After spending a couple of days in Arenal, we drove over to Monteverde.  Monteverde is at about 5,500 ft, and is home to what they call a cloud forest.  In essence, it is so moist there, that there is a rain forest in the mountains.  It’s amazing.

Lots of Rain

The next day, we woke up and took a guided tour through Monteverde National Park.  We got to see the Quetzal, whcih is endagered I think, and is pretty sweet:

Monteverde was amazing, and I highly reccomend anyone go there.  It is incredible how much wildlife you can see, and how beautiful it is there.

So, we just got back from Costa Rica on Monday evening, work was a little tough yesterday, but I am happy to be back. The trip was amazing. Costa Rican people, Ticos are some of the proudest, friendliest, and happy people I’ve met. It is the type of place where everyday I was there, I was amazed by it’s natural beauty, the locals, and the wildlife. I highly highly recommend anyone to go to Costa Rica, and spend some time there. Whether you love laying on the beach sunbathing, taking eco-tours, or zip-lining across valleys, there is something for everyone there.

Part 1:
Jill and I arrived in San Jose, then proceeded to pick up our rent-a-car, and drive up to the mountains. We were headed to Volcan Arenal, which is an active volcano that you can see lava flows on at night (sometimes). On the way, we stopped to check out a resort, and church that we had read about. It was really cool, the views were amazing (I’ll add some pics later).

We then got back on the road and drove to Arenal, where we found a great place for our first night in Costa Rica, Linda Vista Del Norte with a pool overlooking Lake Arenal:

We settled in, had dinner, and awoke to this view from our windows:

We had heard that the hanging bridges were a great way to check out the canopy, so we decided to go for it. We donned our SPF protective “dork outfits” and headed out.

We saw a few things, a Macaw, and a lizard

But mostly it was the views that were fantastic, Volcan Arenal:

More Bridges

I’ll add more shortly in Part 2.

Well everyone, I have decided to start blogging. About what you ask? I’m not entirely sure myself. Heck, I’m not even sure if anyone will read this thing, but after thinking about it for a while, I really have nothing to loose. Yeah, maybe some weirdo will know more about me than they need to, but all in all, I figure why not. I mean, my life is pretty interesting right? At least it is for me (of course).

I guess for a first blog, I might as well give a little info about myself.  My name is Charles Becker, though most know me as Chuck, or those pre-college know me as Charlie. I think I’m mostly down with Chuck these days (or the last 10 years or so). I life in San Franciso with my beautiful wife Jill, and the best dog in the world Casso.

That’s the wife and I

That’s the best do in the world, posing as one of Santa’s Reindeers (he loved it).

As I mentioned, we currently live in San Francisco, which is pretty cool as far as cities go, not necessarily my thing, but you can’t beat the work opportunities. We’ve lived here for about 3 years now, and I still can’t for the life of me get over the crazy weather here. On Monday, it was in the mid 80′s, today it is in the high 50′s and freezing. And the summers here can really be as grey as any Seattle winter. Other than that and the traffic, and the crazy amounts of work people subject themselves to, it’s not bad. There are many worse places for sure.

I work as an Assistant Project Manager for Hathaway Dinwiddie. It’s been around for years, it is a merger of Dinwiddie Construction, and Hathaway Construction, now known as Hathaway Dinwiddie. Anyways, Dinwiddie actually built the Transamerica Pyramid, and the Bank of America building in downtown SF. They’ve been around a long time. As far as construction companies go, it’s great, great people, amazing projects, and they have a great work ethic. They are the type of company where your word goes a long way, and because of that tend to have great relationships with their subs, and the owners they work for.

Enough about work. For fun, my wife Jill and I tend to spend a heck of a lot fo time up in Truckee. We met up there when we both lived up there, and skied and hiked our asses off. It was a great life, but we then decided to join the “real” world and get more corporate jobs. Since we’ve left Truckee we lived in Seattle for about a year and a half before I freaked out about the weather and arm wrestled her to move back to California. And now we live in sunny SF – yeah right. I think she still thinks that’s funny.

Living in San Fran does allow us to get up to the mountains alot, albeit it can be painstaking at times with the traffic, but we get up there often nonetheless. In Truckee, we still get to ski a bunch, and hike in the summer. All good times.

Okay, enough for now, I still have a ton of stuff to do before we leave tomorrow for Costa Rica! Can’t wait. I’m sure I’ll post about that.

Have a good day all, get outside if you can.