It's a Mess

Hi Diane!

It has been quite awhile since my last blog entry so now I must try to catch up.

We were very busy in San Carlos getting our house ready for our renters. We had to move all our personal items into the spare bedroom to make room for Sandy and Bill’s stuff. We were trying to pack the 5th wheel at the same time so things didn’t always run smoothly.

I am a little uncomfortable having people in my house so I think this is a one time thing. Sandy and Bill are great people so this decision is not a reflection on them…just my personal feelings.

While doing this rearranging of clothes, food and “stuff” we developed a problem with the outside paint on the house. The rains from the hurricane this fall did more damage than we first thought so we had to hire a person to come in and chip away the damaged paint and cement and redo parts of the walls.

Sandwiched in there somewhere was a day for bottling Gloria’s chocolate wine, two evenings of hosting happy hours for friends out of the park and finally one large farewell dinner at a new restaurant….yes, it was chilly!

Finally on Monday we started the three day drive to Lo de Marcos, our home for the next three months [or shorter if Don and Adelle come to San Carlos]. The roads didn’t make for a very smooth ride nor did the narrow mountainside hairpin curves.

Even so, we made the trek quite easily. We spent the first night in a Pemex station [gas station] compound with four other RV units and multiple trucks. The compound is fenced and has a security guard on 24 hours so we were comfortable and safe.

What better way to spend time in a gas station compound than to have a happy hour with the friends we were travelling with!

Our second night was in Mazatlan at an American owned RV Park that is hugely overpriced, but very convenient for the trip south. 

We paid around $200 Cdn for the tolls roads to Lo de Marcos and it is well worth the money not to have to slow down for every small Mexican village, all with five or six topes. 

The truck and 5th wheel both survived the potholed roads….much better than our nerves! They are working on the roads and in twenty years or so they should have them all cemented. 

Fred is so much like his mom, but every once in a while his dad shows through…like when he made friends with a complete stranger at a Pemex Station farther south…an armed security guard!

We arrived in La Parota RV Park around 2:00 on Wednesday and after doing some visiting with old friends we tried to level the Jayco. We had promised ourselves that we would not unhook the unit until we were absolutely certain we were placed where we wanted to stay for the duration. We did quite well in that regard and after 24 hours we are still pleased that the fridge door and the bathroom door don’t swing open. Those, by the way, are two of the best indicators of levelness [is there such a word as levelness?]

Today we tried to get the inside in some sort of order before putting up the shade over the fridge. The sun and heat can be quite brutal so everyone tries to keep the side of the RV covered by some sort of tarp.

The more we worked outside the messier our spot became. Try as we might, we just couldn’t seem to get things in place. Eventually we were able to hide everything in the belly of the unit waiting for another day to get some organization to this place.