The Fakes Have Gone

Years ago we decided that we were tired of returning in the fall and finding nothing but weeds and dead plants. Our solution was to buy fake bamboo in Canada and put them in the pots as if real.

This worked like a charm for about six years...but this year they look fake! In fact, they were so bad that we had to remove them and plant some real ones to get us through the winter.

Excuse the photography...we got an upgraded camera from Jerry and we are still trying to figure how the heck he operated it!

The plants are called "Mother-in Law's Tongue" in English and some word I can't begin to pronounce in Spanish.  

Maybe these will survive for at least three or four months...we aren't very good with live things in pots!

Always up Hill?

Is it true that both ways on a bike ride are uphill? It seems that way to me...especially yesterday when we rode to the marina to pick up some fresh corn from the local farmer who brings it in.

My legs were burning both ways, but we did have success!

It is a pretty nice view when picking up supper.

It wasn't the easiest of days for us. When we got home we couldn't find our house keys, but fortunately Chuyita was there cleaning and we just assumed we misplaced them in my backpack. That was until we received an E Mail from someone telling us they found our keys at the corn truck [we put our E Mail address on all our personal items]. So...back we go to get them.

Later in the afternoon we decided to ride to a beach restaurant for happy hour and when we were getting ready to pay we realized that I left my wallet at home. So...back Fred goes to get money.

Nothing worked smoothly today...maybe we should have stayed home and hid inside the house. 

Work Starts

We are back in San Carlos after a two week stay in Saskatoon visiting with family. The weather in Canada was warm and comfortable, much different than it has been on previous visits.

While we were gone we had a worker repair the top edge of our stairwell and upper patio...it had been improperly installed five years ago and has been giving Fred grief every since.

The worker did the tiling but not the repainting so that was put on the agenda today....we did some sanding before the painting started. I am not allowed to do the fine work as he thinks I am a little erratic with my paint brush! Make a mess once and get chastised...make a mess twice and get banned from painting!!! Yahoo!

It will probably take him three days to finish up properly and I will use that time to repaint the cupboards...that is done with a roller and causes very few problems!

All is Well

It looks like many of the migrants have headed to the California crossings as California  is a sanctuary state and they hope for an easier entry. So, we are driving to Tucson tomorrow and Phoenix on Friday...we have a bit of shopping to complete so will take our time once in the States. IKEA here we come.

Maybe you have noticed that my pictures are lacking this year....someone took the memory card out of my camera and never bothered to tell me or replace it before we headed south. He was just "borrowing it" for a short while! And, so I hear, memory cards are very expensive to buy in Guaymas!

Publishing pictures to warmerwinters from my phone is a challenge that I don't want to face everyday so things have been pretty slow with the blog.

North Bound

We have been watching the migration of the caravan closely for the last few days to see how it affects our border crossing on November 30th.

It looks as if there will be some problems heading to Phoenix...the US army is at Nogales installing razor wire and preparing for the influx. We are debating whether to leave a day early and expect a minimum of two or three hour delay [if we are lucky and don't get caught in the truck backup which could mean 10 hours or more] or take the longer route to Lukeville and backtrack to Tucson/Phoenix.

Rumour has it that the border patrol is stopping every car on the US side and the line ups are getting pretty lengthy.

Even the southbound traffic is starting to have serious delays so that may create a problem when we return December 17th.

The only other solution we have is to fly from Hermosillo to Phoenix, overnight there and fly out as planned on the 1st.

We have our fingers crossed, hoping that this weekend's problems are mostly due to American Thanksgiving traffic, but it doesn't sound good for a smooth border crossing. We will keep monitoring the situation and see what is best for us.

Visitor

We had a visitor last week and he was not someone I want to see again. We have been repeatedly warned not to leave our shoes/sandals outside and to turn them upside down when stored in the house.

I follow these rules quite faithfully, but Fred has never seen the need for them....until last weekend when he was putting on his sandals after a night of outdoors. This scorpion showed up and he was a slippery little thing to catch!

Not a Particularly Great Arrival

We made excellent time from Green Valley and were in San Carlos by noon. At 2:15 we were finished unloading the car...not everything was in its place but at least it was out of the car.

Around 4:00 we went to a neighbour's house to gain access to their Internet so we could E Mail family about our arrival. We weren't gone long, but it was long enough for a thief to enter the house and grab my wallet which had both ATMs and both drivers licenses. I had a small amount of cash in my wallet so that was gone, but the big haul for him was from our safe where he found 15, 000 P [about 1200 Cdn].

Because we were not more than 60 feet from out front door we didn't lock up so the theft is partially on our shoulders. Our neighbours say that this is only the second time they have heard of a theft in Tecalai in 15 years...damn, it had to be us!

The thief left our passports, tourist visas and all of our credit cards. He only had eyes for pesos...he left behind Canadian money and a fair amount of US cash.

We assumed that he would dispose of my wallet as soon as possible so we, along with neighbours, started a search and just by luck we found a wallet at the bottom of a bag of leaves. Not my wallet, but the wallet of our 97 year old back door neighbour....he wasn't stopping at just one house!

The police became involved and now we have to spend precious time in the police station. Darn again!

A few years ago, I applied for a third ATM through the Prairie Centre Credit Union just in case something like this happened...today we used it just to make sure it worked. So, we will be fine as long as the PCCU doesn't shut that one down too on Monday.

We are going to try to replace our ATMs, health cards and drivers licences through the Internet and phone system, but just in case we can't....Adelle, be ready for a phone call!

Even if they do, neighbours and friends have offered to get us cash and with E Transferring it will be easy to repay.

On a pleasant note, it took Telmex less than 24 hours to get our Internet up and running compared to their usual 8 days. No phone yet, but we are hoping!