'over there.'

This was Joel's hang-out...in a chair in the shade reading a book!