Fridge back on line, but dental work not finished yet...

First, the good news. Our fridge is cooling once again!

What a job it was to figure out the problem though. It was driving me crazy because it didn't make any sense. I would actually wake up at night thinking about it because I felt like I was missing something. It took a lot of work today, but eventually I fixed the problem.

Bad refrigerator. But a good dentist!

Yes, we have a bad refrigerator. But it is certainly more important to have a good dentist!

The gas burner on the fridge has been giving us problems for the past week. It was getting worse, and yesterday I took it apart yet again when it got to the point that it wouldn't effectively keep the contents cold.

Off to the dentist...

We were due for a lazy day yesterday, so that's exactly what we had.

Got up fairly early, around 6:30am and Ruth started by baking some chocolate chip cookies while I was writing the blog post. Nothing like the smell of fresh baked goodies first thing in the morning!

Into Mazatlan...yet again!

We woke up yesterday morning to a bad inverter and a bad power supply for Ruth's little laptop. So that's the reason yesterday's blog post was late! You can read it here if you missed it.

So the number one project yesterday morning was to get our power and our laptop working again...

I guess we're here for a few more days!

We had planned on being here at Isla de la Piedra for three nights. That turned into four, and now it's going to be a full week!

Ruth has a molar that's been bothering her and getting worse. Yes, it's the same tooth that we tried to have fixed in Toluca, although our dentist friend there had said the tooth was cracked and a temporary repair might or might not work. Turns out that it didn't work, so it was off to the dentist yesterday!

Great views of Mazatlan, and a dead inverter!

Christmas day yesterday, and what did we do? We went for a hike! And of course we had a delicious Christmas dinner get together with a few of the folks at the RV park here.

Chris and Juan came over to where we're parked at around 10:00am, and we walked over to the panga (water taxi) to get over to the other side of the port.

Christmas on the Road

Merry Christmas!

Just a little different post today as we take a look back at the places we've spent Christmas day since leaving Ottawa in the fall of 2007.

Arrived at Isla de la Piedra, Mazatlan

We've been to Mazatlan a couple of times before, and we've been to Isla de la Piedra once before, but without the motorhome. This time, we're staying at Isla de la Piedra with the motorhome, but we have no interest in going into the city of Mazatlan itself.

A bit of an interesting drive to get here, and not one that we'll ever make again!

Yesterday was a perfect example.

Yesterday was a perfect example of how we travel with the motorhome. We like to depart early, travel no more than 200 kms (120 miles) in a day, and be parked up at our overnight spot before 2:00pm.

And that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Bugs and beach

That's about how our day went yesterday. The sand fleas and/or noseeums are so bad, that you can't really sit outside your RV and enjoy the fresh air. And if you sit inside, you had better close up all the windows because those little buggers will come right through your screens and attack you.

And they're so tiny that you won't even see it coming.

A short distance...but a long drive!

When you're driving an RV in Mexico, you have to be patient. You have to realize that you won't get anywhere fast. Even on the toll highways, it makes sense to take your time. And when you're taking secondary roads, you have no choice but to take your time!

Yesterday, we did 95 kms (59 miles) and driving non-stop it took us almost two and a half hours.

RV Parks in Lo de Marcos

At last count, there were around 8 or 9 different RV parks in the little town of Lo de Marcos. The other day we showed you the granddaddy of them all, the fully equipped Tlaquepaque Resort. We have seen all of the other parks in the area, and chose what we think is the best of the rest.

So, here's a look at where we've been for the last two nights...the La Parota RV Park.

Moving...but very slowly!

On Wednesday, we made it to Lo de Marcos. A whole 18 kms (11 miles) up the coast!

Not that we're in any rush. But we are wanting to make it to Mazatlan for Christmas, and we want to stop in San Blas for a night or two. So we can't linger too long in one spot. Still, we're now on our fourth different overnight stop and we've only traveled 66 kms (41 miles).

Tlaquepaque Bungalows and RV Resort

Yep, we spent the night at an RV Resort. One of the very few actual full service RV parks in Mexico. Two swimming pools, beautifully manicured grounds, lots of activities, good wi-fi, and 30 amp electricity, and it's right on a great section of beach in a quiet Mexican town!

This place has it all.

The busy beach town of Sayulita

We hit the road yesterday morning at about 10:30am. We were headed for Sayulita, which is only about 22 kms (13 miles) away! But we weren't positive that's where we were going to spend the night, so wanted to get there fairly early just in case we had to move on.

We love short driving days...but this is pretty short!

We're on the road!

But before we could move the motorhome, we had to move the puppies! You'll remember that six puppies were born underneath Sherman just over a week ago. Mom had made a sort of a nest under there, and they were quite happy.

But, we had to get on the road so Garry built her a new nest.

There's a scorpion in the motorhome!

So I had just gone to bed last night, and Ruth was on the computer. I heard a bit of a shriek and Ruth saying "Kevin, there's a scorpion on the floor!".

Sure enough, there was a scorpion.

How does a scorpion find it's way into the motorhome?? Can't quite figure that out!

Picked up some deals!

Busy day yesterday. We didn't really plan on it, but we ended up doing a bunch of shopping. One of the other campers here, Rick from Washington, was going in to the Costco store in Puerto Vallarta and we were going to take the bus in anyhow so he offered us a ride. We ended up just staying with him and picked up a few items at each stop.

We were gone almost four hours!

Busloads of kids have arrived!

It rained yesterday morning, which is odd for this time of year. The dry season has begun, and usually that means no rain for months at a time. But it had cleared up by 10:00am, and we decided to go for a walk.

One of the things we like about this area is that there are lots of country trails to walk on that surround the farm fields.

Rancho Altarose RV Park

We really like it here. We're out in the country, and yet we're only 25 kms (15 miles) from Puerto Vallarta. It's quiet, and we have beautiful views of the hills from our side window. Occasionally a tractor, or a couple of guys on horseback will go down the road beside us.

It's about 20 minutes to walk in to town.

Figuring our route to Arizona

We had a good day yesterday!

We had been in contact with a couple from Louisiana. Pat and Geraldine had never driven in Mexico, but they were prepared to ignore the negative American media reports and not listen to the friends who called them crazy. They wanted to drive their little Toyota motorhome to Mexico! So we had several emails back and forth and we gave them some tips. Fortunately, they also contacted someone to travel with, and they made their way from the Texas border down here to Puerto Vallarta area.

Tilley Clothing Update

Thought we should give you an update on how we're doing with our Tilley clothing. We've now had our hats, socks, and underwear for over a year, so lets start with them first.

Around this time last year, one of Ruth's socks got a hole in it. Just a small one, and we think that she snagged it on something. The hole hasn't become any larger, and the socks are not showing any signs of wearing out.

Puerto Vallarta doesn't do it for us...

Yes, the big tourist city of Puerto Vallarta. People typically spend thousands of dollars to come here and spend a week or two vacationing in the sun. Many come for the entire winter. There are two Walmart Supercenters, a Sam's Club, a Costco, a Home Depot among all the other big box stores. And, you don't even have to know any Spanish to get by here. Walking down the malecon, everybody will talk to you in English. Most people simply love it!

Us? Not so much!

Puppies - and then there were six!

At the time I wrote yesterday morning's post, there were two new born puppies living under our motorhome.  As the morning progressed, the number of puppies steadily grew.

I watched the last one being born at 12:30pm. And then there were six!

We have puppies!

They were born last night...or maybe even this morning. And where were they born?

Underneath our motorhome!

Good thing we're not in a rush to go anywhere...

Brake problem diagnosed!

I spent some time yesterday morning crawling around underneath Sherman trying to diagnose his brake problem, and sure enough I spotted the cause.

The brake line running along the side of the frame rail has developed a little pinhole leak.

Well, that was an expensive day...

As I expected, Sherman fired right up. Even after sitting for eight months or so, all I had to do was turn the key and he was ready to go!

We wanted to take Sherman for a drive and see if everything was okay. And, we needed to do a big grocery shop. And, I had left Sherman's gas tank empty, so we needed to stop for gas and top up the air in the tires.

Everything was going smoothly until we didn't see a tope (speed bump)!

Some serious motorhome cleanup!

Sitting for 7 months in the humidity down here near Puerto Vallarta isn't very good for a motorhome. We're 15 kms inland from the ocean, so we're not worried about salt. But the humidity and rain over the summer causes stuff to start growing on the exterior.

It was not nice seeing poor Sherman in this state, so we got right to cleaning things up!

We're back in our motorhome!

Spent most of the last two hours trying to write a blog post. Unfortunately it seems that our cellular internet stick isn't making a very good connection this morning here at Altarose Rancho RV Park.

So, not sure when we'll get this posted. On top of that, I can't get Chrome to open up, so am trying to work it with Internet Explorer and that's not going so well either!

But on the bright side...we're back in our motorhome!

All we do is eat and laugh!

Ruth made a comment yesterday that when we're visiting our friends Paco and Oti, all we do is eat and laugh. Yep, that's pretty much true.

Yesterday morning we cleaned up the house where we were staying for the weekend. The goal was to leave it in better shape than when we arrived. But one thing screwed up!

Busy Sunday in Valle de Bravo

We relaxed for the morning, then after lunch we took the collectivo taxi into Valle de Bravo. A "collectivo taxi" is a taxi that runs a regular route, but it's shared with other people who it stops to pick up along the way. It's just a cheaper version of a taxi. From where we are, it costs 10 pesos ($0.87) each to take the collectivo taxi, whereas if we flagged down a private taxi it would cost 50 pesos ($4.35) in total.

Made it into town, and traffic was bad...so we got out and walked!