Driving to French Harbor

The road to French Harbor

Roadside markets in Mt. Pleasant

Street scene in Mt. Pleasant

Pulperia (market) in Mt. Pleasant

Walking along the road in Mt. Pleasant - corrugated wall around construction site of new mall - yes, mall!

These are not the greatest photos; they were taken from the car as we drove to French Harbor yesterday. Thought you might enjoy seeing some of the sights along the way.

Our trip was only partially successful. We stopped at the bank in Coxen Hole where I (proudly) withdrew money from our account. I was all ready with the Spanish lingo and then got a teller who spoke good English. Oh well. I was ready. Lots of traffic on the road - very large cruise ship in port.

The main purpose of our trip to French Harbor was to see our insurance agent to renew our car insurance. Well, it turns out that we have been uninsured all this time, unbeknownst to us. Arlie sent us an e-mail way back in September saying that the company needed more information on how the car came to be in Roatan. We never got that e-mail. Don noticed that they had sent it to the wrong address - had put an "s" in place of a "5". Now we must go back to Dennis, from whom we bought the car, and see if he has any other paperwork from his purchase of the Rav4. If we can't find out when and how the car came to the island (a requirement because apparently a number of stolen cars wind up being sold on the island), then Arlie will apply to another company for us. So we must drive carefully, and trust me, we do, all the time!

From Arlie's office we went to Eldon's to grocery shop and found almost everything on my list!! Wow! Even good salad dressing that had not passed the expiration date. Woo hoo. And soft margarine - lots of it. Amazing.

It really got warm yesterday and was very, very sunny. We drove down to West End to have a late lunch after all that running around, only to find a lot of cruise ship passengers there. More than I have ever seen in West End. And a lot of them were eating lunch - everywhere we went. What's up with that? Bad food on the cruise ship? Usually, they just wander around, checking out souvenirs, having a cold drink or ice cream, spending time on the beach. And service is always slow around here anyway, even without the place being busy. We finally gave up and came home to have lunch. I was getting too hungry, too hot, and too cranky (low blood sugar) to be patient.

Then we had our Spanish lessons with Leonor. She is very good. For homework, we each had to write out 5 phrases in English to learn in Spanish. She took 2 of the submissions, Don's and Snider's, and wrote each phrase on the board, one at a time, in Spanish. We had to write it, repeat it back to her, one at a time, then say it to each other, going around the table. She did this with each phrase and sometimes gave us alternate ways to say the same thing, and the correct way to answer. Very helpful. And we had to practice rolling those darn "r"s. I am not an auditory learner, so I really appreciate that she incorporates so many methods.

Merlin came down just before dark, bringing us a big slice of coconut bread and a big piece of yucca cake that she had baked that day. Muy delicioso!! The yucca cake reminds me of bread pudding, very moist and yummy. And the coconut bread was just fabulous. Don told me to go learn how she makes them (don't think she ever uses a recipe).

Anxiously (no, not anxiously - Phil. 4:6-7, be not anxious...), prayerfully awaiting the results of my sister's cardiac cath this morning. Say a prayer for her.