MY PLAYGROUND - I can still thank my lucky stars ***********

CAYO TIMON - a small private island oasis in the Honduran Archipelago of Cayos Cochinos. This island is owned by two of my new friends from Honduras, Romeo (pictured below) and G-Rod. I hope to remain part of their rat pack. We visit the island all the time and I feel like I've reached Heaven on earth, similar feeling to when I took Safari's in the Massai Mara in Africa. Really God's country, one need only look around and be intoxicated by it's beauty. I can't explain it any better. Your worries tend to drift away and you experience a high of exhiliration just at being there in it's vast natural beauty. I guess this is what those church fearing brothers and sisters mean when they say to drug pushers "I get high on Jesus". I usually enhance my high with a Barena beer.

It's an hour boat ride away from Roatan and much closer to the mainland of La Ceiba. If you look closely at some of the pictures, you can actually see the mainland in the back of the clouds.

The Cayos Cochinos Islands, also known as the Hog Cays, is a small archipelago and is located just 19 kilometers off the northern coast. The two larger islands are covered with thick tropical forest and are ringed by white sand beaches. The Cayos and surrounding waters were declared a marine reserve in 1994, with the help of the Smithsonian Institute, protecting all marine and terrestrial flora and fauna within a 460-square-km area from fishing, development or any other harmful activity. The reserve extends eight kilometers in all directions. There is a really cute little neighbor island called Chachahuate which is inhabited by Garifunas. There is also a Marine Biological Station and other scattered inhabitants on the other dozen or so islands surrounding.

T-BONE INJURED

Remember that curse of Friday the 13th (earlier post), the day I bought the scooter? Well apart from me crashing the scooter the sprighty Ay Ayyyyyy Aaayyyyyyyyy Red (my new color of red since Hurricane Dean) # 69, I have now, regrettably more bad news to tell. I ran over doggie Timon with the dratted thing! You see why now I have to stay away from electronics.
OOOHHhhhhhh LAAARrrrrd!!
No kidding. He jumped out of the in-sufficiently secured (zipper left slightly open) doggie carriage I normally strap him into on the back of the bike when I go anywhere, while I was doing 40Km on a paved road.
THEN....................SOMEHOW........I ran over his back left leg and broke it at the hip plus one more fracture! You can imagine my horror at hearing the scream of an animal only to look back and see it's your little baby. I sat at the side of the road and held him tightly and wept until G-Rod in lightening speed came to the rescue.
G-Rod trying to make light of the situation: "Even T-Bone is trying to escape your grasp, he's willing to jump to his death" (hint: as opposed to him, I suppose)
TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE! This happened Monday and even with two vet clinics on the island of Roatan, none were available until Wednesday! It pained me to see Timon trying to get up and move those two days. Finally, after vet visit, much pulling and thugging while under anasthesia, he is o.k., in a splint & should be a lot better in three weeks when they take it off. As if I didn't have enough guilt, the vet asked me what kind of pain killers I was giving him. And when I said he wasn't here to advise me, NONE, in other words, I had no idea I could do that, he told me that I was a "bad momma" and I could have gone to the pharmacy and gotten child pain killer liquid. Oh did that make me feel like a wompuss!
WHEW...>.! I'm still trying to come out of the shock of the last few days. Meanwhile, home-bound with T-Bone, I am getting really good at whipping butt playing poker with play money on pokerstars.com.
(Picture to follow)