A dog day ends up with dinner at a seaside hotel

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - Sunday was another veterinary mini-clinic with the major patients being El Capitan and Leona. Leona has some problem similar to cancer and is getting a shot per week (which she does not like). El Capitan is showing signs of a disease spread by ticks and when he breathes, he sounds like a pig with a bad cold.

A really bad cold.

Both dogs were treated by our amiga and veterinarian Rocio on Sunday, with El Capitan getting three shots, several boxes of pills (all for this week) and a lot of sympathy. Most problematic is his runny nose. A runny nose with mucus that is mostly blood.

Stand way back when El Capitan sneezes.

Leona - for the first time - didn't squirm like Jack Nicholson in a straight jacket when we put a muzzle on her and gave her an intravenous injection. It was a great relief.


Capitan's bloody nose -a symptom of his illness


Leona gets her third injection

After cleaning up the palapa floor - largely from blood splatters - the Admiral and I headed off to Careyes, where amigas own condos at the swank hotel there. Careyes is only a few miles up the highway from Arroyo Seco, but light years away in terms of opulence and money.

We were waved through the gate by the guards when we dropped the names of our amigas, then found out we had missed our friends by an hour. (Merde!)

But because we were inside the resort, we opted to spend some time gawking at the rich and, perhaps, famous. Some time stretched to about four hours which included swimming in the pool, cocktails and dinner. (NOTE TO DINERS: The Cuba Libres served at Palapa Joe's are better than the Cuba Libres served at the Hotel Careyes, though the hotel's pack a wallop, too...)


Admiral Fox at Careyes


Relaxing poolside

The Careyes' anchorage is famous with cruisers who travel the coast from Mazatlan to Zihuatenejo. We had seen it eight years ago from shoreside when we used our journalist credentials to get by the gate. But while cruising on the 48-foot Sabbatical, we passed it up when traveling back and forth. The anchorage looks great on the charts, but when you see it up close and personal from the deck of a sailboat, the rocks get very big and the swell very intense.

When we arrived at the hotel and pool - and checked out the anchoring spots Sunday - our earlier decisions to skip Careyes as a waystation seemed like we made good choices. And the very calm safe waters of Tenacatita Bay are only a few miles further south.


Careyes channel - pretty from the shore

Today The Admiral is off helping with a vet clinic in La Manzanilla while my job is to go out and check on progress at our other three lots in Arroyo Seco. Two in-town lots are being cleared and some extra fencing put in place. Our beach lot is getting cleared and filled so we can start yet-another project out there.

Yet another project?

Why not? We don't leave for Seneca Lake in New York for oh, about three weeks.