That's Interesting

Here is a series of photos I took of a tree growing alongside the path we walk in a park 3 days a week.  The dates they were taken are shown under each photo.  It is amazing to me that in just 21 days the tree lost all of its leaves and grew more just as big.

March 1, 2013

March 6, 2013

March 12, 2013

March 18, 2013

March 21, 2013

Metro Entrance in Frankfurt, Germany

I don't know about you, but all of this just makes sense.  Perhaps I should have been an engineer.

An Important Reminder

I do not know how many of the readers of this blog regularly visit mormonnewsroom.org, but I do frequently for a variety of reasons, and enjoy what I find there.  This morning as I looked for something else, I ran across a blog post there from yesterday which I think provides all of us with some great perspective.  I encourage all to review that post along with a companion article from 2009 on responsible reporting.  As I reviewed them I thought how easy it would be to annotate the important principles presented to general conference addresses over the past 5 years or so.  By the way, one of the top LDS public affairs websites in the world (by number of visits) just happens to be the one for El Salvador.  Visit there to see the huge service project pulled off by the 20 stakes and districts here a couple of weeks ago - the clean up of Lake Jocotal.

Roundabouts

 During the Christmas break we went around and took pictures of several of the roundabouts in town.  This first one in of Salvador de Mundo.  It is a really big and really busy roundabout. 

Salvador del Mundo with the San Salvador volcano in the background.

 This is the Olympic Roundabout.

 This is the clock of flowers roundabout but the clock doesn't work, there are no flowers this time of year, and the Coke sign obscured the view.  But as this is a very very busy intersection, we had to take it while we could. 

The FMLN Roundabout that we pass as we leave town every Wednesday to go to Santa Ana.  This is the party currently in power here.

 This one is my favorite - the Torogoz Roundabout on Abad.

 These next three are of art that is under a large interchange where Comalapa comes into town and puts you on either Los Heroes, which goes north, or Los Prosseres, which goes west toward the temple.

This one is the Boy Scout roundabout, with a bust of Lord Baden-Powell.  It is between our apartment and the institute, so we see it a lot.  Last year they painted it and cleaned it up a lot.

Summertime

Summertime in El Salvador and the cane is high.

Including the tassels, over 12 feet high!

And when the sugar cane blossoms, it is just beautiful.

Looking out across the fields of cane at the foot of the north side of the volcano.  (we live on the other side)

 Many trees also blossom this time of the year.

This time of year the road to Santa Ana is lined with trees in bloom - yellow, pink, and purple.

In this picture you can see the white blossoms but also the hill that was green with corn but it has now been harvested and this is what is left.  It is the dry season here now and there is a lot of brown countryside.

Our Trip to Copan Ruinas, Honduras

 

Last September we took a trip to Copan Ruinas, Honduras for two days.  We left early on Tuesday.

  This is the group of us ready to go.

  This is the town square in Copan Ruinas.  The trip took much longer than planned so we spent the late afternoon enjoying the city center.

This is a map of the ruins that have been uncovered in Copan

This is one of the beautiful macaws, what they call guacamaya, that are all over the park.

Here we are with the water god.

We took lots of pictures - so this is just a sample of the pictures of the ruins.  It was amazing.

This is the crocodile that was submerged in water in the olden times.

This is where the king and his family lived.

Where the king used to address the upper class of society on special occasions.

In front of a ginormous tree.

This is called a Stella, a representation of one of the most famous and popular kings - 18 rabbits.  There are about a dozen of these in the public gathering area showing him in different roles.

The back side of the ball field (visitor side) as seen from the top of one of the other structures.

The ball field, showing the front side of the visitor's side of the field.

This was inside the museum and shows the original colors of the temple

This was actually one of the original temples that was covered over by later temples - twice.

El Viejo con El Viejito.