Spoiler- weather is fantastic... don't read if that will disturb you

Hi, All, I can't help but gush now. The weather is perfect, like a Calgary early summer, about 25 C (77 F) in the daytime, getting down to 14(57 F) or so overnight. It will get slowly hotter now, so we can ease our way into the summer.

I had my coffee outside this morning, listening to the local music, the roosters, the birds tweeting. Nice.

The other day I had a mango from a cart- they peel it, cut it into a flower shape, put it on a stick, then give it a blast of chili sauce, lime juice and salt. Good, but very fibrous, eat close to dental floss.

Went out to Rene's the other night to meet with Rosie and watch the sunset. Nice evening, sitting in shorts up on their balcony. There are a lot more tourists in town now, so the people who sell are hopefully starting to make some money. I bought some hummingbird pots the other day, because the guy knows us from coming to the beach every day. He said, "We usually start at $15 and go down to $10, but for you, $5".

Apparently you put sugar water in them and they attract hummingbirds- I expect they also attract insects, so they'll just be an attractive decoration.

I think this will be my last blog, everyone- thanks for your attention and comments! It's been fun, but now we're settling into the lifestyle, and nothing much new is happening, so the blogs are getting harder to write and aren't as interesting. Please keep in touch with us via email, phone calls, or facebook, and do PLEASE come on down for a visit.

When we start touring around Mexico, which I hope will be late this year, I may renew this or start a new one. Again, thanks for your enthusiasm and support on this venture (adventure?) -it has meant a lot.

Mel

Surprise sunset cruise

We were happily surprised Sunday to get invited on a sunset cruise. It's the first time we've been out on a boat here, and it was calm as could be. There were drinks and food, and we all celebrated Bobbi and Tom's tenth anniversary. Coincidentally, it was also the 10th anniversary of us quitting smoking. We had a wonderful time, ending up back at their bar. It is nice to talk to people younger than 70. Sorry, all you 70+ people!

This is going to be a quick blog, as I'm wiped from putting out the paper. But if anyone knows someone who's nervous about coming to Mexico, have them read the paper this week: http://www.rockypointnewsonline.com/

I wanted to tell Cheryl that we are now hooked on House.

The weather here is now getting into summer in Calgary kind of weather, 25 degrees, somewhat cloudy, but very nice. We are in shorts again.

In no particular order:

Our beach from the water (the beach we take Shadow to):

The other side of the peninsula:


Wake, Whale Hill from the sea:

Old port from the water:


Sky:





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Our hosts Tom and Bobbi:


Tom again:


Bobbi:

OK- where were we?

When last you heard from me, the Chili Colorado was underway. Delicious!! Spicy but full of flavor. We have half a jar left, and next time we're thinking of adding some bacon, potatoes, little whole mushrooms if we can find them, and Carl would love some pearl onions but we don't know if we'll find those. The shrimp were also wonderful-what a great flavor!

Yesterday we embarked on our long-delayed drive up the new highway to El Golfo. Unfortunately I had the camera set wrong, so not very many shots turned out, sorry! An American we met was telling us that the beaches along there were pristine, and told us where we could access one (he forgot to say, "if you're in a 4x4").

The drive was nice as we got out of scrubby desert and into some nice sand dunes. Here I will steal a shot from Cheryl, as is my habit. Here is her blog, by the way, if you want some more good (And very amusing) reading: http://cheryl-dan.blogspot.com/



When we got to the area the American told us about, we saw a very serviceable-looking road leading towards the ocean, and thought, why not, we have lots of time. The road was fine, and fine and fine, and then was 20 inches deep in sand. With our front-wheel drive. We were screwed.

We walked down towards the beach, and there was a private property sign. OK... back to the road, see if someone can either pull us out or call the Green angels for us. It was only about 1/2 to 3/4 of a kilometre back, so we made it to the highway easily. I think it's an indication of how relaxed we've become that neither of us was cranky about this; the scenery was nice, we had water and it was a nice day, so what the heck.

We tried to flag down three vehicles with no luck. Then another pickup truck was driving towards us, rather slowly. We waved our arms, and they stopped. It was the Green Angels!

I tried to explain what happened in my really bad Spanish,and he smiled and said, "What can we do for you folks?". That was a nice moment.

When we got back to the car, it was surrounded by a group of marines, who were already digging it out. They let the air out of the tires, then 6 of them pushed us out. Once I got to hard ground again we were ok, then I had to back up about 100 yards and pull over so the marines could get by in their truck.


Then our guys filled our tires back up with their compressor. Jose is on the right, he is the boss and doesn't speak much English. We never got the name of the fellow on the left, he spoke perfect English and gave us all kinds of information about the area. (Including the fact that in Yuma in March and April, the snowbirds sell off their 4x4's really cheap. He even gave us the street names where this happens. Next year we'll go up there.)

.Nice guys- our rescuers.

So we continued to El Golfo, which is a very small fishing town. It was full of Americans with RVs and recreational vehicles, they looked like they were having a great time. We stopped and had a quick fish taco and a coke here:



One the corner were a group of teenagers, who were having a blast calling something out to cars and trucks as they drove by. Whatever it was (Your back tire is flat, maybe?) caused some passengers to lean out their windows and look back, causing gales of laughter from the teens. Nobody ever got annoyed, they just smiled and drove one. Fun in a small town.

When we left the restaurant we walked by the teens and both of us looked back at our trailing foot. Cracked them up. The beaches there were nice, but we have beaches at home, and we'd already had a pretty good walk, so we headed back. Here is one shot of the scenery that kind of worked. There were these sort of mini-canyons that went on as far as the eye can see, and led down to the turquoise sea. There's a quote from an writer, 'Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’ Sigh. I guess you had to be there.


Coming back there were no complications. Tonight we're going on our first sunset cruise, friends are having their tenth anniversary. It's cloudy out now; hopefully that will pass by tonight.

New things are nice

Consign & Design had a sale on Thursday, and we decided to go down and see if we could get a deal on a table we'd had our eye on for months. We did, got it for about 1/3 off. It's perfect for our hallway, and Carl can pack his books on it. There are some items at Target in dark wood that will finish it off nicely, and allow Carl to put all his packing materials out there in tidy drawers and shelving.


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Carl potted the bougainvillea, it looks great. Here's the way the entrance to the guest room looked before:


And after:




Our palm tree has really grown since we bought the place in March. Then it was barely over our wall, now it's higher than our roof.





We're having half of those big shrimp today(I know, they should be called prawns or something, but they don't differentiate down here, everything is just shrimp). I needed coconut milk for my recipe.
http://www.recipezaar.com/Coconut-Masala-Tiger-Prawns-90430 (Note next day- the recipe was DELICIOUS!)

I didn't find coconut milk, and although I could make it, I would have to find cheesecloth for that, a more difficult thing than you might think. So I grabbed some coconut cream. It has sugar in it, but I'm just going to use a couple of tablespoons, so I'm sure the added sweetness will be delicious. But what to do with the rest of that can of coconut cream?

Make piña coladas, of course!!



Just like any woman, sometimes I buy things just because they're pretty:



It's such a nice red color, I couldn't resist. Now what do I do with it? Well, I found a recipe for a beef chili that I think is what this is meant for:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chile-Colorado/Detail.aspx

We'll try that next week. Today we have a big yard sale out in Las Conchas. (I know Dan the map guy doesn't need a map anymore, since he knows the town as well as I do, so I won't add a map). I hope it's better than the last one we went to. But it has promise, as it's a community yard sale. And of course there are refreshments. I was telling my mom, every event of any kind here involves alcohol. Sometimes you just have to stay away! Or say no, which just gets you strange looks.

Anyway, I need to go get ready for that. Here's one last picture. This is what it's supposed to look like here in March, Spring Break:

Boats and Sprouts

We got invited to go on a yacht trip for free! We accepted, of course. Here's the boat-unfortunately we never went for the two-hour cruise (Gilligan theme running through your heads yet?). There's a pretty stiff wind, and whitecaps, and they prudently decided that with free food and drinks, it might be tidier overall to entertain their guests while still tied up. It was still lots of fun!








They have ten staterooms with 2 beds each, private baths and hot showers- it's built to go out for 7-day trips taking people scuba-diving. For you boat-y types, it's 110 feet, all steel, twin turbo diesels, with "the latest in marine electronics".



Their website is www.rociodelmarliveaboard.com


Working Shrimp Boats:



Many of you know that I have a seriously brown thumb, and also that I love to cook. I need an herb garden badly. Cheryl helped me plant some seeds before she left, and some of her green must have rubbed off, because some of them have sprouted!!


Basil. oooooo.

The other morning Carl was replacing our wiper blades and the guy from across the street came over to ask if he wanted some shrimp. $10 for 2 lbs. We thought. sure, what the heck. He brought over these monsters:


By the way, Carl says he doesn't speak Spanish, but I know the guy across the street doesn't speak any English, and Carl just completed the transaction without even mentioning what language it was in.

Food and Rummoli

The prices here really are very low. Here are a few for instances:

The other day I bought a big bunch of asparagus, 2 stalks of fresh broccoli, a cucumber, two yellow peppers and a couple of tomatoes for 24 pesos. That's about $2.

We bought those two big bougainvillea plants for $500 pesos, about $43. Here they are again:


We purchased 2 great terra cotta pots today for those plants. They're large, and we got two for $30 US. We love them!!


We've been having trouble getting good fish here lately, in spite of having our own fish guy. He's sold us three things that he said were sea bass. From talking to people, we've determined that maybe that first chewy one was an old black cod, and the ones that fall apart in the pan were frozen for a long time. The only times we've bought really good fish from him was when we saw it being filleted. He'll say it's flounder, and we'll be pretty sure it's tilapia. So we're not too trusting of him anymore.

Yesterday we had a chat with our friendly Canadian-born waitress, Tanya. She told us she goes to a certain guy across the street. She said to go there and tell him she sent us. I did, talked to Alex our new fish guy and told him we liked a meatier fish, really fresh. He assured me the red snapper had been caught that morning, I had a smell and a poke, and it seemed really fresh, so I bought it. And it was delicious!!


Tanya speaks Spanish. Tanya(thanks again, Cheryl):


She was saying he takes her out to the fishermen, and I'm hoping we'll get to that point as well, but for now if we can get really fresh fish, I'm happy.

Tonight we'll have fish tacos with the rest of it. I'll make a pico de gallo with fresh tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, and a little fresh garlic. We have an avocado, fresh tortillas, and here is a jar of salsa Cheryl and Dan bought- pretty much what you figured, guys, the picture was too good to be true:



Puerto Penasco has an interesting resemblance to Italy. Just a random thought. They're a high-heeled boot, we're snow boots.




While Dan and Cheryl were here, we instigated what will probably be the game of choice down here when we have guests- Rummoli!! We had quite a few matches, and also played a game or two of Aggravation that they brought along.

We have quite a few guests lined up- my uncle and his wife(? sorry, Betty, not sure if you're married or just living in sin) coming down this month some time. Dan's coming down for one day in March, just because he's in the vicinity- a behavior most of you should emulate! And our friend and pastor Bill is coming down with his grown up kids sometime in April. Bill married Carl and me in a ceremony famous on the east coast. For those who were there, no, I'm still not telling you what he said! Here's Bill now:



Don't you just want to smooch him? I do.

The newspaper's doing well, it's very popular hereabouts, and thanks to all of you who are reading it. Here's the address again for anyone who has forgotten:

http://www.rockypointnewsonline.com

I have another website contract because of the paper, and hoping for more. We've been to a couple of different places because of the paper as well, including JC's Bar & Grill (website coming) and The SandBar, where we saw a couple of guys creating a terrible drink for the table who had beaten them at horseshoes. Cranberry juice, vodka,Tabasco sauce, some other liquor, then they threw in some horseradish for fun.

We spent most of Superbowl day at The Thirsty Parrot, and we went there the Thursday before as well for Ladies drink free night. Cheryl and I did the best we could, but you can really only drink three of those frozen cocktails before the sugar gets to you.

The last night they were here, Cheryl and Dan kindly took us out to the Lighthouse, a restaurant on Whale Hill. We'd never been up there, and the view is fantastic!!
I can't bear to steal yet another photo from Cheryl, so I'll steal someone elses'. I have to admit, it was great not to have to carry a camera around for a while!


The food was wonderful, Cheryl had the flounder in white wine and garlic sauce, Dan had Mexican steak, Carl opted for the filet mignon, and I had the chicken cordon bleu. All incredibly rich and tasty, served with nicely steamed veggies and a baked potato. A very talented jazz guitarist played in the background, and we watched the sunset. Oh, what the hell, one more theft from Cheryl- I wouldn't but she's so damn good!


And the final news: Marysol had her baby!! That's all we know, it's a boy and Oswaldo called us yesterday before he'd even seen the little guy. I'm sure there'll be pictures, etc. to come.