We Took a Little Trip

We have been gone, we took a little trip.

Now I would have a contest of some sort to have you guess where we went, but I think everyone would say Tucson.

And I would not have enough prizes because you would all win.

We drove up last Sunday and met KD, who flew down. We spent five days there with her. How good is that? If you recall, one of the reasons we chose Alamos to live was the close proximity of the states and the opportunities to see family. I would say it has been a good choice.

Before we left for Tucson, Umberto started this below. It is the east wall of the kitchen to be. It will be a long time before it is completed but I was excited to see it begin. Senor and KD.

We jam packed our week. I am going to only show you just a few highlights.

As you know by now, Senor is probably the better photographer of the two of us. But we like very different subjects. I find landscapes a little boring, but he seems to be able to see the composition and the lighting.

He took these shots in Sabino Canyon, outside of Tucson, in the Catalina Mountains. A tram takes you to the top. We walked the hour and a half down. It is a gorgeous canyon.

Here are a few of the things we did: we went to Karchner Caverns, to the picture show, shopped at the mall, got the window repaired by the car dealer, got all the car paperwork notarized in AMERICA because the Washington Department of Motorized Vehicles would not accept a Mexican notary, got all of Senor's building and construction needs taken care of, went out to eat, cooked at the hotel in the kitchenette, went to the downtown Post Office and collected some general delivery mail, went and got the other chair we had left at Pier One, went to the bookstore......only a sampling.

We went a lot. We were in the car a lot.

And I made a discovery. Senor is hard of hearing. I know he will not admit to that, just like he will not admit to needing glasses even when he is wearing them.

KD rode shotgun. Senor drove. I sat in the little back seat. I had the map.

mom,....... says senor (he always calls me mom when we are with KD and Ian)...............mom, he says, where is the road to the caverns, which way do i go......................you go east on irvington and then turn south on country club....................(driving now)................why are we still going west, i say to senor..............you said go west...............i said go east, make a u turn.......................(driving, driving, driving and i am reading the map)..............wait!........ i said.............. make a u turn and go east, you are still going west, isn't this west?.............well, if you would look you would see the sun sets ahead and that is west, says senor.........i said, go east on irvington, you are still going the wrong way, i told you that a long time ago...............no you said go west........................i did not! you have driven us way far west from our turn, i said make a u turn.....................GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!................yells KD......quit yelling, talk in a normal voice, please. Talk about payback from your kid.

Anyway, this sort of interaction happened several times. I only have half the hearing in my left ear and I think I have Senor beat. I will have to stay on top of this and make sure, but believe me I am pretty sure.

We went to the Tucson Rodeo. Now this is my kind of photography. I like people shots and I like them to be fast. Of course, I get very few good photos, but it is what I like.

I took two hundred and forty six shots of bulls and horses and cowboys . I actually got about fifty good shots, but here are my favorites. I would put the rest on flickr and send you there, but I think I let my flickr account go bust. I will check into that, too, one of these days.

So now here we are back home. Umberto has the wall going. It looks good. Above the wall will be a bank of windows, over the counter and the sink.

In the corner above will be a small fireplace, same shape as the others in the bath and bedroom to be, only smaller and at kitchen counter level. I think you can get the idea. The wall does a nice job of hiding all those mounds of dirt on the other side.

So, I miss 'Cactus Kissing KD' a lot already. There is a chance that she and a friend will come down in late April or early May. Wouldn't that be wonderful? There are absolutely no plans for going NOB anytime soon. We are hoping the Washington license plates for new old car can be DHL'd to Navajoa and that will complete all of the car activities.

que tengas buen dia!

linda lou

The Amazing Adventure

Buen Dia!


We have just celebrated Semana Santa, the holy (Easter in the US) week. Schools here have a two week vacation and some businesses have been open half days or closed on Good Friday and Santa Semana day.

For many Alamos Mexicanos the scene is at the beach and they leave town for Huatabampito, which is about an hour away. But, Alamos then becomes the destination for hundreds of Mexicano tourists. So, town has certainly been very crowded. But even with many tourists, it has been somewhat quiet. This is a religious holiday and it is taken very seriously. Fiestas are low key and done mostly with family.

The Mexican tourist is easily spotted. The men may be walking around in shorts with a tecate, girls or women may be wearing short shorts and exposing their midriffs, women may be openly smoking in public, there is alot of cell phone, video and camera use.


With the exception of the Tecate, these things don't typically happen on a regular day in Alamos. This is a very, very conservative town. Women rarely wear shorts, even men do not wear shorts and women do not smoke.


Yesterday Senor and I sat at the Plaza and ate fruit and watched the tourists. There were many children dressed for communion and a local friend said it is quite popular to drive to Alamos and have your child take communion at the church here. On this morning, there were no shorts or tecates............... everyone was dressed in their very best conservative churchwear, young girls were wearing hats with ribbons and bows, young boys were in white and gold.


We were busy here at the casa during the Semana Santa week.

Senor and Umberto made placas. These placas will become the portal roof. They will lay diagonally over the vigas. Senor says we need about eighty. Looks to me more like eight hundred, but he says I am wrong and my math is not good.
I was very surprised I did not get asked to make them. But that is okay with me. I have my own projects right now.





Trying to make glass tiles for the sconces that will go in the bathroom has been my project. I have been making a few in the small hot box kiln, but have yet to get a good technique down.

I think it will take me awhile. The tiles look great until the light is behind them and then the colors fade together and the different colors can't be seen. So, I am working on adjustments for this.

Yesterday the cowboys moved the bulls down from the mountains. They came down our street and continued onto town for their adventure.

Tonight I am going on my own adventure.

I will be taking a 9pm bus from Alamos to Nogales, Mexico, where I hope to arrive at the Nogales bus station around 7am. I will take a taxi from the Nogales bus station to the downtown Nogales border crossing. I will then proceed to walk through customs and across the border and find the shuttle that will transport me to the Tucson airport. I will next take an afternoon flight to the Dallas Fort Worth airport where I will be picked up by my sister. We will then drive north for an hour, where I will spend a week visiting with my father and mother and sister. I feel like I am on The Amazing Race.

This is the way many Alamenses travel to the US and is recommended because if one takes the bus straight up to Tucson, there is often a very long delay at the border crossing due to the folks on the bus who do not have their papers in order or do not even have papers and will be told they cannot even cross the border, but find that it is worth it to pay money to go to the border and be told exactly that by US customs...............

So, this will be an amazing adventure for me, I am sure.

I suggested to Senor.............when I return maybe the casa be done.............

March Christmas

Buen Dia!

We have just returned from the Rocky Mountains.

KD met us at the airport with a wonderful surprise in tow............Ian.............I cried, it was so unexpected.

So the four of us had a cold and snowy visit!

It was a March Christmas. KD still had her Christmas tree up. All of the mountain towns must have known we were coming because they still had their lights and decorations up as well.

KD lives at over 9,500 feet. I have not been that high since 1983, when I climbed Mount Ranier (did not make it to the top), and had to overnight at over 10,000.

During this Colorado visit, I lagged behind on all of our day trips; I was breathless going up and down KD's condo stairs. I was deep breathing just opening the fridge.

We took a few day trips, among them were visits to Vail and Brekenridge.

A day was spent skiing by Senor and KD at Vail, after Ian had to head back to Seattle for a snowboard event at the Pass.

Great memories came to Senor who spent many winters in high school and college skiing Vail, which was much smaller, and cheaper, in the 60's and 70's. As a Colorado College student, Senor was invited into the dean's office for a visit .........study or ski............said the dean. Senor took off a year, lived off peanut butter and out of dingy basement rooms, but he got in a year of good skiing and then returned and graduated.

Okay, this is all I have time for.

We are on our way to Bisbee, Arizona, with Senor's brother and his wife (our Copper Canyon traveling companions) and then we will return to Tucson later in the week.

What a great Christmas!

A Miracle of Sorts

Buenas dias!

I never imagined that not posting for almost two weeks would generate such a stir. I have received quite a few emails from people wanting to make sure we are safe and sound here in Mexico.

Believe me, we are fine.

We have been very busy..............that is all.

So, it will take some time for me to bring you up to date and I promise, I will post again soon. I do not want anyone worrying needlessly about us!



Now, take a look below at that beautiful sunrise, layers and layers of pretty colors!

It is colder here at night and harder to get up in the mornings. Daylight is peeking through around six twenty, right about the time Cookies starts licking my face........................ he is a wonderful alarm clock.

Ian has come and gone.....when he came back with us last week, Cookies ran right to him and tried to climb up his legs and into his arms. Ian enjoyed his little room and Cookies slept with him every night and followed him around the casa and yard. He really did not let him out of his sight.

We had to lock Cookies inside the first few days when we left the house because he wanted to follow Ian right out the gate.

When Ian and KD were here in August last year it was so hot we did very little. So we made up for it while Ian was here. Walks to and around town, shopping in the Mercado, eating out at some new sidewalk vendors we had not tried before, a trip to the Tiangus, to La Aduana, the beach at Huatabampito, the parade for the Dia de la Revolution.....................and on and on.

Take a look at some of the photos.

Below, we are eating barbacoa ( barbequed beef) soup with a friend at a stall near the arroyo.

Ian and Senor are watching Yolanda weigh shrimp. We want two kilos, about four pounds.

Yolanda gets her grande camarones from the Sea of Cortez. Senor could eat them every night.





Now, Ian and Senor appear to be reading the local paper, El Imparcial, while waiting for Huevos Rancheros at Cocina Economica. This is a wonderful little cafe at the bottom of our street. The white board on the wall tells what is available for the morning.

Below, vendors line the alameda on the day of the Revolution. Vendors are there every day, but for this celebration, a few more have set up tables and tarps. One vendor is even trying to make cotton candy.

We are waiting with the rest of the crowd for the parade to begin.

Here is the fruit cocktail stand. You can buy a large cup of fruit and if you want, the vendor will sprinkle it with salt and salsa. I always have both on mine. Senor won't even have the fruit.


Finally, after a very long wait, the mayor, in the blue shirt and tie, with his wife to his right and over one hundred municipal workers behind him starts the parade.

The focus of all parades here are the children. Many of them were dressed in native costumes, or like Spanish aristocrats, or mustachioed Pancho Villas. Still many were in their school uniforms.

The girls below are nurses and carried small clear doctor bags.



These are the young aristocrats.













These are the older aristocrats.



Lots of cheerleaders and pom pom shakers were in this parade. They danced to the Mexican version of 'Hey, Mickey", my favorite song from Bring it On. Surely you saw that movie, it's about a bunch of cheerleaders who have competitions and of course, their egos get in the way and then, there are boys, they get in the way, too.

The boys are always the buglers and the girls are the drummers. They have been practicing for three weeks now, the same song, over and over. You can hear them all over town as the wind carries their notes.

We saw in this parade many sporting activities. We did not realize how many teams there are for different sports. The biggest sport in Alamos appears to be gymnastics. There were probably ten different groups performing flips and jumps and cartwheels and as many putting together pyramids.

The pyramid below is being formed by one of the COBASH (high school) teams. There probably were seven different teams.

Lots of clowns and dolls on stilts.

Below the bomaderos (fire department) begin to put together their pyramid as the fire truck keeps moving. We saw volleyball teams, boxing teams, baseball teams, basketball teams and soccer teams. Many of these teams also constructed pyramids. We saw so many pyramids I might rename this parade......Dia de La Pyramid.

Ian and Senor pooped out and walked home after the parade, but I followed the crowd to the Palacio, where each group in the parade then performed on stage for the mayor and his wife, who sat at a wooden table to the side of the stage. It was like seeing the parade again, but in slow motion.

I have many more photos and will try to get them on flikr one of these days.

The following day we took a long trip to the Tiangus (Sunday morning market) and in the afternoon Ismael came and repaired Ian's computer which had a virus. In the states, Ian had been told to dish out three hundred dollars for the repair. Ismael repaired it for under twenty and as he was leaving Senor mentioned we do not have wireless. Ismael was astonished, especially when we told him why. If you recall..................Senor forgot our password.

Ismael walked back to the bedroom and did something for less than a minute on our laptop........................now we have wireless.

On Tuesday, we went to Yvarros, a small fishing town on the sea and bought some perch from one of the bodegas. We took the back road out of Alamos, toward El Fuerte and went to the town of Masiaca and then, to the sea. If you are one of those persons who still insists the back road out of Alamos is paved all the way to Highway Fifteen, or even to El Fuerte, believe me, it is not........................dream on...........................

Shrimp and ponga boats in the bay at Yvarros.




The perch lady below, in her bodega. Senor is trying to strike a deal. He gets three kilos of perch for eighty pesos. That is good, but that is alot of perch.

Then, on to the beach at Huatabampito, where Ian stands out at the water's edge. What is he thinking, I wonder.............where are the girls in bikinis, where are the palapa huts, the pineapple drinks..............................

Later he commented to Senor how nice it was to not have any vendors coming around selling jewelry or ironwood dolphins.


We added to the seashell collection.



Then, Ian said it was too hot for him.



Back at the casa, Ian rode new old bike around the yard, afraid to go out in the street because I refused to take off the pink flowers. Cookies followed him like a dog.


The nearby town of La Aduana hosts a huge three day celebration beginning on Friday, the twentieth. We went out on Thursday to check out the preparations.

Cookware and dishes seem to be a big hit here. There were at least ten stalls with this stuff.

Everyone walks to La Aduana for this festival. They walk for miles, they come from Navajoa, which is fifty kilometers away. How in the world do they carry all this stuff back home, I wonder.


Lots of fancy bread in this stall.

Lots of pretty sweets in this one.


This is the church at Las Aduana. On November twelfth, there is a procession from Alamos, that begins at four in the morning. People walk to the church, Nuestra Senora de la Balvanera. After arriving at the church around seven pm, a religious ceremony is held and the traditional deer dance is performed. Throughout the following week, pilgrimage is made from all over Southern Sonora, by foot, by thousands of people to the church, and of course, the three day festival which includes alot of Tecate.

It is the cactus below that makes La Aduana so popular. Legend says that Mayo Indians saw a woman on top of the cactus. They tried to reach her and help her down, but suddenly she was gone, and in her place, was a huge vein of silver. It was a miracle.

I guess the miracle was that a mine was created and silver came from it and thousands of people flocked to both La Aduana and Alamos, making it a very wealthy area.Of course, later Aduana and Alamos both became ghost towns.

Below are a few photos of the old silver mine.







And the rolling, velvet hills that surround this small town of four hundred people.

So, of course I cannot list all of the things we did with Ian. It was a wonderful time.

Cookies was a basket case when we returned home from the airport, without Ian in tow.

He meowed for days. He still goes in during the day and sleeps on Ian's bed. We have to pry him away at night and force him to come into our room. It would be too easy for him to get trapped in that room. But time will help him feel better.

Me?

I miss Ian terribly, but again time will work wonders................

Senor?

He is busy working on the casa, but I saw how hard he hugged Ian when they said their goodbyes.

Tomorrow will be a new tradition of sorts, for us............... Our first Thanksgiving, without KD or Ian. If you remember, last Thanksgiving Senor and I flew to Colorado, where both kids were in the same college. That was convenient and it was wonderful. Now, even they are far apart, one in Colorado and one in Washington. But they have good friends to spend the holidays with. They will be happy.

Fortunately, we have very good friends here who have asked us to spend Thanksgiving with their family. We are lucky. We will be happy.

After Christmas last year, we planted our little Christmas pine in the back yard. Last night I decorated it with little tiny lights.

Senor said..........................that is illegal................ we have not even had Thanksgiving yet.

I said.........................does not matter...............they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here.

Then I put on a Christmas cd, much to his chagrin..........................

Last year, I could hardly listen to a Christmas song. I really had a hard time not getting to spend Christmas together as a family.

So, maybe this is a good sign, a miracle of sorts, that I have already listened to a Christmas cd and have already decorated a little Christmas tree.

Say goodnight, little Christmas tree in the yard.................................adios, Linda Lou