Or translated “don’t screw with me, I drive in Guadalajara” – which was my thrill for today. I headed out from the house with a grocery list in my pocket and at the Soriana instead of turning right to shop, I hit the gas and shot up over the pass to GDL and Tonala, it just seemed like that kind of day.

I’m here to tell you, the Jeep and me take no guff from any of those Tapatios, we push and shove with the best of them and I’m getting pretty comfortable getting around town, so as it says – “don’t mess with us”. PS: I seriously doubt anyone with South Dakota plates has the cahones to drive with conviction, but people know Texan’s are serious and a Mexican plate lunch!

It was market day in Tonala and I’ve been there a number of times now and am always overwhelmed by the amount of shopping there, but today was a whole new level of awesome, a quantum leap into shopping land. I saw women dragging their foot weary husbands along loaded down with purchases and begging for a break, but the ladies pressed onward, every onward to the next shop, the next courtyard full of “stuff” while all the husbands wanted was OUT!

My primary quest was a fountain and I headed straight for my guy, but the one he had was brown and I wanted green, so no fountain. Next I headed for the shops that have the bottled water dispensers, I’m sure there is a name for them, but we all have them and they make them in beautiful ceramic painted versions with flowers etc. but I wanted one that was essentially clear with some hand painting on a table top stand for the Mbath. I found the one I wanted and we negotiated a fair price, basically I asked “priceo” and she punched in 245 on a calculator and I whipped out a wad of pesos. The deal was done, they packaged it for me and I headed out.

It’s not possible to explain market day in Tonala. First there is more stuff than you could see in a week, even at warp speed, next the physical booths, shops and outdoor restaurants have to be seen to be appreciated. Mexican’s open an eatery whenever and wherever needed. So, today as you walk along at times you were walking through what is essentially the kitchen area as they’re cooking, then the eating area and as suddenly out onto a cross street. The aroma of all the food is overpowering, it’s very hard not to drool as you walk. So, back to the car and off across GDL to my next adventure.

The next adventure happened at Applebees, with some truly aggressive driving to get me there. I sat at the bar to eat lunch and the young fellow who served me was named Enrique and spoke very good English. As the time was slow he talked to me throughout lunch and it was very interesting. He had spent several years in the US in Kansas City, Atlanta and other places and had seen our culture and was interested in what I thought of his. It’s very interesting to talk to someone with his perspective as he is the future of Mexico. In two weeks he will go to Colima to train people opening a new Applebees there. I hope I meet him again, he was very interesting.

Headed back home I finally made it to the Soriana and was doing my usual thing and couldn’t find the coffee filters. Suddenly this guy with a clipboard comes rushing up to me talking like crazy. Of course, being language challenged at this point I had no idea what he was saying, so that part of your brain that leaps into action at crisis times like this took over to analyze what was happening. It decided that either he was trying to warn me there had been a horrific outbreak of the galloping Montezuma’s revenge and I should flee immediately, or he was trying to figure out what I needed and was there to help – I took over and made the management decision it was the latter. So, I said “coffee filter?” – which pretty much drew a blank look, so I dug deep and said “papel filtero?” – which worked as we were standing in front of the coffee, but this being another one of those disassociated commodity stocking things they do in MX, the coffee filters were 14 isles over in the coffee maker isle – makes sense I guess, so we fulfilled our quest.

In GDL today it was 85, when I got home to the lake it was a perfect 75, pretty much a picture perfect day in wonderland.