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!

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!