With the kids in Alpharetta GA

We spent 16 nights with the “kids” in Alpharetta, Ga, ; a northern suburb of Atlanta.

It was wonderful spending time with family like that. Being an only child myself it’s a little foreign to me but much enjoyed. It was nice not feeling the need or desire to “go” anywhere & “do” something. Just hangin’ was really a lovely thing.

The oldest grandson, Cameron, had a project for school which Joey had fun “helping” with. He was like a kid himself. It took two days to do.

Joey bought an iPad & Jake (son-in-law) helped in getting it set up. I thought anything

APPLE was supposed to be easy…..not! Without Jake helping out we’d be fooling with it for ever ….I know! Example: my Iphone I’ve had for just over a year, well, the photo downloading using iTune is still a problem for me because my laptop I use when traveling is running out of hard disk space & it appears that every time I connect the iPhone to the laptop things get duplicated in the laptop taking up unnecessary disk space. As a result I haven’t even been connecting the iPhone to the laptop….I’m going to try again soon so I can add photos to this blog. Actually, it’s the videos that take up so much space. I use my iPhone a lot for videos too. There are still some in there from last year’s Mexico trip. Typical procrastinator that I am.. To be more truthful: I'm a scaredy cat.

We’ve found lots of fun Apps for the iPad & we’re both having fun with it.

While we were in Alpharetta Joey helped the kids paint some walls. He loves keeping busy & being useful so it was a win/win for all.

Our favorite food being Indian we went back to our favorite restaurant twice & even better than that…..Jamel & Jake’s next door neighbors are Pakistani & they had us over for dinner again. (they did last year as well) That was very special. We had interesting discussions about many things. Cultures, religions, families, life in general. It was quite enjoyable. Nice people

Joey & Jake went to play racket ball. Joey hadn’t done that in YEARS. Joey was sore the next day but said it was worth it & wish he’d had been able to do it again.

Anyway, here, I hope will be my first video transfer. It's of Joey & youngest grandson, Oliver playing a game on the new iPad:

Nashville,Tn to Alpharetta, GA via Jack Daniel's

It's only 250 miles but we spent the night in northern Georgia after driving only about 175 miles.

For one thing, I had forgotten about loosing one hour going from Tennessee into Georgia & that would have put us into Alpharetta after the Public Storage place for the trailer was closed.

Also, Thanks to daughter Jamel's suggestion, we spent about 1.5 hours in Lynchburg, Tn @ the Jack Daniel's Distillery. It was so very interesting. No tasting...it's a dry county!......BUT they got special permission in 1995 to sell "it" but not allow drinking it there. Due to the fact they got their license way back in 1866

& it's grandfathered-in they are allowed to continue to produce it there.

About half of the tour is outside & it was raining cats and dogs! Luckily, we had umbrellas & clogs so we fared pretty well. They always take a group photo outside but ours needed to be inside due to the rain:

It was a fascinating free tour. Nice free parking with room for the trailer too. Some people "blow-off" the freebies by buying the whiskey. They offered 5 varieties of Jack Daniel's Whiskey for sale. Each type had been explained to us on the tour about each. Don't ask!

If one buys all 5 types offered the cost is $216. The three that we bought are only distributed in Tennessee....thought that wise because we'd never be able to buy them anywhere else. Brilliant!

Anyway, the three came to about $126. I wish they had a handout with the explanations of each. They didn't so now I need to do some online research, I guess.

http://www.jackdaniels.com/

The three we bought are: d Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel's Single Barrel

What I knew about whiskey is only the spelling & that the Jack Daniel brand is a bit pricey & from their own website:

Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?

Jack Daniel's is not a bourbon - it's a Tennessee Whiskey. Jack Daniel's is dripped slowly - drop-by-drop - through ten feet of firmly packed charcoal (made from hard sugar maple) before going into new charred oak barrels for aging. This special process gives Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey its rare smoothness. It's this extra step - charcoal mellowing – that makes Jack Daniel's a Tennessee Whiskey.

Wikipedia has it wrong & calls it a bourbon whiskey. All Greek to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's an interesting story about Jack Daniel , the man & what killed him.

Why JD is NOT a bourbon: Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey, which is a different style than what can legally be called "bourbon."

By definition, bourbon must be

1) produced in the US,

2) made from at least 51% corn,

3) aged in brand new, charred oak barrels, and

4) be distilled at no more than 160 proof.

Jack Daniels takes its aged whiskey out of the barrel and filters it through charcoal to "soften" it (this is where the definition of "Tennessee whiskey" came from.) You can't alter bourbon from the barrel to the bottle in any way, so JD loses the chance to call it bourbon legally, even if it met the four points above.

On a side note, Lynchburg, TN (which is where Jack Daniel's distillery is located) is located in a "dry" county - you can't drink any JD at the distillery, or legally buy it anywhere in the vicinity.

Well, now, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Tornado! Say WHAT?

Well a big storm is coming into the Nashville area & we leave tomorrow morning. There are even tornado warnings just south of us here. It looks as if we'll be driving in rain most of our 250 mile drive from Nashville to Atlanta tomorrow.

At this moment, following the current storm is the only thing on almost all of the TV channels here right now....cannot get 60 Minutes on CBS. Oh well, following this storm is interesting. We have big rain sounds on our roof . I like that...no hail please.

We did go to the Grand Ole Opry for a second show, Saturday night. Some of it was exactly as on Friday. The good thing was that they inducted a new member, Blake Shelton. It was presented to Blake by his good friend Trace Adkins, another country singer. However, one night of the Opry would have been sufficient!

Earlier today we spent some time dumping the tanks so we wouldn't need to do it in the rain tomorrow when we're ready to leave here. Our site didn't have the sewer hookup so we needed hook up & drive to the main dump in the camp.

Once we had the trailer back into our campsite we disconnected the car again & drove off to the Lane Auto Museum. http://lanemotormuseum.org/

They have he largest Czechoslovakian collection outside Europe plus lots other European beautiful old cars

On the way back to camp we stopped to eat. There WAS a geocache near the parking lot of the restaurant but it was dark when we finished eating so we skipped it.

When we got back to camp we got the car all hooked up to the trailer. In the morning all we need to do is disconnect our electrical cord, slide in the popout & go.

As I type the local news is still following the storm. Tornado spottings, lightning strikes are up to 660 ....not a typing error. I guest I'd better get offline ....byeeee

Nix Nix Randy Travis ....my Error; plus the Opry

Jeeze! Just goes to show you how much I do not know about "country'.

Randy Travis turns out to be Trace Adkins......because I don't know "jack"! DUH!

Anyway, Trace Adkins is for tomorrow night; not Randy Travis.

We just returned from tonight's Opry. The 7 pm show was 2 1/2 hrs long with about 45 minutes of commercials!

The music was really good. The performers were mostly old timers. One was 89 years old...Little Jimmy Dickens...they call him LITTLE Jimmy Dickens. He IS that! He put on a good performance...hard to believe his age. He told some funny, silly jokes too.

At first we were very annoyed when the deep voiced MC/announcer, Eddie Stubbs spoke a commercial every 10 minutes. We couldn't believe we paid this kind of money for a show & it had commercials!!! Well, no one ever told us a & we never read nor realized that what we were seeing was a live radio show. Of course it would have commercials.

Here's a link about announcer Eddie Stubbs as well as getting a peek @ Little Jimmy Dickens; yup, he's t he 89 yr old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ_LczoT414

BTW, since the May 2010 Nashville flood the venue for the Opry was unable to be in their own building until repaired. Their own building was only reopened Sept 28 2010 to a star studded show with some names I actually have heard of.

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=13233167 This link also has some videos & photos about the Opry, the flood, etc

Nashville is still in the midst of major repairs left over from the flood. It's really sad & difficult to imagine what so many went through. Near the Grand Ole Opry is a HUGE outlet mall that includes an IMAX Theatre & Borders Book Store among it's many shops & it's still totally closed down for flood repairs. It and it's parking lots are completely fenced in by chain-link fencing that seems to go on and on and on.

Chihuly's show at CheekWood....

......was truly wonderful. the Cheekwood Gardens on the rolling hillsides of a Nashvillle SUPERB. It was more beautiful than I had imagined.

The weather was perfect for walking in the fall.

It takes a whole team to make the huge Chihuly glass pieces. Beautifully unique is all I can think of to describe this art. If you've seen the lobby of the Bellagio Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. The huge glass flowers in the ceiling are his work. This garden exhibit, however, was totally different.

This link http://www.chihulyinnashville.com/plan.html will give you an idea.

We were lucky to have decided to go on a weekday instead of the weekend, also showing up about 3:30pm was s a VERY good decision. There was no line at all to get our $12 senior tickets. (non-senior $15)

After walking through the exhibits throughout the gardens & watching a 45 minute video about Chihuly and his team of glass workers we left just about 1/2 hr after the sun set. Maybe 7pm.

Driving out of the parking lot we were shocked to see car lights lined up waiting to enter the park...lined up as far as we could see in two directions....bumper to bumper.

All I can say is that if we had been in that line I would have freaked & said "Get me out of here!!"

I simply would have missed the exhibit. No second thoughts. Just...bye bye & Hasta la vista, baby!!!!

Today we took a 3 1/2 hr Greyline "Nashville Orientation" Tour. A bit pricy @ $92 for two (forgot my coupons...drat) but worth it. As the tour van drove around I had out my iPhone GPS so I could follow along where we were in relationship to our KOA camp so that when we return to places on our own I'll know where we are.

I did not expect to enjoy the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum & we wouldn't have probably gone on our own simply because....well , we like "country" but don't follow it much. Also, in my advance planning I read some reviews. People either LOVED it or didn't cared much for it. Bottom line, we liked it a lot! It's a very modern museum with all kinds of hi-tech things. Glad we went. So much that after the tour we went right over to the Grand Ole Opry & bought show tickets for both tonight, Friday & tomorrow night too. Tonight we have 3rd row center $55 each...I don't recognize any of the names but tomorrow night there is a name I recognize, Randy Travis. On both nights there are lots of performers & we're looking forward to both shows. I guess we'll either have our fill of country music for a long time or be hooked-on-country... Hey, that sounds like a good title for a country song...eh, uh oh.

3 weeks into our annual Fall Trip

Well, I'm so far behind on our blog BUT I'm going to post anyway....without trying to go back to

April when we left Mexico. I keep telling myself I'll fill it all in from April up to the present....we'll see! So for now:

We're in Nashville Tn & will probably be here for 4 or 5 nights.

1st nte a Passport America camp http://www.nashvillecountryrvpark.com/home.cfm

@$20 (incl tax) Sun-Wed but then they go up to a Good Sam rate Thurs-Sat. which is almost the same as the KOA downtown-ish. $34.95 per nite , including taxes, for our size rig. We only need 30 amps. The larger rigs that need 50 amp & big slide-outs DO cost more.

After getting set up in the PA camp we disconnected & took the car downtown to checkout the KOA & we will be moving tomorrow, downtown & eliminate the 16 mile round trip from the PA camp.

BOTH camps are truly beautiful with cable TV & great Internet.

Don't know exactly what we'll be doing in Nashville. There is a Dale Chihuly display http://www.chihulyinnashville.com/ as well as an Impressionist exhibit directly from Musee D'Orsay , Paris. http://www.atthefrist.com/impressionism/ We've been there & always love seeing the Impressionists. We'll know more tomorrow. It just started Oct 15th so it may be difficult to get tickets.

We might even take in some "country" in this Music City. THAT'S usually why people come to Nashville, isn't it?

Whoopie! I just decided to look up the website for the Nashville KOA camp & they have a "HOT DEAL"....if u stay 3 nights u get the 4th free. I guess that helps up make up our minds. 1 nte PA camp & 4 ntes KOA. Now we have LOTS of time to figure out what we want to do ....or not do....sometimes we need to just do nothing & regroup.

Ok, I'm out of here now.

OOPs....not yet...I just found NashTrash tours...has really good reviews & we're considering it if timing works out: http://www.nashtrash.com/ What a hoot!

Ah! the MidWest Autumn Color

We spent only 5 nights in Coldwater, Michigan @ the Waffle Farm Campground. The Fall color was at it’s peak and as beautiful &
awe-inspiring as anything could possibly be; and when the wind whipped up........
well, it’s one of my favorite things in life,
“raining leaves”. Autumn leaves!


“Family” is the main reason we come to Coldwater annually. My mom & sister both live in Coldwater & we do not come here more often because it's a long drive to do more than once a year . I have chosen to no longer fly. Never thought I'd say that having been with Pan Am for 25 years! Oh well, such is life. Things change.

This year my sister was in a medical care facility nursing an operation that rebuilt her broken leg. We were so happy to see her doing extremely well but no one knew how long she would need to remain there. My mom had recently gone through some surgery too so we didn’t feel it was in anyone’s best interest for us to stay longer.

Next stop Nashville.

Back in Branson, Missouri

We're in Branson Missouri now & will be here for 6 nights....seeing some musical stage shows. There's a new one
called The Legend of Kung Fu
http://www.kungfubranson.com/ (the website has some videos under the Gallery tab) I'll let u know if it is as good as they say.....it looks very good to me & we have front row seats....anxious. I think our tickets aren't until Monday, though. Pretty full schedule. There's another one that seems an especially good one http://www.kirbyvanburch.com/
Magic...animals, white tiger etc. There are videos of this to under the tab "The Show"

Off to the races

Sunday Mar 21, 2010

We were told by Dolores’ maid, Armita, that in the nearby pueblo of Tezal, there were going to be horse races at 3pm. “Hey, THAT sounds like something different to do! Especially since we never go to races of any kind in the states.

We thought that might be fun to see how they do it here; how many horses at once would race, how large a participation from surrounding pueblos & how rowdy it might get. We figured we’d go early enough to see a race or two & get the heck out of there before things possibly got out of hand. Ya know; Drinking, loud music & shooting at the sky in celebration.

We hoped to see the “dancing horses” again & they certainly would need music for that!

We ran into Lise & invited her to go with us, picked her up & were on our way. On the road towards Navojoa we were able to find the hand painted “Tezal” sign & made the hairpin turn to the right onto a bumpy dirt road. We were not sure how far to go but Armita told us it was “not very far”. After about a 2 mile drive (maybe not even that far but it felt like it because of the slow speed we took the bumps) Joey decided to pull into a ranch where we saw some people sitting on their portal & ask about it. They’d know for sure because it’s in the “neighborhood” & usually the people around here know everything that’s going on. They didn’t disappoint us. We were told we came on the wrong day. It would be next Saturday right there at that ranch. We all laughed about showing up on the wrong day & we’d see them next week. At least we now knew exactly where to go.

We stayed at home & watched a DVD that Jason had lent us & that was all we did today.

The Amazing Women of Alamos

Saturday Mar 20, 2010
Today at the Museo on the main plaza there was a showing of the many products a small group of women from Alamos have made.

All of the products are items made from recycled plastic bags. Yup, those awful bags that we cannot seem to live without but are a blight to every city & countryside. What they have done is to find a way to crochet them into hats, purses, placemats, flowers even rugs.

I bought a hat & 3 bags.
It's not so easy taking a photo of yourself in a mirror. Oh, well, you get the idea.

They served wine & snacks to what seemed the whole population of Gringos here. The hat I bought was about $20 & the bags were $14 & $15. In one way it seems a bit high for plastic bags but they are actually very pretty and the work they put into it in a 3 week period is pretty incredible. They did very nice work & I’m happy to support them in my small way. Yeah, Joey needed to twist my arm!

Here’s one that got away but I’m happy that my friend Emily got it. It looks way better on her anyway.


Here’s another friend, Joan, that let it get away too.

This is a photo of two others….I was considering buying the blue & white one but decided I’d already spent enough.
Oh, I forgot to mention St Patrick’s Day Irish Stew Dinner at Casa de Maria Felix. We all wore our green & drank green beer. There was Irish Music piped in & there was a nice crowd.

When I saw Deb there without Dewey I asked where he was. She told me he’d gone fishing & had been due home at 2pm so he could partake in the Irish night celebration. It was now 7pm & we were all worried. To make a long story short; The police were called & eventually they got home about 10pm. While they were out fishing all four tires on their car had been slashed. Dewey walked 3 miles to a little town where the police or someone drove him back to the car. They took the tires to Navojoa for a fix & then back again. WHEW, it was a long day but at least they were home safely with a tale to tell.

One more thing, Deb makes beaded jewelry & had a showing. I bought this one.

A Follow up re El Pedregal w/Links

EL PEDREGAL:
We had a brunch here & I didn’t take photos but these are two links that show way more that I could have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD3pWvWgNwc
http://www.elpedregalmexico.com/

PS Jason, a friend of Dolores'& Mirea from Phoenix is now hooked on GeoCaching thanks to Emily & Trish! I gave him the print-outs from Emily on the 4 caches in Alamos. He didn't even have a GPS but found the one on the steps behind the Palicio just from her notes.

Filling in Social Schedule here, Whew!

Now the Alamos weather is getting nice & warm. About 83 in the daytime & 58 or so at night. To me that’s PERFECT!

Let's see: Last night we ate again at Las Palmeras. It's our favorite restaurant. Good food, fair prices and great Indio draught beer (by Tecate) for 20 pesos (about $1.80) in a cold pint mug. We usually end up with two each because their salsa is so picante that we NEED that beer to keep from dieing.

They have nice recorded music in the “background”. Que Raro! AND they have an internet hotspot so I’m usually online while waiting for the dinner to come and for Jose Luis to finish eating. Remember, he’s a slow one so it gives me more online time & I can read emails to him while he finishes up.
If they only took credit cards we’d be ecstatic! In the few places that DO take credit cards here we always get a good exchange rate…better than the local bank is giving.

Notice how tan Joey’s is, eh? He’s been working hard in the yard every day. I cannot stop him he’s on a roll. Here he is in his work clothes checking out what's going on in the street.

A few nights ago we were on our way to La Capilla barrio to find a guy that can make a shade shelter for our car. On the way back we were planning on stopping by to visit some new found friends that were house/dog sitting. They are from Bisbee, AZ; Alyce & Donald. We ran into them on the way TO find the the shelter guy & they jumped in our car and after finding “the guy” we all went to Las Palmeras for their last night in Alamos.

Joey tried on Donald's new cowboy hat:


Another night we went out to Rancho Palomar for a BBQ. It was a charity function for the school kids. The teenagers presented some folk dances & it poured cats & dogs. They ran out of chicken as well as tortillas; other than that it was great fun to see so many of our friends. My name retention is a joke but all the smiley faces gave & got hugs. Little by little the names are coming back into my brain. (Especially, after I ask someone "What is that person's name over there with the black top?" or whatever.)

Another happening was a lovely brunch out at El Pedrigal. For those of you that remember Elizabeth Nuzum & her straw bale house out in the countryside; well it's now owned by Jen & David & they've REALLY created a beautiful space. They have several small casitas for rental & 3 foot stone walls defining spaces & walkways. I didn't take any photos....duh. Maybe if we go again I'll take a few so you can see how beautiful the huge palapa we eat under. BTW the name of the place means lots of stones.
We may be going there again next Sunday so if we do then I'll be sure to take some photos to share.

All of the days seem to run together here

March 16, 2010
All of the days seem to run together here & often I don’t know what day of the week it is. I’m not online much so that adds to my confusion of what happened when.

Anyway, on one of the days in the last 10, Joey & I did some more geocaching. There were 4 of them placed here in Alamos by Emily Preece (aka BlackDogGina) just this season. We were not the first to discover them all however.

There are quite a few pilots that now fly into Alamos since the small airport has been fixed up beautifully; its runway lengthened & fenced & an large new hanger has been built. Small private jets are now able to land here since the runway was lengthened.
The reason I mention this is because one of the pilots was the first one to discover Emily’s well-placed geocaches.

We were the second ones to find them all. What fun we had!
The 1st GeoCache was in the Pantheon (cemetery). It was a “nano” one in size which means it’s about the size of the tip of your little finger from just below the fingernail. It had a tiny magnet inside which allowed it to be well hidden and attached to the underside of one of the filigreed iron fences that surround many of the gravestones & monuments.


It took us about 45 minutes of walking around the cemetery, enjoying every moment, before we found it. It was dusk & we were getting a little bit worried that we might be locked in the gated walls because the close “at dark”.

2nd geocache was just up the street from our house hidden in a three foot high rock wall. This type of rock wall is not held together with cement. They way the rocks are perfectly placed keeps them together and they define boundaries of many of the properties here. I really love these rock walls. I guess I just love rocks….so much so that most of my screensavers show rocks…river rocks mostly…you know, the smoothed ones.

I digress. This 2nd geocache was cleverly placed in the rock wall in front of a huge cactus that was on the other side of the wall. The cactus was part of the hint to help find a particular small rock that needed to be removed from its place. Once the small rock was moved it exposed the cavity where the “micro” size cache was. It wasn’t necessary for this one to have a magnet because it rested peacefully in its cavity..

We had to visit this cache twice because just as we were about to pull out the rock that covered the cache we had to pretend we were taking photos of the big cactus due to a “muggle”. A friend of Joey’s showed up & they talked & talked, seemingly forever. We returned later when no one was around in order to see us make our discovery. Secrecy is part of the fun.

3rd GeoCache was as near the “Talking Tree”. That is a signal tower that’s camouflaged to look like a tree. It’s about 1 mile from town center & we were able to drive to the base of the hill where the tower rises above “O little town of Alamos”. The GeoCache was about 200 steps past the tower. Just as Joey was squatting down to pull this “small” geocache out from it’s hiding place; we it we heard male voices coming up from the other side of the hill. I whispered, “Muggles, Muggles” so that Joey could quickly re-hide the cache (before we even got a chance to open it) So, again, I needed to do the “pretended to be taking a photo number” as Joey was looking with interest at a rock that he still had in his hand as, perhaps, a rockhounder would do. When the 2 men behind the voices made their appearance we were well into stealth mode. TAH DAH!

As soon as they were out of site we opened the cache & discovered, not the log but also a TB ( travel bug ).That’s a special dog-tag-type thing with a recordable number. We took the TB with us in order to place in another geocache along our travels & follow its travels..

Right now I’m unable to remember the 4th geocache & we need to leave to go over to Cami & Squire’s home to watch him roast his coffee beans.

Ok, I remember the 4th Geocache now.
It was along a steep stairway leading up from the Palacio (City Hall) to Diane Carpenter’s house on the hill. The one where the last TGIF was held.
Great exercise getting to it…puff puff…..but it the sun was setting and the view from there is beautiful at this hour especially. I’ll try to add a couple of photos.

This is the view from “almost” next to where the geocache was found.




This is a view from the same spot only off to one side of the stairway. Ruins can be pretty too.

TGIF Alamos

Mar 5th Friday. Tonight was the 1st TGIF since we’ve been here. It’s a pot-luck gathering of locals & their guests. BYOB too so it’s easy on the host. They used to have them weekly using a different home each week but I guess people got tired of it for awhile & needed a break.
I’m glad there was at least one that we could attend.

It was held at Diane Carpenter’s home up on a hill with the large patio that overlooks the whole of Alamos. The two domes of the church seemed so close as to be able to almost touch them. The timing of the TGIF’s are from 5pm – 7pm and this location was particularly pleasant from which to watch the colors of the sunset.

Diane is from a remote town in Alaska, Bethel, I think she returns there in the summers. There are several Alamos residents that go home to Alaska in the summer. It’s always interesting to talk with them. They all have unique experiences & Alaskan stories. Need I repeat; “We love Alaska”

My love/hate relationship w/Mexico

March 4th Thursday
Today we went to the History Club at the Hacienda de los Santos. It’s always interesting & we see some old friends & meet new ones.

We made reservations for the Sunday academy award show at Hacienda de los Santos. The $22 each will include the big screened theatre & lots of special hors d’oeveres…..
(yeah, well, if u can spell it better without a dictionary..good luck) ……throughout the many hours of the Red Carpet, The Awards & the Barbara Walters show afterwards….IF we can stay awake that long. If not, we’ve recorded it all on our DVR @ home & will be able to watch it on our SlingBox tomorrow or whenever.

Tonight just at dusk Joey flicked up the switch in the master bedroom’s closet & poof….lights went out, computer went off. It was very strange because one hallway & the kitchen, dank gawd, were working. At least the fridge & the freezer with the fish & angus burgers wouldn’t spoil.

We DID bring flashlights so we’d be ok for the night…except the electric blanket wouldn’t be able to help keep us warm.

We said to hell with it & got in the car to go visit Jayne & Mike but their gate was all locked up. Maybe the went back to AZ early.

At that point Joey said we should stop by Nacho’s house. He’s an excellent plumber as well as an electrician. We know he’s working full time on two big jobs already but thought what the heck.

He was just sitting down to dinner when Joey knocked on his door. He said he’d finish his dinner & be by in 20 minutes. He was. It was dark now so he did all of his checking by flashlight. Within a half hour he found a short in the electrical box & was able to fix it. There’s more to it but I don’t feel like typing it all here. The fix could last ok for a very long time….or not.
Nacho charged only 100 pesos about $12.50 usd.

We were really lucky to get him because he told us his other two jobs are keeping him completely tied up during the daytime.

Changing the subject: I see that somebody keyed a big scratch along the whole side of our car. Ah nice!
These two experiences truly show why I have a love/hate relationship with Mexico!

Back to Navojoa.

March 3rd Wednesday
We actually decided to drive back to Navojoa to try two different ATM machines at different banks so that we could have sufficient pesos for the rest of the trip. The only bank in Alamos would only allow one withdrawal per day. This time we used HSBC, a bank I’ve used in Asia as well as other countries with no problems. Success! I ended up with more pesos than I had even tried for before.

There were two HSBC’s in Navojoa & we used both & that enabled us to get many pesos in two transactions
Interestingly, both HSBC banks had different exchange rates by 20 cents on the dollar. I know international exchange rates change several times daily but my two transactions were no more than a ½ hour apart. I was using my brokerage ATM card & they allow more transactions & more dollars than most bank or Credit Union cards allow in a single day. A great advantage.

We did some more shopping for groceries for things we’d missed the other day as well as going to a hardware store & a beauty supply store. I guess that made the 70 mile round trip worth it. However, the MAIN thing that made it worthwhile was getting to see the beautiful lavender amapa trees that are in full bloom now. They are all over the mountainsides & we had lovely views in both directions.

We cooked some fish tonight for dinner. We will continue to buy from Salavdor when he comes to the door. His seafood is always freshly frozen.

PS: We were so tired from the day’s trip we were in bed about 6:30pm!!!.....and stayed there until 7am the next day.

The REST of the story, well, almost.

March 2nd Tuesday
Called the bank today to tell them what happened yesterday & they said they’ll check on it & let me know the outcome by email. Meanwhile, my account shows $350 deducted. I was told not to worry because Santander’s end-of-day accounting would show that the had 7k pesos more than they should have & it would all work out.
Prior to this call a hold had been placed on my card so I wouldn’t have been able to use it at any bank….they released the hold & told me I could use my card again. I hope it works. We’ll try tomorrow.

We took things to Nera, my seamstress, with some things I brought down that needed hemming & altering so that’s out of the way. I always bring things down to be fixed…she’s really good & very reasonable.

Not a great day.

March 1st Monday
Not the best of days.
Today we had to go to Navojoa for a Dr’s appointment for Joey. Just a checkup from his favorite doctor; Dr Gallegos and to get some pesos at the ATM as well as some groceries.
Yes, there is an ATM in Alamos but the exchange rate is way lower in Alamos & the grocery stores here have higher prices & don’t have as great a selection as in Navojoa. Yes, it IS 35 miles one way but the Dr appointment gave us the opportunity to kill all those birds with one trip. We wouldn’t make that 70 mile round trip just for some better deals on groceries & exchange rates.

BTW gasoline here after the Liter conversion is about $2.41 per gallon.

We badly were in the need of pesos too so we went to the bank that offered the best exchange rate. Today it was Santander a Spanish headquarted bank.

Most of the banks limit the peso withdrawal to 5000 pesos per day (about $350 usd @ today’s rate) but I’d remembered that at one bank last year I was able to get 9000 pesos. I couldn’t remember WHICH bank allowed that. The point is to take out as much as you can in one transaction in order to only pay for one transaction/service fee.

I started with asking for 11,000 pesos (hey, it’s worth a try) & the screen told me…nope , then I tried , 10k then 9k, then 8k…all .”nope”. Finally when I got to 7,000 pesos it said OK
. After a few seconds the screen said Transaction Complete,. Take your receipt, Take your card, Take your money”
Well, we took the first two but after some normal clunking sounds of the machine….no money came out of it’s mouth…we waited a bit longer….nothing. I stood by the machine while Joey went inside to get a manager. He came out to join me at the ATM . He asked me to try again, which I was reluctant to do because I already had a receipt that showed I had actually gotten my 7,000pesos & certainly didn’t wish to have another deduction from my account. He talked me into it & this time it was rejected.

He told me he & his bank could do nothing about what happened and that I needed to contact MY bank. Oh great! I tried to insist that Santander’s receipt to me showed that they have given me this amount & they have NOT.
No matter what I said, his tune did not change.

We were very hungry at that point & hadn’t eaten breakfast so we went across the plaza from the bank & ate a new Italian restaurant, Amore.

Then finished our shopping & drove back to Alamos where I got online & called my bank using MagicJack. The department I needed to speak with was already closed so the agent made notes as to what happened so it could be noted that I reported the problem on the same day it happened.

Drove back to Alamos without our pesos. Not a great day

Today I cried!

Feb 28th Sunday: Workers came today to cut up the fallen boganvilea(sp) & truck them out of here along with other piles of yard debris. Joey was able to find some guys that have a chain-saw & would work on Sundays. Just like home, yeah right.

It took four truckloads of plant/weed debris to clean it all out. They used a pickup truck but they packed it up pretty full each time. Joey was helping to cut everything into smaller pieces so they could fit more on each truckload.
They charged 200 pesos for each load. About $16 USD per load.

The front patio…well, most of the front wall is now BALD! No more beautiful red flowers.

There were some pretty red birds in the yard this morning though. They helped my mood a bit! Trying to be a little pollyanaish. Is that a word? Well, it is now.

We’re going to try to plant some new ones but it will be a couple of years before the new ones will be prolific. By then the house , hopefully, will be sold. The boganvilea was a nice visual and would have added to the sales appeal.
Plants DO grow well here in Alamos so maybe it won’t be as long as I’m thinking.

We found out it’s easy to kill the worms by mixing laundry soap with water & pouring it at the base of trees . It doesn’t seem to hurt the trees, only the worms. If we had only known before we lost them.

Paella Party

Feb 27th Saturday A Paella Charity Luncheon @ La Hacienda de los Santos 350p each (about $29 USD) . There were several competing chefs from various parts of Mexico with their special paella recipes. The ones we tasted were very good. Margaritas were included as well as deserts of flan or capriotada (a Mexican bread pudding of sorts). There was music too. (albeit loud…ah Mexico! Always loud)

There must have been over 100 people. Mostly wealthy Mexicans from out of town. I guess they would need to be wealthy to afford 350 pesos each.. The streets were packed with clean, late model, nice vehicles.. It was really difficult to find a place to park in O little town of Alamos.

There were probably 20 non-Mexican guests. Most of us were lucky to have tables further from the loud speakers than the Mexicans.
Our friends Bill & Emily were at our table & it was nice to spend time with them. We shared some geocaching talk with some 1st time American visitors that are also RVers. They, Judy & Ron, are renting a house at the end of our street, Durango, & it was good to meet them.

It started at 2pm. The weather was perfect, about 75 degrees & went on until….well, who knows? We left about 5:45pm, staying later than many of the Gringos & the few other foreigners.

We had hoped to catch a photography showing at the museum that began at four. The photographs were by Paul, an American friend here that has taken pictures of Alamos over several years. By the time we walked over there the museum was closed….@6pm. Oh, well, maybe we will be able to see them in his home before we leave

From there we went home to grab the laptop, drove to our favorite hotspot for a nice internet signal so we could catch up on not only email but watch some of our recorded programs from our DVR at home….using SlingBox. It’s working well this trip so far….knock wood. (not the worm-eaten kind please.

The WHOLE fish

Feb 25th Thursday :
Salvador, the fish/shrimp/lobster man, came to the door this morning. He comes by every week and I was waiting for him because we brought curry & coconut milk & basmati rice from the states in order to make shrimp curry. YUM!

Also I wanted some fish but Joey had forgotten we had spoken about this
I was in the shower & could hear Joey talking to someone but had no idea it was the fish man. When I got out of the shower Joey told me that Salvador was the one he had been talking to.. Oh well, we’ll wait another week for the seafood.

We didn’t actually need to wait another week because when Joey remembered that that the kids, Erlan & his new bride Rachel, would probably be coming down before Salvador would return Joey got into the car & chased him down. What a guy!

Bottom line: we DID end up with ½ kilo of nice sized shrimps, 1 kilo of some fish filets & one complete red snapper about 2 feet long! It’s the first time we ever purchased a whole fish.; let alone try to cook one. It’s really pretty to look at too. The innards had already been cleaned out, otherwise we never would have purchased it. It WILL be a new adventure of sorts to cook this thing! We probably won’t be ordering anything more from him this trip!

Bye Bye Captain Jack

Feb 24th Wednesday Neighbor Captain Jack Selfors visited for awhile. He will be going back to Seward, Alaska in another week so we won’t get to see much of him.

This night we picked up Dolores, our “80 something” friend & ate an early dinner up on the Mirador where there’s a small place to have an inexpensive, good meal with a view of the town. We watched the sunset from there & went home, turned on the electric blanked & got into bed early.

Feb 23rd Tuesday Las Palmeras dinner notes:
. Squire & Robin music.
Met Kathy & Al (sat next to me)
Jackie & Darryl leave tomorrow to return to Alberta
Eustachio worked 2hrs w/nephew, yard work

Eustachio was trimming the boganvilea in front of the house as I sat at my makeshift desk working on the laptop. I’ve positioned the desk in order to see the red boganvilea through the window.. The boganvileas are one of the things about the front of our house that I really love to see.

All of a sudden I heard a loud crash-thump-type sound & when I looked up from the desk I saw that the noise had come from the boganvileas crashing down onto the brick patio. All I could say was “Oh, no, Oh, no! Oh, NO!’

No one was at fault. It turns out that the branches that had been flowing over into the street were actually grabbing the other side of the wall & holding them up. They needed holding up because some awful, large, white worm, as thick as a finger & about 2” long had been eating at the trunks for years. When looking at the broken, fallen trunks we could see the worm holes & the wood was pulverized. You could actually break it in two almost as if it were a cracker!

I cried, big time…..of course that didn’t help anything & I’m over it…..sort of.

First Day's activities in Alamos

Feb 21 Sunday: The first morning we walked the house & yard to see where the work & fixin’ must begin. If any. Usually there is something that needs work on after being abandoned for a year.

In the house we found a small leak in our bathroom as well as a disconnected hose under the kitchen sink. That’s where Joey began. We have now given him an additional title of Plumber. Everything else inside the house seems ok.

In the yard we used to have a HUGE Maguey plant. It was taller than I am. That’s the plant that they use for tequila. It’s similar to a muy grande aloe vera plant. I say USED TO have one in the center of the yard with some cacti & other desert plants in a big circle area defined with rocks. We could drive around this circle….a circle driveway . The heart of the Maguey plant had been ripped out, stolen. What a shame. It was so beautiful. The outer leaves now all dried & dead. The plant dies after the heart is taken. I don’t know how anyone got it out of the walled & gated yard but people can be quite innovative.

Our next door neighbor , Raul, said that one afternoon there were 3 teen age boys on our roof & he chased them away using his barking dogs as ammunition. First of all I have no idea how they got up there without a ladder. It’s about 18feet high. Maybe they were just hangin’ or maybe they were thinking about stealing the copper tubing up there. Maybe they “did away” with our Maguey plant. We’ll never know.

The horse poo needed picking up. A friend & neighbor, Ellen, puts her horse in our yard from time to time. It’s a win win situation because he eats the weeds…We need more horses because he doesn’t eat enough.. Still lots of weeds. Oh well.

Anyway she came by to tell us she’d come tomorrow with her worker to pick up the poo.

We went over to neighbors Velma & Bob & found out they’d be leaving Alamos tomorrow for the season. They came down in November & it was time to go home to Salem, Oregon & tend to an ill sister. They gave us two big bagsfull of grapefruits & oranges from their trees. A lovely going away gift but THEY were the ones going away. Works for me!

Other neighbors, Nicole & Ray invited us & Velma & Bob, for coffee & cookies in the afternoon as a friendly send-off for Velma & Bob.

Arrived Alamos

Feb 20 2010 Saturday ARRIVED Alamos @ 6PM. We began unpacking the car. At least until we were able to reach the electric blanket. So glad we got that far. The house was quite cold at night & in the morning until we open all the windows and doors to let the warmth of the sun in.

We ate dinner at Las Palmeras nearby. Had Enchaladas Suises & had Indio beer on draught. Went to bed as soon as we could. Nite nite.

1st day on way to Alamos

Well, we got a late start...to say the least. 1:45pm yesterday

We're at our "regular" Palm Springs motel...w/coupon $35 nte....Palm Canyon Inn
Got in the room just before dark. Watched slingbox Olympics ...parts we wanted to see.

This morn we finished watching Sean White.....and others....fun to watch skateboarding.

Joey's just finishing up shower & we'll be on our way by 930am.
We love to not be rushed...guess u can tell.
Probably Phoenix tonight. This means we will take 4 nights in motels before we get to Alamos. We usually take 3 nights. la di dah , la di da

A good GeoCache day: one found, one not

We went out for our walk today with the iPhone app for geocaching. A new direction from our house. Nichols Canyon. The geocache showed two that we thought we would be able to handle.

It was such a very nice walk up the canyon. We saw two deer. Most of the time we needed to walk IN the road. Not too much traffic but we'd really had to pay attention when we heard a car coming & step up on a rock or a bit of dirt where ever possible.

Luckily no Prisus' snuck up on us!

The uphill wasn't too steep for my knees & after seeing the deer & walked a little bit further we found the first geocache. It really was an easy find but we got all excited anyway!

I checked my app again to see how much further uphill the other one would be.....well, it seemed dooable. We walked & walked & felt we must have passed, unseen the fireroad mentioned in the geocache details. When I looked again at the map in the iPhone I saw that we had walked uphill for over 1 1/2 miles....that's WAY more than my knees can usually handle. Uh oh, I knew it was not going to be a good thing to walk back the same distance. That's what I get for not paying attention to anything but the quest when geocaching.

Joey was an angel....I still cannot believe that he volunteered to run all the way back to the house to get the car to rescue his lady!!!

I waited on a rock for the half hour that it took him to come back. I was enjoying my iPhone...the iPod part , killing the time by listening to some of the podcasts I had. The time went by quickly with this diversion.

As we were driving back down hill we saw where the fireroad was ....the one we'd somehow missed on the way up on foot. So when we come back to find that 2nd geocache it , hopfully, will be a snap. We will drive up & find a place to park so there the walking part will be just right!

I think we'll wait until we return from Alamos to find that 2nd one.
(Sorry again, if u got this more than once. While I'm doing my editing....it somehow gets posted instead of just saved. I didn't mean to sent it out 3 times but I think that's what happened. There is supposed to only be one photo of the knight towards the bottom...u might see 2 in the uncorrected first one. Oh well. I'm still learning)

Back in Vegas- More Shows & GeoCaching on the way Home

Again We're staying at Sam's Town RV Park Boulder for 6 more nights. We really like it here & the rates are very fair @ $28 per night w/Good Sam Club discount.

There's an 18 theater complex in Sam's town & we really took advantage of that this time. Every Tuesday they have a senior special for $3 (add an additional $3 if it's 3D)

Each day we'd see a movie & each night a stage performance on the strip. We don't gamble at all....just does not interest us. Actually, when we're at home we rarely go to a movie theater because of our Netflix program. We do need a real theater for 3D films though & so this time we saw Avatar in 3D. It was wonderful & would like to see it again only in IMAX 3D next time. We'll wait awhile for that.

The films we saw were:
Avatar
Sherlock Holmes
Did You ear About the Morgans
Nine &
It's Complicated
We enjoyed all of them. The least favorite if I had to choose one would be "Morgans" BUT just about anything with Hugh Grant is a feast for ANY eyes!

Stage Shows:
Viva Elvis (a Cirque du Soleil)
Bette Midler
Love (another Cirque w/Beatles music)
Menopause the Musical and
KA for the 2nd time (another Cirque)

We didn't do any Vegas geocaching but on the way home we boondocked in Barstow & found four between Vegas and Barstow.
The most fun ones were at an Archeological Site A two mile dirt road took us here. We were towing the trailer too & were hoping all along that we would be able to turn around once we got there.
There was a ranger At this Archeological Dig who just happened to be there when we arrived at the little information building. It's a really small museum of sorts. The whole shack was only about 20' x 14'. The ranger works a few hours a few days a week & we were lucky to be there when he was. We hiked the "dig" loop & then got to the geo cache near the information building. There was a 2nd geocache near the exit gate too. We were able to find & record them both. The sun was setting as we left & got to our regular Barstow, Ca overnight boondock spot. It was a good day.
Here's a link to the Calico Early Man BLM Site

http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/barstow/calico.html

Here comes the Bride TWICE!

Well, today we left home on our way to Las Vegas with a wedding in between.

Not just any wedding but Joey’s son, Erlan, got married to Rachel. They actually had two ceremonies..The 1st one was on Wednesday Dec 30th at the City Hall in San Bernardino, CA.

It was really well done. I had no idea that city halls now have a little wedding chapel…but they did & Rachel was in a beautiful gown & looked truly lovely. The judge was a woman…I liked that for some reason. When it came time for the ring part….no rings to be found.

I don’t know yet what exactly happened but Rachel & Erlan were so cool, calm & collected. They & everyone laughed at the situation & one of the guests ran out, perhaps to the car, and came back with the rings within about 3 minutes then we ALL laughed with relief and the ceremony continued.

The wedding party & guests numbered about 20. The original plan was to have us all drive up the mountain to Running Springs, Ca where Rachel’s parents live & have dinner there. Mother Nature stepped in & spoiled that plan.

Running Springs, Ca is at about 6,000 ft altitude & was getting snowed upon which meant we all would have needed chains for driving up the mountain. NUTS TO THAT!!!

The reconnoitered plan had the food brought down to the flatlands of San Bernardino to Rachel’s friend’s home and we had a sit down dinner together there. Their beautiful house was still decorated for Christmas with two Christmas trees inside. The outside of the house had white icicle lights framing the total two story, white colonial-type home. The approach to this lovely property had a long circular driveway which made the view of the lighted decorations even more outstanding. The trees, too, all had tiny white lights outlining them & there were some white-lighted reindeer too. I’ll try to add the photo here but being a night shot won’t do it any justice........ but it will help help us remember.

Here comes the bride AGAIN. The second ceremony was the next night Dec 31, 2009, New Year’s Eve in Fontana,Ca about 10 miles from our San Bernardino RV camp.

Rachel has lots of friends & this time there were three of their homes in a row that had patios that ran together & the 2nd ceremony & party was held there. There were about 100 guests including many from Joey’s family from San Diego as well as Joey's daughter, son-in-law & the two grandsons from Alpheretta, GA (Atlanta area). It was really nice to spend time with them all. Some of them we hadn't seen in YEARS!

This 2nd ceremony was performed by Rachel’s dad. He’s a judge & the “kids” wrote their own vows. Being New Year’s Eve we stayed until…..
gotch ya… 'bet you thought we stayed until at least midnight…nope. We left about 11 pm. Old farts are we! Just don’t like to be on the road on New Year’s Eve when everyone else is. We like to celebrate in our own way.

Actually, that’s our regular motis operandi on New Year’s Eve. We’ve not partied this way even in Paris & London several years in a row and are perfectly happy avoiding the crowds.

So we spent the two nights in "San Bernardino RV Park" & then on to Las Vegas again. More on that next time.