Casa Update 31

Friends,

It has been almost a month since my last update. It has been a busy month. When you think everything will settle down, it doesn’t. Here is a picture of where I started the update.

George and Beverley arrived on the 4th and spent a week. We all had a great time!! Lots of pictures attached this time as I can’t seem to delete any of them. We went to Puertocitos to have a dip in the hot spring tidal pools. Well, it was high tide when we got there. No tidal pools, only the Sea. Everyone hopped around what we thought were tidal pools and did feel the hot water seeping out of the sea floor. We stayed there for about three hours waiting for the tide to go out. It would have taken another three hours so we bagged it and headed for a real neat restaurant near KM35 on the Puertocitos road. Sign on the front said summer hours, only open on the weekend. Bummer. We went into San Felipe and ate at Chuey’s instead. Not a bad backup plan as we all left filled to the gills. We also took them to The “Valley of the Giants” which is at KM14 also on the Puertocitos road. Lots of pictures here! These are Cordon Cactus. Please Google it. These cacti are really huge! We stopped at the “4X4 Only After Here” sign and rested. I shifted the explorer onto 4WD and we headed off. I promised myself that I would stop and turn around before the sand hill. We had a nasty time with the hill last year when we scaled it in the 4X4 Tacoma when Leslie was here. I missed the turnaround spot and was forced to do this 400+ feet long sand hill again. With wheels churning, momentum failing, everyone bouncing close to the ceiling, on we went. For me the driver, it seemed like a five minute climb. Maybe it took twenty seconds. Next year we will be doing this hill in the pickup only, no more in the explorer. We also got George hooked on water volleyball. We have pictures of that also. You can pick George out from everyone else as he looks like the only albino in the pool. Beverly decided that drinking Cerveza’s in the pool was much more fun. We also got some great sunset pictures. They are included. Well the week went by all too fast and we were by ourselves again.

I said that things were winding down here for the summer. Well almost, farewell parties have been going on all month as the snow birds leave. We have been to quite a few. We have had three birthday parties also. It might now be safe to say that it is going to slow down sometime, I just don’t know when.

We had the Mexican National Olympic rowing trials here in town this week. It had been delayed a few weeks due to the Swine flue fiasco. We did not get a chance to go see but everyone said that the town was filled with Olympic hopefuls.

Regina continues to play water volleyball and pickle ball. I’m still sidelined waiting for the Doctor to approve more exorcise for me. Regina entered a volleyball tournament over Memorial Day and placed second out of six teams.

We moved into the summer house last week. We now have full time internet, AC and TV. Nice. They are having an outdoor kitchen built. So, it is just like a few years ago awaking to the workers arriving at 7:00am. Nice guys though. They let us know when they are going to shut down anything. It is coming along nicely and I expect them to be done in about four weeks (already adjusted for Mexican time). Oh, their dishwasher took a dump the week before we moved in. There are No Sears stores in Baja. I do have a line on a GE repair group and the Ranch is helping me get them in to take a look next week. We will see.

Temperatures have been slowly creeping up but we have been able to open up most nights. Humidity is still low making for a great time at the pool and beach.

We had our 3rd annual International Beach Volleyball tournament this weekend. The only reason it is called International is that they con a few Americans into playing. Otherwise it is totally a bunch of professional Mexicans playing and they are really good! I got a lot of pictures of Saturday’s matches. You will easily be able to pick out the Americans. They are the ones that are not sure of what they are doing.

We had burgers from Nacho at the tournament. We got two burgers and two orders of fries for only $80 Pesos. I have to describe how the burgers were made. First he got a frozen home made burger patty out. He spread mayonnaise on one side and slapped that side onto the griddle. He then continued to stir a huge mound of onions. Oh the aroma. I could have stood there all day. When he flipped the burger, he put a slab on cheese on it. He then spread mayonnaise on both bun halves and slapped them on the griddle to toast. When the burger and buns were done he put the meat and cheese onto the bottom bun while spreading cheese whiz on the top bun. He topped it off with heaping sautéed onions, lettuce, pickles, more mayonnaise and finally mustard. He folded it up in commercial aluminum foil (just like In-n-Out) It was terrific!!!! I plan on trying this myself but leaving out the cheese whiz.

Well, that has been our month down here. Hope you enjoy the pictures as there were many more but I cannot let my Picasa account fill up just yet. If you want to see them all, you will just have to come and visit.

Larry and Regina