Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sharon and Allen Visit

Sharon and Allen arrived for a six day visit on May 12th. They chose to rent one of the casitas on the ranch rather than stay in our spare bedroom. We took them to Guadalajara for a day in steaming heat but we managed to see all of the sites and ate in a wonderful restaurant called the Adobe which is at the back of an amazing shop. The service and the food were excellent.



We walked for miles around this town as well. Greg and Allen ran or climbed the mountain every morning while Sharon and I ate muffins at the Lake Chapala Society. We played cards and dominoes in the evening. One evening we invited our "new" friends Donna and Douglas over for drinks and munchies and then we went to our favourite pizza place called La Toscana. We ate dinner out almost every night and had a wonderful time one evening at the Chili Bang Bar.


On Sunday we walked the Malacone (boardwalk) in Chapala and ate lunch in an authentic Mexican restaurant along the water.


Greg and Allen took Lucky yesterday to have Dr. Memo remove her stitches from her spaying. She is leaping and running and has become a regular ranch dog and we have no fear now of her getting pregnant by Samson who is her father. Dogs don`t seem to care much about incest.


Sharon came to the orphanage with me yesterday and one of the kids Filiberto really took a shine to her. Sharon is a social worker and I`m sure the whole experience was an interesting one from her professional perspective. While we were at the orphanage, Allen went to the local barber shop for a 4 dollar hair cut and attended Spanish class with Greg.

We laughed and gossiped and generally had a lovely time with S. and A. They left this morning to go to West Palm Beach for their son`s graduation from University. My cousin Shelly arrives tomorrow and we plan to have a ``spa`` type time together with pedicures, manicures and massages planned. Everything is so reasonable here. A manicure and pedicure is 150 pesos about 12 dollars.


Sharon wrote a much too complimentary blog of her own about their visit, but it`s too embarassing to share it all. I have extrapolated some of what she said below:


``How does one describe the magical Garden of Eden........We wake up greeted by the cheery musical orchestra of birds of every colour. The sun is warm and soothing and our eyes do not know where to look first. There is the natural vegetation - mother nature`s gifts - of bushes, trees and flowers. The fragrant smells of these flowers is dizzying. The visual expanse of the mountains, the lake and the charming casitas and the tidy store fronts in town and the proud-standing church in the town square were all delightful to see.


Thanks to Lynne and Greg for this amazing experience and for showing us this beautiful and luscious part of the world.``


I think Sharon and Allen enjoyed their stay. They were a pleasure to host......very generous and appreciative of our efforts.


Did I mention....it`s stinkin hot here!

Monday, May 3, 2010

May 3 Update

I'm trying to work out some sort of training schedule for myself for the marathon(s) this fall. I've been getting my butt out of the door over the last few days anyway. Friday I ran for 40 minutes and then did a combination of running and walking up the mountain. I ran up to the Shrine, then walked to the Cornfield and then the Saddle. Between the run and the climb, I was out for 2 1/2 hours and I thought, as the pain in my legs seemed to be saying, that I should take it easy on Saturday.
Saturday morning my legs were killing me, but I knew if I went our for a walk they'd feel OK. I decided I needed a project so, I walked and photographed the Shrine walk, from our Casita.

I took the GPS along too so I could get some data on the walk. It turns out that the door to door distance is 5k with an altitude gain of a little over 650 feet. 3k of the 5 is from the house to the trail head. The climb is 1k with about a 300 foot climb.

I tried to take each image from where the last image left off. the first few are from the house. I love the picture of Pedro. Pedro is the father of 4 of the folks who work here on the grounds. That is one of his standard stances!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

San Antonio Trip

On Thursday April 22nd, Greg, Lina and I head out at 6:00 in the morning to begin our 17 hour driving trip to San Antonio Texas. Lina is our Spanish teacher and she was going to visit her kids. Greg and I needed to leave Mexico to renew our six month visitor's permit and our car permit.
We passed through several Mexican states of which I can only remember some. We live in Jalisco, next came Aguas Calientes and then San Luis Potosi and Nueva Leone. That's enough geography. The Sierra Madre mountain range was stark and beautiful. We watched the vegetation change and Lina taught and reviewed our Spanish which was an added bonus.....free lessons. We only got stopped by one policia....a state cop in the state of Nueva Leone. He took Greg's licence and said we'd have to back track to the town which was two hours back towards home and go to court the next day to pay the ticket. I felt sick. Lina turned on her charm and of course the fact that she speaks fluent Spanish helped too. The outcome was a good one. He let us go. By the way, we offered to bribe him, but he said he was a new breed of police and that they were working hard to change the image and he didn't take bribes....refreshing.

We got to the border at Nueva Laredo in daylight which was an important goal. Border towns are notoriously dangerous, especially at night. There have been many Narco-trafficking incidents in Nueva Laredo. They made us take off our car sticker and we crossed into the United States without incident. Life changed immediately on the other side. Two totally different worlds with just an imaginary line separating them. Actually they are separated by a river called the Rio Grande on the Texan side and the Rio Bravo on the Mexican side. I have to admit my heart did a little flip at the sight of "more" familiar signs displayed on fast food restaurants and everything written in English!
After the border we still had a three hour drive north to get to San Antonio. We arrived at our Comfort Inn at around 10 p.m. We were sweaty and exhausted. Lina's friend picked her up at the hotel and Greg and I headed to bed.

We couldn't wait to get to the MALL the next morning.....The Gap, Old Navy, Macy's and T.J. Max. We both bought some new shmatas to wear in the heat of Ajijic and sated our need for some good old home style retail therapy. We spent the next couple of days on the famous San Antonio River Walk, truly candy for the eye with beautiful hotels, shops and restaurants all along the banks of the San Antonio River. We took an informative boat tour, we ate, we ogled, we walked and we were delighted by this incredibly beautiful part of the city. Everyone who has never been needs to put it on their "Bucket List."
We also visited the Alamo, had a very lovely reunion with Greg's old working buddy Cindy Leeming who now lives in Florida but happened to see my facebook blurb about going to San Antonio and was going to be there with her beau Ed Womble. Two lovely people. We brunched together and had drinks on the River Walk. Lina took us for a lovely dinner at her daughter's restaurant.

We left the grand town of San Antonio late Sunday morning. We arrived at the border and renewed everything without too much hassle....so great to have a fluent Spanish speaker in tow. We drove until just before nightfall and stopped in Saltillo (they mine salt there) Mexico for the night. We stayed near the square at an old Colonial Hotel.....very different from the Comfort Inn. We got up at 6 a.m and headed out arriving in Ajijic at around 2 in the afternoon. Mission accomplished.

I went for a walk one Sunday morning and just took pictures around town and of the Spring flowers. I've broken them into two albums.