Christmas is all around

Got a surprise in the middle of the night last night. RAIN – heavy rain and a couple of hours of it. The poor plants sure needed it. They get so dusty. This morning it is still overcast – maybe it won’t get so hot today. But I can feel the humidity already.

Mexico loves Christmas – even the palms along the highway get decorated.

Went into Guaymas yesterday to check on the bay doors – but the painter wasn’t there. We did see that he has been working on them though. Hope the humidity doesn’t slow the process down.

As I said decorations are going up everywhere and again this year in the Ley’s supermarkets they have their tree decorated with red and yellow lingerie - Just kind of puts a smile on your face.

And the bakeries – they outdo themselves. Some cupcakes

More cupcakes

And even more cupcakes with oreo cookie lips!

All the different donut flavors have different decorations.

And the cakes – too many to take pictures of  - this one has snowmen and a Yule log.

A round white cake with a snowman.

Nothing to do with Christmas but still in the bakery. These croissants remind me of chicken butts. Every time I see some I get the same impression. Just could not eat one.

Enough food – well maybe not – found a surprise here in Wal*Mart Jellied Cranberry sauce – made in Wisconsin. Every year we find more and more North American foods on the shelves.

Wal*Mart also sells more things here than they do in the U.S. Washers, dryers, stoves and refrigerators. The washer is about US $370, the refrigerator US $345 and the stove/oven US $ 280.

And these motor scooters – the red one is on sale for about US $1290. Sam’s Club sells Quads and bigger motorcycles.

During the summer while at home I posted this picture of this little car with the sign in the back window that said, “You just got passed by a toaster on wheels.” Thought it was funny.

  Today we saw this driving down the road.

Best get cooking if I want to get it done before it gets hot. 

More problems with electronics

Wow – either I slept really restless or really still – woke up this morning and couldn’t move my right arm. Scared the heck out of me. A couple Advil later and I can at least lift my coffee cup and type. Another hour or so and it should be fine. Getting older brings all kinds of surprises with it.

Yesterday was another quiet day. We went into Guaymas in the morning. Our friends had bought a couple of bottles of liquor – something like, but not, Baileys - in the Leys there last week. When they opened one of the bottles – the contents had gone bad. So they wanted to return the bottles and needed Bill’s language skills. No problem, the store refunded their money after checking the expiration date on the bottle. 2013!  I didn’t know booze had expiration dates on the bottle. Learn something every day.

Then we went to Sam’s Club so they could get a membership. It can be used here in Mexico and the US. And they can renew it either place when due. They’re from Canada and there aren’t any Sam’s Clubs there only Costco. But they travel a lot in US and here.

While shopping Bill had Willie washed. Several guys in the parking lot have those small machines with water and soap and do an excellent job. Then on to Wal*Mart of course – we got a roasted chicken so that was lunch and dinner. Very good tasting – really brown and juicy.

Fooled around with the Nook during the afternoon and finally got it to connect to the Internet and download all the books that were floating around in the cloud. The Internet here the last few days has been really, really iffy. Everyone is complaining. Even the TelCel was spotty.  Also discovered I can get Kindle books on the laptop and download them/upload them to the Cloud so that I can read them offline using Google Chrome. For some reason the Tablet is having a hissy fit and not working at all. I think it got confused when I tried to connect it to the Internet and shut itself down. And it won’t come back on. Have tried removing and reinserting the sim card – didn’t help. Can't find a reset button on it. So now I’m letting the battery run down and then will try to restart it. Like I said this isn’t my year with electronic or technology items.

On that same subject I had a bit of aggravation with the cell phones – yes plural – last night. Our friend staying in our home called us on my [the old] phone. I tried to answer it but the touch screen has stopped working so no matter how hard I poked it it wouldn’t answer. So I picked up Bill’s [the new] phone to call her back. But I called her too soon and her line was busy. So I waited and sure enough the new one rang – BUT - I’ve never answered that phone and it is, of course, different than the old one. So I didn’t get it answered!!!!  And we really needed to talk to her because there is a problem with house – maybe another water leak!  Anyway – waited a minute and called her back and got her. Now will have to wait and see what is going on.

Enough babbling – we’re going to go over to the painters shop and see how he is coming on the storage bay doors. Then this afternoon I’m going to make empanadas. 

Lots of RVs going south now

I got up early again this a.m. to see if I could get my Nook connected to the Internet. Discovered yesterday that the couple of books I ordered have not downloaded. No luck – cannot get it to connect. In fact I can’t get the laptop to connect and stay connected this morning either. I can use the TelCel stick for the laptop if I really want to get on line – like later to pay bills, but it won’t work with the nook. Need to remember how I got the books from the laptop to the Nook last year!!

Didn’t do anything yesterday but hang around the RV. I restarted my knitting project but only got three rows done when I lost interest.

Every day about 3:00 the RVs start coming in here to spend the night before going further south. Last night there were six of them. In fact I can hear a couple of them warming up now to get ready to take off. Loud suckers!

The only exciting part of the day was I fixed dinner last night. Salmon with artichokes, roasted peppers in wine, red potatoes with butter and parsley and mixed vegetables. It was really good.

Today I need to do another load of laundry and get the vacuum out – lots of little burs in the carpet. And we have to go into Guaymas this morning for a while.

The last time we were at Sam’s Club I found some Empanada dough – so maybe this afternoon I’ll make some empanadas – they are always good to snack on. I’m starting to get tired of just sitting around. 

Neighborhood in Guaymas

The first of December already – how did that happen so fast? It was just July a couple of days ago.

I backed up my laptop yesterday. Try to remember to do it the end of every month. I’d hate to lose all my pictures etc.

Here’s Alfie in all her/his glory with the bay doors gone. The park manager has assured us nothing has ever gone missing in this park. It will probably be the end of the week before we get them back and on.

So what did we do yesterday? Not a whole lot of anything. First we went out to breakfast to the buffet at El Mar. It was really crowded – don’t think we’ll go again. Then we went with our friends next door to the shipyard to see a boat they are thinking about buying.  As we drove through what to us was a different section of town I took some pictures to share. Here we passed a Christmas tree lot. Remember it was Nov 30 and about 80 degrees out. I wonder how long they will last. At least they have some shade, but no water. This is a desert area so if there isn’t any landscaping there is only dirt.

On almost every corner there is a little store of some sort. This one is a bakery and food stuff store named Karina. And yep that is a pay phone outside.

Another kind of tope- made of what looks like cannon balls half buried in the street. They get your attention quickly. Maybe some day I’ll do a whole blog on the different kinds of topes.

This particular neighborhood seems to be single family homes built with common walls. Each one is two stories. Notice the bottoms are plastered and painted the tops mostly are unplastered cinder blocks. Each person can decide how they are going to use their front space. Some have added an addition and turned it into a little store; some just add a cover for their car or a table and chairs. There is a food cart of some sort in the street.

Here is a baseball field with a game in progress. Mexico is really into baseball. In this northern part we see more baseball fields than soccer fields.

A small house selling soft drinks and piñatas out front of it.

Another big sports complex, this one for boxing and baseball.

A big home set off all by itself. Can’t imagine trying to keep it clean with all the dust flying around.

A memorial to someone who lost his life here. Christmas trees and all.

Another brightly colored home. Notice the trimmed trees out front. The air-conditioned and water tank on the flat roof.

These people have built a garage out front, just big enough for one car.

Here we have parking for one and a patio and stairs leading to the top floor that has a balcony.

Back in Guaymas proper we went to Auto Zone so Bill could pick up something for the car. Then to Wal*Mart for a couple of groceries. Then on home.

There were too many clouds in the distance for the sunset to be really pretty But did get one or two pictures that were kind of nice.

Bill just fixed breakfast so I need to eat. Maybe we'll go out by the sand dune and beach today.