Snow Day!!!

Snow day in Indonesia!!!  Well not really but the kids did get an ash day as school today was canceled due to ash.  Not to worry back home the volcano is about 160miles/260kms away so we just get to experience the ash.  The yard is usually a dark brown almost black but as you can see from the picture we have a good coating of ash on the ground with more still falling.  I saw a car drive by and it looked like driving in light snow with a large swirl of ash behind.  I'm hoping my Julie is in a forgiving mod today I had great intentions of picking up some flowers this morning for valentines but I really don't want to subject my lungs or our bikes to ingesting ash so maybe later if it rains or tomorrow I'll grab some late valentines flowers instead.  So today might be a card and board game day inside.  Tomorrow I was planning on going with or friend Pak Sutrisno to Ponorogo which is in east Java about half way between here and the volcano, but I think I might take a rain check or maybe an ash check in this case.

Kali Pancur

Last Friday I stole Franklin away from his studies for the morning and we headed out on an adventure just the two of us to Kali Pancur.  Tempat ini, oops this place is a beautiful water fall nestled between two villages.  It was only about 8 kms away as the crow flies but by jalan, I mean road,14 kms away and at an average speed of about 30 km/hr and with a couple breaks 45mins later we arrived at our destination.  Oh, ya the GPS took us to the wrong village at first but after asking for some directions from the locals we found the other village with the access to the falls.  I had a few motives for making this particular outing.  One motive is this has become my hobby as it were here, finding exotic roads and places on the back of my fairly faithful iron horse.  The second motive was I wanted to spend sometime with Franklin. And 3rdly there was a geocache there.  The outing was successful on the first two levels enjoying time on the back of JR (my iron horse) and best of all time well spent with Franklin.  But no luck finding the geocache, so far all my attempts at geocaching here I've come up empty handed.  My last attempt at geocaching I got with in 80 meters before the trail disappeared and I didn't have a machete along to make my own trail the rest of the way to the top of Mt. Gajah.

We have been hearing that most of our family and friends are mengalami kedinginan experiencing and suffering from the cold.  So if you need a break from winter you can always come for a visit just make sure you pack a good rain coat and rain pants.

PS: For language school I've been writing 5 one page essays every week, so sometimes the Indonesian words pop-out before the English word when I sit down to write something.  So for those interested in a little in bahasa Indonesia I leave them in and carry on.

Misc. Pictures

Mud fights at the soccer field.  A lot of hand scrubbing before the kids or the clothes were clean again.

Mount Merbabu, some day I might make it to the top.

Biking with Franklin and Julie

Isaac's first fruits from his tomato planet.

Bat sleeping in our classroom window.

No this is not photo shopped.  I've seen this now maybe 3 or 4 times before but wasn't able to get my camera out fast enough.  Four bed frames one scooter and one driver.  Not sure how he unloads and loads?

What's left of the receptacle and wire for our water pump.  Thankfully the fire was outside the house.  Although we might have found it faster if it was inside.

Molten plastic from our electrical fire.

What was left of the cord end for the pump.

Making repairs via lampu sepeda motor.

One massive wedding cake.  I think it had to been over 10' tall.

No fire but lots of smoke from our washing machine.