Horses, Hills and El Limon

Ernani booked two excursions for us. Tuesday we got up early to ride horses to a waterfall and swim below it.

Amelia loves horses. She is obsessed with Spirit (okay, I like it too), and so this was something she was looking forward too. You know by the squeal and the high pitch intensity of it if she likes it. This one got the full-blown ear-splitting kind of squeal. She could not wait to ride a horse.

Our guide, Eduardo, and his driver picked us up in front of the resort. This was the first time we got to see in daylight the roads, towns, and people of the peninsula. We came in late on Saturday night or in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I did see people hanging out and talking to each other, but I could not see the hills and houses behind them. We arrived at the resort in a haze of sleep and darkness.

Leaving the resort in the day felt in a way like an escape from the resort, which was set up with a colonial, English vibe, the ceiling fans, beautiful marble floors, pool, and wood huts on the sand for the guests. The path to the lobby and the restaurants felt like being at a resort at Disney World.  It felt like going back to the real world getting the car and driving through towns where people lived everyday lives: get up, go to work, go home, eat, repeat.

The road curved around the beaches as we left the resort. As we climbed up, they were windy and the sides full of green trees and red rock. As we passed houses and towns, chickens were everywhere. I had seen at the Iowa State Fair, many years ago, a marvelous display of chickens and roosters of every variety and I thought of those birds as I saw these birds. They were free range and beautiful here in the Dominican Republic. I know chickens aren't smart, but I never saw one of these go on to the road or dead on the road.  And they only had step over about 1 foot to end up in the road. Maybe those who did die on the road did not live to reproduce.

We talked to our guide and Ernani told him his name would be easy to remember since it was his Dad's and his oldest brothers name. We talked a bit about Brasil and soccer, about the elections there, the runoff election. Baseball is much more popular he said. On the way home and on the others days we traveled the area by car, I started seeing all the baseball fields and all the people playing in them. He also told us the area was known for its marble because of the limestone rocks and whales come down in February to breed  and summer there from northern waters.

We stopped at a restaurant where we would have lunch after our trip to the Falls. I was pleased that we got helmets. I had been riding in Arkansas before and we were not offered helmets. It was super scary since we went up and down hills, and this was the same kind of terrain.

As we left the restaurant to walk to the horses, we realized were in a village. 1 foot away from the restaurant, a two-level patio with the kitchen to the right, was the Catholic Church. 8 feet behind the restaurant was the school. Little kids in uniform were going to school. One little boy was clinging to his Mom and crying. Eduardo told us the little kid wanted to stay home and play all day. He had told us in the car he and his wife wanted children but did not think they could have them. We reminded him this is what you get with kids. All kids are the same. We laughed, but also it is worth it those kids.

The walk to the horses was downhill and we saw more chickens and more houses lining the dirt road as we walked down. Lots of houses had motorcycles. There was even a house for sale. Every house had a garden of flowers, even the ones decaying or whose paint was fading.

We meet the horses at a stump we used to mount them. Amelia and I got on a brown one named Princessa. Ernani got on a yellowish brown one name Mantequilla. I had not been on a horse since I was a Junior in college at the University of Arkansas when after exams we sold our books and went on a horseback ride. Before then, I had not ridden since Camp Ondessonk when I was a kid. So we were very much novices.

Sarah, who brought us the horses, was our guide. She led the horses as we rode past more houses continuing downhill as we rode to the river. Amelia was sliding a bit, and the man washing his clothes in the river, helped Sarah right her, and she was brave and still excited and happy about the ride. We rode down the river a bit and came up to a trail on the other side. We ride up that trail through the forest. Coffee trees, chocolate trees,  and palm trees lined the sides of the trail as we went up a hill. The flowers, plants, lizards were wonderful sights along the way. Then we came to the top and the view was amazing. Rain was coming in and lines of green hills rolled out in front of us. Green hills, low clouds, made a beautiful sight.

We made our way back into the forest and climbed another ridge to a shelter were we dismounted the horses and could see  El Limon Falls. We walked down a limestone staircase that switchbacked down to the river. There was a small set of Falls there and we waded across the river and climbed up to the dramatic El Limon Falls.

The water is fresh and the locals drink from it. It falls 130 feet into a pool and then falls down some rocks to the second, smaller falls and into the river. It was a beautiful sight as we craned our necks up to see the top. It was raining at this point, so Amelia was less happy and excited about this part of the trip than we were. Ernani and I took turns swimming in the pool under the falls. The water was cold but it was amazing to swim in the pool despite the rain coming down.

The stairs back were challenging, but we took our time and took more pictures at the top of them. The horse ride back was downhill and at one point scary for Amelia, but Sarah held her and walked her down the scary part until the horse and I were caught up with her. I keep telling Amelia the horses knew what they were doing. They were extremely calm and had done this trip many times. Plus, they had 4 legs and we only had two.

We got to the river. The river water felt good and our horse was tired. She took the deep route which was great. My feet needed the cold soak. We walked up into the village and to the stump to dismount. Our reward was walking back to the restaurant and eating lunch.

Finally, Dominican Food. Beans and rice. Fried Plantains. Pineapple. Coffee con leche. It was the perfect way to end the afternoon.

We got back to the resort around 3 and had a dinner scheduled at one of the restaurants. The food was good and the conversation all about the amazing day we had. We took a walk on the beach at sunset and ended the day playing with kittens. 

Coral Reefs and Fish

We spent our first day tired and excited about exploring the beach, the pool, and the resort.

The day was bright, clear and all sunshine. We changed into our swimsuits and headed for the beach at the resort. Steps away from the pool and the place we ate for brunch.

The water was crystal clear and still. We walked into the water and we could see right through it. Amelia immediately sat in the sand. She spent a lot of time that week playing in the sand as it is her favorite thing. Ernani and headed for the water. It was cool, but not cold. The coral reefs were only about ten feet away and we walked to them.

Looking down onto the reef, we saw fish. Clear fish with black eyes, a sleek, long-nosed fish with a neon blue nose, black and yellow striped zebrafish. They were right in front of us and swam all around us.

There were only a few people in the ocean with us and they were snorkeling since there were about 4 coral reefs in the swim area of the resort. Ernani pointed out a crab walking in the water below us. I even felt one scuttle away from me when I stepped too close. They were white and fast.

An Australian woman asked Ernani if he wanted to borrow her snorkel gear. He had confiscated Amelia's googles and was looking at the fish. I cannot snorkel so I declined, but Enrnai went out. The nice woman said she had been there two weeks and today was the clearest, non-rainy day.

A Canadian couple were also looking for fish and I pointed them toward them. They had just gotten to the resort too.

We could see the sides of the peninsula curl around us. Looking out at the ocean, we were on the North Atlantic side of the peninsula. The sun rose over the ocean and swept up to set behind us.

Sunday was spent swimming in the Ocean, playing in the sand, and swimming in the pool. Dinner did not start that night until 7, and after we ate, we went to bed.

The fish and coral reefs called out to us on Monday too. We meet a couple from the Upper Michigan Peninsula at breakfast. Ernani paid for some snorkel time. He was happy about the fish he saw. Amelia fell in love with the pool. I napped and read between bouts of swimming.

After dinner, Amelia found kittens on the resort near the main lobby. Two kittens were playing and we played with them a while. Many people would stop by and play with them too.  This would become a nightly occurrence.

The Caribbean

I had this idea to travel on Amelia's Fall break. We had had a busy summer and we were feeling a need to relax and have some family time. I did not want to think too much or plan too much or worry about money and food and spending. I had been given advice by a friend to look at all-inclusive vacations.

I have read Jamacia Kincaid. I know I am a privileged, white lady traveling to a place with some hard history. I have resisted traveling to the Caribbean for that reason. But, I also wanted to see the clear waves, meet the people, learn more about the area.

I had read and love Julia Alvarez's book In the Time of the Butterflies about the Dominican Republic and the sisters who worked hard and were martyred to make their country better when it was under a terrible military dictatorship. The book is beautiful. I had also been intrigued by it and moved by the sisters' stories.

So when we found a resort on the Samana Peninsula of the DR, we checked it out. We found a resort and the price was good. I would not have to think about food, still could travel outside of the resort, and would be in a beautiful place next to the ocean.

Ernani scheudled the trip and the flights out. I got us a hotel in Chicago the night before our flight and the night of our return. It was near the airport and would shuttle us to the airport. We had a long day of flying ahead of us, and this was not the first time Amelia flew, but it was the first time she could remember it and react to what she saw out the window.

She loved it. Her first reaction to seeing Lake Michigan and the shoreline, where she swam in August, was "The world is so beautiful!" I find this, as her mother, a genius statement of course.

We flew out to NY and came in over the ocean, past the city, and to JFK. She was mesmerized and I got to see the world 30,000 feet above through her young, impressed eyes. What was so routine, flying, became new again. This is the magic of having a five-year-old.

We ran to our next flight, which did not arrive in Santo Domingo until almost midnight their time. So, we got in late and then had to meet our driver who was driving us 2 hours to our resort near Las Terrenas.

The drive in the dark was something we would do again in the light on the way back to the airport at the end of our trip. And we would understand then what we missed.

Santo Domingo was like most towns. Amelia was happy when she saw the palm trees and coconuts. "I love coconuts," she proclaimed. She does not remember much of Brasil, so we were happy to see her reactions to a new country where houses, greenery, and people were not like us.

We drove in the dark through tolls, with bright stars above us, lights of houses in the distance, and then through passes in the hills. As we curved around those hills, up and down, and through those passes, I thought of Arkansas. The rock in both places is the same, limestone. I felt the bus moving in the same way that cars and buses move as they go through the Ozarks.

The forest, however, was different. This one was palms and tropical trees. Men with military guns stood outside each toll section. The road was deserted and when we did drive up to another car slower than us, our driver passed without hesitation. Exhaustion meant accepting those things and putting our trust in a stranger.

The drive felt long, the kiddo slept, and we did get to our hotel. The lobby looked like the pictures and the night bird chirped loudly. We checked in and they drove us to our room. We went right to sleep. We got in about 2 am. So, we got up late and hungry and immediately went to the resort's cafeteria to have brunch.

After brunch, we were all eager to go to the beach. We stood at the edge of the island looking towards the Atlantic Ocean. The sky was clear blue, the water clear and warm, and we could see the arms of the peninsula around us. Coral reefs showed up as dark blue spots in the ocean and they were right in front of us.

We were here.

Back in the Saddle

It has been a while since I blogged.

And, I have traveled since then. Had a baby in Iowa City. Moved when she was 5 and a half months old to Fishers, IN. Our first house ever, which we love even though it is in the burbs. (It took me a little to get used to that idea.) Took her to Brasil when she was 2 to meet her family there. That was in 2015.

And now, she is in Kindergarten and we have a Fall break and a Spring break.

This Fall we took our first trip to the Dominican Republic. We chose an all-inclusive for the first time and got a good deal since it is still hurricane season and the end of the tourist season there.

We took a boat excursion to some of their beaches and I love the water. I love boats. It goes back to when I was little and we took a boat out on Carlyle Lake in Illinois. I grew up loving the water, and even though I was too scared to water ski for the longest time, when I did get out there to do it, it was awesome.

My favorite part was sitting in the front of the boat with the wind in my hair. I loved the motion of the boat, the perch, and the way my mind roamed as I watched and envied the sailboats as a child.  That is something I am going to have to do someday, sail.

In the DR, as we took the boat on the ocean and I had the same experience I had had as a child; I thought Day one was the fishes, and I created titles of the days we had been there. I thought also, why did I stop blogging about my travels?

Our trip went on and I posted my adventures with pictures on Facebook. An old West Virginia friend asked me if I was still blogging. It was like she had read my mind and she posted that question on the post of the boat tour. Pretty much when I was thinking the same thing. Then, I came home and moved on until her post.

I can sometimes take a hint, but God, the universe, whatever you believe is out there, knows me. I often need a hit on the head to see it. This time I see it. She was telling me to do what I needed to do and know I needed to do. I have known it a while. I just needed the kick. Thanks,  Sohinee. 

Devonian Fossil Gorge

Iowa damned their river. But, you cannot hold a river back for long. It rained and rained and the water spilled over the top of the dam and rushed to claim its natural channel again. It took more of the natural channel because it could and because it was damned before, so there was more water to take it back. That water had weight and power behind it that it used to loosen rocks and push them far downstream. The river had done this a few times since the damn was built. The first time, when the water receded, it left behind exposed rocks below the damn where its original channel existed. It did this again a second time in 1993. It revealed ancient fossils from the Devonian age, 375 million years ago, when the land in Iowa was under a sea.



We set out to see it with my brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids. As we drove North, out of town, the landscape became hilly. Perhaps because of the hills, I find this part of Iowa especially beautiful. The road twists and turns though woods until it comes to the massive concrete wall that holds back the water, the lake created when the river was damned.



We parked below the dam in visitor parking and tumbled out into the sun. Our exploration of the Devonian Fossil Gorge began. We walked to the gorge itself before we realized that we should have walked to the circular information center just before the gorge, erected by volunteers to showcase the history of the fossils below and give a sense of when and how the animals lived. These were old, old fossils, a record of the past life of a shallow sea where these rocks stand in the old river bed, exposed by the dam and the floods of the present.



At every step, there was a fossil.



We spent our time scouring the rocks and letting those around us know when we saw a find we just had to share. My niece and two nephews would shout out each time they saw one. The littlest nephew shout out most often and most insistently and wanted whoever was closest to see his find. The excitement and challenge of finding one never tired for any of us and was quickly followed by awe in the realization that they had been alive so long ago and we had a picture of them in stone to prove it



We really got into finding them. My sister-in-law had the sharpest eyes of us all and could find the nicest sets of fossils of all of us. She and my brother found one of the most stunning fossils as we moved closer to the dam. It was about a hand wide, a spiral that sparkled where the mica in the rock impression of this sea animal reflected in the sun. We worked our back up the bank. Everywhere we looked, there were fossils, even on the rocks that lined the banks. Eventually we walked back to the circular welcome station to read about the lives these fossils had had in the past.



A day in the sun looking at fossils made us all content as we turned back to present things like dinner and our next activity. As we moved on to our next action, we left behind the rocks and their impressions of a past life. If we return again, when we return again, to scour the rocks for more fossils that we had failed to see in the midst of so many more, they will be there. As the water from the melting winter snows and ice or the floods of future springs come again and again, more fossils will appear and disappear for us to see and miss, if we wish to see them or miss them...and if we do not wish to see them or miss them, they will appear and disappear just anyway

Rock Love

Iowa has a fossil gorge. I was very excited about this. I have a long history with fossils.

When it was time for me to go to college, I did what my parents encouraged us all to do to save money and get acclimated to the college life—I went to Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Illinois. I took a Geology class there and fell in love with rocks. It was the only class I truly aced, but I did not pursue it because I am not a confident math person. I decided to keep it in my life as a hobby.


 In that class we had to identify rocks and I got a 100% doing that. It changed the way I looked at rocks when I hiked around Carlyle Lake in Illinois, the largest man-made lake in Illinois. I could suddenly identify flint, mica, shale without the flint having to look like an arrowhead. It was empowering. I understood that glaciers has cut into Illinois and stopped; it was an end line of a glacier for a while, at a place we called Pelican’s Pouch, near my hometown. It was hilly there and rockier. My parents would drove through it every spring to see the dogwood and redbud on the hills. We loved that place and it explains why we love Northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks. It is a bigger version, with a different geologic history. I was hooked on the stories rocks could tell.

  I learned all about Illinois, but I was moving to Arkansas. Since I was transferring to Arkansas, I am a proud Alumnus of the University of Arkansas, I had to take Geology again. Again, I loved the class, though it was harder for me because it was a large section (200 people) and I was used to my class of 20. I loved the smaller lab though. I learned that I had a natural talent for reading satellite maps and I learned even more this time about rocks, about Arkansas rocks and Arkansas geology. The story of two states became known to me and I loved the additional knowledge I gained from having the class twice in two different states.


 Fossils litter the rocks and river beds of Arkansas. As I got out and hiked more often, or stopped at an enticing river on my way home, I found lots of them and other minerals too like quartz. I loved the idea of how perfect the chemical equation of quartz is—SiO4, silicon oxygen tetrahedral. And I understood chemistry only when it was presented to me in geology—as rocks and minerals. I meet a, eighty-year-old, local, self-taught geologist in the hills of the Boston Mountains who gave me many rocks and had large quantities of them he had acquired over the years. He told me that when the Arkansas Department of Transportation paved roads and blasted mountains to make roads, he would go there and collect fossils the dynamite uncovered. I will always remember his huge collection of rocks, so big he had old library card catalogues in every room of his house and on his back porch filled with samples of rocks, minerals, fossils that he had collected since his twenties. His stories were magnificent.

 I discovered Edward Abbey and understood the sentiments he expressed about rocks and nature in Desert Solitaire. He writes about the patience of rocks. They sit it out and the weather works on them, as it does on us, even though we will see little evidence of that since our lives are so short and theirs are so long. He writes about the slow thoughts they might have compared to the flash of our thoughts and other animals’ and insects’ thoughts, since we live longer than some of them, but not nearly as long as rocks.

 He has a perspective of place that Geology gave me. The land has a story, whether we are aware of that our not. Rocks have a long, slow story. So do trees, sand, rivers, dirt, continents, oceans, fish, dogs, cats, humans, coal, malls, and us. To name a few.

 Fossils are a record of one thing’s history—something that probably no longer exists on this earth, as someday humans will no longer exist on this earth. Geologic time is not kind or mean. It is indifferent. It marches on with or without us. It is a long, interesting story and fossils are a part of that story, one small paper thin slice of it.

 I am hooked on this story.


So, when my eldest brother and his family came up to visit, we took the kids and us adults, to the fossil gorge.

The Carpool of Truth

This Fall when I went to Oktoberfest in Kalona, Iowa with my husband and my brother.


We moved to Iowa in August and proceeded to put together our house. The hubby prepared for Law school and I prepared for the job his brother helped me get at a private college in Illinois.




Luckily, a great group of people carpool there from Iowa City (an hour and ten minute drive) and I got to join them. My group, the Tuesday and Thursday group, consisted of me and two psychology doctoral candidates from the University of Iowa who were spending a year teaching at this school. They were interviewing for their internship jobs elsewhere and I got to learn a lot about the graduate track in psychology. They are wonderful people and I call them my Carpool of Truth, because they never sugarcoated the weather I would be facing in Winter. I spent 4 hours and 40 minutes every week with them for 20 weeks. We certainly learned a lot about each other; the honest truth sessions about weather solidified our trust in each other’s judgments and lead to great discussions about pretty much everything.




We were busy settling in to Iowa and just getting used to the fact that family was 1 mile away, 1 hour away, 2 hours away, 4 hours away, 5.5 hours away and 9 hours away. This was so close compared to when we were in West Virginia. I could drive to both my brother’s houses in a day and not be exhausted when I got there. And they could visit us. And they did.




The weekend of Oktoberfest, my middle older brother, the second child (I am the last and third) came up to visit us. I was excited about this because my older, the eldest, brother had recently visited with his whole family and we had a lot of fun. I wanted that same kind of experience with my other brother, who like us is adventurous and had recently been spending a lot of time working in the Czeck Republic. I knew that this Oktoberfest would be nothing like what it would be like in the Czeck Republic, but I thought it would be fun anyway. The Kalona, Iowa beer is locally brewed by a long lie of German descendants. How could that be bad? It wasn’t.




My brother came out on a Friday (which I had off as a part-time instructor traveling 2 days a week to teach 3 writing classes—nice huh). We headed for downtown Iowa, which I barely knew having just moved there. He insisted on driving his nice new car—a Ford Focus with the voice command options. Let me tell you. That was nice. You can say Johnny Cash and it plays Johnny Cash.




My brother is an engineer and I remember when I was little and he was a teen that he took everything electronic apart, to see how it worked, and then could put it back together again and it would work like before. My eldest brother can draw and make things from his drawings. Both of them used to make, together, little rockets every year for the fourth of July. We would light them on the 4th at the family celebrations at my Aunt’s house 2 blocks down the road from our house. It was also my cousin’s birthday, so it was a big deal. They would shoot into the air and arc and fall to the earth. I would wait for those rockets, our finale, to be sent off all night. And the next day, we would search the field for them.




Mom recently recalled how they took apart one of their cars one year and put it back together. They worked on it often at night and I would go out there and watch them and look for my cat, who often was around too seeing if one of us would feed him. She and I remember some extra parts we both asked them about when they proclaimed they were finished putting the engine back together. They said they had no idea what they were for and were not worried about them since the car ran. And it did, without problems from lacking parts. I am amazed by both of their abilities.




Once when I lived in the dorms and was talking to the middle brother, he spent two hours on the phone with me telling me how a car engine worked. I was not at all surprised that he bought a car that could understand his verbal commands or that he wanted to drive it after driving it for 4 hours that day already.




So we headed downtown in his car, walked all over downtown Iowa, meet up with my husband and some of his law school friends for lunch at a Korean restaurant, and missed the tapping of the beer keg ceremony at Kalona.




Doh.




We did go the next day and walked the streets of Kalona, mainly a series of shops selling food, wine, beer, household items, and anything else a tourist might buy. It was a cloudless, bright day and chilly. The wind was cold, but sitting under a tent, listening to a German band play all the old German songs various relatives would hum or sing as I was growing out, was pleasant. And the beer was good. A nice glass of stout always makes for a good day.




I drug the men to the loom factory. I love looms. And they had the big industrial kind. We saw a hold-two-mugs-of-beer straight-out-to-your-sides arm contest and walked the streets of Kalona, and even though it was not a rip roaring time, it was great to be together in the same place having the same experiences with two people I love.




For days after that weekend, I had those German songs rattling around in my head. They had not been there since childhood, but they reminded me of relatives long dead and relatives now closer in physical distance to me now that we had moved to Iowa. I felt grateful to those long gone for their lives—grateful for my relationship with them and for being the wanderers they were. I was also grateful for those alive and closer in distance to me now—grateful for my relationship with them and their desire for me to be closer in distance to them.




It strikes me how much truth can be revealed in the relationships I have with others about me and what makes me who I am. What a gift our family and friends, our chosen family, give to us. Truly, together, we are a carpool of truth.