Down the Road to Cartagena, Colombia

Over the holidays I had another travel experience which I have been asked to write about. The idea of this trip was to have our family travel together by road so that I\we could see the Colombian countryside. Danger? That is what I was initially told but after research, I found it to be safe statistically, that is, if all the data was on the platter. So here is another episode of "On the road again".  We traveled by bus - an 11 hour trip from Maracaibo, Venezuela to Cartagena, Colombia.

Nearing the border with Colombia, we began heading along the coast in the country of the Guajro, the native people of this area.

One is not likely to be greatly enamored with this dry and hot area, although the ocean water is great. This arid marshy sand is full of cactus and dry brush.

Traditionally, as in most of South America, the color of a home is important and preferred tones are soft.

In pueblos such as these, the towns wake up early and people are outside working.

The Guajira woman will wear her traditionally full length dress, often very colorful.

As you might expect, there are cows, goats, donkeys and horses along the side of the road, often not tied to anything. The road is only two lanes.

People are on the move along the highway to commercial markets in nearby pueblos on their bicycles, motorcycles, donkey carts, ... any means of transportation possible. You have to be able to tolerate the frequent honk of the horn, as the bus driver warns everyone and thing alongside his side of the road. No one seemed to be annoyed at the noise.

When finally reaching the border, we had to do the normal paperwork to leave Venezuela and our bags were opened to look at everything inside. After exiting Venezuela, we had to walk about 100 yards in "no mans land" to arrive at the Colombian border, where we would go through customs ad immigration there. Colombia was much easier and laid back than Venezuela. After getting the passport stamped,  we were welcomed by this sign. No more checkpoints. I felt much freer in Colombia.

Down the road, the terrain became much more green and lush. As you can see, this toll road is in excellent condition.

In the pueblos, one would see vegetable markets and peddlers like this one, selling ice cream or fruit drinks. Lemonade is a popular roadside drink. 

The military were certainly present, conducting an exercise. We saw tanks and infantry everywhere.

As the day progressed, we began to see mountains in the distance.

And the terrain just kept getting better with deep greens combined with creeks and rivers.

Now the land became a jungle. This is the area near where we stopped for lunch.

But first we would start to see the Caribbean again. The coral blues were outstanding and provided a fresh look at the world as we were discovering it here in Colombia.

Bus driver - cant we stop here for a while????? Please!!! Darn... on with the trip ...

One thing for sure - we saw many children outside and families along the way on this fairly busy road.

Now we found ourselves amongst the Plantain farms.

And those crops are for sale along the road, like they are everywhere in this part of Colombia.

Finally we arrive for lunch on a river in the high peaks of these hills or "mountains". A beautiful cool place.

After taking a look at our options, we elected grilled chicken. Don't eat the lettuce I was told.

Our journey takes us on further to the north through more mountains.

And the terrain becomes less hospitable as we approach Cartagena.

But there was this beautiful yellow bloomer all about the countryside, to make the trip more enjoyable. I saw hawks and bald eagles along the route also. The eagles were a surprise to me.

Sometimes I thought about the power lines and how much more beautiful this world would be without them.

Finally - arrival in Cartagena, the ancient walled city.

Perhaps I should footnote the photos - in these travels, rarely did I have the opportunity to photograph something while not moving at a very fast speed, shooting through dirty bus windows.  I made the photography challenge my project as we traveled.

Christmas on the Woodlands Waterway - Lighting of the Doves 2009

On a dreary cool rainy day, our 2009 holiday season began. I'm sure many people did not come this year because of the weather. We were, however, fortunate at the end to have clear skies and cool temperatures. It felt like winter in the air. Even before the skies cleared, it felt like a snowy day here in paradise.

If you look close or click on the photo, you will notice the light snow. This was a truly an event that children adored! There was no doubt as one looked at the faces of these children.

As adults sloshed through the muddy grass, it was apparent that some wished it was a little drier, but the rain did not dampen the spirits of anyone I saw there. One lady in nice shoes was stuck in the mud and commented on her predicament, but even she was smiling and in good spirits!    

Employees of the Township with their families were here and there, enjoying the fruit of their labor. We know it takes a lot of work to put these events together and appreciate such quality in our community. Y'all did a great job again this year! Thanks!!! We are all family.

Have you ever eaten deep fried Oreo cookies? They are "to die for", quoting the M.C. of the event. I DO agree! A dollar a cookie and worth it!

At 5 P.M., the featured entertainment took stage - Needfire. What a show they delivered! Tremendous energy and superb Irish/American electric guitar music and songs.

This high spirited group  came offstage with their wireless instruments and mingled with the crowd while they played.

Sometimes, I could not even find the energetic young man playing the fiddle. He was simply spectacular with his showmanship!

In fact, here he is in mid air playing his music like he was on the ground. Incredible!

But he was not the only energetic performer! This year like last, the Irish dancing group showed off their energy. You can't help but clap and dance with them when you see these girls perform in their colorful costumes. The sound of their feet synchronized to the beat of the music is enough to lift anyone's spirit on a dreary day!

There were many young couples present such as these two lovely people.

Some families really did get into the holiday spirit. Sure it is before Thanksgiving, but then again, winter was in the air, and you just can't get much better than that to jump start the season.

Local ballet talent reminds us of the tradition we have in the arts, especially the Nutcracker, which many of us will see this season. The elegance of this young lady certainly caught the eye of those around the stage.

This lovely and talented "Woodlands Idol winner" prepared the youngsters (and adults) for the arrival of Santa - his debut for 2009! Her Christmas songs and beautiful voice could be heard throughout the park.

And there was of course Santa who attracted a very large crowd as he arrived in his traditional style, by boat on the waterway.






This family caught my eye, all having been to the face painting booth to be branded in the holiday spirit.

Many families enjoyed this evening. A few had to ride daddy's back to be able to see what was going on above boot level!

More photos of the event can be seen at this link.

Montgomery County Library System

The Woodlands enjoys the presence of two libraries from the Montgomery County library system.  These two libraries provide state of the art services, but there have been some recent county funding issues. One can check out paper books, videos, and e-books. Items are checked out for two weeks and can be extended one additional two week period, if required. 40% of county residents own a library card. I have had mine for 10 years and discovered recently that it had expired. Each card expires after 5 years, but it is renewed electronically. I renewed mine over the telephone. I needed it activated, because I checked out an e-book.

The library also offers free computer classes, use of their computers connected to the internet, with a fee for supplies like paper. Free tours of the library is offered to acquaint residents with what is where. They also have meeting rooms that can be reserved. There are story times for toddlers, babies and preschoolers. They offer ESL and adult tutors. The Genealogy Department is recognized statewide for its services. It ranks as the 3rd largest such department in Texas. Another popular services is the same-day library-to-library transfer service. One can request a book be transferred from one library to another in order to check it out.    

Two million items were checked out in the last year in a county with a population of only 400,000 residents. They have an agreement with Lone Star College to exchange technology books for non-technology books, so that each library system can stock more efficiently. That brings the ability to loan technical books to residents without any additional cost  burden to the county. There are several programs available to help the library. In The Woodlands, one is "Adopt a book". Another is the "Friends of the Library" organization.  The "Friends" raise funds by operating a used book store at both libraries, a semi-annual used book sale and from donations.

An interesting trend away non-fiction to fiction material has been occurring over the past few years. A typical book must be replaced after about 46 uses. The library needed to replace some 879,000 books  last year but only was provided enough funds to replace 300,000. This is also a trend. The county is reducing the library's annual funds. Next year, the library will be provided with $50,000 less than 2009! We have empty shelves at some locations.

South Regional Library: 2101 Lake Robins Dr., 77380 Mon-Thurs - 9AM-9PM, 9AM-5PM on Fri-Sat
936-442-7727, 936-788-8372

George and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Library: 8125 Ashlane Way, 77382, same hours as above
936-442-7728, 281-362-0772

Website: www.countylibrary.org



       

Before putting out the trash

Doing it every week! Do you? Just like clockwork in The Woodlands, like every other urban area these days, we make a trip to the curbside. Trouble is, we have to make decisions what goes where and when. In my neighborhood, once a week, we must put out our recyclables first thing in the morning or the evening before trash pickup day.  To organize the little green bin takes some doing, but more stressful than trying to be orderly, we ask ourselves, what exactly is allowed in that green thing? I look at our bin in the garage and see all this stuff my family has presented me in our container. I must take out what does not belong. Nope, no bottles. Nope, no plastic bags. Nope, no Styrofoam. There are a bunch of nope's! Yep, I can leave the plastic milk bottle in the bin, but need to take the lid off. Ugh! Wish the family had rinsed it out first. That is nasty! Bet it was put in here a full week ago!

Well, most of us want to be do-gooders, but when it comes down to execution, maybe we are not too thrilled or knowledgeable about the task. Tonight, our community sponsored a lecture about the recycling process here and generally how it works in Texas and globally. I have to thank Lynn Aldridge from the association for organizing the little very informative presentation. Everyone in the community was invited, but the little room in the library was only half full of spectators. Not much interest on this Monday night, but generally, there is not a lot of enthusiasm to attend these presentations. What few people do attend are definitely interested though. There were plenty of questions and plenty of answers. I do wish more residents would take an interest in these lectures. Lynn manages to have guest speakers who are subject matter experts at each meting. Many of us know her from Environmental Services as she is one of  the senior staff who works full time to make the environment be part of our lives, on our platter of concern, and the quality of our lives better.

On this particular occasion, I saw flaws in our recycling process. The association staff are quick to point this out. Like so many other recycling communities, we fall far short in our attempt to reclaim what can be reused. If we are diligent, we leverage not only curbside pickup of reusable trash, but we also take some items to the local recycle plant and grocery store. Most residents don't go that far. Curbside yes; retaining and delivering stuff elsewhere is not so popular. Much of it gets put into the trash can, to help fill our diminishing land fill areas.

Our curbside process in The Woodlands only supports plastic #1 and #2. We have what is called a single stream  of recyclable materials. We can put folded boxes at curbside, other cardboard boxes, newspaper, magazines, and some plastics in the green bin. On arrival at the processing center here, the materials are baled to be sent to another location for sorting and packaging as a commodity for a third party to purchase. This is simple and archaic, with a relatively low overall material recovery rate. In The Woodlands, we should have a much better process. I wish we would be recycling on a much higher plane. In my opinion, we do not exhibit sufficient environmental responsibility for this day and age. Lynn tells us that it is a financial issue and that the staff in the association has the same desire and long term goal to do much more. I ask that it be brought forward to residents to decide if they want to expend more to take on a higher level of responsibility on this subject. Maybe we need a special interest group to push this in the Township.  

Plastics are graded by their chemical makeup and melting point. They have to be fairly "clean", of low contamination, to be considered a valuable commodity by the marketplace. There are seven grades of plastic that can be recycled. We process only two of them in our single stream processing system. Do you know you need to take plastic bags to the grocery store for recycling? What do you do with glass? That should not be placed in the bin either but delivered by you to the county's recycling plant at 1122 Pruitt Rd, easily accessible from The Woodlands. What else? Look at the definition of the plastic grades.¹ What I want to do is put every plastic out for curbside pickup, but we do not have the technology to process them. A new contract is being prepared by the association, soon to be the Township. In about a year, the current contract will end. We need to rethink where we are and where we want to go with recycling here.  In this economic climate, it is generally felt that we should not set out on anything new, but maybe that is exactly what we need to do. Start-up of something new always requires cash, but hopefully the Environmental group here will be challenged to come up with a strategic plan, a road map to achieve true partnerships with service companies that can help us get unstuck and free us to move forward in this 21st century. I am happy we added folded boxes to our curbside pickup. We however need more, much more. Bottles, Styrofoam,  aluminum cans, plastic bags and other recyclables need to be part of the curbside pickup. We also need a larger container for some families.

The list of plastics that can be recycled are cited from earth911 ¹. We process only #1 and #2 plastics. On many containers, the type of plastic is actually printed on the bottom of the container. So look for PET or HDPE on the bottom for helping to sort it out. I looked at a few bottles in my frig; Hunt's Catchup had PETE on it as did another product. RAGU had nothing, but I would guess PETE. I will put them both in the recycle bin when they are empty.

#1 PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) (normally called PETE) – Fizzy drink bottles, oven-ready meal trays and water bottles
#2 HDPE (High-density polyethylene) – Milk bottles, detergent bottles, yogurt and margarine tubs, cereal box liners and grocery, trash and retail bags
#3 PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) – Cling film (plastic food wrap), vegetable oil bottles, loose-leaf binders and construction products such as plastic pipes
#4 LDPE (Low-density polyethylene) – Dry cleaning bags, produce bags, trash can liners, bread bags, frozen food bags and squeezable bottles, such as mustard and honey
#5 PP (Polypropylene) – Ketchup bottles, medicine bottles, aerosol caps and drinking straws
#6 PS (Polystyrene) – Compact disc jackets, grocery store meat trays, egg cartons, aspirin bottles, foam packaging peanuts and plastic tableware
#7 Other - Three- and five-gallon reusable water bottles, certain kinds of food containers and Tupperware

So how about bottles? These days the value of glass continues to be high enough to produce recycled products. There is substantial savings to recycle glass, but it needs to be prepared, just like other materials for selling as a commodity. Colored glass must be separated. We used to have curbside collection of glass and it has been discontinued. We just don't have the facilities to safely and efficiently sort it out and deliver it to a processing manufacturer.

And paper? We miss a great deal of paper products to sell. There are many types of paper we do not process. I will put telephone directories, pamphlets, magazines and newspaper into the bin.

And cardboard? paperboard and cardboard can be placed in the bin. It should be clean from food.

And aluminum cans? Yes, they should be placed in the bin.

Further information on recycling or trash pickup, please refer to the association website.

On the back side of our routine, we must remember to put the bin and garbage can back out of sight from the street, before the next morning. That is a requirement here, and we agreed to do that when we signed our covenant when we purchased our home (or rented it). That makes our community more aesthetically pleasing and believe me, residents appreciate their neighbors doing that. No one wants to see a garage can on the curb more than 24 hours! And we don't want to see it in front of the garage either. It should not be a part of the landscape. 


References
¹ Earth911 website - plastics
 
² Earth911 website - paper

Yellow Mellow - Fall is here

Have you ever been taken back by what you see in nature? Here on the pond near my home in The Woodlands Texas, I noticed this last week an unusual scene. Everything I saw seemed to be yellow! Well, today cool air has put it all into perspective. It is fall! This weather has brought a mellow feeling from my childhood that definitely includes Halloween and the beginning of the yellow leaves. Yellow is a harsh color to me in the summer. It reminds me of heat! By golly, we have had plenty of that this year.

What caught my eye this week was the yellow reflection on the surface of the pond. Then and only then did I become very interested in the color. Now I could see the departure of summer and coming of cool weather. On closer inspection, I found nature in change.

Honey bees were gathering honey by the bucketful.

Busy as a bee has real meaning on the pond right now. Winter is approaching and the last opportunity to collect honey in abundance will wane in the coming month.

One needs to look closely at the life on the pond  to appreciate what is going on. Small and large butterflies are also in abundance, preparing for migration to southern winter habitats. Look at the yellow reflection under the wings of this little guy. This is the hardness of the summer sunlit yellows of the flowers. This will be replaced by the more subtle colors of autumn very soon as the trees change color.

Various other butterflies are abundant as well. The pond is simply teeming with wildlife, seeking the nectar of the wild yellow flowers.

When the Monarchs suddenly showed up, their size and magnificence seemed to eclipse the colors of the other creatures. I had to say to myself, it has been a long difficult summer for many creatures, but look what is happening before my very eyes! The pond is full of creatures celebrating the coming fall and the drought has been broken.  Yellow is not so extremely hard after all. It became absolutely beautiful!

So mellow yellow? That it is!

"They call me Mellow Yellow.
Born-a high forever to fly.
Wind-a velocity nil.
Born-a high forever to fly.
If you want your cup, I will fill.
They call me Mellow Yellow"

What to expect in the mail for 2009 taxes

Your "association assessments" this year will arrive with your county tax bill. There will be one payment to the county for all your local taxes. Therefore the payment expectation will be earlier than the past. This is part of the new township method of collecting assessment dues for our local services and amenities in The Woodlands. You should receive your bill in October and pay by January 31, 2010.  Your township tax payments of residents and businesses will fund the operation of The Woodlands for the calendar year 2010.

Please call the Community Associations of The Woodlands, Assessments Department, at 281.210.3974, or e-mail, for any assessment questions during this transition period. Transition and governance information can also be reviewed on www.thewoodlandsassociations.org