http://www.carrieandjonathan.com/the-panama-canal-at-miraflores.html One of my life's goals of places to see has always been the Panama Canal. This happened last week when Carrie and I went and watched ships going through the Miraflores lock. What you are about to see is 1 hour and 15 minutes of video, condensed into about 2 minutes. While you're watching, I'm going to share some interesting facts about the Panama Canal. When it was first built, about 1,000 ships would go through the canal every year. But, over 14,000 ships went through the canal in 2008 alone! We almost had the Nicaragua Canal too! According to a book called Overthrow, in 1898 the head of a group that owned lots of land in Panama hired a US Attorney to lobby the US Congress to build a canal across Panama, and not across Nicaragua. In 1902, Cromwell noticed a 10-cent Nicaraguan postal stamp, produced by the United States’ American Bank Note Company, which erroneously depicted a fuming Momotombo volcano. Momotombo is in Nicaragua, was nearly dormant and stands more than 100 mi from the proposed Nicaraguan canal path, but Cromwell planted a story in the New York Sun reporting that the Momotombo volcano had erupted and caused a series of seismic shocks. Thereafter he sent leaflets with the stamps pasted on them to all U.S. Senators as witness to the volcanic activity in Nicaragua. On June 19, 1902, three days after senators received the stamps, they voted for the Panama route for the canal. For his lobbying efforts, Cromwell received the sum of $800,000. Well, the history of it is a bit convoluted, but the canal is an amazing feat, and was a wonderful place to visit. Carrie and I had a great time at the Panama Canal. http://www.carrieandjonathan.com/the-panama-canal-at-miraflores.html