Friday, 22 December 2023: Casa Colibri

Today is Lorayne’s birthday so we had a nice chat.  I am so lucky to have her in my life!

This has been a month filled with puppies.  We settled on Sox and Cesa as names for these bundles of smiles.  Cleaning the floors each morning is a chore but they are getting better.  Laura has started their series of vaccinations and we can’t take them out much but we have taken them to the beach twice.  We want them to get used to the water.  

The end of this month finds me baking Christmas cookies. Abraham, Neli and Jona, Aholi, Hugo and Mayra, Peter and Kari — mostly the good people who help us throughout the year.  Of course, there are too many for Justin and me too.  I also tried a new recipe for cranberry bread to share with Sandra and her family.  

Dellene has a new grand baby — Emerson can’t come home from the hospital yet but Dellene ordered her stocking so Santa will know where to find her no matter what.  

Rudolfo with Justin and me at Boston's for football.    All of us smiling for the win!  

Who is spolied?

      Lunch at Piccoli never disappoints!  

Friday, 8 December 2023: Casa Colibri

Puppies!  We have two new puppies!  We knew we would need new dogs and now we have two.  They don’t have names yet since we want to see more about their personality.  We will see.  

I went to see Mayra for a mani /pedi and then Aholi came to our house later in the afternoon … all is good.

Sunday, 3 December 2023: Hotel Boutique La Negra

Off to Merida for football. And, yes, the Packers beat the Chiefs…can you stand it!!!

But first a party at Sandra’s. Robert’s birthday is next week and of course, we must have a party.  Robert has always had more adults than peers for his birthday party and this year was no different.

Not really much rest for Justin and me, but we are beginning to get into a routine.  Pilates on Tuesday and Thursday, Neli on Wednesday, Aholi still to be determined but she will be scheduled soon.  

Hugo has reached out looking for work.  He explained to Justin that the price of fish is down and no one is able to find work fishing.  It’s also much hotter than usual for this time of year.  The water levels are down and the flamingoes are in different spots.  All this has a tremendous negative impact on Celestun and its people.  Hugo hasn’t worked since September. When we talked to Jonathan, we learned that the man who owned the property when he was working had died and Jona too hasn’t worked in months.  It makes Justin and I wonder about the potential increase of crime in our little slice of heaven.  

We found a new little hotel Hotel Boutique La Negra.  It’s simple, Mexican, pet friendly, and totally fits my budget so we can continue to come to Merida regularly to watch games.  

Friday, 1 December 2023: Casa Colibri

Welcome to Celestun; welcome to December.  What a month!  

It was 94’ when we arrived at just before 3pm.  Abraham met us at the gate with tears in his eyes.  Max died earlier in the day and he and Jona had just buried him.  

The house looked great. Neli had a really long day yesterday getting our apartment and the kitchen ready. I feel like we just need some time to breathe.  We answered the call of the beach and found a new restaurant toward the north from our house, Casa Porfiria's.  Great guac, great margaritas .  Quite likely we will be back.

Thursday, 30 November 2023: Ciudad del Carmen

Pineapple from a roadside vendor.  Best.  Pineapple. Ever. 

New puppy?  Justin was enamored with a puppy we saw at the pineapple stand.    If we were on our last day, maybe.  But leaving a new puppy in the car overnight?  Asking Gemma to share her new car with a street hound?  No, too many ways for that to go south.  

But the sun was shining.  We stopped for shrimp from a street vendor.  We’d looked at these shrimp for years, so today, we finally stopped.  Our car turned 15,000 miles.  Time to dig out summer shoes for Paula and a summer shirt for Justin. It was 84’ when we pulled into Ciudad del Carmen.   We had plenty of time for drinks, guac and tamales around sunset on the water.  We were at the beach!  

We watched part of the Seattle/Dallas game in our hotel, Hotel Hacienda Real.

Wednesday, 29 November 2023: Cordoba

On Tuesday we drove from Laredo to San Louis Potosí.  We’d first tried to cross the border on Saturday, 28 October.  Yesterday, Tuesday, 28 November we were able to cross — and drive.  One month of our lives spent on ground hog day.  

One advantage of leaving
really, really early is the likelihood
of no waiting at the border. 

We left really early and it was still dark when we stopped for breakfast at a road side street stand.  I hadn’t had tacos that good in a long, long time.   We’d just passed through a comparatively dangerous section of Mexico (the area closest to the border) and we hit dense, dense fog. 

We pulled into our hotel in San Luis Potosí (Comfort Inn… we won’t need to come back here) just after 4pm and that was just in time to take the Gemma for a nice long walk before we headed to dinner.  Justin had found an Italian restaurant that was calling his name.  Yes, we got back in the car to drive to a restaurant. Dinner was a bit strange but we had another nice long walk before heading back to call it a day.  

Today, we were in stop-n-stop traffic going from SLP to Cordoba. Arrived after dark.   Not fun.  We stayed at our favorite Suite Layfer hotel.  The hotel is quite nice for this travel, but it was all good.  Gemma liked it too.  

Saw this sign and took a pic for
Bill Dean -- maybe he opened a restaurant?

Monday, 27 November 2023: on our way to the border

Justin and I had our own little bit of Black Friday yesterday.  Justin had ordered tramps for the Hobie catamaran we have in Mexico.  Those arrived yesterday as did two new pairs of jeans and a jacket for me.  We also ordered an air purifier and a SimpliSafe security package for Mexico.  

We left Dellene’s house after another two week visit.  We got to spend lots of time with her and with Mike and Sister.  I had tears in my eyes when we backed out of the driveway… 13,642 miles on our new car.  Our plan was to go to Laredo, cross the border get our TIP, return to the US to spend the night and then the next day, cross the border and drive.  And, so, far, the plan was working.  When we settled into our hotel this evening, we were in possession of a current and valid TIP!!!  The most interesting part of today’s process was that a federal police officer offered escort to Monterrey!  I said, no, we were good.  Maybe because it was already getting dark and likely they bought we were planning to start driving at night.  ???  Nope — no — nope!  Still, to have the federalis  offer an escort???  I never did ask the price.  

Thursday, 23 November 2023: Millway Drive

 

So, so much for which to be grateful — I am a lucky girl.

Dellene and her crew had Thanksgiving at Paul’s lake house.  I said no thanks to subjecting Justin and myself to a holiday extravaganza at her ex’s home.  I picked out a great vegetarian recipe and then Justin decided we needed a turkey too.  It was quite extravagant and I doubt we will cook for a week.

We watched the Packers beat up on the Lions — the victory was sweet!  We’d been to watch the games for the past two weeks at Billy’s on Burnet with our new Packer friends.  They are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day; thankfully the game was on network tv.  Best news ever was that I was able to download our vehicle registration.  Now we can go!

Saturday, 18 November 2023: Back in Austin

Justin switching all our travel
 treasures from one car to another...again.  

Yep, we've been back at Dellene’s for about a week in our new 2022 Hyundai Tucson.  Not the new plug-in hybrid, but in our new Tucson regular hybrid. Not our fabulous Tuscon Limited but our still somewhat cool Tuscon Blue.  Not the one with 8,000 miles, but this one with 12,000 miles was still new enough for NFCU to give us the new car interest rate… that’s a good thing.  Our entire Ground Hog day debacle went from a SNAFU to a cluster*_@!  about ten days ago.  We have just been through the wringer.  

At one point, we did have a guy in Matamoras tell us he could get us the needed TIP for only $300.  Yeah, right.  And how much more once we got there.  Holy moly I do not want to spend any time in Mexican jail.  That is not why I retired!

We were back at Dellene’s waiting for the paperwork to come through.  Several years ago we bought a car in Austin and headed south with temporary plates.  At that time both Justin and I were Texas residents and we had Texas drivers license.  The idea of driving with temporary Texas plates into Mexico didn’t seem like anything.  As it turned out, the temporary plates we had mailed to the hotel in Celestun never arrived (now I know that was to be accepted as the norm as there simply is no mail service in our part of Mexico).  Thankfully, Dellene picked up new plates for us and mailed the to Kim in Florida who brought them to us in her suitcase.  This time around, as the holder of Wisconsin drivers licenses, we decided to wait it out in Texas until all the paperwork was finalized.

Justin and I explored new neighborhoods in Austin and spent time on the trails in Sun City.  Gemma was always eager to join us but she didn't care one bit about making friends with the many deer we saw.  

This  wait gave Dellene and me a chance to go to The Christmas Affair, the annual Junior League fundraising extravaganza held in Austin.  We’ve talked about his for years and years.  This year, we go to go together.  What a coup!

We also got to watch Luke play in a championship baseball game — something I don’t get to do with grandkids in Wisconsin.  Everyone was there almost.  In addition to Luke, we got to see Kim and Harper and Brewer.  We got to see Chris and Kara and we even saw Paul.  Luke's team did not take home the prize but everyone gets trophies in youth sports.  

Sunday, 5 November 2023: McAllen, Texas

Daylight savings time ended last night.  Mexico doesn’t ever go to DST so now there is no difference.  

Sunday finds us in McAllen, Texas. Justin’s parents used to spend winters in McAllen so Justin is enjoying seeing the locale through that lens.  The car saga continues…life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans…thank you John Lennon.

Since it is the weekend, we didn’t feel one bit guilty about taking time to watch the Packers win against the LAChargers.  It wasn’t a pretty win but a win nonetheless.  And, after all, what is a weekend?  Bar food in Texas does differ a bit from bar food in Wisconsin.  I didn't see cheese curds on the menu but I did enjoy chicken and waffles!  

Adam, the regional manager from VanHorn in Sheboygan has agreed to give us a full 100% refund for our car as well as cover our hotel and meals.  It’s a super generous offer.  We still need to hurry as we truly want to be in Mexico and not just hanging out at the border.  We drove from Laredo to Mission to learn the car we wanted to see had been sold 10 minutes before we got there.  What!  That is poor form and a ding for the entire automotive industry.  Now, we are working with Teo at Pharr Toyota.  We will meet with his GM and comptroller in the morning.  For tonight, we are back at the Motel 6 in McAllen.  We’ve been staying in Motel 6s throughout this episode and it warrants mentioning, we’ve been pleased with these rooms.  Vinyl plank flooring, refrigerator and microwave, not spacious but certainly adequate.  We are taking a long time but we are taking care of Adam’s money.  And, I must also give a shout out to south Texas.  This extended, unplanned stay has given me reason to rethink south Texas.  Laredo, McAllen and environs have been very pleasant and I’ve not been intimidated.  Our next stop is Corpus Christi and that is not at the border by any means.  My next challenge is that I’ll need to consider where we cross the border given that we are this far east and this much closer to Brownsville.

We did take time for a nice hike along a river bed.  Something to shake the stink off of the car mess.