Well that was a fun parade!

Yesterday morning, we had planned on going for a walk along one of the back roads near here. But when we spoke to Sal, he said that there was going to be a parade in town starting at 9:00am, so we decided to take the little blue car into town and see what was going on.

Good thing we did! The town is only about 4,000 people, and we figure half of them were in the parade and the other half came out to watch!

Yesterday was a national holiday here in Mexico. "Dia de la Revolucion" (Day of the Revolution). So every little town around the country would have been celebrating and having a parade.

Many of the children dressed up in costume. The little guys often had "Pancho Villa" style moustaches drawn on their faces!

Every school in the area had some kind of display in the parade.

These girls were getting ready to do a dance.

Dancing in the streets!

Lots of costumes.

Cute kids!

Some of the older kids did some different displays!

Here's a short video I took of some of the music and dancing.

Every parade has to have a princess!

And a corn queen!

Yikes, watch out for those wires!

Even some fiery gymnastics. Notice the ambulance following closely behind. And the dog on the roof watching the festivities!

Ladies on horseback.

The parade lasted about an hour and a half. What a lot of fun it was. We went back to Sherman, but we think there were probably a lot of things going on in town because we could hear music at times in the afternoon and we're two kms away!

Ruth spent the afternoon watering plants and cleaning the bathrooms here at the campground. Barb is away in Chicago, so Ruth has been helping doing her chores here while Sal tends to the things he normally does. In fact, we found out that Barb's father passed away late last night so Sal will be flying to Chicago to be with her. I'll be driving him to Guadalajara airport on Friday, and we'll be looking after the place while they're gone. We're both pretty familiar with the operation here so we're happy to be able to help out while they're gone.

I spent the afternoon doing some work on the little blue car. I had noticed after our drive in the mountains the other day that the right front wheel rim was awfully hot, and that normally means there's a sticking brake caliper or something. Hiring a mechanic is very cheap here in Mexico, but I have the time, the tools, and the ambition, so why not do it myself?! So I took apart the front brakes on both sides, and sure enough there was a slider pin seized on the right front and the brake pad wasn't lining up to the rotor properly. Glad I noticed it, because that can actually cause a fire in the brakes if it gets too hot. Maybe today I'll take apart the rear brakes and clean and inspect them.

We had some more campers arrive yesterday. We've met John and Anna a couple of times here at Hacienda Contreras. This time, they've come down in their minivan all the way from Ontario on their way to the coast. So they're only staying four or five days and they're renting Barb and Sal's older fifth wheel while they're here. So we've got some more company. I expect that more people will be showing up over the next few days as well.