Is it Fall Yet?

Hmmmmm....
Something is different here.
Oh yeah ~ it's only in the high 80's and low to mid 90's and is actually cool enough to pull a sheet over us around midnight or 2 am.
I am not sweating 24 hours a day.
I don't have mold all over my body.
My hair dries after a shower.
We have breeze again.
Could the heat of summer be over?
Could it be fall already?
OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE!
Well it's probably fooling us, but it fooled me enough yesterday to turn my oven on.
Ha ha ha!
Yes, I even remembered how.
I made cookies!Thanks to Stan for my "customized by Stan" cookie sheets!Notice the cut-off customized side.
Notice the bent-up customized other side.
Boat ovens are much, much smaller than house ovens, so finding pans and cookie sheets to fit is sometimes impossible.
Jim has snickerdoodles.
Jim thanks Stan.

"Welcome to Mexico!" Now Hurry Up and Wait.

To quote Kellie and just about every other non-Mexican in Mexico, "Manana does not mean tomorrow, it just means not now".
"We will have it ready for you manana" does not mean we will have it ready for you tomorrow.
For that matter, "We will have it ready for you tomorrow" does not mean we will have it ready for you tomorrow.
"We will have ready next Wednesday" does not mean we will have it ready next Wednesday, it means we may have it ready some Wednesday six weeks from now.
Or maybe that Friday.
Or not.
Or never.

They tell you yes when they mean no.
"Can you fix this?"
"Yes no, I don't even know what that is, but give it to me anyway and I will hold on to it for six weeks and keep putting you off, by telling you manana, manana, next Wednesday or maybe Friday and I need a deposit up front."

We call these people.
We wait for these people to call us.
We wait for them to show up.
We wait for next Wednesday.
Then Friday.
Then we wait some more.Uh ~ I don't think by waiting for our air conditioner motor to be re-built for four weeks will make it more exciting when we finally get it.
It will mean it is winter and we no longer need the air conditioner.

Happy Birthday Joseph!

Hmmmmmm... didn't I just do this post, oh say about a year ago?
Happy Birthday to our nephew, Joseph who we never, ever see and never, ever hear from, but that's ok because we are still proud of him.
He is the only person I know that decided what he wanted to do when he was three years old, and he is now doing it.
He is a train engineer!
Driving big million dollar engines with trains full of cargo behind them.

This year I will post some more grown up pics of him, except this goofy one of him in the pool...High school graduation pic.Amazing we have so much red hair...
Donna's daughter, Meghan with the mane of red hair.
Geelizzie's son also with red hair.

And the most recent picture I have of him ~ from over two years ago!He's not overly happy in this one because we were on our way out to scatter ashes of his grandpa (my dad)...

Ha ha ha!
I just swiped this picture from Geelizzie's blog.
Joe in front of a brand new gazillion dollar engine that he got to take on it's maiden trip!

Happy Birthday Joseph!
Now send me an email and call your Mom!

Independence Day Parade ~ Sanity at Last! Sort of

Yesterday was the Independence Day Parade down Obregon, the street the runs along The Malecon.
For some reason the parade starts at 8:00 am.
Uh ~ remember the 50,000 people all partying the night before?
And they expect them to be at The Malecon at 8:00 am the next morning?
I am assuming the people who picked 8:00 am were the same ones who forgot to order the porta-potties...

Anyway, I made it!
The parades here are a little different than the ones we see in the US.
The people marching are all the school kids in their uniforms.Some of whom have to concentrate really, really hard.The men in charge of keeping the kids lined up take their jobs very seriously.
A little too seriously.
They whistle, yell, count through megaphones, stomp and so on.
The kids just seem to tolerate it.

The governor and all the bigwigs who had toilets to use the night before sit on a stage and watch the kids march by.
They are protected by a lot of army men.
This one included.There is something a little disturbing about seeing 19 year old "boys" with big guns watching over a parade of little kids.

But wait! Here come the reason the "big boys" are there!
Marching girls in high heels!











Uh ~ did the same people who picked 8 am as the starting time and forgot to order the porta-potties tell these girls what shoes to wear?
High heels in a parade?

I think the high heels even stumped these guys sitting on their decorated bench.Then every branch of every public service.
Federales. Army. Navy. Firemen. Local Police. Green Angels. Some Other Kind of Police. Marine Police. Military Nurses. Kids in Police Costumes.
Lots of weapons.
Guns. Knives. Semi-Automatics. Grenade Launchers. Bayonetes. More Guns. Rocket Launchers. Sticks for the Kids in Police Costumes.




That disturbing thing came up again.
Watching 300 people with weapons march down the street, with half of those weapons pretty much pointed at the crowd.

Sirens!
Sirens full blast on the Federale cars. The local police cars. The firetrucks. The Green Angel trucks. The other police cars.
All full blast and all in a row.
So if you didn't already have a headache from the partying the night before, you had one now...
Two of the siren-blasting firetrucks had been donated by The City of San Luis Obispo!That was nice to see.

Then about 6 or 7 different groups of people on horses.
The ladies were all sitting side saddle!No marching bands.
No floats.
No clowns tossing candy.
No shriners on little tiny mini-bikes.
No stilt walkers.
No princesses or queens of the parade waving with that special princess wave.
The horses were the only thing that even remotely reminded me of a US parades.
Oh, and the firetrucks.
But they always come at the end of the parade in the US.

Grito ~ Insanity at it's Finest...

Okee dokee.
Talk about insane.
Insane for many, many, MANY reasons.
We went.
We survived.
We, Nancy, Dave, Kellie, Jim and I had a couple of drinks and snacks on the boat before we headed up to the Governor's Cardboard Mansion which by the way, if I am not invited to join the bigwigs inside the mansion next year, where I assume they have toilets, I'm not going.

Loved the decorations, including the ones the people were wearing.
Loved the teenage girls who posed for us and let us pose with them.Loved the police who let us pose with them, but wouldn't crack a smile.

You know how hard it is to not laugh when you are standing in between two Mexican policemen?

Tough guys...

Loved the size of the beers Dave and Kellie somehow ended up with not really.












Loved the decorations ~ oops, already said that.And really loved the kids!
They were a lot of fun ~ this little girl even let me hold her for a bit.



















Wow look at that crowd!
Amazingly enough we somehow found Nancy's boyfriend in this crowd.This is the insane part.
There are no public toilets.
That's right - nowhere to pee.
They sent us to use the toilets in the grocery store.
Okay...
What about the 100 women in line in front of us?
There are 50,000 people here and no toilets.
Sssoooooooooooooo - I find a side street, go behind a building in a parking lot and feel much better.
Found a mop against a fence on the way out and used that to wipe off my foot.
Then Kellie goes back there.
Then Dave.

Suggestion to La Paz - spend a little less on the decorations on the governor's pad and rent some porta-potties.

Jim got lucky and there were only a few guys in line in front of him when he went to the toilet grocery store.

Next insane part.
Simply the number of people.
Too many and too many to not have toilets.

Then some bigwig started yakking and everyone was yelling, "Viva!".
Us too.
Ya gotta fit in.
Ha.
Like we fit in there.
I think the locals enjoyed our antics and our playing with their kids.
Here we are doing our antics.Next insane part.
Fireworks.
Fireworks right above our heads.
Beautiful but there was fallout landing on our heads.A little too close for full enjoyment when you are checking the top of your head for burning embers.




















And the final insane part!
TRYING TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE ! ! !
50,000 people all squished together with full bladders trying to go in opposite directions with no crowd control.
Ick.
We had to hold hands in a line and squeeze through the 50,000 people with full bladders - not us, the 50,000 people, remember we peed behind a building and try not to get trampled.
Seriously ~ Ick.
I had to do a shot of dumb rum when we got back to Nancy's truck!

Grito de Dolores - Mexican Independence Celebration

Per Wikipedia ~ Edited just a tiny bit by me:
The Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") was the battle cry of the Mexican War of Independence, uttered on September 16 1810 by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest from the small town of Dolores, near Guanajuato.

Hidalgo was involved in a planned revolt against the Spanish colonial government, and when the plotters were betrayed, he declared that war should be waged against the Spaniards. Just before the dawn of September 16, 1810, Hidalgo ordered the the church bells to be rung and gathered his congregation. He addressed the people in front of his church, encouraging them to revolt. The exact words of the speech are lost; however, a variety of "reconstructed versions" have been published. Hidalgo is believed to have cried: "Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe, death to bad government, and death to the Spaniards!" The resulting Battle of Dolores, the first engagement of the insurgency, occurred 12 days later with the massacre of the entire colonial garrison of the town, more than 500 Spanish and Criollo loyalist soldiers. The insurgents suffered more than 2000 casualties. Mexico's independence would finally be recognized by the Spanish crown on September 27, 1821, after a decade of war.

This event has since assumed an almost mythopoeic status. Since the late 19th century, Hidalgo y Costilla's "battle cry" has become emblematic of Mexican independence. Each year on the night of September 15, the President of Mexico re-enacts the event by ringing the bells of the National Palace in Mexico City. He repeats a cry of patriotism based upon the "Grito de Dolores" from the balcony of the palace, to the assembled crowd in the Plaza de la Constitución, or Zócalo, one of the largest public plazas in the world. This event draws up to half a million spectators.

On the dawn of September 16, or Independence Day, the national military parade starts in the Zócalo, passes the Hidalgo Memorial and ends on the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City's main boulevard. Independence Day is considered a patriotic holiday, or fiesta patria (literally, motherland holiday).

La Paz has it's own version of this event tonight at the Governor's pad.
Evidence the town is getting ready for the celebration...
We have seen many of these flag carts all over town.There also will have a parade in the morning.Let's just see how many locals make it to the parade after the big party.

Correction

Oops ~ had Jim's ugliest car listed as his first car.
His real first car was a 1966 Volvo 122S, not the AMC.I'd drive this.
That means Dave won the "Ugliest first car contest".
Cindy - you won the Alta California version of this contest.

I almost bought a car just like this once...A 1960 Studebaker Lark Convertible.
But then I came to my senses and bought one of these.A 1979 VW Super Beetle Convertible.

Think about it...
Studebaker parts ~ VW parts.
Not a hard decision in the early 1980's...

A Normal Post ~ A Nice Lovely Evening in La Paz

It's better than nice.
It's lovely.
Lovely full harvest moon rising.Lovely sunset.Lovely coromuel breeze at night and in the morning, which means lovely cooler temperatures.
Which is a really good thing, because both of our air conditioners croaked...

Tomorrow night and Tuesday Mexico celebrates it's independence day.
We have plans to crash the party find the festivities.
Big party tomorrow night by the Governor's cardboard shack Mansion complete with firewords.
And a parade the next morning.
We will see just how many people make it to The Malecon for the 8 am parade after partying all night up town...

BBQ Dinner on "Meerkat" with "Sweet Lorraine"!

Yikes - it's been a whole couple of days since we saw our pals, Dave and Kellie off of "Sweet Lorraine" (remember that road trip?)...
So time to get together!
Their boat is still being put back together after stripping it for hurricane season and them being away for an indefinite amount of time, so dinner on "Meerkat".
They brought salad, corn on the cob and vino.
We did 2 crockpot chickens, tortillas and arracherra.
And wine.
Don't forget the wine.

We took no pictures...
We are lacking in the documentation of our lives.
Which was probably a good thing, cause Dave spilled an entire glass of red wine on me, so I am now doing laundry at 8:49 pm.
However to backtrack, we still failed in the documentation of our lives...
BUT!
We did have a long too long conversation about what our first cars were.
Then we looked them up on google images to see how ugly our first cars were.
Kellie lost.
Dave won.
Well, maybe Jim won.
Well, maybe Dave won.
Or maybe Jim won.
You decide.

Kellie had a 1966 Ford Mustang 289 (yes, Kellie, I remembered to put the 289 in the description).
It looked sort of like this, but had a cool candy apple racing stripe or some lame thing.So Kellie was a cool chick.
Daddy bought it for her.

Unlike me, who bought myself my first car, a 1976 Toyota Celica GT Liftback when I was 17.Well, actually my Mom paid for most of it and I paid her back over a couple of years.
It was a pretty blue with white interior, 5 speed, yeah baby!

Now we have Dave.
A Mercury Bobcat.
Basically a sistership to a Ford Pinto yeah, this wins dorkiest car.Yeehaw - a sistership to a Ford Pinto!

And last but not least, Jim's first car.
An AMC Hornet Wagon.Hmmmmmm... not even sure how to describe this one...

When I was 16 (and until I was 18) I was the only kid at home.
The last of five kids.
I was it.
No one to compete with.
My parents at that time had five cars.
Yes, five.
I had cars to choose from!
Of course I always took the one with the most fuel...
And then I had to go out an buy myself one!
What was I thinking????
Drive their's!!!
So I had a choice between:
My Dad's old 1960's Chevy Pick Up (I only drove it once, cause I had difficulty with the stickshift...). It looked sort of like this:Except my brother put the "Keep on Truckin" stickers on the doors...

My Dad's 70's Chevy Blazer:Oh, the times my sister Donna and I had in this car...
Dad if you only knew...
This was also the vehicle I did my first road trip down Baja in!

The Audi Fox.
The car with the worst electrical system in history.
Ever.I got stuck in this car more than every other car I was in put together.
God forbid you have the radio and windshield wipers on at the same time, then turn on the turn signal...
You Stuck.

My Dad's "pre-run" Baja Bug he built.
It looked sort of like one of these.I couldn't find a picture of our car.
Way more fun to drive than that stupid Audi.
Stick shift.
Big engine.
Loud.
Fast.
No radio... ok the Audi had it's benefits including a sunroof.
But then again, there was that electrical problem...

My Mom's 1964 Corvette Stingray (yeah, right. When she was traveling with my Dad, then I could steal take it):MMMMMMMMMMMMMM...
Everyone's favorite.
Until she sold it.
Then we all cried.
Hell, it was only 3 years younger than me!

So my questions are:
Who had the ugliest first car?
Why on Earth did I think I had to run right out at the age of 17 and buy a car, when my parents had five cars, and there was only three of us in the house?
What car should I have grabbed on a Friday night?
Besides the one with the most gas...

Comments please!
Kellie - you first, because this post was YOUR idea!