Meeting Tioga George!

What a great day we had yesterday. We went in to town for a parade in the morning, and then we had a good hike with beautiful views in the afternoon.

And, popular internet personalities Ms. Tioga and George showed up at Hacienda Contreras RV Park!

Yesterday was Benito Juarez day here in Mexico, and although it is officially celebrated on the third Monday of March (last Monday) many communities also celebrate on the day itself. Our local town of Valle de Juarez has a great community spirit and so they take any opportunity to have a parade!

Yesterday's parade theme was do do with the environment. We've seen a lot of changes over the last six years here in Mexico, and one of them is to do with recycling and garbage. It will take a quite a few years yet to change the attitude of many people, but you can see they are making an effort.

Lots of school kids in the parade. Not sure why they were dressed up like they were ready for Halloween!

The recycling float. Across the top it says "A Dignified Environment for Everyone".

If you have a parade, you have to have a parade princess!

And some music and horses.

That's a fancy horse! There's Nancy on the other side of the street. Is she admiring the horse, or the guy riding the horse. Hmmm...

After the parade, we went to the central plaza and bought a bag of eggs. Yep, you many of the small stores sell eggs by weight. So we bought a dozen eggs. They put them in a plastic bag for you and weigh them. Our eggs came to 24 pesos ($2.00). They seemed a little larger than normal! Then, we carefully carry the eggs home!

After lunch, one of the other campers, Renate, came with us on a hike. She's 70 years old, so we weren't sure how she would do because a lot of the hike is uphill...but with a couple of rest stops she had no problem at all. She had no problem, but her boots had some problems!

Ruth and Renate overlooking the valley.

This big cactus was in full bloom.

Ruth and Renate.

Up near the top, we found an area where they have cleared a lot of land and planted aguacates (avocados). What a lot of work clearing the land! There must be money in the avocado growing business because they had even built a huge water reservoir at the top to supply water to the avocado trees.

There was a family of puppies there to greet us!

New avocado orchard.

Uh oh. I think Renate needs a new pair of shoes!

Three steps later, the entire sole fell off! Renate said she's had these walking shoes since 1970!!

Kevin, and a great view looking back towards Valle de Juarez.

We had hiked for about two hours and it was beautiful weather. When we returned, we were excited to see that Tioga George had arrived at Hacienda Contreras!

Some of you will know that Tioga George was the original Mexico RV'ing vagabond. Also one of the first RV'ers to write a blog about his adventures. He and his motorhome, affectionately known as "Ms. Tioga" have been traveling North America (and especially Mexico) for about 10 years! 

We started reading George's blog shortly after we first came to Mexico 6 years ago. We wanted to follow in his footsteps and enjoyed reading about the many places he saw. He liked to boondock a lot and had a great solar panel setup as he and Ms. Tioga set out to find adventure exploring Mexico. But we never crossed paths until now!

George, Ruth, and Kevin with Ms. Tioga.

You can find Tioga George's blog here... http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/