Monday


8
Jul 19

We were in Roatan, Honduras

Welcome back. This is what has been going on the last few days. We skipped town a week ago Friday night and went to Indianapolis. We had a pizza and stayed in a hotel where a travel baseball team, full of youth and life and energy and dance party ideas, was staying. Ordinarily that’s not a problem, but we had an early flight to catch.

Which we did! We caught a plane! Bare hands and everything! And so the fly flew us to Atlanta. And then another plane flew us to Roatan, Honduras on Saturday afternoon. A couple of nice guys took our luggage and we got on a shuttle bus which drove us across part of the island to our resort. On the way we met the most obnoxious child in the world. The resort is a small place, so you tend to see the same people over and over. And we saw that kid, Evie, and her adults over and over throughout the week. She didn’t improve much. Or any, really. It would have been cute if she’d had Little Orphan Annie’s charm, but that role has been cast. And while I would never say anything out loud, I really wanted to say Evie’s Mom “I’d never be one to tell a person how to parent, but you should start.”

The teen years are going to be tough, and the adult years may not be any better. Pretty much everyone that had the displeasure came to this conclusion.

But that’s a person, and we were on vacation. This is a dive trip, and the resort, Anthony’s Key, is great. It’s a dedicated dive resort, which is growing out its family things. So you can take the whole family! (No Evies allowed!)

We signed in on Saturday afternoon, got our luggage and took a quick snorkel before dinner. I saw three starfish in those few minutes:

On Sunday we started diving. Three dives a day. Two in the morning, one in the afternoon. And I made a new grouper friend on one of those first dives:

And then The Yankee made friends with a turtle:

Here are some more clips from our first dives:

There’s a lot more to get through and show off over the course of the rest of this week. Maybe longer. Just remember to keep an eye on your gauges.

In the meantime, we have pictures!

Do you see the little white fish below? He’s also in the video above.

There’s beautiful coral around Roatan. I found I could stare at it for the entire sequence of dives.

But if you’re here for the fish …

This one is me. I am not a fish:

The Yankee is at least part fish, though:

On Sunday we went wreck diving:

Sitting at 110 feet under the surface is the Odyssey. The freighter, at 300 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 85 feet tall, is Roatan’s largest wreck dive, and one of the larger ones in the Caribbean, as well. It was sunk for divers in 2002. People see grouper, barracuda, tuna and sometimes sharks. We saw grouper and one barracuda, later in the dive I caught a glimpse of a tarpon.

But the coral formations are lovely.


24
Jun 19

It was a quiet weekend

This is the Hemerocallis daylily. But you better enjoy it quickly; each bloom only sticks around for a day or so.

We went for a little bike ride on Saturday before the sunny weather turned gray. And then on Sunday we lost power for about seven hours. I was trying to remember the last time I was out of power for that long. I’m guessing it’s been 25 years. But the microburst we encountered yesterday was pretty serious and the local utility company doesn’t really clear the power line paths very well, besides.

So the power went out around 3 p.m. and we sat and read. We decided we’d rather go out for dinner than grill out as another storm cell began moving through. Guess where we went:

And after Cracker Barrel, we made it back home to find more darkness. So we read some more.

Finally as the sun slipped away, the power company’s app kept pushing back the projected repair time. I started kicking myself for not buying extra batteries while we were across town having dinner. So went to the big red box store and got big armfuls of AA and C batteries.

Just as we pulled back into the driveway, the neighborhood burst into light. So we have batteries for next time.


17
Jun 19

Hanging with the fam’

Friday I sat on the porch swing with my mother and enjoyed a beautiful spring morning. Spent some time at the pool, hung out with a college kid. You know, the usual. Saturday we visited with my grandfather and my uncle. And, just as importantly:

Also, we had a session with a lovely little pooch:

We went to church and had lunch with my grandfather on Sunday. We had dinner at a barbecue joint with my stepfather to round out the Father’s Day festivities. We had a lovely little weekend all the way around.


10
Jun 19

Putting in a few more miles

I went over this particular route a few weeks ago, but I’m getting smarter …

I turned around before the really hard part!

That let me throw down the fastest time of the year on the last stretch of road before the end of the ride. Still four seconds off last year’s fastest time ever on the same segment. That was in July of last year, so I have a few weeks to improve that particular challenge on a seasonal basis. If I can’t, the only possible conclusion would be that I’m getting slower.

(I already know this to be true.)


3
Jun 19

Catching up with another friend and former student

‪I don’t know what you did with your Saturday afternoon, but I spent part of mine catching up with the great Lauren Becker. It’s like Old Home Week around here right now, which is great. It’s such a treat when nice people come back to visit.


⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
‪The IUSTV news director emeritus is currently covering South Bend and Michiana for WSBT. She was nice enough to spend part of her afternoon telling me all about how our program is helping set up tomorrow’s reporters, and realizing how so much of my advice is, in fact, brilliant. I should have rolled tape on that part, just to share with future students.

She told me about a few of the stories she’s working on, the experiences she’s had in her first year on the job and all she’s learned.

I’m going to have to get her back down here when the students are on campus and let her tell the TV folks what they’ve got ahead of them. And especially that part about how my advice is pretty useful.