Oddly enough, Ajijic reminds me of my old home town of Santa Barbara, CA. Maybe it is the weather, warm days and cool nights, or the flowers or the spanish houses. It really is beautiful and there are a lot of pluses to living here including the proximity of Guadalajara, which is definitely one of my favorite cities.

We were going to leave today but it is Ken's birthday and he and Anita decided a trip to Tonala was in order. Tonala is now a suburb of Guadalajara although it used to be a separate town. It is the ultimate shopping destination. They wanted some more large pots for their garden and Mimi and I decided to stay another day and go along with them. It was a great day.

We walked and laughed and looked at so many things our eyes started crossing. Anita found some great basket lights to hang in a huge tree in their yard.


I was looking for light fixtures mainly, I had to have some kind of focus as there is just too much to look at and too much temptation.

I did end up getting a couple of blown glass and iron lights and a couple of painted and worked metal wall sconces. This is one of the wall sconces, a bit hard to see but it is very nice.

We had a great lunch, shopped some more and then came back through the town of Chapala and had ice cream and walked along the lake.

I really wanted this odd looking chicken lamp. It's way too early for me to be buying lamps, I don't even have any furniture to put them on. Still, the chicken was really cool. I may have to come back.

It's been a wonderful few days with good friends on both sides of the road and lots of fun. We have to leave though, so tomorrow we run for the border.