Juana Gallo

Hola.....................muy, muy caliente... we are not doing much.......the casa is just sitting around doing nothing also.

Umberto came this morning and by ten am he didn't want to do anything either. I gave him some mango cake. He ate it. Then he went home.

Senor took a nap.

I looked for some paperwork that seemed to be missing. I went to an appointment. The appointment confirmed we have to have the missing paperwork. I went into a slight panic because it was nowhere to be found. Here are some little photos, almost too little to enjoy. I tried to make them big again and that didn't go over. The veracruzana, also called the sandpaper vine because its leaves are like sandpaper, makes a beautiful purple-blue flower. It blooms over the winter and is now cascading over the stable roof. A little pink flowering vine is also coming out. Our neighbor's bright red bougainvillea is also cresting over the tin roof.

We went to Juana Gallo a few nights ago. The restaurant is located in the Hotel Casa Maria Felix. The hotel is the birthplace of the well loved Mexican actress, Maria Felix, and also houses a ruin of the original home and a museum. Below senor is heading inside.


The little pool in the little picture.

The little restaurant in the little picture below.

Sometimes there are great music nights here. Lots of people come to either an open mike session or to hear some of the wonderful local talent, both foreign and mexican. We have heard some great violin, guitar and mandolin playing here.

A little dark, but that Tecate sign sure brightens it up.

It's really a very pretty little place, very lush and tropical. The owner of the hotel is originally from Canada and the owner of the Juana Gallo restaurant is formerly from Argentina. Both have lived in Alamos for a long time.

So, back to the paperwork......it has not been as easy renewing our FM3 as we had planned. Immigration, in Hermosillo, actually called us to tell us it would be neccessary to file more paperwork before we could receive our FM3 renewal. Because we have a corporation, they said, we first have to pay our mexican income tax before we can get our renewal. We have not had any income, but we will still pay money.

I could not find any of the tax papers, or our corporate by-laws, the things that are neccessary to get the taxes filed. I searched the entire house, all the file drawers, all the paperwork I thought we had. I was very close to opening boxes that have been sealed since we left the states, knowing very well the papers would not be in there. I spoke with our realtor who suggested I would find them inside the deed to our property.........and so, I looked and there they were....hiding, waiting for me to find them.

Tomorrow we will meet with our bookkeeper and find out much money we will pay for money we have not made. Once the taxes are filed and the money is paid, we are told we should be able to drive to Hermosillo and pick up our FM3's.

Maybe we need to get jobs and make money.

Maybe we will walk over to Juana Gallo restaurant, have a little pizza and not worry about it...................

Pulling Senor's Leg?

Hola!!
The western sky last night.And below, the eastern sky last night.

Some nights we are just a color palette. I hope you will not get bored looking at my pictures of the sky because I can just never take enough!
I have never lived where I could see such dramatic colors in both the east and west at the same time.
And you know, the mornings are often the same way, colors in both horizons, but I am usually at the track or now, on new old bike when that happens.

Speaking of 'you know what', LOOK! I went to Alexis's yesterday and bought a basket. He said he needed an hour to attach it, so I went to the mercado and bought some plastic flowers and when I got home, I decorated the basket!

And, by the way, the basket holds alot. Yesterday I basketed...........my camera, the plastic flowers, one topochico, four chicken quarters, two onions, one package of chorizo, three slices of chuleta, three avocados, a box of milk and a loaf of bread and a new umbrella. I still could have crammed more in there.

When I rode to the track this morning, I got some hoots from the guys at the Pemex. I am sure they were laughing at me. The women waiting there for the bus all pointed and smiled. One guy drove by in his truck and yelled, "right on! hang loose!". I guess that was a good thing.

The new sewer system is going in. I hear that the new treatment plant is somewhere out north of the La Aduana arroyo. Maybe I will ride out there and find it. It probably is not much to see........a sewage treatment plant, yahoo!.............. but it would be good to know where it is actually located. Alamos has had a sewer system for quite some time, this is just an updated project.

A few of the streets are being dug up and large new pvc pipes are being laid and connected. There is good and bad news about this..... good news? of course, updated services.

But I doubt they will replace the beautiful old cobblestoned streets with cobblestones.

The street below used to be a lovely cobblestoned street, very, very pretty. I think they will resurface it with the octagon shaped concrete pavers that are prevalent in many towns in Sonora. I wish it could be different. I wish they would replace the stones, but I don't think they will. Maybe if they laid the pipe down the side of the road? Then they could save half the road and half the stones?

No worries, they will do what they need to do and there are still many, many cobblestoned streets in town.

It is overcast here today. There is a steady breeze that is keeping the temperature down for now. By 1pm it could be pretty hot. Still there is no serious humidity, that will come any day, I am sure.

The gardener next door told our gardener (that would be either senor or myself, and in this case, it was senor) that the monsoon season has come and gone.............. he believes that we will have an extremely dry and hot summer...........jeez, we had what? one day of heavy rain and two with sprinkles.

I certainly hope he is pulling senor's leg..........

adios, linda lou!

Hand Carved Cedar Loons For Sale

Buenos Dias! Wow! Look at this full moon in the east last night............. absolutely gorgeous.....the photo barely shows the hint of pink in the lower left half.........it was mesmerizing and I easily took ten photos as it continued to change in size and color. Then Senor would yell........come, quick and see the sunset.............. and I would rush out the gate and look to the west...........then he would yell, hurry, look at the moon............it was all very pretty............the sunset never produced any vivid colors...........it was the clouds that became so dramatic.

I like to travel.

Some days it is no farther than from the back yard to see the moon, to the front to see the sunset. Somedays, it is in the truck. I really like to go by plane...... a bus is okay, if it is my only choice, I will go. I will go on foot and now, of course, I have the bike. I do not travel real well by train or boat, but no problem, I will still go.

I always have maps of different places hidden among our books and journals, and I am always secretly planning our next trip, even if it is to the market.

Currently I am planning a big Mexico trip for us around January. But I can't divulge anything because I have not told Senor we are even going.

I just like to go. My mother told me my grandmother was like that. She would get on the city bus in Hot Springs just to go somewhere.

My parents are like that as well. When we kids were growing up, my parents introduced us to long, lazy days of summer travel.

They were both teachers and back then, summer vacations could go from May to September. We would spend days loading the VW bus with food, clothes, and most importantly, as many guitars as we could fit in among ourselves, and then, in the dark of the morning, the six of us would load in and go.

Favorite destinations for my siblings and I were Galveston, Destin, Myrtle Beach, the ocean and the beach scene. Each campsite we blazed a fire regardless of the weather, pulled out the guitars and sang into the night.

As we got older, our father, being a history professor, set his sights on every battlefield we could find in a summer, every historical point on the highway needed to be read, and while we traveled he would have us learn the names of all the presidents, in order, and would give us 'question boxes' to answer about what we had seen that day.

Then, came the monumental sights of Pennsylvania and the east. Eventually, we included the exciting scenes of New York City, climbing the Empire State Building, walking through the musical sounds of Greenwich Village.

And then, one summer we began to explore the mountainous terrain of Colorado, camping in Durango, Cripple Creek, Silverton, Colorado Springs......

You know, I cannot begin to tell you what fantastic, rewarding and exciting summers my sister and two brothers and I had. They were dream vacations and our family was, and still is, very close. When there are six of you traveling in a VW bus (not the pop up model) for up to four months, well, you have no choice but to be close. You just can't get mad at your little brother who wants to string up the hammock and sway in it, over your head, while you are laying on the vinyl covered pull out bed trying to read a magazine. We went with the flow.

These adventures just made us even closer.

But see, this caused me to be on the go. I absolutely love to be on the go. Senor likes to remind me that once on the beautiful island of St. Croix, I began telling him where we were going to go next. I deny that. I don't remember it, but ahh, he is probably telling the truth.

Around thirty years ago, my parents sold their home and set off across the country in an old airstream trailer. They went everywhere and often, wherever any of the four of us grown children lived might be included in the traveling at some point.

They have since given up the airstream and settled again in a home in their favorite state of Texas. But, they still go.

They continue to travel, to load the car, leave as early as possible and if the road looks good to the right, that's where they go. If it looks good to the left, they might go there. They still set up the tent and still light the fire. I imagine my dad still might have his old KAY guitar, or maybe a different one now.

I grew up listening to my dad singing the old tunes of Guthrie, Seeger, and Cash, Waylon and Willie, Patsy and Loretta. I also grew up listening to my mother's hands flying across the piano keys, her favorites being Bach and Beethoven.

My father is also a very talented wood carver. And my mother, a very accomplished watercolorist. They are both very talented musicians and artists.

As I write this, my parents are traveling to Minnesota and Wisconsin, where my mother will sketch and paint and my father will sell over eight-hundred of his hand carved cedar loons.

Each year, for about ten years, they have been making this trip north. He carves throughout the winter and in the summer they add the loons to the rest of the gear in the car and travel north and sell them. Sometimes he has orders for them, other times he doesn't.

He will almost always sell them all.

But if you happen to be in a campground somewhere between Texas and the north woods of Minnesota, look for the man selling the hand carved cedar loons. He will probably just give you one that he will be carrying in his pocket.

hola, mom and dad, you may be in Clubhouse or Loon Lake, who knows? Love you.

linda lee

This New Habit

Buen Dia! I am going to take you on yesterday's bike route.

First we have to step over fat cat Cookies, who is sound asleep on the nice, cool bedroom floor. All 25 pounds of him were grateful that we left the mini split on all night long. Do not worry, he sleeps like this all the time......









I am going to do this kind of post ONE TIME ONLY. It has taken longer to draw the silly map than to do the post. Don't question street names and north, south, east, west stuff.
I barely had time for this. Not to mention I feel like a first grader in art class......

As you can see, my casa is on the left, the road route is yellow and La Aduana Arroyo is orange.



Here is the plan..............follow La Aduana, take the dirt road to El Fuerte, go on the opposite side of the Mirador, which is pink on the map, and hopefully connect somewhere with a road that will lead back home. We will circle the whole hill on which the Mirador sits......and take a couple of photos......


Senor and I consider ourselves experts on the back roads to El Fuerte. We have been all over them, sometimes many times over the same ones while we were lost. But while Senor is doing the driving, I am watching the little birds and pretty flowers. So, this will be a totally different experience as I am doing the driving. Also, we are not really planning to go that far. One back road trip in the truck to El Fuerte took about 12 hours. I am thinking, an hour, hour and a half.........

At 5:20am, we are cruising through town, the Mirador is up on top of that hill in the distance. We are going around to the other side of it.

We will take the dirt road that travels along the big La Aduana Arroyo. This is the arroyo that sustained the most damage from Hurricane Norbert, but other arroyos, Chalaton and Escondida, were also hit heavily. These are the 3 main arroyos where people's homes and businesses and vehicles and lives, were buried by mud or in some cases, simply washed away. Below, you can see the new arch that is being built to hold the foot bridge. There are several of these under construction now across La Aduana.A photo of the road we are traveling on. The sunday tiangus is held here.Work is continuing on the new sanctuary and the next photo shows what the finished building will look like. The sun is just beginning to crest the hill tops.On top of this hillside is the Mirador. From here, we can't see the flag post or structures, so we are already beginning to go around it. The Mirador is the highest point in town and I have shown you pictures of Alamos in earlier posts, taken from the Mirador. You can see the arroyo is filled with small streams of water and alot of algae and other green stuff.These cars are left over from the hurricane.From here, we can see the flagpole on top of the Mirador. We are getting ready to ride across the arroyo and onto the road to El Fuerte. Today I have my cell phone and we have been gone for one hour. It is 6:30am.

By 7am we are looking back at the road we have just traveled, thinking maybe we should have paid better attention to the road sign nailed to the gate way back there. It seems like we are going too far away from the Mirador.

Okay, really time to go back and look.

Alot of back tracking. But it is a nice, cool morning, the sky is slightly overcast.

Back at the sign by 7:30am.

New old bike does not know which way to go. Right or left?

I think, what would Senor do?

The sign on the gate says 'mirador', but the arrow is a little strange. Left or right? Down, or is that up?.....maybe that means straight ahead...............

The road to the right is going downhill.

The road to the left goes uphill. I think Senor would go left. We are going right.

We are looking good. We have found the main road to the Mirador and made a complete circle, well a circle with alot of detours, around it. Now we just have to go downhill on the cobblestone road to hook up with a nice smooth street, somewhere, to get home.
A long swig of topochico mineral water, batteries on the camera are pooped out so no photo can be taken to show the road to the Mirador. It looks just like this one, only it goes straight up. 8:10am.

We are going down and it feels like we are riding over thousands of little baby topes.

Back at the casa, a battery change on the camera and the cat is mad because we woke him up.

A quick note in my journal tells me I need: a compass, an odometer, extra camera batteries, a review on how to change a flat tire and all the equipment neccessary and a knock on wood, thank goodness that didn't happen this morning, a new day pack with more pockets, to bring the bike lock keys in case I need to lock the bike and hitch a ride to town, mas aqua and well, a little food might be nice because it looks like this bike riding stuff is becoming a habit.

que tengas buen dia! linda lou

Meltdown

When I stepped outside the gate of our yard last night, this is what I saw. I love being able to see both sunrises and sunsets from our casa. Eventually this turned a brilliant pink.
There was no wind yesterday. There were no clouds in the sky.

But, there was no humidity........ I won't lie.................. it's hot, but it could be worse.
I sure hope the monsoon season has not already come and gone with the one big storm we had the other week..............June 24th, remember that date, that is when it is supposed to begin.

When I was out at the airport the other day, on my new old bike, I should have taken photos of the airport. I was so excited about my bike!

So yesterday, around 5:15am, I hopped on new old bike and first, I went to the track and walked around it five times and then, I rode back to the airport.

Alamos Airport is now an international airport.

The airport runway is 5,000 paved feet.

Below is the entrance to the airport.

The tower..............

the hangar...................



the front of the hangar....................notice in the tower photo you can see there is a fence that seperates the hangar and the runway from the.............HORSES.

and a very handsome young colt...............

I rode new old bike a few miles farther on down the road toward San Bernardo. I didn't make it to San Bernardo, I am not exactly sure how far it is, but the dirt road I traveled became busy with trucks, their beds filled with school kids in uniforms on the way to COBASH (High school).

I do think I went two or three miles beyond Rancho Palomar, a very popular hunting ranch and bed and breakfast. I eventually turned around in the dust and headed home.

I really never felt hot while riding. I was riding fairly fast, so the wind was nice, and there were a lot of morning people out, watering the dirt in front of their casas, cooling down the street, the dust and heat. The taco man on Hidalgo almost threw his bucket of water on me again, he didn't see me coming.

Once I pulled into the gate and stopped, the heat hit me. I went to look at the thermometer.

My candles had a meltdown while I was gone. Senor said he would not last much longer.

It was only 9:30am. That was a long bike ride.

I tried to revive myself with a very cold bottle of Starbucks Frappuccino that we buy in Navajoa at Ley or Sorianna.

But eventually I had a meltdown and really did nothing for the rest of the day. I laid in bed and read, studied my spanish books and tried to think up new creative art projects to do. I think I will make a papier mache cake cover. I rarely bake a cake, but it sounds like something to do and then, I will need a cake cover for it. I will let you know how that goes.

adios.

What I did Yesterday and Today

Hola, I am on the west side of the casa, at 5:30am, to paint the ironwork over the windows because we have yet to get the beam paint and I have not decided if I am going to paint those beams anyway..............so senor said I can paint the ironwork. It is nice and shady here until 9am. This is my second day on the job.

Below is the before photo of one window.

Below is the after photo. The iron was very rusty and dull. After applying the nasty oily black paint the ironwork is shiny and bright. You can barely see the difference in the photos but you can see the pretty ironwork that is over many of our windows. There are about 10 ironworkers in Alamos. Many of them are related, but have thriving businesses as this type of work is very popular.

So, that's it, Just thought you might want to know what I did yesterday and today between 5:30am and 9am. Adios, going to town!

Restoration of the Church

Hola, here is the morning light just before the sun crested the hilltop. I want to update you on the restoration of Iglesia Parroquia de Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion or as most people call it, the church.



As I have mentioned before, Alamos is a Pueblo Magico and is hoping to become a World Heritage Site. Money for restoration projects are given to towns lucky enough to be chosen Pueblo Magicos and more money will be available when it becomes the heritage site.



I have shown you the alameda and where some of the Pueblo Magico money is going. It is so exciting to see all the work. The lamp posts are now lit at night and if you are lucky enough to walk the alameda during the evening you can really feel the Pueblo Magico. Today I was down at the alameda and the old stone fountain has been retiled and the pipes, refitted for water flow. There's no water in it yet, but it certainly draws a big crowd to view the tile work.


The church is where a great deal of the money is going, but it is not just government money that is funding the church restoration. Several groups within the Alamos community, both mexican and foreign, have spent long hours fundraising dollars to assist in the projects.



In the photo above you can see the single church tower. If you recall, originally a second tower was planned but the construction was interrupted for unknown reasons, and as a result, incompleted churches with only one tower do not pay taxes on the structure and land.



Below you can see restoration of one dome has been completed and the larger dome above is now being worked on. The stone wall below has been reinforced with Pueblo Magico funds.




The cupola on the tallest dome has been painted white and you can see the weathervane that is below the iron cross.

Below the painters are beginning to work on the largest dome.

The original construction of this baroque designed church began in 1786 and was completed in 1804. Below you can see the fine china plates that were donated by women of society. Many of the plates were destroyed by Pancho Villa and his troops in the early 1900's. The two arches above the plates are the bell towers.

The church clock was brought to Alamos from Rome and runs by ropes around wheels and not by cogs.

Below, to each side of the bell tower, you can see initials of families that contributed silver and money to the original construction in the late 1700's.

And below, the iron cross above the cupola of the largest dome.

As the restoration moves forward, I will continue to update you and when they do turn on the water fountain at the alameda, I will get you a picture. In the meantime, there is just a tiny little cloud over the top of Mt. Alamos. It is very, very windy and it doesn't feel like there is any humidity. And it is time for my siesta. adios....linda lou