Good2go2Mexico

Senor and Linda Lou have been in Pueblo Alamos, Sonora, Mexico for 13 years.
Every day brings a new discovery.
They are still working on the casa............Senor says, it won't be long.........but Linda Lou says, it won't be long until what..............stay tuned to find out what's next.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

TBC Loyal

Hola, hola, hola.


I have been back from San Carlos for almost a week. I had a great trip and glass sales were very good, but oh, my goodness, it was as if I was in a San Diego suburb.


Please, don't misunderstand me, I like visiting San Carlos, it is a beautiful town, but I have never seen such a concentration of foreigners in Mexico. The boats in the marina were packed like sardines in the tin and the little malecon that goes along the waterfront was full of people, just in off the boat, just going on to the boat, or headed to the condo or restaurant or bar. I enjoyed myself but there were so many people, I was exhausted.


Below is a photo of the malecon along the beautiful marina which then continues on for quite some distance to the left. There is yet a second marina several miles away.




I shared a table with my wonderful friend, Charlotte, who made sea shell mirrors, mosaic tiled coasters and stained glass Christmas trees. We faced fully into the sun for the whole show, which accounts for my hat and red face in the next photo.





Here is the table, laden with our lovely wares.




And below, is my friend, Charlotte, who is an amazing and talented artist. She has a resume that would be hard to beat. In addition to the things I mentioned above, she is also a stained glass window and door artist, does tin and copper punching, beadwork, woodpainting, mask making........... the list goes on and on and she does it all well.
I so enjoyed talking to people who had been to Alamos and could not wait for their next visit and I especially loved meeting beautiful Bliss, a blogging friend, from San Carlos. In the photo below, she is trying on a brilliant pair of blue earrings that made her eyes sparkle.





I left for San Carlos on a TBC bus. TBC is owned and operated out of Alamos and the busses are coming and going from our town, throughout the day and night. Sometimes I read complaints about TBC and even Tufesa, the competing bus, which does not go to Alamos, but is easy to switch to in Navajoa, if your schedule calls for it.


This was the windshield of my outgoing bus, the morning I left. Sure, that could be considered disarming. I have heard that Tufesa busses are nice and clean and tidy and have toilet paper and out of Navajoa, they do indeed have more schedules to choose from.

But, I will continue to travel TBC whenever I need to take the bus and I am going to tell you why.My TBC bus driver talked to me, he said buen dia and offered to carry my bag on board. He smiled at me.


In Navajoa, I had to switch to another bus. He told me where to go and carried my bag off the bus for me.


The new driver smiled at me. He even looked at my ticket to see where I was going.


When I got to Obregon, I stood up to move my bags so the woman sitting at the window could get out into the aisle. From the back of the bus, a Mexican man yelled........................Linda, sientese............... and in Spanish he continued to say..................... Linda, this is your bus....don't get off here, this is your bus to Guaymus.


I was shocked and turned to look for whomever was talking to me. I did not see a single face I recognized. Everyone but a few older Senoras got off and no one said anything to me as they passed by.


Someone was looking after me and I do not know who it was.

When I returned to Alamos, I was forced to take the Tufesa bus because the only TBC bus going to Alamos that Sunday afternoon departed at six pm. I took Tufesa to Navajoa where Senor picked me up and we were back home by three pm.


Tufesa was clean. The seats were roomier and they had Michael Jackson on the tv.

There was toilet paper in the bathroom.

The windshield was not broken.


Not once did the Tufesa driver ever look at me. He never checked my ticket. I had to ask about changing busses in Obregon and the look on his face did not make me happy.


I have no idea who yelled at me on the TBC bus, but I have my loyalties for sure.



Here is an evening photo taken from the balcony of my friend's house. San Carlos is a lovely place, but I am glad Alamos is home.


que le vaya bien........linda lou

Friday, December 3, 2010

Leaving on the TBC Bus




Buenas dias!


It has been good to be home for a whole day, but my bag is packed and I am heading out on the TBC bus this morning for Guaymus.


A good friend will pick me up and we will then go to San Carlos, where she lives. And on Saturday, I will share a table with her at the San Carlos Christmas Craft Fair. The fair will be right outside the Marina Terra Hotel, on the marina side. So, if you are in San Carlos, stop by and check out my latest glass pendants and earrings.


Senor will stay here and work on the new project he has started. It is the fireplace that will be in the main sala, in between the bathroom and bedroom to be.






Yesterday, Senor and Umberto went to the arroyo and came back with a truckload of rocks to fill in the below ground support. Another trip to the arroyo today will get smaller decorative rocks for the outside hearth.


In the meantime I have been lighting a fire in the bathroom in the mornings and it really warms up all four rooms very nicely, which is good since finding out our mini split is for a/c only.


It will be on the wall to the left and will take up a lot of space, but it will be great to have.


Speaking of trips, it looks like we will make another one north soon and that trip will clear out the storage unit. We were disappointed not to get everything this time, but that is just the way it goes.


I will be leaving soon, so back to packing! Here just a few things I will take with me..........adios, linda lou




Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Senor......in trouble again!

Buen dia.

We are in Tucson and it is very cold. My trip to Starbucks this morning at 7 am was done in 26 degree temperatures. The sprinklers at the hotel must have come on during the night and ice covered the parking lot, but after a quick trip up the road, I had a hot peppermint mocha in hand. By noon, after completing all my errands, it was 36 degrees.


We had planned to head south today, cross the border and get close to home. But it looks like we will be staying another night here in Tucson in order to load up and completely close out the storage unit. That means we will look like an IKEA truck once we get on the road. Mexicanos driving IKEA trucks is perfectly acceptable, Americanos? Suspicious.


Our Thanksgiving in Texas was wonderful. It was great to be with my family and the weather covered all of its bases, hot and cold, sunny and rainy, windy and calm.


But, Senor is in trouble.................again. He broke a few of my mother's favorite plates.
Here is the last remaining plate below. My parents are in love with loons.
You may have seen my post several years ago, showing my father carving loons. Here are a few in a box below. He sells these all over the country. Maybe you have one?They love loons; carved loons, stuffed loons, loon towels, loon napkins, loon shirts, loon watercolors, loon cups, loon trivets and................. loon plates.


As Senor was loading up his plate one afternoon with left over Thanksgiving Day goodies, he accidentally hit the shelf the microwave sits on. That caused him to jump, which caused him to drop his plate and the chain reaction sent his plate down on another plate and that one on another, all to the tune of 3 broken loon plates.


My mom is so sweet. She didn't say anything, just dropped them casually in the trash.


You can imagine how Senor felt. I think he went and took a nap.

I went online to look for the plates even though my mom insisted it was not neccessary. Of course, it was neccessary, and I discovered the plates come from Loon lake, Minnesota, a place that is very dear to my parents. They have spent a lot of time at that lake!


The plates come with the loons facing left, they come with them facing right, they come with a duck in the background. They come in 3 different sizes, with 3 different trims on the plate rim and with 3 different backgrounds. It was an interesting search for 3 matching plates, 8 1/2 inches, blue rim, gray background and loons facing right.


I now belong to 6 auction houses, 3 dish replacement companies and a restoration dinnerware company. But, I found 3 plates and as I speak they are on their way to a new shelf in my mother's house.


It made me think of a time when Senor and I took KD to a friend's house for an elegant dinner. KD was all of 3 months and one of her little swinging feet knocked over a beautiful stemmed crystal glass that was used at the hostesses mother's wedding dinner. I offered to pay for it, I offered to replace it. I could never find a match and our friend would never accept any amount of money for it. I later discovered the glass was probably worth several hundred dollars and I can't help but wonder why we had our small daughter at such an elegant event?


This morning Senor handed me a $50 and said he hoped that covered it. I gave him a nickel in change..........................

Ah me, what a nice sunny afternoon. adios, linda lou

Monday, November 22, 2010

Beautiful Moon


Hola!!!!
What a moon last night. Cookies hung around outside a lot, dogs howled, roosters crowed, donkeys brayed, birds sang. It may as well have been daylight. It was so bright!


We are in the US, holed up in a hotel near the Tucson airport, resting after a pretty good trip north and an easy border crossing.


The weather is fair and sunny, and manana we will fly to Dallas and visit my parents and siblings for Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to our family being together for Thanksgiving for the first time since the late seventies. It will be a wonderful event!


So that is all I have to tell you this afternoon. I may be offline for awhile, so here's wishing everyone, wherever you are, a wonderful Thanksgiving!
linda lou

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Revolution Parade Photos






























As we walked to the Alameda, the floats lined up on the caraterra heading into town.

At the Alameda the food stalls lined up for business.

The crowd lined up for the parade.

This is a very long and colorful parade. It is much bigger than the Independence Day parade and the children are all in beautiful costumes and not their school uniforms.

It is impossible to show you everything, so I have chosen my favorites.
This is the parade of the pryamids, the cheerleaders, the dancers, the aristocrats, the school athletic teams, the revolutionists, the bands, the musicians, the cowboys, the horses and many, many children.


































OMG! What a music fest last night at Las Palmeras here in Alamos. The large room where we sang was packed, the portal outside was packed, and so was the central courtyard. The owners had to run and locate more tables and chairs.
We had a great time! I saw a lot of people taking photographs. Please send me some of the pictures! Please! Please!
I would do it all again, in a heartbeat!
So before I close and get back to my cards, I have to give a special thank you to the man below for letting me be part of a real great group of singers and players last night!

adios, linda lou