Some random pictures and some stories

Good evening. I was wanting to post more pictures today, but I spent most of the time I had just going through my pictures and deleting bad (out-of-focus and/or blurry) pictures, and didn’t do much editing besides doing a few panoramas. I shot a few panoramas that I’m quite happy with, and I think I will post before too many moons go by. The pictures that I want to post today are ones that I really like, but don’t really fit in with any of my other pictures.

This first one was taken in Panajachel. I was walking around and noticed this lovely yard with the sun shining in and a chicken walking around. I’m not sure if I like it because of the sunlight or the chicken…

This next one was taken while we were at Santa Rosita. I was wondering around outside “playing” while other people were resting or working or otherwise being at least somewhat productive. By the way, while it might seem like much “editing” or “photoshopping” was done to the photo, it wasn’t an extreme amount. This photo is close to the original raw file out of the camera.

1/200s, f/29, ISO 100, flash about six inches away from flower at 1/64th power

The whole “inspiration” for this trip came when our good friends Arlen & Anna Mae Bontrager mentioned that they would like to sometime see the famous Lago Atitlan that resides in Guatemala. They just now finished a two year term at the San Salvador guest house, and so Mom and Dad thought it would be a good idea if we take them over to the lake for a weekend. I of course agreed that it would be a good idea to go there. We then decided if we are in Guatemala, we might as well go to Santa Rosita to see our friends Jeff & Crystal Yoder. I was at Santa Rosita last year, but the rest of the family wasn’t. Since the road took us right through the Peten, and right through El Chal, we decided we might as well also stop in there and see Stephen and Brenda Gingerich’s family. So, Friday morning we went to the Lake, were there Sat, and then Sun. went and drove on to Guatemala City, and spent the night there at the mission. Monday morning we headed on to El Chal. We weren’t gone to long when we realized the van was running hotter then what it should. We had noticed in the previous days that it was running warm, but it was getting to be a problem. We stopped at a mechanic shop after a few hours, and drained the radiator, and ran a cleaner through it. It didn’t help much, and we so we sort of took it easy the rest of the way. That afternoon and evening there at El Chal we tried to decide what the problem was, and ended up taking the thermostat out to see if that would help. Tuesday morning we took off toward Santa Rosita, and soon decided that taking the thermostat out didn’t help any. After a half hour it was hotter then what it had been all of the previous day. We started calling folks back in El Chal, and got directions to a good mechanic. There they tried several things; they made the fan spin faster, changed the radiator cap, and then took the radiator off and cleaned it out. Nothing really helped, so Dad decided to just get them to make a new radiator. So here we were sitting in Santa Elena, which was still over three hours from Santa Rosita, and didn’t have a working vehicle. It ended up though that Jeff had to make an emergency run out to Santa Elena with a lady that was great with child, and so we were able to go back in with him. Arlynn and I were delegated to the back of the truck, so my ride was uncomfortable. We made it fine though, and had a great time with them that evening, then next day, and then Thursday morning Jeff took us out to where we could get a bus back to Santa Elena. The van got fixed, we spent Thursday night at El Chal again, and then Friday had a seven hour drive back home. The van worked great coming home then. We pushed it hard, and it ran cool most of the time.

I think I will post a picture of our group that was at Panajachel. It was a lot of fun being there with Arlen and Anna Mae. I don’t think I mentioned that they bussed back to El Salvador Monday, and then headed back to the states on Thursday. We are going to miss them.

Have a good week!

- Aaron

~ by Aaron on November 16, 2008.