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Susan B. Anthony – We know where you are…

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Yes I am talking about the Susan B. Anthony Dollar. Yes that coin that came out 1979 – 1981 and again for some unknown reason in 1999. Wouldn’t you just know it that Jimmy Carter, yes that president is the one responsible for making this coin. In total there where 888,842,452 coins minted for circulation. Now you are thinking ah yes I remember those – whatever happened to them. Well, I am about to tell you what happened to them.

These coins are one of the silliest things ever to be minted. How is this for logic to collect them, “The Susan B. Anthony dollar is probably the least popular coin made in America. This makes collecting a complete set of the dollars quite easy and affordable!”. Now doesn’t that just make you run out and start collecting them?

To me the following is a pretty concise reasoning as to the unpopularity of the coins:

SBA Coin Gets No Respect
The late, great comedian Rodney Dangerfield said it best when he lamented he got no respect. His words probably suit the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, too.
The poor Susan B. Anthony dollar, struck from 1979-1981 and also in 1999, is one of our nation’s shortest-lived coins. It also could probably qualify for being one of our least-popular coins, too.
Perhaps the biggest complaints about the coin came from those who lost 75 cents each time they confused the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin with the quarter (because they look so similar and are about the same size). However, I’m sure that each of the Susan B. Anthony dollar detractors can think up other reasons why they just don’t like the coin.
It goes without saying that it is an insult to call the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin the Carter Quarter. This is a direct reference to Jimmy Carter’s signing into the law the bill which authorized striking the about-quarter-sized coin.

The only place you see these coins is when you go to the Post Office and buy stamps from a machine and then this truck load of SBA coins comes out for change if you used a bill larger than what you purchased. Then try to get rid of the things. So why am I going on about these coins? Well, I will tell you…

THEY WERE ALL SHIPPED TO ECUADOR!!! That is why you don’t see them in circulation in the US. The above picture is the change I had in my pocket this morning. Notice 6 SBA Dollars in that pile of coins. Notice too that there are a couple of them on each side of a quarter. That is a good reminder as to why they where so disliked in the US. The only good thing I can say about them being here is there isn’t that many Vending machines that you run into. So it doesn’t cause to much of a problem.

Another reason I think you see them all over the place here is that since the money is the US dollar you see some very tired paper money in use here. So tired you would never see it in circulation in the US. Now the Banks here are getting picky so you can be caught with a bill that stores won’t take. I have taken some back to the bank, and that has worked for me. But I think that answers the question why the SBA’s are so popular here – they don’t wear out. In a country where you usually spend $5 or less at a time these are working out better for everyone than the paper dollar.

So now you see, yet another baffling mystery is solved, you now know what happened to the Susan B. Anthony dollars and can rest easy at night know these facts…

This just in…Organic Produce

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We mentioned before that today we were going to get our first Organic Produce delivery, right to our door, this morning. Well I just brought it into the house. I’m not sure if it all will show up in the picture so let me list what we received for $5.00 and it completely filled a grocery bag.

1 – bunch Basil
2 – heads leafy lettuce (Red Sail to be precise)
1 – bunch Carrots
1 – bunch Beets
1/2 – lb. Cherry tomatoes
4 – small Zucchini
1 – bunch Swiss Chard
1 – bunch Radish
1 – bunch Cilantro

And here is what it looks like laying on a counter in our apartment:

This is the Site if you want to learn a bit more about this farm http://www.everyoneweb.es/kurikindi/

I met the Dolly Lama in Ecuador

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I must admit this wasn’t the first time to meet Dolly Lama and it has never been like a religious experience or anything either. It has always been just a casual meeting, nothing formal, and not much is said either. I am sure this is the next incarnation though, as this Dolly Lama is very young indeed. In fact Dolly is just 2 or 3 weeks old. Now that I have you totally confused let me straighten it out for you… Well to shorten up the story…

This is Dolly…

 

Dolly started to be a sad story but things got better fast due to some very nice people, Tim and his wife Mari. You see her mother rejected her right after birth and Tim and Mari took over and brought Dolly into the house. They have a dog that now thinks Dolly is her puppy. If you don’t believe me look at this…

As you can see Dolly has a nice home right now and seems to be having a great time. Who would have thought to find Dolly inside a house being protected by its mother (a dog) and supported by a great couple (Tim and Mari).

What is going to happen to the Lama world I ask you!!! Will this lead to the end of Lamas grazing all day in the pasture and just enjoying their grass? In other words, change Lama culture as we know it? Or, will it lead to a deeper understanding within the Lama Culture and change life as we know it for all life forms on the planet? Only time will tell… But in this observers view… we have yet to see the depths of the rippling effects.

Out and about in Ecuador

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To begin our trip we loaded up to head to the Airport here is our 9 pieces of luggage. As you can tell it is being heavily guarded by our youngest grandson. I can tell you at about 1 yr and a half he packs a wallop so don’t underestimate the protection.

We arrived in Quito and stayed in this room, my it was a long trip to get here with all the airport delays. But we made it.

When we arrived in Cotacachi we went to the market as soon as we could. This shows what we bought for $4.50 We filled a normal sized grocery bag. We actually got 2 full meals out of that giant Cauliflower.

By chance, we met up with our Ecuadorian friends, Marco and Teresa, and they invited us to there house. Yes these are the same people that let us view their Rammed Earth home last time we were here. They had made a minor addition to this bathroom – can you see what it is? We will give you a hint, think Crown for the throne.

The office looks like it is being lived in…

The view looks about the same as the last time we were here. That is Mt. Cotacachi you see with the clouds on the top of it.

What is this in town? It is a celebration, this one each village is represented and this is one of them dancing in the streets on the way to the central square, all dressed up in the finery.

Today we went with Ramiro, the all knowing one about building Rammed Earth, to some of his projects around town. This one will be finished in about a month and has a view similar to ours actually.

This a picture of inside the house, as you can tell things are looking a little finished – it won’t be long.

The people that are having the house built are living in this Casita. We got to look inside it and it is very nice.

All in all it was a great day and we did see some great places. Thought you might want to see some of the highlights. If we tried to put all the highlights in here – we would run out of space 🙂

Cafe Nikki – Santorini Greece

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After traveling from Seattle and checking into Villa Rose, we wanted something to eat and traditional Greek was what we had in mind. The hotel recommended a small place a couple blocks away named Cafe Nikki. What a treat it was to a couple travel weary people.

The restaurant has about 10 tables inside and a few more outside, we ate inside. I think we were the only non locals in the place; this is nearing the end of the tourist season though. We do like to do more local things than spend our time in totally tourist areas and businesses. So the place seemed perfect to us.

The Menu was traditional Greek all the way. We ordered the following, (I posted recipes for these dishes in Cook with Dave, so look them up):

Tzatziki – had carrots in it
Tomato Balls – A Santorini specialty
Calamari with Orzo – from my experience this is a tricky dish not to over cook the Calamari, but it was done to perfection for us.

We split the dishes and it was more than plenty for the two of us. We didn’t order dessert but Nikki brought us each a plate of Greek Yogurt with honey on it. Might sound strange but it was amazing. You get the sweet of honey and the tart of Greek Yogurt at the same time. Try it you will like it you can trust me on this. Just simple and amazing at the same time. I should say a bit more about Nikki.

This is Nikki’s restaurant and she runs the show. What a character she is too. Everyone there is really busy and very attentive too. We really enjoyed tasting REAL Greek food once again and this was a perfect place to experience it again.

If we can fit it in we will be back there before we leave. If not…we will on our next trip for sure.

Back in Santorini

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We flew to Santorini today and were met at the airport upon our arrival by the hotel we were staying at. We are staying at the Villa Rose, a great small hotel, we will cover them in a review separately. But we can tell you here that it is a great place, great owners, and just a nice place.

After we unpacked in our room we took the recommendation of the Hotel for a traditional Greek dinner. We went to Café Nikki, it was only a couple blocks walk. What a great place and great food too. Look up the review on Café Nikki to see more details about the place. The Villa Rose has a review too so check that out too. I can tell you this much right now, we like both places.

The day after we arrived we went on a tour by boat. We went to several islands just off the coast that used to be part of Santorini before the volcano erupted. It was a great day, lots of sunshine and we even hiked up to the crater of the volcano too. It made for an interesting view of Santorini, one that we had not seen before even after as many times as we have been here. We will get the pictures up fairly soon.

We made a stop at the hot springs on our tour and many of the people on our boat jumped off and swam over to the springs. What a sight that was. Some were good at it and some…well lets just say they all made it. There was only one that they had to bring him a life preserver to use to finish swimming back to the boat.

All in all a great start to our visit to Santorini.

The second day, we will just kicked back a little and explored the town. Read that bead shop and the many stores by the cliffs.

There was a protest going on too. The police were out making sure things remained safe and calm. There was a sign across part of a road in town that said they were part of the Wall Street protests. We saw it about 10:30am when we walked by it. About 11:30am I thought I should walk back and take a picture of it to show you what the protest was like but alas, it was over and the sign was gone. Business went on as usual, except right in the immediate area of protest. No one said anything about it or seemed to be bothered about it either.

We ended our day in town by stopping at a bar / restaurant and having a drink before walking back to the hotel. Ok, we had two drinks, the view was just captivating looking out and down over the caldera. We could see the cruise ships that were in port, all tendered to shore. By the time we had are second drink or so all of the boat people were heading back to their ship. Amazing how much that cleared up the streets of people.