It's All About the Boots Now

Buen dia!
I have been home for four days and am loving the balmy Mexico weather after a week in Breckenridge, Colorado with KD.
Below is this morning's gorgeous sunrise.




Breckenridge is not only a snow covered little fairy land covered with thousands of tiny white lights, it is also a ten thousand foot wonder land of lodge pole pines, cedar, fir and aspen. The photo below is what I woke to each morning. It is both breath taking and breathless. The scenery is magical but I was out of breath the moment I hit Denver. By Day Four I was somewhat acclimated, but it was often a real effort to get out of the car and into Starbucks.


Here is the Breckenridge Starbucks. Like most of the businesses, it is an older Victorian house with fireplaces and wood floors. I loved going in here every morning with KD, plugging in her lap top and making wedding plans. There were also a few nights when she went to the gym and I hunkered down in an overstuffed chair by the fire with a few other late night regulars. I don't think they came to know me by my drink though, instead it was my 1980's dark green Columbia jacket which really stood out against all the beautiful snug and sexy ski parkas in there.When we weren't busy discovering how to make paper flowers, looking at table top arrangements, or reading about baking a high altitude four level cake, an idea we decided to ditch by the way, we were taking in the sights. Below we are on the gondola which got stuck on the cable for about half an hour. KD joked about the unlucky person at the top who could not make it out the gondola door in time, until I reminded her of the day she could not get off the lift at Whistler and rode the chair around the turn and had to jump off into snow over her seven year old head. Then we laughed and the gondola suddenly lurched forward on its merry way.




We shopped all the Main Street stores where I fell in love with cowboy boots but wisely decided against paying four hundred for a pair when I live in leather country and can get a smart green pair for less than fifty.


We made several trips to the outdoor church where KD and Darin will get married in July. Nestled under the tall evergreen trees, a small wooden platform seems to float in the ankle deep snow. Concrete benches curve into an amphitheater covered in marshmallow white drifts and a bubbling creek runs through the bowl and under the platform to the sparkling river. It is a lovely setting in the winter and I look forward to seeing it in summer, too.

On Saturday, late in the afternoon and half way through the third appointment in Denver, she said yes to the dress. When she came out of the dressing room (and by now everyone was watching her on her fifth dress), not an eye was dry. It was pretty obvious the dress was made just for her and her own sparkling eyes left no doubt.

I can tell you this much. Yes, she is wearing those cowboy boots with her dress and yes, her bridesmaids are wearing their cowboy boots and I am still on the fence, thinking yes, I can wear cowboy boots, no I can't, yes, I can. I will let you know which way I fall..........


Que le vaya bien!!!!!
Linda lou

Have Dramamine, Will Travel.................

It's official! KD and Darin are planning a Rocky Mountain July wedding.

We are so excited for them and what a new adventure for us.............in-laws, wow. There must be a book on how to be an in-law. I will check in to it.

On their Facebook pages they have hundreds of photos that show them dressed up and so handsome and beautiful, smiling and kissing and laughing, and I tried to load them here and blogger said, huh, huh.

So here are a few wet photos I took of them in Mazatlan. Wet, but happy.

Meanwhile, next week I will most likely have some terrific photos of them to share with you.
Because?
Because I am going to do something I said I would never, ever, ever do again.

Yep, I bought a bus ticket. I leave manana for Tucson and then, a flight to Denver, where KD and I will spend the week wedding planning and wedding dress shopping.

So, I am leaving Senor and the cat behind with a loaf of bread the neighbor baked and a large jar of peanut butter.

I have tucked a tube of dramamine in my back pack and am ready to roll!
Hasta la vista, baby.......................linda lou

Alamos, Just a Nice Place to Come Home To

Hola.
It has been awhile! It took me a moment to remember my blog password. It took even longer to recall all the blog steps for uploading photos.

Our road trip was long, but it was very scenic. We traveled through western Arizona and southern California, where we had not been before. Most eventful was being able to take a different border crossing at Lukeville, where we went straight onto a peaceful two lane highway through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park.

It was certainly worth it to go and see Ian and his three pound mini cat who is a little replica of Cookies. It was also wonderful to see good friends.

While in the Seattle area, we discovered a lack of connection. Maybe it was the traffic, or all the people rushing around, or could it have been the snarly sales clerks. We said hello to people we did not know and got vacant stares. We smiled at strangers and saw no response. So we quickly came to realize, it isn't home anymore. We have outgrown it.

That does not mean we won't go back and visit again. If that is where Ian is, that is where we will go.

While we were gone, Humberto took down the wall beneath the big beam and put it out in the yard.



These ladrillos are around eighty years old. You can see the straw and sticks and rocks that were mixed in with the dirt. I flipped over a few here and there looking for coins or anything exciting that whoever made them might have decided to include, but nada, nada thing. Senor says the first big rain will take care of all this mess and these ladrillos will sink right into the ground. That really just means they will be here until next summer.

We have been home for a week, just long enough to walk in our barrio and see people taking their time, laughing, smiling, enjoying themselves. Nothing too fast paced, just warm, simple days filled with children playing, roosters crowing, dogs barking.

The new year was filled with fiestas. Senor and I took it all in from the portal, listening to the sounds. There were fiestas for several days before and fiestas for several days after. Fireworks, music, and dancing, all over town. Last night things finally calmed down.

Perhaps town will remain quiet until FAOT arrives on the twentieth. If you don't have plans, you may just want to put this on your January to do.

http://www.festivalortiztirado.gob.mx/

Even though it will mean a new round of fiestas, I really can't think of a nicer place to come home to.
Que le vaya bien.................linda lou

A Little Road Trip

Hola!

There is a flock of about forty little fat, fast flying green parakeets that make Alamos their home. I have always been envious when I hear people say...............oh, the parakeets were in my trees yesterday........or.................the parakeets flew over my house this morning.

I was fortunate to be at a friend's casa one afternoon, swimming with her in her huge pool which overlooks the town of Alamos and we could hear the parakeets coming. They are loud, raucous, unafraid to let their presence be known. They flew about very low right over the pool and my eyes were as big as dinner plates.

Well, they are now living in the empty field next to us, they are snoozing in our amapa, they are dining on the asador and we are not the only ones delighted. Cookies hears them flying and tweeting in the field next door and sits quietly, waiting for them to swoosh down for a bite of corn or a quick siesta in the trees. Of course, they are very, very fast, and there is absolutely no way a twenty-three pound Cookies could ever harm one. They fly much like a flock of teals, weaving in and out, turning upside down and rolling during flight. In the photo above I caught a few of them being still for about five seconds, then they were in flight again, back to the trees of new old Jesus' place, over to the grill, out into the field, up into the mesquite, a non stop blur of bright green feathers. Look closely and you may see at least three of them.

Who knows how long they will stay, but I consider them ours, for awhile.

Hopefully they will still be around in late December, when we return from our road trip.
Yes! Our road trip. We are going to Seattle to visit Ian for his birthday and Christmas. And there is no way to describe my feelings. We have not seen him in a year.

Yes, I think it will be a little strange, we might feel a little awkward on our first trip back to the land we came from three and a half years ago, the place where we lived for over thirty years, had our home, our jobs, raised KD and Ian, fished and played soccer, hunted for ducks, had our Christmas party, picked our strawberries and pumpkins. I expect to be somewhat melancholy, but not much. They are such wonderful memories, but we have moved on. And when we are done, I will look forward to coming home.

So, Senor and I will do this by car. A little road trip adventure, up into Arizona and then, we will head west to California and Highway 5, where we will continue north to visit what is one of the most beautiful places on earth, the Pacific Northwest.

In Phoenix, I will feel like Santa Claus as I rush to the post office to ship a lot of packages free for people who have been shopping with me at the Glasspondstudio. There is still time, if there is a beautiful glass jewel you want to purchase for yourself or as a last minute stocking stuffer for someone else. Just take the etsy link http://glasspondstudio.etsy.com/ and shop. Thank you to all of you who did purchase glass jewels from me this week for the holidays.

We are looking forward to this fun little road trip adventure and hopefully will find time to post about it as we go.
And while we are gone we will leave Cookies to babysit the little green parakeets.........
Que le vaya bien and Feliz Navidad! Linda lou

Thank you, Trinidad

Hola. I went to the Post Office this morning.

There was a Christmas card in our box. It has made my day. If you recall, each year I ask people to send us a Christmas card. Perhaps I do this because Christmases have been tough. I miss the kids, I miss our tree, I miss our Christmas party, I could go on and on. Well I am not going to bore you with that now. I promise I will save it for another day.

But I have been working hard on new traditions. One has been asking for cards.
And people actually do send cards. I think we get most of them, but for some reason I never get my mother's.

For two years we have received a card from a lady we don't know, but she sends a long letter and photos of her family, very nice. I like that. Her son is trying to choose colleges in Georgia. She is worried, the family lives in Maine.

My friend, Anne, whom we have received a card from for over twenty years, will hopefully send her fourth card to Mexico this year. Her family is grown and I am jealous they still get together, with their animals, and take a family photo.
Last year someone sent a photo of a dog. Postmarked Pennsylvania, nothing but the photo, a chihuahua. That was nice. I am not particular. Just don't send me anything I would not want to see.

I have not even put out the call for cards this year. But there it was, the single envelope in our box. It comes from Trinidad, who blogs from Nayarit, where she lives with her husband, Beto. She remembered that I always ask for Christmas cards and sent one to us. Thank you, Trinidad! You can see her blog at www.livinginnayarit.blogspot.com/



We returned from our US Thanksgiving trip late Wednesday night, after fourteen hours on the return bus which was also not the express bus. Our seats were in the middle of the bus and around Hermosillo, I was wishing I had some dramamine. After a full recovery day I have concluded that I don't really like riding the bus. So, no need to do that again. Besides we like our little car. We like stopping when we want, turning right instead of left if it feels good and turning around if we think we missed something extraordinary.

While we were gone Humberto dug a trench in a half circle outside the portal. A little ladrillo retaining wall will be built here, just a small, low extension of the portal floor. It will be retaining all the adobe that will come down with this wall.

I am hoping this happens soon. I need to have this wall down.
Senor asks............where do you want the electrical plugs in here and for what......................i say............ i need the wall down so i can experience the vast roominess of the room in order to make those decisions.
So I am hoping Humberto takes a huge hammer to that wall very soon, then scoops the mess right off the floor and into the little half circle. Nice.

Tomorrow I am going to make a little card holder in expectations of all our Christmas cards. Thank you, Trinidad, for sending us our first Christmas card!

Hats and Hair

Hola! Buenas tardes!
Now, don't remind me if it is buenas or buenos. Regardless, I am never going to remember. What I do know is it is the afternoon............

And this morning was not quiet. Horses were going down our street before dawn and while it was a beautiful sound, that is what kept me awake.

The horses were coming down, with their riders, from the ranch country. Beyond the Chalaton barrio is ranch land and the campo, countryside. Many people in town keep their horses up there, so they spent a great deal of time getting up there and back down to town for the Dia de Revolucion parade.

I always enjoy going to this parade, and as I have said many times, it's the ninos who are the most fun to photograph. Since this will my be fourth time to post photos from the parade I have decide to just do something different. If you want to see every school banner and the children marching in their uniforms, every sports team, all the drill teams, the military, the bands, the cannon, all the pyramids, the dancing children, the karate wood block choppers, the cyclists AND the ten teams of cheerleaders, you can re visit the past posts from the Day of the Revolution, November twentieth, or look in the labels to the right where you should find them under events or celebrations, but today you will see.............................. hats and hair.

















and there was a lot of it..................
The hats, of course, that everyone goes to the parade to see are those of the vaqueros and their caballos. The photo above is only a small sampling of the sea of white hats that continues down the street. They always bring up the end of a parade with a dramatic entrance. This is what people go to the parade for. Well, aside from seeing their friends and being seen, this is what they go to see, the cowboys and their horses..

It was good to find out they were holding the celebration today. I was very afraid they would go US on us and have it tomorrow so they could have a three day weekend. It turns out tomorrow will be a holiday, so there will be a three day weekend after all. The Tecate store was stacking tables and chairs into trucks and beer cases were going out the door at a rapid speed. Fireworks are going off through out town and I expect a full blown fiesta night since many people will take tomorrow off.

We will also take tomorrow off and head north. Our first trip to the states in almost a year. We are going up by bus to Tucson and then flying to Dallas.

We went to Navajoa last week and got Senor a senior card. When you turn sixty in Mexico, you are considered a senior and a special card can get you a good discount on a bus ride.

Supposedly, the card is easy to get, maybe so if you are better prepared. We thought we had all the necessary items, but we forgot to make copies, so after several trips for copies, and lots of paper work, fingerprints, a break so the worker behind the desk could have lunch, Senor got his card.

A quick trip over to the TUFESA bus line to buy tickets for the express bus, reading the ticket closely on the way home, wishing we could return and exchange them for the express bus, well, it took all day.

So we are taking the not so express bus to Tucson and will probably have to wait at the border for all the folks who do not have any paperwork to be removed from the bus and told, no, you do not get to go to the United States today, but our flight does not leave Tucson until Tuesday, plenty of time to hang out at the border, no problema.

I am patiently waiting for Senor to get his laundry out of the washing machine so I can put mine in. Then I am going to pack. Bag packing will be done last minute by Senor, I am sure just right before the taxi pulls up at five thirty to take us down to the bus station.

So here is wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
Que le vaya bien! Linda lou

Bells and Roosters

Day is breaking around 6am now and most mornings the temperature is right below 50 at that time.
I am still an early riser, but not ready to go out into the cold morning at 4:30am.

So I stay in bed for awhile and listen to the sounds around me. Depending upon the day there may still be a party happening and the sounds of the music float across town on the breeze, or maybe the lone bongo is playing far away in the distance, a dog barks next door, someone whistles softly out on the street, a horse goes clopping by. And if it is Sunday, the church bells call for mass and the roosters send messages to one another across the barrios.