Blowhole at the waterfront of Xcaret Park near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Toluca on December 24th!

Friday, December 5, 2014

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)!

I had been driving slowly anyhow, but I had to hit the brakes hard to avoid hitting the tope. Something went funny in the brakes. I did manage to slow down enough that we didn't do any damage going over the bump, but now the pedal drops too close to the floor and stopping power is substantially reduced. Still, we were able to carry on, but something is not right and will require some inspection.

Stopped at the Pemex gas station just south of Bucerias heading towards Puerto Vallarta.

Sherman's tank is rated to hold 228 liters (60 gallons) and I asked the pump attendant to fill it up. It took 192 litres (51 gallons), so it was definitely getting close to empty. While the tank was filling, he checked the air in all the tires and topped them up to 60 psi. Every gas pump in Mexico has air available right at the pump, and it's a very high tech system. The guy sets a digital gauge at 60, and the pump dings and stops automatically. No overfilling. I double checked with my own digital gauge, and it was bang on. Very neat!

The price of gas continues to rise here in Mexico. It's now at 13.22 pesos per liter. (It was 7 pesos per litre when we first came here six years ago!) At current exchange rates, that's $1.15 CAN per liter, or about $3.75 USD per gallon. The recent drop in the world price of oil has made gasoline cheaper in Canada and the U.S., but hasn't affected the government set price of fuel here.

Anyhow, the bill was 2,541 pesos, or about $221 CAN. Yikes.

Then it was off to the grocery store. It's a huge MEGA superstore and caters to the gringos and expats living in Bucerias. But it has pretty much everything, and Sherman's cupboards were bare!

We bought a few extras too. Such as an electric orange juicer! Only 138 pesos ($12.00)!

Oranges are cheap in Mexico. 

Making fresh squeezed OJ!

And, we had to stock up on booze. Rum, wine, and beer. A big 1.75 liter bottle of rum, 8 liters of wine, and 24 bottles of beer. Total price of  720 pesos ($63 CAN). I love Mexico. The bottle of rum alone would have been $50 in Canada!

And then it was food. 1,700 pesos ($147 CAN ) for food. Our cart was full!

And, a few other miscellaneous items. Our total bill was 2,785 pesos ($242 CAN). Yikes...again.

But, we're all stocked up for a few days.

Another motorhome has pulled in and we met with Patty and Rick from Washington during happy hour yesterday. They're moving down to a ranch south of here and have all of their worldly belongings with them. And four dogs! Two little tiny ones, and two six month old large ones. Yikes...yet again!

We had a moment of panic yesterday afternoon. I had a box of empty beer bottles sitting up against the wall beside where Ruth's feet would go when she's in passenger mode. I moved the box away from the wall, and there were hundreds of ants living there. I disturbed their home, and they started to scatter! I can't believe it didn't disturb them when we drove in to get the groceries, but it didn't. Now though, they were not happy. And the were fairly big ones...red and black. 

I grabbed the dustbuster vacuum and started sucking them up. It took a while, but we got most of them. A few went up under the dash, and we spent yesterday evening killing the stragglers who appeared. I'm sure there will be a few more that will show their faces today.

Patty and Rick had a few of those "ant hotel" bait traps and gave us one. Won't hurt, so we'll leave it there for a week or so just to be sure.

Nice sky at 7:00am this morning.

Another great deal on Amazon.com. This pocket sized charger for your iPhone or other has never been cheaper. It will recharge your phone up to five times before needing to be recharged itself.



22 comments:

  1. Sherman must be very happy with a fabulous view like that. Such a beautiful sky. Welcome back to the world of Full time RVing and $200+ gasoline bills. Your day sounds about like ours if we have to fill up Winnona's tank and get groceries to fill up our own. Hope the brakes thing is an easy fix. Ruth you are so lucky to have your own personal mechanic to take care of things like that.

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    1. Yes, I am sure he is pretty happy with this view, it is a gorgeous one!

      Kevin is able to do a lot of the work himself but sometimes we have to break down and pay to have the work done because he only has limited tools and some of the jobs are just to big for him to do himself without them. We have someone coming over tomorrow morning to have a look at them and see if he will be able to repair them right here in the campground.

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  2. Ants! I can cope with almost anything in a home but ants. Glad to hear they're under control and Sherman's almost back in tip top condition. Fingers crossed the brakes won't max out the budget.

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    1. Yep, it wasn't much fun seeing all of them scattering around and us trying to vacuum them up as fast as we can as well as squashing the ones that got past the vacuum. Looks like we did a good job because we have hardly see any today. Hoping there aren't more hiding somewhere!

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  3. Gas here on Vancouver Island (Comox) was 1.09 yesterday - cheapest I have seen since moving here as we are typically more expensive than places like Alberta. Hope the break issue gets sorted. Cheers

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    1. Nice to see the gas prices coming down in Canada, just wish they were a little lower here, oh well can't have everything! We are happy to have the sunshine instead. :-)

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  4. That brake issue would make me a nervous wreck.

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    1. Kevin has a very good idea on what he can and can't do when driving. We were lucky we didn't have to far to go either. We have someone coming over tomorrow to hopefully get them all fixed up.

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  5. Oh man. I know someone who would have been FREAKING OUT at the sight of those ants. Funny that the price of gas is going up in Mexico, yet is dropping here in Canada. Who knew?

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    1. Kevin was freaking out about them himself. His allergy to bee stings also seems to affect him when we gets ant bites so he was doing quite a dance as he was vacuuming them up and trying to avoid any of them getting on him.

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  6. Hope the brake issue is easily resolved. Brakes do come in handy once and a while... :cD

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    1. We have a pin prick leak in the brake line and that is what caused our problem. Unfortunately Kevin doesn't have the tools to fix it but we do have someone coming over tomorrow morning who will hopefully be able to do the work.

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  7. You should be good to go for a while now, nice to be home again I bet. Home cooking and all.
    Good luck with Sherman's brakes sounds to me like it could be a broken brake line.

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    1. Yep, we have a small hole in the brake line. Hoping that we will have it all fixed up tomorrow morning.

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  8. An electric orange juicer - hmmmm - might have to get us one! We don't RV anymore but $$$ on food and gas are still in our lives. Sounds like you are getting Sherman organized and back in order. Hope the brakes fix is easily fixable.

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    1. The small juicer worked great!

      You are right Connie and Barry, you don't have to have an RV to have all those expenses. Everyone still needs gas and food. Sherman is slowly starting to get all cleaned up but the outside will certainly take a bit of time and muscle.

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  9. Ouch, it's always painful when you have to reprovision. But that is a heck of a good price for all that booze.
    Gas here in Ottawa is 1.03! 

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    1. Yes, shopping should be a little more manageable from this point on. We don't drink in the summer, mostly because of the price of booze in Canada so we make up for it in the winter. :-)

      Great price on the gas there!

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  10. All the other low prices in Mexico make up for the fuel price. You'll make up for it as you head north. Some places are reporting $1.98 a gallon. Send us some when you get there :)

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    1. Yes, Chris we do make up for it on other things plus we get all this great sunshine and warm temperatures. Definitely worth every penny, sorry every peso!

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