Cows On The Beach!

 I love this picture of the cows just hanging out on the beach!!  They come by about every other day - along with the horses and the donkeys!

Nothing spectactular on the sunrises but they're still pretty to see in the mornings!

Glenn has been helping out people in the neighborhood if they need something done - he worked on Brenda's hot water heater and her side by side and she took us out to dinner!  I had shrimp with mango salsa!  The large thing in the potatoes was kind of a cheese tortilla that had been fried!  Very good!

The maintenance people had been repairing the sewer system on the main road here and on lunch hours this piece of equipment would go down to the beach for the guys' lunch break - imagine my surprise when I saw somebody lying in the bucket when he went by!!!

I still love walking the beach when Glenn fishes!

Glenn went on a charter boat one day with the neighbor and another guy, about 1 1/2 hour away - when he got back he realized he had left his small cooler in the captains' boat - with his glasses inside!!  So a couple days later we made the trek back up there to get it - stopped at El Triunfo on the way back and had a delicious meal!

I ordered tortilla soup - they brought the dry ingredients in a bowl and then poured the hot soup on top from another mug - pretty cool and great to eat!

Settling In To Baja Life

 Gosh, we've been here over a month and I've only blogged once!!!!  Time to rally and post some of these pictures I guess!

When Glenn fishes, I walk the beach - when he doesn't fish, we walk around the loop together through the residentail area and end up on the beach!

Although this doesn't look like a big fish, it is for the species!  It's a trigger fish (one of our favorites) and this is the BIGGEST one he has ever caught!!

Oh those pretty sunrises!!

My favorite place to relax with my coffee - just staring at the ocean and that blue, blue sky!

A large party just up the street a little ways and it was a pig roast!!!  DELICIOUS!

There were probably about 60 people there - knew a lot of them but we always meet a few more!  Here's Jo and Norm standing by me, and Deb and Brenda in the front!  All close friends!

We had unseasonably warm weather the first 3 weeks we were here - and I mean almost HOT!!  Not used to that at all and of course this was the year that I brought 3 pairs of pants as I have been cold in Feb. the last couple of years - figures!!!  So I'm short on shorts to wear but that's OK - nobody cares what you wear around here and we end up wearing the same thing day after day........

Arrival in Spa/Super Bowl

 It's a good feeling to get through LaPaz without getting lost!!  Google maps directed us where we wanted to go and it was a breeze!!  And then the final descent into Spa Buena Vista - HOORAY!

The house was quite clean this year which was a PLUS!!  We unloaded the car quickly and I got to work in the kitchen - it never meets my standards so I wipe out the cabinets before I put my stuff in them!  Glenn contacted the gal to let him and Eric into Del's garage to get the ATV and the boat and ALL the tubs in the boat - she said she would meet them at 4:00 but never showed - Darn!!  She later texted she got caught in traffic and would meet them the next morning!

Hillary and Eric had invited us over for dinner which was perfect because we never have any regular grocery supplies when we arrive - it was fun to catch up with them and enjoy a meal together!

A nice little sunrise to wake up to the next morning!!

Wed. and Thurs. were spent unpacking the things we brought in the car AND unpacking all the stuff that we store in tubs in the boat!  All went well and the ATV ran well, along with the boat when Glenn started the motor!

Thursday late afternoon I sent Glenn over to the Spa restaurant for Happy Hour and to pick up 2 potatoes for dinner - they are my absolute favorite!!  Pricey BUT I get 4 meals out of one!!  So definitely worth it to me!!

Friday was Cabo day - we always make a run down there to Costco and a grocery store and wherever  else is needed!  Eric's had to drive BECAUSE the car started acting up again - which meant the problem was NOT fixed - so Glenn had the car all tore apart in the back and needed a part from Auto Zone down there!!  Eric and Hillary's bank in town had closed and they needed pesos so a couple of extra stops down there!

It was very warm!!  And they don't have a/c in their vehicle!!  The traffic down there is INSANE!!!  SO MUCH construction going on and it's just darn busy!!  Costco was a breeze picking up what we all needed but the lines were 3/4 of the way down the entire store!!  You just can't be in a hurry when you're in Mexico!!  Luckily Auto Zone did have the part and after leaving at 8:00 am we arrived home at 4:30!!  We were all exhausted!!  But of course when you shop in large quantites, you have to rebag everything for the freezer!!  Took me quite a while, along with deboning a chicken!!  But got it all done which was a relief!!

Sunday was the Super Bowl - I could care less about it but Glenn loves it - we usually have 3 couples over since we have great internet at our place AND Robby sets up a VPN code for us to access what we need!!  However, 2 sets of our friends are not here - Larry and Becky, and Del and Linda - not sure if they will get to come or not........  So it was just Eric and Hillary here with us!

Last year Aleah did a fundraiser for softball by buying squares for the Super Bowl - I purchased 2 squares again this year (and loved the spots I was in - #8 and #88) but alas, didn't win anything!

Here's our small gang!!

And a close up of all our delicious food - the mango dacquiris were excellent!!

Eric's were for the Patriots of course since they're from the east coast!!  Unfortunately they didn't fare so well in the game though.....

At 1/2 time, Glenn cooked wings on the grill and we enjoyed them!!  A fun day together!

Loreto

 Loreto is one of my favorite towns - we have flowninto there 2 different times in past years before we started driving down so Glenn could fish - and it was a great experience for both of us - he would go out on charter boats and I would walk to the square, get coffee along the malacon and just enjoy the Mexican vibe!

Our trip from San Ignacio to Loreto only took about 4 hours - a couple of mountain passes and pretty scenary!  We decided to find the place we were staying (a new place) before we parked and walked up to the square so I could get a special coffee at my favorite place!  We found the little "hotel" which is tucked back in (and I DID forget to take a picture) and our little casita was actually ready but there was some construction going on inside the gate so we couldn't park in there yet - no worries - we unloaded our things into our room and what a cute place - 4 rooms surrounded this outdoor fountain and garden and it was beautiful!

We walked on up to the square and I went in to order my coffee but disappontment - they had NO chocolate!  Dang! We walked around a little bit and grabbed a couple of tacos before we headed back to the room to relax!

I wanted to walk down to the marina and malacon which was only a couple of blocks away so that's what we did before dinner - it's always pretty down there!

We walked down the long dock and I saw this boat with the pelicans on it so had to grab a picture!

Beautiful sailboats out on the water!

A perfect place to snap a picture!

I always enjoy these colorful letters in the towns!

Glenn had decided he wanted some Italian that night so we had asked the owner of the hotel where to go and he had directed us to a particular place - it was very busy for a Monday night - and we ended up ordering a pizza which was wonderful!

It was a nice walk back to our casita and we both slept good that night - excited to know this was our LAST night on the road!

San Ignacio

 We had a lovely day driving to San Ignacio - a couple of Federali stops but they basically waved us through one of them and the other one Glenn had to "sign in" and report how the stop was!!  They've had a lot of complaints on this Federali stop outside of San Ignacio - usually they search the cars pretty well but there was no search this time and a very nice guy there!

The yurts is always one of our favorite stops - so relaxing - and they serve an evening meal which was delicious!  Glenn had met a guy at the bar there whom we ate with and he was a very interesting guy!  He was a pilot and even flew private planes into Spa Buena Vista (where we stay) a few times - but then he went back to commercial flying - it's always interesting who we meet at the yurts as dinner is served family style and there's usually no more than 15 or 20 people max!

Unfortunately the "sleeping" wasn't quite as peaceful - from midnight on we kept hearing an alarm go off - it would wake you up but of course you would fall right back asleep!  Glenn even got up 2 different times thinking it was our car alarm!  Whatever.........

We found out the next morning that NOBODY had slept well because of that darn alarm - the owners, Paul and Bonnie had gotten up and drove just a few blocks to the OXXO station which is where the alarm was going off - they contacted the police but nothing was done!!  They had complained to the "delegation" before on this alarm but nothing was done!!

Bonnie had asked us if we wanted to take a walk and we said sure - so we walked up to the OXXO to also complain about the alarm - the guy spoke a little English and we complained about the noise of the alarm and he told us it was the Valentines Day decorations they had hung up that were blowing inside when something came on and that was setting off the alarm!  He told us they would be taking them down every evening!!  I hope they did!!

After a wonderful breakfast I took a few pictures of the river which is always pretty (and green!!) before we headed out!

And then we were off once again - it's a short drive to Loreto but it's easiest to do it this way because the last day we can get into Spa right after lunch and have plenty of daylight to unload the car and get the boat and ATV out of storage!

San Felipe

Because of our stop in Prescott, we decided to do a little different drive - Yuma is only 3 1/2 hours from Prescott so we had decided we would cross the border and drive to San Felipe for the night - that way Glenn didn't have a 10 or 11 hour drive to San Ignacio the following day!

We crossed the border late morning with no issues - and once again things at the border had changed!  Usually as soon as we go through, we are escorted to the side and someone takes me to the office to get our FMM's and other guards search the car while Glenn is watching them!  But this time there was NO place to park right by the office (which all looks brand new) so we had to drive a ways before we found a parking spot!  Then we walked back and found an office that took our passports to fill out the FMM's - no cash is accepted anymore - you MUST have a credit card to use for the cost!  And that was it!!  Super easy!

We only had about a 3 hour drive to San Felipe so that was nice!  But once we got into the town, we realized there was a race going on and it was packed with a lot of barricades set up!  We have a specific place we go to get our pesos but it was all blocked off - we finally found a place to park in a restaurant's parking lot with a promise to the guy directing us in that we would come back after we got pesos and have a drink!

Luckily, the peso place could give us what we needed - although the peso is NOT a great exchange rate to the dollar at this time!  Then we headed back to the open air restaurant and had a drink - it was SO loud as it was the ending spot for the racers - mostly side by sides and jeeps!

An extremely STRONG mango dacquiri with enough tejin around the edge for 3 people!!  Yes, I got a to go cup for it!!

We had a small cabana booked on the beach for our nights' stay - it was on the second row from the beach but we still had a view!  Cute place that was very clean and perfect for the night!  Luckily they had a restaurant on site so we could just walk to it - neither one of us like to get back in the car and drive for our evening meal!

The next morning was beautiful - we decided to just eat at the same place for breakfast - I saw this lounging cat and thought she was cute as can be!

We sat outside at the restaurant - I did have to use my translator on my phone as we couldn't decipher the menu that well - but it was all good and the hand squeezed orange juice in Baja is the BEST!

When they have low tide, it is SUPER low tide!

We packed up and headed out after breakfast for our leisurely drive to San Ignacio instead of our frantic
"hope we can make it before dark" thoughts!!  It's always a beautiful drive!

January Photo Dump

 I must interrupt our Mexico drive to finish up Jan. with just a few pictures!

Since Matias couldn't come to Estes Park, we had him and his girlfriend up so he could open his presents and have a nice lunch together!

A pretty SUNSET - it's hard to take pictures off our back deck because of all the trees but this one turned out nice!

After our fiasco that one weekend with the low temps in the house causing the smoke alarms to go off, I decided we needed a SMART thermostat so I could control it from my phone!  It was fairly easy to install after having to get another wire - but hooking up to my phone took a little longer!!  But I've got it all down now and can see the temp daily on my phone here in Mexico!

Henry was all ready to head to Mexico but the Christmas stocking hat wasn't going to work - so I ordered a set of straw hats (plenty to give the grandkids) and used velcro to secure it to his flat head - HA!  He loves it!!

Of course it would turn super cold right before we leave!!!

One last get together with the neighbors - we'll miss all of them while we're gone!!

And that's a wrap for January - time to continue the trip!!