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!

What's the plan...?

We fly to Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday where we'll be reunited with our motorhome Sherman. He's been waiting there for us since April! Poor guy.

I know he's been missing us, and we've been missing him!

Back in Valle de Bravo!

This is our fourth time visiting Valle de Bravo. We can't figure out why this beautiful spot isn't more on the radar of people visiting Mexico. We're only here for the weekend, but already we're saying we should have planned for longer.

Next time, it'll be for a couple of weeks!

Ruth's birthday party

The original plan for yesterday was to head to Valle de Bravo. But when our friends Paco and Oti found out that it was Ruth's birthday, they insisted on helping us celebrate! So we stayed in Toluca for one more day.

Oti took off from work early, and she and Ruth made up a birthday dinner, and a cake!

What a day we had!

But first of all...Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife Ruth! Hoping that this year is fantastic and that it will be followed by many more!

And secondly...Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends and readers. We sincerely hope that you have a lot to be thankful for this year, and that you think often of others who perhaps don't have much to be thankful for.

We are thankful for the great day that we had yesterday and that we are spending our time with good friends!