Friday, July 30, 2004

SANTO STEFANO DI CAMASTRA, CEFALU, CALTAVUTURO

We decided to take some time to shop for more pottery at the other town known for pottery besides Sciacca and Caltagirone. Santo Stefano di Camastra is one of the big three, known for its distinctive bold red clay pots. It is on the way to the Madonie Mountains, where we were going to check out the town of Caltavuturo. My Uncle Joe Ricotta told me that my grandfather Liberio came from there, and 100 years later we decided to check it out. So our itinerary was to take us to drive along the sea, then shop, have a seaside fish lunch while once again taking pictures of Cefalu from the beach, and then on to look for distant relatives. Just my style for a wonderful day! And it was.
The narrow old 113 along the Tyrrhenian coast is a tight fit for the trucks and buses that travel it, and it is almost as bad as the roads along the Amalfi Coast. There is a super highway in the last stages of construction that will link Palermo with Messina soon (ha!). In the meantime, leaving Patti toward Palermo, you must get off at Santa Agata Millitello and so the road winds through Santo Stefano and all of the pottery stores there. We have stopped there a few times now, last time in the winter with Jr and Jo, and we already have some of the redware, but we wanted soup/salad bowls so we could get rid of the last ugly bowls that the previous owners had left. Our plan from the beginning was to forget about matching a set of plates, but to just buy the patterns and sizes that we like. Five bowls, a wall hanging, a covered dresser storage pot, and four plates later, we are proud of the great shopping that we did. We will miss the town when the super highway finally is finished and we don’t have to pass through it.
Just down the road another 17 kilometers is Cefalu, a town that I never get tired of photographing. There is a wonderful curve to the buildings and the bay that you can see from the beach, and I have photographed that curve at least six times now, in all seasons, in all kinds of light. My first pictures from our first trip in 2000 were just at twilight. This year I have caught Cefalu in the winter and spring and now summer. It is a busy beach in the summer, and the restaurants nearby serve reasonable fish meals and a decent zuppa di cozze, my favorite (mussel soup). Of course the melon is in season, so Steve had another proscuitto and melon.
Then on to climb the Madonie Mountains. This area is part of a nature reserve and the road gets very high very fast. Caltavuturo is not too far from the main highway though, so despite the twisting climb, it was easy enough to get to. We could see the “Terraveccchia” remains from a distance off, the old 11th century churches and towers of the old city. In the 1500’s some people moved further down the southern slope of the mountain (Monte Riparato) and established the current town (“Terranuova”). As the history books tell, in the 1700’s, the rich people also moved down and built their mansions. For example, the Palazzo Barone Pucci is beautiful and in great condition. Because we were given directions to look for the bar across from the bank, we looked ahead at this handsome building and assumed it was the bank. But we later found the bank near the elementary school a block before this building. The bank was this prefab ugly little white building!
(By the way, I had to take a shot of the statue in front of the school. Janet Jackson’s problems just puzzle Italians who cannot believe American attitudes toward the human body. Half of their myriad blessed virgin pictures show Mary nursing baby Jesus with her breast and nipple totally exposed).
So after asking, we were directed to this bar owned by a Ricotta family. As we walked through the town, we could not believe the amount of public art we saw. It was much like Monte D’oro that I had written about previously, only it was not artists from out of town, but locals that had left town and come back, older natives that had created these works of art.
The bar was called “Sports Bar” and was really as far away from a sports bar in the states as you could get. All bars in Sicily sell coffee, cappuccino, sodas, chips, and some bottled beers and mixed drinks, with a row of liquors to add to your coffee if you want “café correcto.” But their main purpose is for the multiple cups of espresso (in tiny cups) that Sicilians have everyday when they go to hang out somewhere. This tiny bar had that and it also had pastries. So we had Genovese, a cream filled cookie, and cappuccinos. Later we bought some biscotti.
I asked the owner if he was a Ricotta and he and his daughter asked why and I told them who I was and what I was looking for. He told me that if his father had not died recently, he would be able to talk to me more about this. He vaguely remembered his grandfather had gone to America but come back. This grandfather of mine could have been his brother, he said. But he had an uncle he could talk to, so we gave him our name and phone number and he said he would talk to the uncle and get back to us. And he gave us our cappuccinos for free. We shook hands and called each other “cousin.”
It’s kind of neat to be understood when you do this kind of thing and they encouraged me to tell them all I could about both of my grandparents. His name is Calogero (Charles) and he said that the records that say Libero are wrong because there was no name like that. But Liborio is a name that he recognized, so it is possible officials got the name wrong, which was very common. I told him my grandmother’s name and he also said that there were no Valentinos in the area, so the story that we heard about the family changing its name also must be true. I liked the town a lot. We went into a shop and Steve bought me a pair of earrings to remember it by. But having seen Caltavuturo and Valledolmo now, I wonder why my mother has such a fear of heights and tall places? Her ancestors all came from high hill towns and children are literally raised on the edges of cliffs all over Sicily.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

PATTI, TINDARI FOR MANHATTAN TRANSFER

We saw in the paper that Manhattan Transfer, my favorite singing group, would be playing at the Greek theater in Tindari on the north shore of Sicily on Steve’s birthday. So we decided to go and see one part of our world that we had never seen before. We had to stay in the town of Patti because Tindari is isolated on top of a mountain and there are no hotels nearby. But they had a great restaurant and good junk shops (Steve got a mouth organ and I got a fan with scenes from Tindari printed on it). So, we booked into Hotel La Playa, recommended by both the Tourist Bureau and the weekend entertainment section of the paper. What a strange place. You’ll see pictures of what I mean, and I would probably go back to stay there again.
Patti’s claim to fame is a huge part ancient and part modern cathedral that was built as a convent, but then expanded to contain the bones of the Norman King Roger the second’s mother, Queen Adelaide. Like many cities in Sicily, it was built on a hilltop to defend itself better from enemies. It is a pleasant, small city on the rocky Tyrrhenian coast. On a nearby hilltop was the ancient civilization of Tyndaris with the Greek theater and a city ruled by not only Greeks, but later the Carthaginians, Romans, Spaniards and Arabs. Here, modern day Catholics decided to build a new cathedral. The ruins of the old city and this incredible new cathedral are within steps of each other. The two huge cathedrals are within miles of each other. And so it goes here.
We found our hotel in Patti on a windy afternoon, and we had time for a swim in the Olympic sized pool. It was huge!! We had it almost all to ourselves and started reading the brochures about this place. It was billed as a three star family vacation hotel that lets kids in free. There were the usual animatori, the recreation staff that try to get you to play cards, participate in sports games, organize karaoke, you get the picture. But there were only about 25 people around this huge facility, and that was the most we saw in our entire stay there. The brochure showed a tranquil sandy beach, but we found instead rocks in front of the gardens where beach used to be and a small wind-swept, pebbly patch of dark sand, which we found was the norm on this shore. It made us realize how lucky we were to be on our own bay here that sometimes gets full of beach plants but is generally cleaned up and does not stink. But all of Sicily has lost shoreline and even though the water does look crystal clear most of the time, there is trash all over the shoreline and in the waters of the Mediterranean itself. Snorkeling is so discouraging sometimes when you go out as far as you can and you still see plastic cups and garbage bags. We noticed floating debris on the long distance ferry rides we have taken, from Livorno-Palermo, Salerno-Messina, and the Naples-Palermo one too.
But La Playa seems to have been designed for more than a 3 star family hotel. Its gardens were absolutely beautiful, even if a little overdone with derelict fountains and statuary and I was glad to tell the gardener that he did a good job. We think it might be in use for big wedding receptions or conventions too.
That night we drive to Tindari, parked in a parking lot and took a bus up to the top of the hill. We bought tickets for the performance and had a wonderful meal in the “one good restaurant in town,” where we saw the members of the band that we had met previously eating too. As Sicilian performances are almost always late, we decided to keep an eye on when they left and to just relax and enjoy our view of the salt flats. So we drank a whole bottle of wine with our delicious antipasti, proscuitto and melon, and pizza.
The performance again got under way an hour late and with a short program of congratulations for the local basketball team and presentation of incredibly big ceramic plates to the winners. And there were also many technical difficulties, for at one point three men were swarming around the drummer trying to figure out a way of keeping the band platform from collapsing. Did I mention that this was the first concert of a series this season? Anyway, the group was fabulous even if the sound was not exactly right. I did not take good pictures mainly because they never stopped moving, so taking non-flash close-ups in the dark was a real challenge with the iffy lighting. But we enjoyed it immensely and when it ended about midnight, instead of taking the packed buses down, we walked from the top of the hill down to the parking lot and from there drove onto the twisty-turny mountain roads back to Patti. A few more surprises awaited us back at the hotel in that the pillows were like lumpy slabs, and the air conditioning did not want to work. But there was a patio door which we left open and we had the garden view to wake up to in the morning. The cacti were opening at night there too, not just off of our terrace at home. Too bad those cactus flowers last only one day for they are really lovely!
Tomorrow pottery buying, Cefalu again, and finding a Ricotta relative in Caltavuturo!

Thursday, July 22, 2004

THEATER AT ERACLEA MINOA

We are looking forward to celebrating our birthdays by seeing a production of Manhattan Transfer next week in a Greek theater on the north coast of Sicily, Tindari. Yesterday Steve saw an ad in the paper promising a performance of a Greek play by Aristophenes at Eraclea Minoa, a place I have already sent pictures from in the spring. So we assumed it was in the small Greek theater there, we assumed the play time was correct (8:30 PM) and so we made plans to go for the evening. Our plans were based on these erroneous assumptions, it turned out. But the whole evening was not a waste, even though we only watched ½ an hour of the play.
The drive over was lovely because the night was warm but not hot and the air was just a little humid. We stopped to see how the resort of Seccagrande looked in the summer, since we had only seen it in the fall. Well. It was the worst of Atlantic City, Virginia Beach, Daytona, and Myrtle Beach all rolled into one nightmare of a place! Instead of high rise hotels and condominiums, though, there are at least three tiers of buildings rising up from the lungamare (shore road), those behind having barely a glimpse of the sea. Each building has a number of tiny vacation villas that have no privacy and maximum outdoor exposure, so that for example, the setting sun forced homeowners to put up huge beach umbrellas to keep the strong rays out. We passed families eating, kids fighting, teens primping and flirting, little kids coming home dirty and tired from the somewhat rocky, pebbly beach. Nothing looked very promising, for the bars and gelato joints looked dirty and uninviting. We wanted to stop for coffee to keep us awake, but Instead of stopping here, we decided to stop later at the gas station on the main road.
To be fair, I don’t think we REALLY expected the performance to start at 8:30 as advertised. But when we got there, it was before 8 and the gate was locked! We saw the park superintendent and he told us to come back at 9. We asked him when the performance would start and he told us about 9:30. So we took a walk to take some pictures.
The last time we were there was spring. I could not believe how dramatic the chalk cliffs looked in the waning light. There were still people on the beach after 8 PM, and the beach itself looked clean and inviting. As for the theater, we watched performers setting up, putting on make-up, limbering up, giving back rubs. The funny thing was the guy getting the back rub? He was the light man! And we were very disappointed because the show was not in the Greek theater, but down the hillside. And although on the hillside, the seats were not graded, as there was very little incline at all in the make shift theater. We did not have very good ones for two other reasons. First, although the show was free, some people had paid $5 to reserve front row seats, and second, because people (in their typical Sicilian bad manners) rushed ahead of us and saved whole rows of seats for friends and relatives who came in 2 hours after we had gotten there. Everyone else knew each other, many bacci were given, small town politics ruled. The performance got under way a little after 10, by the way, and people were still coming in then.
And I wouldn’t have minded that if we had been able to see or hear the show. But again, Sicilian bad manners in the form of late comers chatting loudly and blocking the stage, cell phone calls, babies crying and buggies walked in front of my camera-well, you get the picture. There were no mics on the actors, and although the guy in front of me was short, and I still couldn’t see much stage action. We left about 10:30 PM, after seeing barely a half hour of the show. It was Aristophanes’ “The Assembly of Women,” put on by the students that study at the Greek theater in Siracusa. It involved a revolt of women that included men wearing women’s clothing and vice versa. So a white suit with a prominent cod piece was the first costume that we could notice the details of. Since I could get very few pictures of the stage that were in any way clear, I did not even bother. But it was a fun evening all in all.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

THE STAIRS

When we bought the apartment here, one of the best parts was getting the keys to open the doors for the stairway above and below the beach. It is a shortcut that is very appreciated for those of us lugging chairs and umbrellas down there. We inherited the umbrella with the house and would not be real sad if it were suddenly ripped off, so we have left it down there at times to save a spot when we come up for pranza.
Anyway, the stairs are on a very steep slope, so they were almost all washed out with our intense spring rains this year. The repair took place just a bit late in the spring for my taste, but we did use them off and on through April at least. They are made of earth, stone, concrete, and wood, and are lighted in case you want to go down at night. There are something like 203 steps and I think Steve counts them each time. I keep my head down and go steady and slow and before I know it, I am past Misery Mile and up to the gate!

Monday, July 19, 2004

NEW ROAD, PAOLO'S NEW WALL

Paolo’s wall did not fall onto the road, which in a way is too bad, for there is now a new mayor in Sciacca who says there is no money in the budget to repair it, at a time when tourists and locals greatly increase their use of this beach road and clamor for it to be reopened. So Paolo was told they were supposed to drill holes in his farm land and put in metal stakes to reinforce the wall. But with no money for such repairs, they asked him to pay for it. He said no, so they came up with a more economical solution (see below). A former tight squeeze of two cars on this road is now close to impossible for 2, though they will probably not make it one way. Let us see what happens when this repair is done and the road is reopened. I hope there are no cars or motor bikes smashing into these buttresses.
Since this way was impassable, a new road was opened above our complex of apartments. It has a nice view of Sciacca, and an even steeper incline than the other beach road. But then, there is never snow or ice here, so no problem. It’s fun to drive by the top of where we live, but there are some steep and dangerous parts, just like on the alternate route, the lighthouse road near Sunset Point. Time will tell if this route survives the spring rains. In the meantime, we can go back to using the old beach road in a few days.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

ITALIAN PATRIMONY: TOO MANY OLD CHURCHES, TOO MANY CASTLES

We are about the only Americans around this town that we know of. And it is probably a good thing there are no American entrepreneurs interested in Sciacca. If they ever got wind of how much unique, ancient stuff there is lying around here, and how little people seem to value it, they would easily be able to purchase for a song run down but priceless architectural and archeological treasures that could be used for theme restaurants, upscale apartment housing, or whatever. In fact last year about this time, the Valley of the Temple/Agrigento area had a scandal on its hands about its plans to sell various tracts of “patrimony,” the Italian term for treasures from antiquity that belong to, and should stay in, the country. Whether that means to benefit the Italian people in general, or for the profit of some Italians (as in some of the luxury resorts here and on the mainland) remains to be sorted out. These resorts rely on the beauty of the environment which some people will argue is also patrimony.
We find out about the architectural side of this stuff in the local papers, which weekly bemoan the fate of a church or castle somewhere that has served people in some limited capacity for hundreds of years. There could now be one office in it, or home to various squatters. Then there are the examples rights here in Sciacca, notably like the one I sent a picture of last year, a vegetable stand in a castle tower. Our town holds its weekly market in the part of the city, San Michele, contained in the walls of the 15th century Castillo di Luna. The Pharmacy we go to is in a beautiful old Palazzo. The church where we saw Christmas ceramic shows for the last 2 years, Santa Margharita Di Belice, here in Sciacca, is from the 1300’s and is very, very old with the lovely new installation (1800s) of a ceramic tile floor in waves of black and white, which really heightens this art show. It is too old and crumbling to use on a regular basis, but it is wonderful to go in occasionally. In fact, the plentitude of churches that are old in this town alone makes it amazing that so many places from centuries ago are sill used and indeed, in some cases, still house people. And then there is the art showcase built out of the Alcamo castle, the theater spaces of Segesta, Siracusa, and Gibellina, the Agrigento museum built in old San Nicola church.
Anyway, these buildings are always falling apart. Stone lasts a long time, but when the money and thereafter, the repairs stop, the buildings eventually crumble, and ya gotta start all over again to repair them. And Palermo has this problem worst than most places because it is a big city with many poor immigrants and lots of old falling down buildings. Naturally, these old abandoned places get inhabited by the homeless (mostly African and some Middle Eastern and Eastern European people) who live in squalor (and danger) in the climate such as we have for most of the year. So the city’s special branch of the police in charge of such things conducts an inspection and closes the place down and tries to find a way to fix it up or tear it down (with the excuse that it is dangerous for anyone to inhabit it). People have to find a new place to live and the game goes on. Most of the immigrants are sponsored by larger groups, but their sheer numbers are overwhelming a city like Palermo.
Thus the problems of immigrant homeless are yet to be resolved. But to continue architecturally, seeing these old structures that were once so lovely in such a state of disrepair is really sad, too. Government funds are available but not for the rescue of all of them. Plus the bureaucracy that has to be faced to get funds to do repairs necessary to make them habitable, and their sheer numbers, makes these old buildings ripe for demolition. So it says in tonight’s paper, the church of Sant’ Andrea degli Aromatari near the famous Vucciria market in Palermo, dating back from the 12th century, is now closed to occupancy and will probably be torn down. Peccato!, (What a shame!) as the Italians would say. Maybe it would be good if there were more American entrepreneurs around!

Bit!

I've been stung by a jellyfish!

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

MENFI WINE TASTING

This Sunday we attended a special celebration of the wine and food of the Menfi area. Menfi is very close to us via back roads, which we are forced to take when we go west because the bridge on the highway is still out. We also know Fabio who has a bar there (La Tavernetta.it, with a lively Homer Simpson cartoon over the door) as well as a pretty darn good computer store. Fabio is a true Renaissance man. Anyway, Menfi was one of the 1968 earthquake damaged towns that we take guests to see, and it is unique for the fact that there are still people living in the temporary barracks that were thrown up then. It also has a very satisfying Saturday morning market. So we have been there often and we have drunk many a good wine made from the grapes in the area.
But we decided to taste more! Steve went over Sat afternoon to see what was up and told me I was gonna like it, that it was the festival we had been waiting for. So we went back the next night, and I did like it. There was plenty to see and taste and a festive and interesting atmosphere all the way around.
Now since things never start until we are normally in bed, first we had to take a nap and then drive over in the warm twilight, arriving about 8:30 PM. Young kids and families with babies were arriving and continued to arrive till after 11:30, when we were leaving. The kids might have all napped till after 6 then had a little family time before an early cena (dinner) at 8 or so. So that made them good-to-go for the rest of the evening. What a difference in customs!
We started off looking at the work on the old/new chiesa madre. What a lot of work they have done on it! It a combination of an older structure embodied in a new one, and as such, is similar to the feel of the famous cathedral/Greek temple in Siracusa, only on a smaller scale. It is larger than the restoration of the earthquake-ruined churches in Santa Margherita di Belice. They have saved some of the lovely old paintings and statues. I did not get too many satisfactory pictures because of the strange lighting in such a big space.
Then on outside to the “spectacolo” in the square. The Sicilian dancers were just lining up as we got there. I got some of the dance on film, but it was tough as shorter people insisted on walking in front of the camera. There was a girl with a big voice singing plaintive Sicilian ballads after the lively dancing, which also featured a “jug thrower,” a guy who stood on the side lines and threw a clay jug up on the air all the way through the dancing. We got tired of watching and decided not to wait for the singing and the rest, but to do some tasting in the booths ringing the stage area. The onion sauce that we bought three jars of was spectacular too!
On to visit Fabio at his bar, plus his girlfriend, his brother, and his clean locked bathroom. Then we stopped into the small “cortile,” the courtyard squares that are part of the buildings built after the earthquake. They are surrounded by four or five apartment buildings so as many as 10 or more families can share them for hanging out laundry, growing pots of basil and tomatoes, or other outdoor activities. In each was set up tents of the various wine growers in the area. For the price of a ticket, you take your wine glass to the tent of the kind of wine you want to try and they will half fill it for you. (We had bought the “kit”-the wine glass in a handy dandy shoulder slung pouch, plus 2 tickets, when we first got there). Our best find was a kind of Courtyard Cabaret, where for the price of one ticket, you could sit and listen to jazz musicians and taste any wine you wanted. I think this picture shows the cabaret set up well.
There was another component of this festa that we did not participate in at all. That was the film part of the festival, and a sexy picture of Marilyn Monroe and a reel of film were superimposed on all the advertising. We kind of knew there were film showings but every time we came near one of the venues, there was a long line, and you know about Sicilian line behavior! So we decided not to frustrate ourselves, and to return next year with a plan for what films we wanted to see. There was plenty to do and see without sitting in a warm room to see an odd film or documentary, which we could view anytime in the comfort of our home.
As we were leaving, we met the nice young Carabinieri from Menfi who has helped us with our Permiso di Sogiorno so many times at the Questura’s office in Sciacca. He was with his wife and little girl, and he speaks hesitant English and has a brother who is a tour guide, mainly of Americans. We feel that we owe him for all of his help, and we were happy to give him a left over ticket for tasting and to clue him in on the cabaret courtyard.

Monday, July 05, 2004

STORY IN PICTURES

These are before and afters, loosely the same scenes.

Sunday, July 04, 2004

Guest Writer

Steve tells all about the wall job...

The Wall



Or, the day of the living muratori



Or, a fortnight of powder



Well, we have finished having our walls done. That sounds like no big deal, but it was for us. We have basically been held hostage for two weeks by that al-queduh based group known affectionately in these parts as Il Muratori.
When we bought our villetta, as anyone who has visited us so far can testify the walls inside needed some work. Okay, needed a lot of work. What passes for plaster here (geso) was coming off in huge flakes and chunks, exposing the concrete walls beneath. The paint job, where it was still visible, was highly drawn upon by the muralists who were being raised as children in this place for ten summers. It looked like no one had cleaned a wall since the first crayon was gifted on the little tykes, and no one wanted to be an art critic.
If someone saw a bug on the wall, va bene, its crushed little body would simply become a part of the next work of art.
And then there was the winter muffa. Let’s just call it muffa, as it is the Italian word for mold, and we were really attacked by muffa last winter. We did not know how much it could grow on virtually everything, including the walls, the backs of the huge dressers, and virtually any and everything else we had. When we finally woke up and smelled the espresso, it was an almost daily task for one or the other of us to get out the bleach spray and spray down the walls or whatever and clean off the muffa. Basta. It had to stop.
Well, our friend Accursio has a brother-in-law who, when he is not teaching viniculture in the north, is a murator. His brother-in-law would do the job for us, and he was bravo. So we agreed to have him do all the walls when school was out. That would be about the middle of June. Va bene.
Meanwhile, at the ranch, our neighbors visited, and said that they were getting a lot of humidity in their house near where one of our drain pipes was in the wall. The brother-in-law, Michele, was home for Easter and he came and took a look. Then he drilled a large hole in our wall, put some silicon on the leaking pipe, and cemented it in, with the idea that he would paint over it when he came back. Va bene.
Then the neighbors came back from Palermo again, and the humidity was worse. They called their muratore, who opened the same hole, and replaced a piece of pipe, and instead of using cement used polystyrene foam. He said that the problem had been caused because the cement was not water permeable (that is a problem?), so all the water was going to our neighbors. This all was being done as Michele and Accursio were starting work. When the two muratori met, they argued about the best way to fix it, and finally settled on some sort of compromise, leaving the polystyrene in place and surrounding it with cement.
Meanwhile, everything in our living room was moved to the center so that Michele could get all the lose plaster off the walls, put on new geso, then spray everything with anti-muffa spray, then sand everything smooth, then spray it again, and finally paint with anti muffa paint. It took the better part of two days, and created enough dust to make a white out if there had been wind. Accursio in the meantime started the same process in our hallway.
Each day, before they left, they cleaned up. That is, they washed their hands in the bathroom sink, leaving it covered in powder. The rooms they were working in had big globs of geso on the floor, and were covered with powder, and when they were painting, little drips of paint. The door frames were covered with gsso dust and paint speckles. For whatever reason, they also found it necessary to walk into the two bedrooms and the bathroom to check things out on a regular basis, tracking in some geso, some paint, and tons of powder.
Fran and I worked each evening to get enough of the stuff off the floor to be able to walk.

MORE ABOUT THE WORK AND BEFORE AND AFTERS TOMORROW!

FIRST JULY WEEKEND IN OUR BAY

Sicilians take long vacations during July and August each year. They sometimes take the whole two months in summer homes, and that is what our apartment complex is all about, vacation homes for July and August. Many of the owners are from Palermo and those who still have to work will commute there and come back to the family on weekends. So this weekend we were not surprised to see an almost full parking lot by Saturday. Also, the weather is hot and the water at our beach is nice and cool. It was almost perfect today. A brisk wind blew in last night and there is no sign of the jellyfish invasion of yesterday.
We were out on the beach by 8:30 AM. Because we do not want to have to take our beach umbrella, etc, we figure we can stay for 2-3 hours with three swims before we need to go up before the mid-day crowd. So these pictures are taken before 11 AM. Imagine what it is like at 1 PM before everyone heads home for pranza! Hope you have a comfortable and cheery 4th of July.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

WE HAVE OUR LIFE BACK

The workers are gone. Back to the beach!!