Around Rio - walking the Lagoa

whether it is a sunny day or grey with threat of rain, the 7k walk around the lagoa including the catacombs is one of my favorite things to do in Rio.

Houston - Home is still there

As Ike moves north and by the end of today off the continental USA, only the clean up and reflection are left to do. All my family is safe and sound in Houston. This morning still without electricity, they lost tree branches and the brand new backyard fence but as far as the really valuable - we were lucky. From all I read in the Houston Chronicle online yesterday (all day yesterday - I did nothing else) the damage will cost a bundle but all the damage is superficial. (Eric Kayne: Chronicle - http://www.chron.com/) (Johnny Hanson: AP - The remnants of Murdock's Pier and Hooters are seen along Seawall Blvd. in Galveston, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008 after Hurricane Ike hit the area. The Flagship Hotel is seen in the background.)

  Galveston lost some famous landmarks and there will be some time (months) before the downtown JP Morgan Chase building is back up and running with all its windows replaced but these are only buildings, and boats, and fences, and trees not hundreds of thousands of people. They got off light in the areas that count.

James Nielsen: Chronicle The Chase Tower is heavily damaged as hurricane Ike moves through the area.

Word From Home

This Saturday morning no word is coming from home. Houston metropolitan area has nearly 4 million people without electricity. no electricity, no computer, or telephone. My daughter, granddaughter and grandson are in Fort Bend county just west of the Houston city line. They have a cell phone so I will call later - they were without electricity at 5 pm yesterday - 12 hours BEFORE Ike was to be over their home. All we can do is wait....

Around Rio - Hike in the Floresta da Tijuca

Four hour hike, the view from the top spectacular!

Winter in Nova Friburgo

(note: remember to double click on the image to enlarge and that our house is on the Mury - Lumiar road just west of that little blue line going almost straight north)

In past years I have spent July, August and September freezing .... well a tropical styled freeze with the temperatures in the teens - (11 to 17c or about 52 to 62f) - but it can feel pretty cold in our unheated house. This year and for the past month it has been 22 to 27c (71 - 82) a real and prolonged heatwave. This is are usual December -

March temperatures. This being dry season, we have had day after day of hot, dry weather and it is very much out of season. It makes me a believer in Planet Warming. Taking advantage of this hot dry weather, and continuing our project of eating in unknown, out-of-the-way places, on Sunday Camillo and I took the MP for a ride out past Lumiar and had lunch. Basically out in the middle of nowhere there is a restaurant named the Prooosit. (Estalagem Conde Redondo)

Estalegem? is this another word for Pousada?

The grounds and the little Chalets were very nice - upscale - well maintained and if I didn't have my own house in the mountains I would stay a few nights at the Conde Redondo.

This restaurant was about 10 KM past Lumiar - so about 35 km from our house. The service was a little slow, maybe you might say really slow. They tried hard, never leaving us to feel that they had just forgotten about us, but we still waited an hour past appetisers for the food. To be fair they

had a very big crowd, we didn't call ahead, they gave us free salads as an apology and they had really good drinks so we didn't suffer. The food was good enough to warrant the drive, I liked very much the ambiance, we will try again soon to see if the service problems were unusual. Try it.