Baby it's cold here in Mexico - at least for this time of the year

NUEVO VALLARTA, Jalisco, Mexico - Along the Costalegre (which stretches from here past La Manzanilla to the south) today the emails and message boards were buzzing about how 'cold' it was.

In La Manz, some people said it was 52 degrees Fahrenheit this morning - with a high of 82 still predicted.

Brrr, brrr and, well, brrr.

I know such temperatures have people in northern climes laughing. (It is 21 degrees in Hector, NY as I write this). But when you live in the tropics, anything that is not, well, tropical, can be a shock, and maybe a problem.

For Admiral Fox and I, safely ensconsed this week in our condo in Puerto Vallarta with son Dustin, cool evening temps are no big deal. Close the doors and throw a blanket on the bed. But were we in Arroyo Seco, in the Gray Goose II Express trailer, it would not be as comfortable.

We'll hope for a spike in temperatures before we head back south at the end of the week to Arroyo Seco.

Coming home from school

Admiral Fox is ending up a three-week language class on Friday, a class she has really enjoyed and believes has helped her ability to be able to gossip, er, I mean talk, with the Mexican women in Arroyo Seco.

I do notice already that when I fire smart-ass Spanish frases in her direction, she understands a lot more now.

No more telling store clerks that the woman in line with me is my mother. (I really only did that a few times, because the store clerks usually looked at me and said that they thought I was her father.)

When we go back to Arroyo Seco, we will also get to see how much progress has been made on a house being built on Playa Grande by our amigo Jim Monaco.

Jim bought our two beach lots earlier this year - the lots that are bordered by a short, dead-end street. A local fellow two years ago fenced it off and claimed it was not a street at all - that in fact, it was his land. Total bull, of course, but Admiral Fox and I never could resolve it, and we wanted to build two small houses on the lots, a plan that required the street as access for the back lot.

Police stand by while fence is taken down

So we sold and said 'adios' to that idea.

To make a long story into a short anecdote, the fellow made the mistake of placing part of his fence on our land and last week Jim was able to get the muncipality of La Huerta - and a judge - to order the fence (on Jim's land) removed. A few posts blocking access to the street remain in place. But I hope to see the street opened this spring.

Fence is down, and the posts hauled away

The name of the street? I have dubbed it Calle Libre (free street). I hope it sticks. Hell, I'll buy the street sign and put it up myself, when it is open.

The day the fence was taken down, officials from La Huerta, eight police officers, at least a dozen townspeople (in one official capacity or another) and numerous onlookers came out to see the fence removed.

It wasn't quite as dramatic as the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it was still pretty interesting to see some action take place after two years of endless debate in the village.

Sasha and Sylvia last spring

Admiral Fox did some writing herself today, putting up a very poignant piece about the travails of divorce and what it's like for us not to be able to see our granddaughter - when she lives only minutes from where I am writing this.

You can check out her blog at this LINK: Why we will never get divorced