Rain, rain-- well, it is a tropical island!

The wall of the condo are going up fast now. Soon the entire building will be enclosed.

The weather was threatening, and I did get rained on during my walk. However, I had thought to take my green rain gear, saving me a very wet walk back!

I was heading back up into the Carolinas

There are great views of the Casino and the village from up here

The road I chose is one of the areas that has been prepared for homesteads: it has a good road (when the jungle is beaten-back) and power poles line the road, ready for anyone to start building. However, along the 1.5-2 mile road, there were only a couple of spots that seemed to be used.

One was a surprise. Coming out of the heavy jungle, all of a sudden the land opens up: someone is carefully building a home, and has cleared a large section of land...

but just as soon as it opened up, the jungle closes back in on the other side!

There as another building sitting back from the road, but the jungle was quickly taking over where the land had previously been cleared.

From this high perch, I saw a ship in the Tinian bay-- an unusual sight here. There are usually a lot of large ships sitting off shore on Saipan, but not here on Tinian. We have a few smaller ships that come and dock to offload goods, but few large ships.

The road continued along the side of the long Carolinas hills. This section of road had recently been mowed.

After coming back to our apartment, I took a ride up to the Scenic Overlook. By the time I arrive, the ship I had seen was no longer there-- just a small fishing boat.

From my viewpoint I could look down upon at least one homestead that had been carved out of the middle of the jungle!

Work at the new Casino seems to be progressing. More equipment is being used, the personal gardens for the workers have been expanded...

and the large storage building is almost done!

They are also landscaping the side of the hill by the worker housing.

Down in the village, roadwork continues at a fast pace. They have begun to dig and lay storm water pipes, for all the run-off from the new roads through the village.

The work is just one block from the dock now.

While at the top of the hill, by the Catholic Church, the road is being filled in.

This is looking down the hill towards the dock area.

Here is the crew laying down the new roadbase

It is a fun game trying to drive around the village now!