We got to Chetumal last night, we will head up the coast to Akumal tomorrow. The trip across Mexico City went pretty well. The fabled Viaducto route exists, we found it, but we couldn't use it as double axle vehicles are not allowed. We managed to parallel it on allowable streets and then get back over to the Puebla highway. The main problem was tons of construction on the road to Puebla that sent us wandering off into neighborhoods along with dozens of huge trucks and buses. That took a very long time.

More later, I'm on a very bad wireless connection here.

Saturday we drove over to Patzcuaro, it is sort of on our way, and we wanted to see our friend Cristina and her new love Judy. We had actually met Judy years ago in San Miguel and I've known her on a forum as well. We got in late and Sunday they came over and we talked and talked and then rode over to another town, Quiroga, and had a wonderful carnitas lunch. We also shopped a little on the way back, I got some of those wonderful straw ropes of pineapples and cherries that are made here. We are going to stop and see their new house tomorrow on our way out of town.

We will cross Mexico City to get south this year, no more day long detours around it. This will be only the 2nd time we've done this, there is a lot of fear about driving an RV through one of the world's largest cities and a city with rather notorious traffic police. We'll be looking to find that Holy Grail of Mexico City crossings, the Viaducto route on the west side. We intend to do it late, hopefully we will slide on through with the trucks and delivery vans unnoticed by the transitos and also hopefully I'll be able to find the way at night. Hey! It will make a good story one way or the other. Wish us luck!

Many of you know that hurricane Dean came ashore as a category 5 in the southern part of the state our condo is in, Quintana Roo. It hit in a sparsely populated area, something that the press pointed out happily.

It is not an un-populated area though, and the people that do live there are mostly very poor, Mayan, and live in very small villages. They are almost completely dependent on the food they grow (mainly corn, squash and beans) for food. They are not close to the single highway that runs the length of the state, they are back many miles on dirt roads or paths. They lost a lot, their houses were blown down and filled with water, their animals scattered and killed, their water supplies polluted. The worst though, and the problem that still looms over them and their children, is that their crops were destroyed. The food they were growing to eat for the next 6 months was flattened, shredded and blown away.

It's hard sometimes to imagine this when you live in a country like the US where poor people do not starve and where there are safety nets available everywhere. These people do not have any food or any clean water ... these are the bottom line basics of life. They have children who they love and want to keep healthy, they need their strength to rebuild their simple houses and clean up and re-plant their crops.

The government here is doing a lot, they are impressive in their relief efforts and the speed which they rebuild. However, most of that is channeled to the larger towns, the highways, the capitol city which was also hit. There is little that makes it down those dirt roads and into the small towns. There is also the bureaucracy of relief, the Cruz Roja (Mexican Red Cross) tries to get everywhere but as in the US they are limited in resources and people. It is worthwhile to donate to those organizations but there is also another way.

I have been extremely touched by the response of one family who are taking a direct approach and bringing food and water out to these small villages personally. They are friends of ours, Kathy, Jamie and their 4 kids live just north of Akumal in Paamul. They decided to put together packages of food bought with their own money and money that friends have donated. They pay for all of the gas and incidental expenses themselves and Kathy publishes an accounting on her web site of all money received. They drive to Cancun and buy in bulk at CostCo and then put together despensas or packages of food for a family. They drive south another 150+ miles and go back into the jungle with a local friend and deliver them to the people that need them.

This is a picture of what Kathy can provide for $5 US. In addition, they are taking eggs, water and cookies for the kids. She has pictures and the story of their trips on her blog and I want to encourage anyone reading this to go there and see what they are doing.

Hell's Half Acre

If you can give even $5 it will make a big difference, she has various ways like Paypal to receive money from the US. I can personally vouch for her honesty and the dedication she and all of her family is bringing to this. As another friend said, skip one latte from Starbucks and feed a family for a week. The Maya are hard working people who will recover, they just need a hand while they get it done.



The Thorny Heart picture was taken by Mimi in Arizona, the other two pictures are from Kathy in Quintana Roo.

We spent 4 nights in Ajijic, parked between the beautiful homes of friends on a small cobblestone road. We had a great time with Ken and Anita, played dominoes, talked and laughed. We got to meet their daughter Katie who is staying with them, she's a beautiful young lady.

We had 20 large jars of special mayonnaise that our friend Bob had shipped to us in Cathedral City. He didn't realize the jars he ordered were 48 oz each! We had them stashed all over the RV. We also brought some very old, very rare wine down for them that they had had stored at a winery in Napa. We had it in a cooler and every day I would change the ice packs in the cooler so that it stayed around 70° or below. This is Bob with his cooler of wine. As a reward, Brigitte cooked a phenomenal meal for us and opened a bottle of 1978 Lafitte Rothschild to go with it. Incredible wine, excellent food and great company.

Brigitte and I went into Guadalajara to the upscale shopping area of Tlaquepaque on Friday. The shops were converted colonial mansions full of handcrafted hardwood furniture, hand blown glass and alabaster lights, and lots of other stuff. Oh, we saw some beautiful furnishings. We were sort of looking at chandeliers, she just finished a remodel on a colonial house and I'm contemplating the start of one.

My new fetish is alabaster... alabaster lights specifically. When the light shines through the alabaster it shows the veins and colors and each one is different. I saw some 6 and 8 light chandeliers with alabaster globes that were gorgeous. Also, I really liked one that was just a long tube of alabaster hung from a wrought iron hook and chain. We saw a lot of blown glass that I also liked, some very modern and some traditional. I could spend some serious money there if I had it. It's just as well, I guess. The only thing I bought was a ceramic baby parrot for Mimi as an anniversary gift. Yes, our anniversary was last week as well. 17 years! Time flies.

We didn't drive over to the area that was hit by the mudslides. When we came into Ajijic we detoured farther through Guadalajara so that we came in from the opposite side. I did hear a lot about it and it was a huge tragedy for many people. Those of you from California will be really familiar with this story. There was heavier rain than usual this season and the ground on the hills was saturated. Apparently there wasn't a waterspout involved after all, the ground just gave way after a very heavy storm cell and the dirt and boulders slid down the mountain. Along the way it wiped out several houses in an upscale development and it ended up in a very poor village on the lakeshore.

Most of the damage was to the village at the bottom of the hill, many people lost everything and it seriously damaged an orphanage as well. There were also several people up on the hill that lost their homes and everything in them. While the relative damage is different between rich and poor, tragedy and loss feel the same to both. My heart goes out to all of them. The community has been incredible in responding, the orphanage is already cleaned up, refurnished and the kids have all new stuff. Most of the houses in the village have been dug out and cleaned and all the roads are open, some in better shape than others. There is still a lot of water running off the hillsides, I saw that. I hope that the rainy season is over and there are no more storms.

We did finally leave Yuma, crossed the border and headed east on MX2. It's a long 2 lane road that parallels the border across the top of Mexico. We went that way instead of going to Tucson and back down to Nogales because it is shorter. It's a good road, there was some construction and 2 detours but not bad. We stopped for the night, very late, outside Hermosillo at a Pemex. It was pretty warm and we didn't stop until after 2am. We put all the fans on and took all the blankets off the bed and sort of slept. At 8am, when the sun hit the roof, I got up and closed it all up, turned on the generator and the AC and went back to sleep in delicious cool until 11am. We went 388 miles the first day. The 2nd day, we stopped for awhile at our favorite WalMart in Cd Obregon and then continued until after 11pm. We spent that night next to a toll booth near the Sonora-Sinaloa state border. We only went 305 miles that day. This time we just turned the generator on and slept with the AC all night. Today we were up at 9am and on the road, we got to Mazatlan around 5:30pm and pulled into an RV park for the night, only 270 miles.

This is the Independence Day weekend in Mexico, a huge celebration that commemorates the night when Padre Hidalgo rang the church bells at midnight in Dolores Hidalgo and called the people to join him in an army to free Mexico from Spain. Part of his speech is repeated everywhere in Mexico at the same time, ending with 3 yells of ¡Viva México! and lots of fireworks. We went out to dinner and then took a cab down to the centro for the Grito and celebration. We walked around the plaza, people watched, bought a new flag to put on the window of the RV, cheered and yelled ¡Viva México with the crowd. The fireworks went off from the church yard, sailing up and over the statue of Jesus. They exploded in huge bouquets right over our heads with sparks raining down.

It was pretty warm and humid and both of us were soaked by the time we walked a ways to get a cab back to the RV park. It was fun though. We will put our new flag on the window tomorrow. We had one Mexican flag that we had on the passenger mirror today while we were driving but it got destroyed in the wind. As in the US on the 4th, this is the time that Mexicans fly their flag and most of the cars we saw on the highway had a flag blowing from the window or the antenna. We got a lot of honks and smiles for our tattered flag.

There has been a really terrible mud slide in the Lake Chapala area and we are trying to find out if the road is open to our friend's house in Ajijic. If not, we'll park in Guadalajara and just take the jeep over. I don't know many details yet, apparently a waterspout came off the lake, dumped thousands of gallons of water on the hillside and the ground gave way. Boulders and mud went through many people's houses, took cars down the mountain and covered a lot of roads. I don't know if there were injuries or deaths.

Our cell phones don't work in Mazatlán but they should work once we get to Guadalajara. We'll check our messages then.

9/11 - Never forget, Never forgive.

Our problem was we had/have an idiot for Commander in Chief who couldn't figure out the real target. If he had any sense, we'd have left Iraq alone and leveled Afghanistan from the air. We are not the world's police and we should not be putting American kids on the ground in foreign countries. Vengeance yes, I think it is the only thing these animals understand, but why have superior technology and fight hand to hand?

OK, that's all the politics for today.

We're still in Yuma. One of the things I love the most about living in a house with wheels is that you can meet up with friends on the road on a whim. We were thrilled when our fulltiming friends, Ilene and John, knocked on our door on Sunday. I think the friendships you make are more intense when you live on the road, you see your friends in bursts and cram lots of talk and fun into a short time and then drive away knowing you'll see them again but not knowing when.

We talked and laughed all afternoon, went out to a casino for dinner, barely noticing that it wasn't very good and we probably could have had better at a Denny's. John made us pancakes for breakfast on Monday and they were off to see the grandkids in California.

We arrived later than scheduled at Big O to get the work done on Tortuga. Oh, but one piece had not been sent from Phoenix so they couldn't do the work until it arrived. It really was for the best that we got there late as the original plan was for them to take everything apart so they'd be ready to install the new stuff when it arrived. That would have meant we either spent the night at Big O Tires or they put it all back together again. So, we saved ourselves that.

Since we were there anyway, we had them align the jeep. Of course, they found something that had to be replaced on the jeep too. I'm not unhappy that all this happened and I don't think they were humbugging us as they were careful to show us the problems and they were pretty obvious. So, Sapo the Jeep got some new parts and tire rotation and alignment, all good stuff.

Today, we went back and the part was there. I think they did a really good job on Tortuga, they put her together and spent a long time on the alignment, making sure it was perfect. I'm happy with their work and glad we had all this done... really, I am.

So, once again we think we are crossing the border tomorrow and heading south. If the river is flowing that way, we'll be on it.

First off, thanks to Kathe for emailing me that I'd used the wrong word in the last post, no Tortuga does not hit 98k miles per hour on her speedometer but has those miles on her odometer. I've changed it on the post, all I can say is I was tired and not very happy.

Nancy, I really hope we are not just getting to Mazatlan on the 21st but I'll send you an email if we are.

I'm feeling better about all this today. One thing I try to do is not swim upstream and trying to force us across the border and heading south was starting to feel that way. So, we'll fix what needs fixing and wait as long as we have to without worrying about it. I have to remind myself that I'm retired, I have no real deadline and it is a great joy that all of these problems are easily fixed.

We hardly left the rig today, it seems a lot hotter here than it was in Cat City but it really isn't. I'm not sure why. Mimi saw the news and they said the high today was only 106°, it was over 115° every day last week when we were out running around getting everything done. Perhaps it is because there is no shade here and lots of gravel and asphalt or perhaps it is just more humid with the remains of Henriette coming over. We slept and watched TV all day, ate watermelon and bologna sandwiches because it was too hot to cook anything. We've got the sat dish up so I cruised around the net reading blogs and forums and things like the gardening section of the London Times. It felt like a real weekend, like a weekend back when I was working but without all the chores and errands. Pretty nice.

Our RV, Tortuga, is 6 years old this week and her odometer just turned to 98 thousand miles. This seems to be the year that we have to start replacing things. When we went to get the alignment today, they asked us to 'step into the pit' which is not a good sign. Various parts that connect the front wheels together are worn out and moving in ways they were not designed to move. So, Baby not only got new shoes, now she is getting her ankles replaced too. Unfortunately, the parts were not available in Yuma but will be sent from Phoenix on Monday. So, we're here.

Ilene, if you are heading this way from Phoenix on Monday, stop and see us. We're at the Escapee park, KOFA, in site 123 and there is an empty site next to us. Shoot, this whole park is like a ghost town. Of course, really high temps and high humidity may have something to do with that. There's a pool though and a laundry so we're not suffering.

We're in Yuma! Yeah! We are on the road again. It wasn't easy, even after we finally drove away from Country's house we stopped at Flying J to dump the tanks and discovered that the running lights on the Jeep were not coming on when towed. That's dangerous as it was midnight by then and there was a lot of dark desert between us and Yuma. Mimi messed with it, with lots of swearing on her back on the hot asphalt, but couldn't fix it. We finally turned them on in the jeep and found that the turn and brake lights still worked from the RV so we left. By that time it was 2am, we got to Yuma just before 6am.

Got up at 11am and got a voice mail that the tires were in at Big O so off we went. Tortuga has all new shoes! 6 new Michelin XPS Ribs in trendy black. We've spent the rest of the day running errands. Got a new wiring cable for the tow and hope that will fix the light problem. Got another awning strap which broke when I tried to open the window awning this morning, 4 months baking in the desert sun seems to have rotted it out. Got an appt for 9am tomorrow to have the generator serviced. Hope to get in to get an alignment tomorrow too.

Henriette (hurricane) came ashore in Guaymas along our route south and there are some reports of damages and flooding so another day before we get there can't hurt. Depending on how long it takes to do the generator and the alignment, we could cross the border tomorrow. I want at least 6 hours of daylight after we cross so we can get out of the border zone. The road runs just below the border east for a couple hundred miles until it connects with the main highway south, we came across on it this spring and it is a good road but I never feel very safe close to the border, on either side. So, we'd want to make that run in daylight and without stopping much. Crossing the border here below Yuma and taking MX2 east is much closer than going north into AZ on I-8 and then back south from Tucson.

More later, hopefully from mi México lindo.

Well, the web site Dupre sent me was pretty much a bust. It would only show the finish line of Ginny's race and then the picture was so small and grainy that we couldn't tell much. We watched the finish of her race for hours, it looked like they had staged starts as they came in in waves both men and women. They didn't list the stats very well either. The last note we ever found for her was that she was seen after the bike ride. We think we saw her cross the finish line but we aren't sure. It was even hard to tell the USA uniforms from the UK ones and by the end of the race everyone had wet hair and looked pretty similar. In fact, we still don't know anything more. I was texting Dupre but I guess his cell didn't work in Germany. Oh well, it was an accomplishment for her to compete and however she did we are really proud of her.

We're going nuts here trying to leave, I think we are really out of here today. Stuff came up that we hadn't thought of earlier. Stuff like, we need new vent covers for the RV so we can open them in the rain. Apparently 2 of ours were not in good shape when Mimi took them off to re-seal the roof. We are heading south in the rainy season and there are hurricanes dropping even more rain. We need to be able to open the vents and run the fans when it is raining. Also, Mimi now hears an odd noise in the air conditioner. You know how good she is with hearing these things and we really need that AC so that delayed us. We have an appointment this afternoon with a tech to look at it and he ordered us the vent covers as well.

Third, we had waffled on whether to buy new tires for the RV or not. We've decided we will. We have about 47k miles on this set of Michelins, we got 50k on the last set of Firestones but we had a blow out at the end. We were lucky that time and it didn't do any damage. We might not be so lucky this time and we are overloaded and want to be as safe as possible. So, I spent hours, really hours, on the phone yesterday trying to find 6 tires anywhere on our route. Who knew it would be so hard? I have a shop in Yuma that says they will have 6 for me tomorrow. I'm not completely confident that they are telling the truth but, we'll be there and find out. If not, we may have to go to Phoenix or Tucson. I really just wanted to cross the border in Yuma and not drive up and across AZ.

I took some last pics of the old pond and the new one but I don't have time to post them. I won't get to be here for the completion of the new pond but it looks gorgeous and Diane will finish it with style. She can handle anything. I really wanted to help plant the bog filter and help catch some of the Wakin fish to move to it but...


OK, you're updated and I'm back to work getting things stored.

Dupre came through and emailed me from the plane - he's so high tech. Anyway, if you want to watch Ginny's race go here for online live coverage. She is in the AWAD or age group race, my reading of it says it will be on at 10:15pm Pacific Time on Sat night, the race is at 7:15 Sunday German time. Her full name is Virginia Turner and they should post her number closer to the race. Go Ginny!

We're still running around like chickens trying to get it together to leave this weekend. Heh! I can't even begin to explain, even to myself, how it is soooo hard to leave somewhere that we have been more than a couple weeks. Sheeze! You'd think we were heading for some other planet never to return. It has nothing to do with whether we don't want to leave or we want to leave... nothing. I'm ready to leave, I want to be in Mexico really badly, I miss it actually. All that is irrelevant, it's just packing the stuff up, finishing up the 'to do' list, finding a ton of stuff that should have been on the 'to do' list but never made it, deciding whether any of that stuff is something we need to delay leaving for, argh!

We had a lunar eclipse a few nights ago. I got out the tripod and took some pictures.

The real result was that I went out and bought a new tripod tonight, hopefully it won't give me fits in the dark.

I rather like this last shot that I took before I realized I had the UV filter on the camera.