Back to our trip over here. Of course, we left Akumal late in the day. It was raining and there were bands coming ashore from a storm south of us plus we were told that they are working on the Cobá road which is the shortcut across the peninsula to Mérida. So, we decided to take the expensive toll road from Cancun, easy driving. I was driving our little Mexican truck and Mimi the RV with the Jeep in tow. We got here at about 3am and parked next door to the RV park in the Liverpool department store lot. Have I told you internet, about Liverpool? It's a snazzy store, Nordstrom's like, and they have the most decadent and delicious looking boutique candy store right inside the front door. It is really hard to walk by those truffles and turtles and whatever. There are girls waiting to give you samples and the smells are incredible. It's huge but no matter what door I come in or what city the store is in, I always seem to enter at the candy store.

Anyway, the most interesting part of the drive was as we were on the ring road in Mérida. There was a police roadblock and they were checking for drunk drivers. They were very polite, he asked me if I had had any beer or alcohol and I laughed and said no. He said 'go on then, and have a nice trip'. He just waved Mimi on in the RV. I really like this city.

This is our current home, it's a beautiful location. It probably was once pretty isolated but now the newer part of the city has grown up to it. We are right next door to the Liverpool and only a few blocks from the Gran Plaza, a huge mall, and they are building another huge mall behind Liverpool. This land will be too valuable to stay an RV park for long, a shame. We're the only ones here now, the caravans stop here in the winter but there are few RVs out driving around the Yucatan during the rainy-hurricane season. That's our little red Toyota truck parked behind us.

OK, the other big news. While we were driving a few days ago, Mimi and I had this conversation about getting another dog. We thought it might be good to get one that was more of a watch dog, or at least looked like one. For the new house, ya know? We talked about breeds and both agreed that the doberman's we've had in the past were wonderful dogs, that they had short hair which is good for this weather and that we'd like another dobie. Of course, we'd never buy a pure bred dog because there are so many wonderful dogs that need rescuing. Be very careful what you ask the Universe for...

As we drove into the RV park we saw this young dobie running around the edges. She was very thin but not emaciated and very afraid of people. She liked Hombre though and as we set up and sat around, she played with him and we started trying to lure her in closer. We have this big bag of dehydrated lamb ears dog treats(I know, gross), and we were throwing them out closer and closer to her. It took a couple hours and then she came close enough to let me pet her. Pretty soon, she was getting lots of head scratches and staying close to the RV. I asked the manager about her and she said she didn't belong to anyone, that she'd been hanging around for a couple of months and that the gardeners fed her scraps.

Mimi and I looked at each other and went, "well, guess she is ours". Our friends Nelio and Paty came over for cocktails and Nelio said his brother-in-law was a vet that had an office nearby. We'd noticed that she was coming into heat and so we picked her up and put her in the truck and took her to the vet. He did some tests on her, she is clear of heartworm, erlichea and other nasties and had a good white blood count, and he operated on her that evening. It all happened really fast! He said she was well into her first heat and that the longer he waited the harder the surgery would be. He puts her age at between 6 months and 8 months, she's very healthy but too thin. She's clearly a pure bred Doberman, her tail was docked but her ears are whole.

We're calling her Cuba because she tried to drink my Cuba Libre cocktail that first afternoon. She spent 2 nights at the vet and we picked her up this afternoon. She is still scared and she won't walk up stairs or into the RV but she also seems pretty happy to be laying on the couch. Chica is not so happy but she's been nice to her so far. I think she hopes we'll take her to Akumal and give her to the Canadians like we did the last dog we picked up. Sorry, Chica, we're keeping Cuba.

So, here she is internet, introducing Cuba on her first night with us in Tortuga.