A LITTLE MORE PERSONAL......................

MY son, Dr. Remy Dehaan was scheduled to attend a conference in SANTE FE, New Mexico, dealing with environmental issues and ground water and so we flew there, to be with him and his family, a mere twelve hours after arriving back in Boca Chica, DR.............. We were emailed the photo on the right, taken from a helicopter, covering the 'Tall Ships' event..........Double click on it and you will see Lauren and 'Poppie Rob' sitting on the back-porch of "ARITA", while the auto-pilot does its thing............. Don't know where we would be without "OTTO" the auto-pilot............. Now son Rem, is in fact a Doctor of Geology, who specialises in "Remote Sensing" and for those like myself, who have great difficulty in understanding the concepts, it works something like this............... The Sun radiates lots of energy of different wavelengths, only some of which is visible and thus gives colour to things............ Now a sensor instrument can be flown over the Earth and can measure the reflective energy in all wavelenghts, including visible, infra red and many other bands, and by interpretation, is able to distinguish plant types, soil chemicals, moisture content and do such magical things as identify densities of arsenic particles, for example, in the soil........... Which indirectly are closely associated with the possible presence of gold.............How am I doing so far?...............Those wonderful Earth images we get from time to time, in brilliant fancy colours, are part of that work........... Now apart from that, he has also managed to assist in the production of three beautiful grandchildren.............. Rebekah (10), Zac (5) and Ella (3).............

So we flew from Santo Domingo to Dallas and on to Albuquerque and drove to SANTE FE, then hit the freeways and completely freaked out by being in the thick of things once again..........Except that SANTE FE is completely different from anything either of us had ever seen before......................A PUEBLO CITY, with PUEBLO HOUSING and just plain awesome.........And high up on the mountains on the slopes there was "S N O W ".........



And that very first night we went out to eat Mexican................. The family feast of great food and the joy of togetherness.................. We even drove past the oldest house in America...............Dated 1646, although someone has put a new door and window in the place................Then again anyone can put up a sign,... right?



Ella with her new best friend.. a pink poodle and Rebekah with her monkey up a palm tree..............



We only have a week with them before we fly back to the Dominican Republic so the program is hectic.................. Eating, sleeping, talking and doing, while Prof Rem ducks off to attend the conference............. The kids had a full supply of baloon animals made for them in the park...................... Even the Queen of Florida got into the act....................Sailors turned grandparents........ Who knew?.............And the Captain is in a crisis..........Somewhere between a stud and a geezer..................

And Zac has just used his baloon headset microphone to call for a Pizza delivery to the hotel room........................