The Closed Chapel

 Today we tried walking a different route and actually ended up headed back sooner than expected. But down around the corner we found a different grocery store closer to our apartment and with a fair assortment of food. We had more laundry to d and I couldn’t get the washer to work. When I was preparing breakfast this boat went by our window

Just when I was voting to use the Skye option (throw the washer from the window while videoing) I thought of what to try and it worked.  We needed to go to the church as the internet is way slow to download pictures and with all those I wanted to use in the blog there weren’t enough hours in the day to do it. At the church I was done in minutes. Since we were halfway to the mall we went on over to purchase some items we thought we could only get there. I don’t think we are going to find sour cream. 

I grabbed a picture of what I called a sailboat, turns out to be the type of boat used to chase whales complete with harpoon and large tubs full of coiled rope. 

Walking home more pictures of grandma with yup more flowers, cool huh? 

Here is a picture of the building we live in.

 

Home again I made lunch and we traveled to a town probably about 15 miles away. The island is about 40 miles long and 16 wide running at an angle with the bottom where we live at the southwest and the top in the north east. We went to.ribeiro grande (rio grande big river) misnamed as it hardly has any water. We live in Ponta Delgada (narrowest point). The map is fairly good I just found it and hope it shows up good.

 

Till coronavirus there were two branches one where we are in ponta delgado (skinny point) and one in ribeiro grande. Both had nice chapels, but they combined the two and called one são miguel after the name of the island. We stopped and checked out the chapel. It had the smell of a building closed up for too long. It is a beautiful little chapel 2 stories high has a miniature soccer field nice class rooms and cultural hall.  

We visited the ocean there were some amazing views as the evening came. 

We visited 3 members homes. Shared the road with some people on horseback. 

Sort of sad to see such a nice chapel just closed up. We traveled home and l put together supper and baked a chocolate cake. Interesting day. We love and miss you all.

Life is one adventure after another

 If no one is paying attention I write these blogs on the day after so even though this shows up as June 29 I am writing it about June 28. So it’s Monday our preparation day. I let grandma sleep in as we had no place we had to be. At 8:15 we set out for a walk. We headed down towards the ocean not having a plan just navigating by the seat of my pants. We walked quite a while and began running into lots of other people and rounding one more corner we could see large ships and water. We headed down we came to a Catholic Church and the bells rang on the quarter hour.

I could see the bells there are 3 small medium and large. They ring in different order to mark the time.

I was able to insert that previous picture after the other picture and the typing of the sentence. I guess as long as I do things one at a time I can sort of sort things out. We crossed the street to a harbor. There was this huge old fort with marines. They had their swords out carried on their shoulders like soldiers march carrying a rifle and marched single file around the gate of the fort. The officer in charge was yelling at them he wore knee high riding boots with spurs. I wish I had dared take a picture but we were the only ones watching and I don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. The adventures we have each day probably appear exaggerated but grandma was with me, and we are just getting started. We have the whole day. We took some pictures of the ships and walked with a port authoridade guy

. Then we decided to circle the fort. They had this wall mural or carving or something recognizing the marines who served in ww1

. There was my new elk hunting gun I checked it out looked a bit difficult to aim but I think I would only need to hit close. We walked around the corner and found 3 new anchors for grandma to model. She is going to have to make a calendar with a new anchor pose for each month.

Next corner boats I found one a real fixer upper. No motor no prop a few busted planks but if the price was right?

All the boats had religious names like divine savior santa cristo. I decided we could rename it Moroni and add a mast and fly the title of liberty. With the right motors we could follow the daily ferry to the other island we want to visit. Well we had come a fair distance from our apartment so we headed back. We had to climb up a long but not real steep hill. We were walking up on our little 12 inch wide sidewalk when a pickup came by so fast we couldn’t even hug the wall I would guess he was going between 40 to 60 miles an hour. He went on up the road and turned in I thought of looking for him but it was some kind of police place with an armed guard at the gate. A larger truck was coming up the street but we had time to cross over to the other side and get in between two parked cars. The mirrors were within 2 inches of the wall we had been walking by and hung out over the cars parked on our side. People coming down the hill scrambled to tuck into doorways and get real thin in them. Don’t try this at home. Well we had been gone most of an hour when we got back. We ate and decided to head out again. This time we decided to visit that tree park we only got to see a small part of. We hoofed it there and just inside there was a nice apparently new android phone in the pathway. Why me? I asked the first person I saw and the best I could get was that there was a bar-restaurant at the bottom of the park we headed down and encountered a grounds keeper he was nice but still sent us to the same place. We found the joint and they were nice and took it off our hands. Next time I leave it in the trail. (Jim remember the phone we found on the Selway?). Well we got some nice pictures I haven’t seen any spiders yet but got some nice pictures for Caleb.

And of course grandma with flowers, grandma with trees, and grandma by a stone bench.

Since we were only 15 to 20 minutes walking time from the grocery store we swung over and grabbed a few things to eat that would fit in my backpack. Wouldn’t you know it we just arrived back home and we were already late for a zoom meeting with our he entire mission as pres. and sis. Fillmore are leaving tomorrow. Elder Basham sent us a text so Jordan tell his mom his hair looks better than last time we saw him. Oh I almost forgot, this is a big time whale watching area so in the one entrance to he mall they have this whale tail

, and a sailing boat. I will have to get the boat another time. We came home and after I cooked supper and studied a bit time for bed. Oh yea for desert we had bought chocolate chip chocolate yogurt. Remember Paridise? Love to everyone even those meaner than a ……….