An afternoon off - then three days of projects

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - The Admiral and I took a lovely afternoon off at Tenacatita, then launched back into projects at the property, a Jan. 31, self-imposed deadline looming like April 15 for Americans.

Sorry about that reference.

January 31 is when Sylvia brother David arrives and a week later, son Dylan (with two amigos), cousin Ruth from Hector, New York and Laura from Calgary, Canada. Laura is going to be teaching English to a group of village children and the village children are vibrating, they are so excited.

Will the showers and banos be done? The maestro said the main part of that project would be done by next Tuesday. The Admiral says she wants to hear the sound of flushing toilets - soon.


A roof, a floor and then it will be 'voila'

As part of all the chaos, we were able to move the original Grey Goose Express back closer to its new brother (which we dragged down this year behind the Toyota Tundra). After getting the trailer close to its intended destination, we relied on pure Mexican muscle power to lift up the tongue and slide it into the parking spot.

And the miracle? Without touching anything, the GGExpress is sitting perfectly level in its semi-permanent home.


Almost in place


RV park in the making?

But the biggest improvement has been being able to use our now-tiled palapa, though it has taken the Admiral and I - with some young helpers - many washings and scrubbings to get it clean. This morning the Admiral gave it another mopping and it is starting to shine. She's nesting there, and loving it.

As it is Sunday, however, it's almost time to call time on the projects. The afternoon we are headed to the Grand Bay Hotel in Barra de Navidad to meet some sailing cruisers - and sit by the pool there.

They serve a great drink there called a 'ballena.'

It's on my agenda.

Not a World Series game, but plenty of action anyway

ROCKLIN, Calif., USA - The Priority One text message came through at 8:30 a.m. this morning: The softball tournament was on for this morning, with granddaughter Samantha's team set to play at least one game, maybe three if they won the first two.

Yikes. Put down the Sunday paper and grab the shoes.

That news put a spin on things because we figured that the team was out of the running in the girl's softball tournament held in Rocklin's Lone Tree park, when we didn't hear Saturday night after the first round of games concluded. But as today was the last set of games of the entire season, we kicked into gear, packing cameras, sunscreen and roared up Interstate 80 to the ballpark.

(The roaring part was a lot of fun. Gawd, I wish I had some lights and a siren on my pickup truck.)

The 30-acre park is a sports nut's dreamscape with beautiful softball and baseball facilities, and a professional-style snack bar that was busy most of the day selling hot dogs, hamburgers and enough Coca-Cola to give the jitters to the entire population of Northern California. I had two Supersized Cokes (along with a cheeseburger and Doritos) and expect to see what kind of late night programming there is on Sundays. And maybe I'll check out the sunrise, too...


Snack bar menu

We arrived mid-way through the first game, immediately scooping up our other granddaughter, Kami, who was toddling about on her 13-month-old legs with various girls from the softball team shepherding her so she wouldn't get into too much trouble while her mom (daughter Anne) attended to the team in the dugout, one eye on the field, the other on the ever-toddling Kami.


The Captain and Kami read while the game goes on


The Admiral on stroll patrol with Kami

The games went fast - really fast - but unfortunately neither broke in favor of Samantha's team, coached by her dad, Steve. Samatha got several good hits, made several great plays (ok, I'm her grandfather, but damnit, they were good). The rest of her team played very well too, losing to girls teams, the members of which looked like they were an average of 30 pounds heavier.

And most of that extra weight seemed to be muscle.


Samantha at third base, right before she scores a run


Coach Steve huddles before the play


The pitcher's mom yells some encouragement

It was a beautiful warm day, maybe our last warm weekend of the summer as the forecasters are now calling for a chance of rain, falling temperatures and really cold weather in the mountains by the end of this coming week.

That might put a crimp in our plans to take the Grey Goose Express II to the mountains next weekend for a trial run. Perhaps a lowland expedition will be a better choice.

In the meantime, I have several huge files of video taken today at the game to go through. But below is a sample, the first segment of which shows Samantha getting a single.

The hunt continues for the next Grey Goose Express

ANDERSON, Calif., USA - The search has been going on feverishly for the past week for a successor to last year's Grey Goose Express. No Grey Goose vodka has been imbibed yet to aid the quest. But perhaps that's why the search is taking soooo long.

The original Grey Goose Express is safely in Arroyo Seco, but Grey Goose Express II will make a nice addition, when we find it. The Admiral and I have scoured Craigslist and several travel trailer lots in search of a used unit - an experience slightly better than going onto a used car lot. Slightly better. Make that very slightly better.

But our efforts are paying off as we have discovered that there are a variety of relatively lightweight travel trailers available - and affordable - so that we are less likely to overheat our transmission heading south.

Yes, we did overheat a little last year in the Trooper pulling the Aerolite 25 (AKA, the Grey Goose Express) on the 2000-mile trip. At one point during that drive, I almost melted a plastic coffee cup which was sitting on the transmission in the center of the car.

But that's history.

To the north of Sacramento, in a tiny hamlet called Anderson, we have located a 22-foot Tahoe Lite trailer, a trailer that might be as much as 1,000 pounds lighter than the original Grey Goose.


Outside of Tahoe Lite trailer

Walkaround bed

The galley

What makes this trailer also special is that the bed is easily accessed from both sides of the trailer. After six years of Sabbatical's narrow bunk in the aft cabin of the sailboat - and last year's single-entry bed on the original Grey Goose Express - the order from the Admiral was unequivocal - the bed in the new trailer had to be a 'walkaround.'

In fact, when I have been using Google to search, I only ask for 'walkaround' and 'lite.'

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The semester has been rolling like a freight train on icy tracks with midterms starting and already the countdown calendar is starting to get jammed up with things that need to be done. (Like grade the stack of papers sitting on my desk.)

At the same time, all of my classes have reached that point of equilibrium - the students are tired, I'm tired and so we compare notes on fatigue, in addition to lectures and course materials.

Monday night my Literary Journalism class got an infusion of international energy however, when friends of one of the students - who are visiting from Germany - came to class. Both young women contributed their opinions very well. And after class, insisted on having their photo taken with me.

It's not exactly like being a rock star, but I can pretend.

And yes, I do teach wearing shorts.


The Captain at work at the university

The phone booth inside the Grey Goose Express

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - Although we have a phone installed in the Grey Goose Express, parked neatly at our lot in el centro de Arroyo Seco, the installer noted that the line had a lot of noise on it.

That will get fixed this week, he promised.

And because the Goose doesn't have a handy outside access for a phone jack, we had to run the phone line up through a closet where I will install a phone jack.

But for now, here's where the phone is located...


The phone booth inside the Grey Goose

Electricity, water, telephone - and within a week or so - a septic tank and a ramada over the Goose so we have some shade.

Progress!