Monday, March 12, 2012

The Dream Continues

The months just keep clicking by. We have had such nice weather it doesn’t seem like winter at all. I am finally over my cold but still have some sinus problems. Since we are having a mild and warm winter, things have started blooming early. So it is a good thing I have The dreamallergy medicine. Birds are arriving and chirping in the morning and before the sun sets. Pretty soon they will be looking for a place to build a nest. The white tail doves are coming back and we hear their monotonous call. So far it hasn’t been bad, but when they start to mate they will be calling to each other all day long and will be waking us up as the sun comes up. We attended the Super Bowl party at a friend’s house and stayed for most of it. Then when Dave figured who the winners were going to be, we left. He added to the football pool, but didn’t win anything. It was fun and there was a lot of food! My friend Penny is back on her feet again so she was there. It was good to see and talk to her. We left this morning, the 6th, for Ensenada. Time to stock up on some needed supplies. It is suppose to rain in San Diego tomorrow which means Ensenada will probably get some rain too. As long as the roads stay decent it won’t matter. There is a section just south of Ensenada where they are repairing the road and there is a long section that is dirt so as long as that isn’t muddy it will be fine. It seemed to take us longer to get to Ensenada this time. We don’t know why. There wasn’t much traffic. Oh well. We arrived around 3:00pm and since we go right by the bank and WalMart, we stopped. Then we headed for the hotel. It was good timing as about an hour later the parking lot was filling up. We had thought about heading back to Home Depot after checking in, but once in our room, we decided we had enough road travel. We relaxed a little then went to McDonalds for dinner. I didn’t want much and the restaurant in the hotel was closed. We get our French fry fix this way. HA!!! Then it was back to the room to change clothes and relax. We watched T.V. then went to bed. We were up at 6:30am checked out by 7:00am and headed for Home Depot. We wanted to check out a couple things there and then we went across the street to Mega so I could get some of the items I couldn’t get at WalMart. Success!! Last stop Costco. It is fun to look at the outdoor furniture and whatever else Costco has on display for spring. It is fun to look and dream!! When we were finished at Costco, we fueled up and headed south to San Quintin. Dave made reservations for us at Jardines so we don’t have to worry about not getting a room. This place is wonderful and fills up quickly. No rain yet but it looks like it will tonight. Once at Jardines, we checked in then walked to the restaurant and had lunch. Afterward we came back to our room and Dave flipped through the channels to see what was available and I took a shower. Before long it was time to take part in Happy Hour at the restaurant so we walked over there and had a couple margaritas. We left the bar and went to the dining room and ordered dinner. I wasn’t very hungry as I had a big lunch so I ordered a chicken salad. By the time we were finished it had started raining so we got a little wet going to our room. Well we didn’t melt!!! Does that tell you anything about us??? Just kidding! We had turned the heater on in the room before we left for dinner so it was warming up nicely. We got comfy and watched T.V. When we went to bed we left the heater on low. The rooms are built with cement blocks and tile floors so they stay cold in the winter. In the morning we checked out and headed for the ATM one last time before leaving civilization! Then it was homeward bound. It was a beautiful sunny morning but we could see clouds south of us and wondered if it was going to be cloudy at home. We had a good trip but it was windy and we did hit some rain just north of Bahia. We got the jeep washed off which was good. It was cloudy in Bahia and it had rained but wasn’t at the time we arrived. It was starting to clear to the south. We fueled up, stopped to pick up milk, eggs and bread and headed for the house. We were told it rained here last night and this morning. Everything was wet and we had some puddles here and there. I don’t have to water plants for a while now which is good. We unloaded the jeep and carried everything upstairs and started putting it away. We had to run the generator later that afternoon to recharge the batteries and the great news is the windows I can’t reach to clean, got rinsed from the rain. Yahoo!!!! Looks like I need to get busy and wash the other windows now. I hadn’t washed them before going to Ensenada because the wind blew and it was cold. It’s on my list. We got back on a Wednesday and I played train on Friday with the gals. Some of the gals are starting to return so it is a fun big group!! After returning home from Train, I walked on the beach. There were all kinds of small fish coming to the shore. Dave took his fishing pole to see if he could catch some bigger fish, but he didn’t. We found out they were grunions mating. The female digs a whole in the sand just above the surf and the male fertilizes them. There were thousands of them. I have never witnessed such a sight before. It was awesome!! You could see tiny little pink eggs coming to the surface for the tide to take them out into the water. Awesome!!! Grunions are like smelt and I guess they come ashore every couple years to spawn. It is so great to be able to witness sea life. The down part of that though is finding dead turtles and baby seals on the beach. But it is the cycle of life and when these animals die it is food for coyotes, birds and other creatures. Today was grocery day. Even though we just got back from Ensenada, I needed to pick up a few things for my menu plan for the week. Penny was going to come with me but her and her husband Murray went to Guerrero Negro. It was a quick trip for me to town and back. Penny and Murray are coming to dinner tomorrow night so I am making my Mexican Lasagna and Key Lime pie. When I returned to the house I put the groceries away that needed to be refrigerated then took a walk on the beach before it got too windy. The wind has come up a little so I am glad I took my walk when I did. Now it is back to putting groceries away, exercising, cleaning the bathroom and making lunch. The sun is back and we are having some beautiful picture perfect days. We had a great dinner and visit with Penny and Murray. She brought homemade French bread and I sent them home with some lasagna. Jo had the gals over for Hand and Foot and Pinnacle today, Monday the 13th. My partner and I didn’t win the pot but it was fun none-the-less. I got my walk in as I walked to Jo’s and home again. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We have been invited by Penny and Murray to join them for dinner at Los Viento’s tonight. The dinner was o.k. but the night was great. We had a good time with Penny and Murray and we also saw some other friends that showed up. We got a rain storm finally. It rained off and on the whole day and washed more of my windows I can’t reach!!! Yay!! We have needed the rain and at least I don’t have to water any plants for a while. Tuesday, the 21st Dave and I are going to Guerrero Negro to get our teeth cleaned and also get my molar that broke looked at. There is an hour difference between here and there so we will have to leave at 6:30am to get there by 11:00am their time. It takes at least 2-1/2 hours to get there and hopefully there won’t be a lot of cars on the road. We got our teeth cleaned and got good reports. I had him look at my molar and he said if I didn’t care what it looked like I could just have a metal cap put on it. If I wanted porcelain I would have to have a root canal and then a crown made. I told him it didn’t have to be pretty so I will go with the metal cap. I have to come back to be fitted for it then 2 weeks after that return to have it put on. Finally getting dental stuff taken care of. For the teeth cleaning it only cost us $89. Pretty inexpensive!! He was gentle and nice. Glad we finally have a dentist. There is suppose to be a permanent dentist sometime in Bahia, but don’t know when yet. We already have 2 doctors full time which is really nice and comforting. Before the full time doctors arrived, we would have the Good Samaritans come every 3 months. Things are improving here which is really good. The town has enough gingos and locals to make it worthwhile to have full time doctors and a dentist. Now if they would only get phone service so we can have a bank and ATM that would be a dream come true!!! Little by little the town is making progress. After leaving the dentist we stopped at the Super Mercado and picked up some swiss chard for Lois and came home. Today ended up being a windy one from the southwest. It is warmer than it has been too. At least the sun is shining and I was smart enough to take my beach walk before it came up. My house is all clean for the week so now I am going to do some cross stitching. Still working on that dragon and castle cross stitch. It’s coming along. The other morning Dave and I watched 3 coyotes get food from the beach. We aren’t sure what food it was, all we saw is something in their mouths as they were carrying it inland to munch. Dave took the jeep into town to get the oil changed and I walked to my friends’ house. I wasn’t far from my house when a coyote passed in front of me with his prize. He ran a little bit away from me then we both stopped and watched each other for a few minutes then we continued on our way. After Dave was finished in town he stopped at Penny and Murray’s on his way back to help clean up her computer. She was going to bake Chocolate Chip cookies for him, as a thank you, but hadn’t yet. Murray was a little disappointed as he wanted some too!! She will bake them and bring them over when she is done. It took Dave pretty much all day working on Penny’s computer. She had a virus and a bunch of stuff that was taking up a lot of memory. Dave ended up bringing it home with him so he could do a diagnostic test and run some cleanup programs. It was with us for a couple days. He finally got the computer as clean as he can and it seems to be working a little faster. She still has pictures on her hard drive she needs to take off and put on a thumb drive, but other than that it seems to be working o.k. Penny finally made Dave’s chocolate chip cookies. I made my oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies and gave them a bag full. Dave doesn’t like them as much as just plain toll house chocolate chip cookies. I made a large batch so after giving a bunch to Penny and Murray, I gave some to our guard and our neighbor. That way I don’t have them in the house to eat!!!! Last week I won the money pot at Train which was a huge surprise because I usually don’t so now I have lots of quarters. Each game we play one quarter goes in from each of the gals that are at the table. When someone wins a game they give up one quarter to the pot and keep the rest. At the end of the game whoever has the lowest score wins the pot!! If we play with number 18 dominoes, that adds up to a lot of games and quarters. Yahoo!!! Will my luck continue for next week? Only time will tell. I leave you with a beautiful picture of a Blue Heron, taken on our beach. You don't see a lot of them down this way so it is always a pleasure to see them.