At the Arroyo Seco Internet cafe, waiting for Sasha Fox

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - Sasha Fox and her mom are visiting here for a few days and Sasha just went toddling off with Grandma (Admiral Fox) to visit a neighbor who has a two year old.

I am posting - again - from the internet cafe here, but over the weekend we will be picking up a DSL modem in Puerto Vallarta so we don't have to rely so heavily on this tienda.

The people who own the store and internet service are nice enough, but at times it seems have the entire village is here, and the bandwidth simply can't handle any more wireless connections.

This blog is also being written using a different software package. The BlogPress software simply refuses to function anymore - kind of like my washing machine now in the repair shop in Melaque.

The repair shop has a new main circuit board 'on order' to fix the machine.

On order. In Mexico.

I hope we get it back in time to put it back in storage.

In the meantime, today is a beach day with Sasha and dinner tonight in La Manzanilla with amigos Joanie and Greg from El Tuito at the famous Martine's restaurant.

(NOTE TO CAPTAIN: Limit yourself to two margaritas...)

More on how that works out tomorrow.

A visit with granddaughter Sasha at Paradise Village

NUEVO VALLARTA, Jalisco, Mexico -- Adm. Fox and I zipped up the highway from Arroyo Seco Friday for a visit to Puerto Vallarta.

We wanted to visit granddaughter Sasha, but also had to pick up a few dozen things to fix hurricane damage and also simply get supplies for the season.


With Sasha on the Paradise Village beach

Until we were on the ground in Arroyo Seco for a day or so, we weren't sure how much time we were likely going to spend, Now it seems we will be there most of the remaining eight or so weeks we expect to be here south of the border.

One of our treasure hunts has been to find replacement toilet seats. Yup, toilet seats. In the hurricane last fall, both were smashed by falling roof tiles and need to be replaced.

In the U.S., simple. In Mexico, not so.

The toilets we bought are fancy, lo-flush units that are environmentally friendly in water usage but a big carbon footprint to try to replace. We checked three likely places in the area, none of which had anything that would fit.

It would seem crazy to have to replace a toilet to get a toilet seat, but, well, it is Mexico.

Beyond that, we need yellow, bug-light light bulbs, hardware for doors and some specialty foods that we can't get in Arroyo Seco, like good refried beans. What? Refried beans not available in Arroyo Seco? Well, some are, but the amount of lard in the cans makes them delicious but less than healthy.

No matter how the treasure hunt turns out today, we head back down the highway this afternoon. Sunday is lunch on the Arroyo Seco beach and perhaps a trip to Playa Chica where the Admiral and I spent a nice afternoon two days ago - the only people on the whole stretch of beach.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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

Brace for impact! Getting ready to head back to the U.S.

PARADISE VILLAGE, Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico - We shut down the Pink Flamingo in Arroyo Seco Sunday in a flurry of last-minute items from a much longer checklist:

Close slider on Grey Goose Express II

Empty black water tank and rinse (ugh!)

Turn off electricity to both trailers

Disconnect internet modem

Hook up Mexico telephone

Put Honda(s) in bodega

Turn off water pressure

Close windows tight

and

and

and...

But we still left before noon (my deadline) and were rocketing up the highway to spend three days here in Paradise Village Resort before boarding our flight Wednesday to get back to the wilds of upstate New York and Seneca Lake. Here in Paradise, we have pools, restaurants, a beach, and the best boogie-boarding in Mexico.  

Really.

The sojourn takes us by air from Puerto Vallarta to Phoenix, Ariz. (better double-check my immigration papers quick), then to Philadelphia, Penn. (where the airport staff in the City of Brotherly Love has lost touch with that sentiment), then on to the Elmira, New York airport and then a short drive to Valois.

We leave Puerto Vallarta at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and will arrive in Valois the following day at about 1:30 p.m.

Yup, a looooong trip. And if we are lucky it will be 60 degrees when we arrive at the lake house. If we are extremely lucky. Fire up that hot tub, rapido...


Paradise Village hotel, beach and marina

The few days here are partly to decompress, partly to watch some American television (i.e. Fox News) so my blood pressure can rise slowly to the level of an Orange Alert, but also to spend some time with Granddaughter Sasha Fox (and her parents, of course). If we can wrest the nearly two-year-old away from her parents today, we will take her to the beach where she and I will build some sand castles and perhaps do some boogie-boarding.

OK, she won't boogie-board, but she loves the water. And I am teaching her how to splash people. Hey, someone has to be in charge of her education.


Sasha at the beach

Still, it is very hard for me to leave Mexico, even knowing how many friends and family we have waiting in New York in California.

The last week in Arroyo Seco - shutdown issues aside - was great, with trips to the beach, trips into La Manzanilla for lunch and Palapa Joes and Figaro's, and a fabulous welcome home party for our amigo Jose Cuevas, better known in the village as Chapon.

As we departed Sunday, our neighbor and amigo Chon closed the Pink Flamingo gates for us and I could tell he was ready to start cleaning and clearing the mess we left. I hadn't trimmed a bougainvillea or mowed the grass in weeks.

He promised that next season life would be mas tranquilo than this season and that we should not worry about anything (Mexico-wise) while we are in the U.S.

Except, he said, we should be very careful in the U.S. (his exact word was cuidado!) and be sure to come back home safely to Arroyo Seco.

Lo prometo, mi amigo, lo prometo.


Chena, Chapon, Brianda and Consuela


Sunset in La Manzanilla