Parral, Chihuahua. Another city worth a visit.

We only had a short drive yesterday. From Pancho Villa's hacienda in Canutillo, Durango we would drive north about 80 kms (50 miles), crossing the border from the state of Durango into the state of Chihuahua to the outskirts of the city of Parral. Should only take an hour or so, right?

Wrong.

Shake, rattle, and roll!

We were a little late hitting the road yesterday morning because they locked the gate at the western movie set parking lot. Of course it's a good thing that they locked it...only problem was that we had to wait for the guy to unlock it!

Still...we were on the road before 10:00am. With a bit of a long drive ahead us...

The day did not start off well...

But thankfully it ended up okay.

You'll remember that we had been parked up for two nights at the back of the parking lot at the City Express Hotel in the eastern part of the city of Durango. We were getting ready to head out relatively early yesterday morning. We were pretty much all set to go, and I turned the key to fire up the engine.

Nothing but a "clunk"!

The city of Durango, Mexico. Worth a visit!

I can't believe that people from the rest of North America don't visit the city of Durango, Mexico. For some reason, it's not on the traveler's radar. I know why RV'ers don't stop on their way south, it's because there are no RV parks in or near the city.

But that doesn't stop us!

Into the city of Durango!

Up around 7:30am yesterday morning. Put the furnace on for about 45 minutes to take the chill off until the sun started warming things up. We had a couple of storms pass through overnight and even had some hail beating down on the roof.

But we woke up to blue skies and sunshine.

Fixin' Friday!

(Third blog post of the day! If you missed the previous two, you might want to read them first.)

Yesterday was "fix it" day!

Once again, we didn't get up until almost 8:00am. This is unprecedented for us. We're almost always up between 6:30am and 7:00am. I know, we had a one hour time change that we're maybe still getting used to. And, it was another chilly night.

I got up and put the furnace on, but crawled back into bed for another 15 minutes while things warmed up a little.

New Year's Day. Parque Ecologico El Tecuan.

We slept in this morning. Possibly something to do with the one hour time change, but more likely to do with the fact that it was a little chilly and we really didn't want to get out of bed!

We figured that we would make a quick hot drink and get on the road right away, letting the engine warm up the interior. So we got things ready and fired up the motor. When it was a little warmed up, I switched on the heater fan.

Nothing.

December Expenses

Definitely a more expensive month than we had planned. We had a string of bad luck with things going wrong, and then Ruth's tooth problems towards the end of the month to top it all off!

I know...many people will think that $1,860 CDN is not a bad month considering where we were and what we did. But still, we're about $500 higher than we should have been.

Let's take a look at the breakdown...

Back in the mountains!

What a day we had! We drove the old Espinazo del Diablo (Devil's Backbone) highway that runs from Mazatlan to Durango. There is a new toll highway that opened a year ago, but it's very expensive and apparently the road surface isn't in very good condition, so we decided to take the old twisty windy free road instead.

And we're glad that we did...what fantastic scenery!

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.