Today we decided to go to Loreto Fest at Puerto Escondido. Dave and I checked emails and had breakfast while Robert and Kristi had their exercise things to do. Robert rode his bike along with a few other guys and Kristi went to an exercise class. I read for a while and exercised. Then when Kristi and Robert got back we took off for Puerto Escondido. We ran into the road construction where they were blasting the mountain side to prevent rock slides in the future. It was only about a 20 minute wait. We got to Puerto Escondido where Loreto Fest was going on and we were really disappointed. There weren’t many cruisers in attendance and nothing was for sale like crafts or anything interesting. They had food and drinks for sale and different seminars happening throughout the day. It was rather boring. We had a polish dog and water for lunch and I had a margarita after that. We bought 10 tickets for food and drinks so Dave had 5 and so did I. We used them up. We did see about 3 cruising friends which was nice. We left there and Robert took us to see a friend who lives off the grid like we do, then we had to wait in line for about 20 minutes again for construction going back to Loreto and then drove through a place called Nopolo. It is a community that is made up of mostly Canadian people that come down to vacation. I wasn’t impressed as they were all the same design square houses. Then we went back to Loreto, stopped at the grocery store to get a few groceries and headed back to the house. We are having Yellow Tail for dinner so Dave is making a good sauce to go with it. After getting back to the house we went our separate ways for a while and then gathered for happy hour. Kristi made a couple salads, and heated up some leftover homemade bread, and the leftover potatoes. The guys cooked the fish on the BBQ and then it was dinner time. What a great meal. After dinner we played Mexican train. Robert won!!! Kristi and Robert went to bed and Dave and I took showers and I gathered the dirty clothes and washed them. I am now waiting for the clothes to dry. It is going on midnight!!!! I hope to be in bed soon. We get up early tomorrow so we can be on the road at 7:30am. We will be home and sleeping in our bed tomorrow night!!!! Finally the clothes got dry and I folded them, turned out the lights and headed for the bedroom. I just laid the clothes on the dresser and got ready for bed. Dave was already asleep.
We all got up at 6:30am and Kristi fixed some scrambled eggs, warmed up the leftover potatoes we didn’t finish last night, and Robert cut up some pineapple. After breakfast we packed the jeep and said our goodbyes. We had a great time.
We had an uneventful but hot drive home. It was 100 degrees driving from Loreto. Then it cooled down a bit as we reached the coast and when we finally reached Bahia it was 90 plus degrees. We stopped and filled the jeep with gas and stopped at the store to buy milk and bread and a couple other items then came home. It was nice to be home again!!!! We unloaded the jeep and took everything upstairs. I didn’t put anything away. I figure I will do that tomorrow. We had been invited to dinner at Phil and Creela’s so that was nice. We called them to let them know we were home and they said they’ve been waiting for us. So when we got finished with the unloading process we walked over to Phil and Creela’s. It was so good to see them!!!! Creela looks great and she still has some pain from the back surgery but doing so much better!!!! She looks good. We visited, had cocktails and then had Spaghetti for dinner. Mmmmmm!!!! It was dark when we left so they let us borrow their flashlight, as we were walking home. Here is to a great night’s sleep!!!!!
Wahoo!!!! No-no. Not the fish!!!! We had a good sleep and it is so nice to be home and able to relax. We enjoyed our coffee, had breakfast then started putting things away. It didn’t take much time to do that. I had to defrost the refrigerator and freezer and when I went to turn the knob to off it was hard to turn. Dave had trouble trying to turn the knob to change the temperature. Something isn’t right. Oh boy!!!! Something else to fix!!!! I took my milk over to Phil and Creela’s to put in their refrigerator so it would stay cold. I told Creela what was going on and asked Phil if he could come over and help Dave. So I walked back to the house while Phil put the boxed wine they brought down for us on his quad and rode over to our house. The guys had the refrigerator on its side and Dave found a couple pipes bent which was causing the problem. It is a gas refrigerator/freezer so they were careful not to damage the gas connection. Once it was fixed, they turned it right side up and Dave was able to adjust the temperature knob easily and turn on the refrigerator. It was fixed. We thanked Phil, gave him his flashlight back and he went home and I finished up what I was doing and waited until both refrigerator and freezer were cold enough to put the food back in it again. We had to leave the milk at Phil and Creela’s overnight as the refrigerator didn’t cool down enough for it until late that evening. So all is well and everything is back in the refrigerator and freezer again.
Next morning Dave walked over to Phil’s and retrieved our milk and we had cereal for breakfast, and then started in on taping the walls and ceiling to paint!!!!! Dave painted the other window sills, one in the living room and 2 in the bedroom. I painted the bedroom side of the added wall with Azul Tequila and it looks really good. When that was done I painted with a brush around the window and baseboard on the north wall of our bedroom with Amber Glow!!!! When I opened the lid I went uh oh!!!! It was much darker and brighter than I thought it was going to be. I told Dave it was bright. I painted the wall and actually I like it!!!! It is bright but it looks good with the Azul Tequila.
The next day we painted the north and the living room side of the added wall with the Amber Glow and thought we should stop there instead of painting another wall in the living room that color. We thought it would end up being too much. The person that has a great eye for color is Creela so we asked her to come over and give us her opinion. When she walked in she saw the blue paint tape and then the Amber Glow and said she didn’t like the color and we would have to get rid of the curtains we have up now as they clashed!!!!! We asked her about painting the other wall that was left and she said no!!!! We said we thought it would look better if we painted that wall the soft yellow (Tea Cookie) which matches the east wall and she said that would be great!!!! So we talked a little while and she left and we went back to painting. Dave painted the south wall in the soft yellow and inside the closet area.
Last day of painting! All that is left to paint now are the baseboards and 2 walls in the bedroom and 1 wall in the closet. Dave painted the baseboards and bathroom door frame with white paint and I took a brush and went around the window, baseboards and ceiling with the Azul Tequila. As I was finishing with that Dave painted the walls where I had prepped with the blue tape. We are finally finished!!!!!! It looks really good even with the bright pumpkin color!!!! We will live with this color and see if it grows on us. If it doesn’t we will buy the color we originally picked out, which was Eastern Amber, and repaint the 2 living room walls when we return from Seattle this fall. It will tone it down just a tad. We cleaned up, put the furniture back and now we can just enjoy!!!
Thursday my neighbor, Smiley, had cards at her house so I invited the gals over afterwards to see the house. They were amazed. They didn’t think by adding the 3 walls it would look as big as it does. They all liked it, even the bright orange!!!! Creela came over too and said it didn’t look bad but the curtains had to go. Ha!!!! They do but right now we will have to live with them until we can get replacement blinds for the windows. So we are finished with the house for now and when we return in the fall we will start prepping to have the outside of the house painted, more rocks added to the wall on the arroyo, and hopefully be able to do something with the stairs, like tear them down and redo them!!!!! They are very steep and everyone hates walking up and down them. So we will just have to wait and see what, if anything can be done about them.
When the gals came over to see the house after playing hand and foot the other day one of the gals noticed our small refrigerator and said she would love to have one that size as she isn’t down here long enough to fill the one she has which is a full size one. I asked if she wanted to trade and she said she would talk to her husband and I would talk to Dave and see if that would work. So Dave is supposed to talk with Dean on Friday.
Friday is here and we called and asked if it was a good time to talk to Dean about the refrigerator and she said yes. So Dave and I drove to their house which is close by and everyone seems to be in agreement about the switch, but they want to look more carefully at the one we have before a decision is made. So we said Saturday afternoon would be good. So we shall see. After leaving Phyllis and Deans’ house we walked next door to say hi to Anne and Elwyn. Plus we needed to borrow Elwyn’s air compressor to put air in the truck’s driver side front tire. It keeps loosing air. One day soon we will take it to the tire shop and have them find the leak and fix it. Anne and I had a nice visit as I suspect the guys did too. Then we left and came back home. We took showers and got ready to go to Smiley’s house for a community get together for Tom who is another neighbor that recently retired. So everyone is to bring an appetizer and what they want to drink and I was asked to make a cake. So at 5:00pm we walked over and greeted everyone and had a wonderful evening!!!! It was nice to share Tom’s retirement with everyone.
They can stay down here longer now!!!! They will do the same thing the other people do here, including us, and that is to leave when it gets hot and come back in the fall when it cools off. So life is good.
This morning there was a breakfast in town for all of us gringo moms. We were to meet at Alejandrina’s restaurant at 9:30am. Because I had grocery shopping, garbage to dump, a stop at the pharmacy and gas station to fill up the truck and a jerry can, I left the house at 8:30am. I was able to get all of it done and start my grocery shopping before going to the restaurant. Alejandrina had gotten orders for those who wanted Chile Rellenos a couple days ago, and for the rest of us we ordered off the menu. There was fresh squeezed orange juice, fruit, coffee, and a rice pudding with a cookie for the final item!!!! I ordered French toast which was very good. It was pretty inexpensive!!!! It was nice to see some of the ladies I haven’t seen in a while and we had good conversations. Afterwards I left and finished my grocery shopping and came home. Dave helped with taking the groceries upstairs and I proceeded to put everything away and vacuum pack the meat and chicken. Dave had already had lunch and I probably won’t need any.
Phyllis and Dean were supposed to come over this afternoon, but never showed. Oh well. Maybe they forgot. Lynn (another neighbor) was supposed to come over to see the house and bring my yarn and ear plugs, but that didn’t happen either. Tomorrow is another day. I spent the afternoon catching up the blog and Dave read his book and then took a nap. Retired life is good!!!!
Phyllis called this morning, Sunday, and said she decided to keep the refrigerator she has as it was working better. She was having trouble getting the temperature below 45 in the refrigerator. She stuffed it with balloons to make it work better. Because they are only here for a short time she couldn’t fill it up. So much for getting a bigger refrigerator! That’s o.k. because that time will come and I will be able to choose what I want.
We invited Larry and Lois over for dinner and to see the house. They liked what we did and were impressed. We had a wonderful visit and we mentioned about the refrigerator trade that didn’t happen and Larry said-------“DON’T DO IT!!!!” He said Phyllis had been over talking about the refrigerator to Lois and said it wasn’t keeping things cold. She had gotten that refrigerator from another friend which also had trouble with the temperature. So you see------it all worked out for the best!!! That was good to hear.
The weather has been hot. It is May but it feels like July, August and September weather. In the house, due to the propane stove and refrigerator, in the kitchen it was 100 degrees. The rest of the house was around 97 degrees. If there is a breeze it is o.k. but there wasn’t so it was uncomfortable. We ran the fans but they just moved hot air around. It is suppose to cool off in a couple more days.
Phil and Dave launched Phil’s boat and did a little fishing. Phil wanted to test the boat for leaks. Surprisingly there were none!!!! Dave caught one bonita so we kept that one .
It’s been a couple days of heat with little wind, but this morning the breeze was wonderful and steady. It felt so good to cool the house and us down. I guess we celebrated too much because come the mid afternoon the wind died and the house got hot again. When we did get a breeze it was a hot one so that didn’t help matters. Summer has come early to Bahia!!!! I bet a lot of the gringo people will be heading north soon!!!! I’m glad we can go to the Seattle area for the summer as it gives us a break from the summer heat here. As a teenager I got heat exhaustion and since then I can’t take a lot of heat. I love warm weather in the upper 80’s but when the temperature climbs into the 90’s and 100’s I have a difficult time. It is the non-cooling of the evening where you can’t sleep and you are sweating that does you in. Dave and I drank a lot of water and Gatorade to keep us hydrated and we sat on the deck in the shade to get more of the breeze even if it was warm. Later in the evening it did start to cool and the house was a cool 88 degrees. Ha!!! Actually I laugh but it is so true!!!! By the time we went to bed last night it was cool enough and there was a breeze blowing on us from the window!!!
Well the guys are out fishing again. They left at 7:00am and it is almost 1:00pm and they haven’t come back yet. I hope they are having good luck. They went out the other day, all day, and only caught some bass. Phil took it home for fish tacos that evening.
Dave is working on completing the closets. The one in the kitchen he will do first as the walls are straight straighter than the ones for the bedroom closet. I painted the support strips and when he is ready he can screw them into the wall. Then he needs to get a piece of plywood and cut it to make shelves then I will paint them and walla------a closet!!! I will be able to have my vacuum upstairs instead of in the garage. That will be nice. Then we will have to come up with something to hide the shelves. Little by little it all comes together.
We were invited to a friend’s house for dinner the other night. There were 4 other couples beside us and we made our own individual pizzas. Dennis and Rainy built a wonderful pizza oven and this is the second time we have been able to enjoy pizza there. We had a great evening outside visiting and eating good food. It happened to be Phil’s birthday so that was special for him!!
You know when people are getting ready to go back to the states when there are dinner parties happening. Lois and Larry had their annual Duffy Dog BBQ which is a hot dog wrapped in bacon and grilled on the BBQ. Everyone that was invited brought a side dish to share. Someone organized a game of ladder golf which is really fun. I played and my team won!!!! No prizes though. Some of these people play a lot as they are really good. Because it has been so hot, Larry and Lois decided to have the Duffy Dog party early as they are thinking of leaving in June. The temperatures have been inching up close to 100. Some places like Rincon, across the bay from us was 106 the other day as a breeze drove the heat down the mountains to them. Ugh!!! Dave and I have been sitting on the deck enjoying the breeze. We’ll just sit out there in the shade and read, look through binoculars to see if there is anything exciting going on or just sit and enjoy.
I have started a new craft project. I am making pendants from beach glass. I need to get the clasps (bails) and cording, but for now I am just designing. I love working with wire so have to add some flourish to some of them.
These will also be for sale at the art show in November. I have to start thinking about how I am going to display all my things as I only have a small table. No doubt I will figure it out.
I have been walking the beach but because of the high tides there have been few treasures. Unfortunately there have been baby seals washed up and one large turtle but that is about it.
Dave and Phil went fishing the other day and caught a couple yellow tail fish. They haven’t had a lot of luck in yellow tail but caught 20 bonita before that and smoked them.
The people who have been coming down here for years have never been asked for proof of ownership of their boat or fishing license or anything like that. They have always just done whatever they wanted. Well Bahia de los Angeles is catching up to the rest of Mexico in the boating rules and regulations and some of the gringos have been stopped and asked for license and park passes since these waters are protected. So now everyone is having a tizzy because they never have had to do that stuff before and now it is going to cost some money. Dave has been trying to tell the guys down here that Mexico is cracking down on boaters and if they don’t have the right paperwork, permits, etc., they could end up losing their boats. Phil, our neighbor is not happy he has to buy a park pass and fishing license to go out on his boat. Times are changing. A lot of the boats people have brought down from the states haven’t been imported so there will be problems there. None of this stuff is really expensive or time consuming, but they just don’t want to bother with it. Oh well! What is that saying--------“When in Rome, do as the Romans do?” When in Mexico or any foreign country, follow the rules and regulations and there won’t be any problems.
Well I have resorted to wearing a swimsuit and shorts for my daily attire. Yesterday I saw our neighbors George and Mary in the water and thought about going in, but it was 5:00pm and I would be fixing dinner plus it was cocktail time. By observation it looked like the water was a bit cool because it took them awhile to get use to it. After wading in for a bit they finally just dunked and after that I’m sure it was refreshing. This morning I got an email from Mary reminding everyone to shuffle, shuffle, shuffle their feet when getting into and out of the water as the sting rays are out. As she was working her way to get out of the water she didn’t shuffle enough and got stung. After soaking her foot in very hot water, the pain subsided and today she is doing fine. Unfortunately the water is hot enough to be uncomfortable but not burn you since that is the only thing that takes the pain away. Once the water starts to cool the pain comes back. We had heard of cruisers getting stung and if the barb has to be dug out, you can’t get in any salt water until it heals. Fortunately Mary didn’t have the barb in her.
Our refrigerator is struggling to keep things cold. It has been about 98 degrees almost every day and with it being propane the heat escapes from behind the refrigerator and out into the kitchen. We have a skylight above the refrigerator but it still gets hot. We have run the big ceiling fan in the kitchen to suck some of the hot air up and force it out, but it hasn’t been real effective as the air is hot. So I have a windshield cover over the top of the refrigerator to help deflect heat and now started running a fan so it will suck the hot air from behind the refrigerator out into the kitchen and then with the 2 windows and the skylight the hot air can escape. This is what we have had to do when we stayed here in the summer, like in late July, all of August and September. Never before in May or June. So it is looking like it will be a hot summer this year. Yikes!!!! Luckily we have been able to leave all the windows and skylights open at night to help the cooler air move through the house.
Tomorrow is another dinner party. Some friends have invited us to their house for a Memorial Day party. There will be bocce ball and ladder golf, lots of food and fun times. Then within the next 2 weeks we should see a mass exodus from Bahia. We won’t be leaving until the end of June as we still have projects to finish. Dave made the shelves for the kitchen and I sanded and painted them and re-organized my cupboards to get some heavy items off the pantry shelves. I hung a piece of material on an expandable rod so you don’t have to look at what is on the shelves. It works for us.
Since the weather has been on the hot side, I haven’t been doing much. I do take siestas sometimes but most of the time I will sit outside where there is a breeze and read or crochet. I haven’t had the energy to do much else. My brain wants to do lots but the body doesn’t want to follow. I have been trying to walk the beach in the mornings when I can and that has been nice. I have found a few treasures to use in my creations.
Since this is Saturday, it is go to town day for gas and groceries. A road crew has been dropping a lot of dirt on our road and then a grader has been pushing it around and flattening it down. Wow!!! What a difference. I could get up to 20 MPH in the old truck!!!!! That is amazing without having my head pound into the roof of the cab. Ha!!! They are working fast and should be past the road of where we live by the middle part of this month. I just hope people don’t use it as a race track just because there aren’t any boulders or ruts in the road. It will be interesting to see what happens when the race comes by in November. We will enjoy it while it lasts!!! I had an opportunity to go to a friend’s house and see the things she makes. She makes a lot of beautiful things from gourds and Indian dolls as well. What talent!!! It was fun to see her studio and work. I invited her to my place to see my stuff sometime. She also crochets so if I ever need help she can help me. Most of the gals here knit so it is nice to know of someone who crochets. Dave and Phil were out fishing and got back about an hour and a half before the Memorial Day party. They caught a bunch of bonita. It’s time to fire up the smoker!
Well Dave has showered and off to the party we go.
The party was fun and a bunch of us played Bocce Ball and I ended up in the winner’s circle but not the finals. It was fun!!! There were a few people that weren’t able to make the party due to illness. There is a stomach and intestinal bug going around and a few people caught it. Everyone there had a great time. The evening was wonderful with a little breeze to cool us off and we didn’t have any bugs to bug us!!!! That is always nice.
