Yes, we're still here and we've rolled into our third year here in the land of topes (speed bumps) and tortillas.

I see that it's been a time since we last got together and much (and yet little) has happened, seems that's the story of retirement, at least as practiced by Max and me, we're always busy but we don't accomplish much. In our last adventure we were working on the casita arch and front wall which is a continuing project even now. Let's see if I can fill in some highlights of the project.

After two coats of paint, and a non-terracotta door it was looking better and was about time to mount the gate bell and it's cradle. The maestro noticed some letters on the old bell and on further examination it read C.S. Bell Co, Hillsboro, OH, 1886. I looked them up and this would have been in the first years of their business. I'd bet the bell has been here for probably 40 years and so for 80 years before that who knows where it's been and what its seen?

The paint job wasn't great, the guys were pretty good brick layers, but definitely not painters and there were streaks, but hey, it is what it is. That was until the Rental Manager saw the pics and ordered another coat of paint and so we saw our chance to go dark (finally) and that looks much better. Now the orange door really didn't look good so we visited the paint shop again and found a really great lavender color and that looks much better, especially with the darker walls. That leaves only the big entry gate which will be a bear to paint and takes us to the next part of our adventure - a trip to the homeland.

The big entry gate is a composite of two things, a wrought iron main "gate" with scroll work etc. and then a metal "privacy" panel behind it. Currently the wrought iron is mostly black and needing some help, the panel is the rosa color from the previous casita color. The gate as originally structured has the privacy panel hinged so it could open in, separating it from the wrought iron. Somewhere along the line it was tack welded to the wrought iron so now to paint the two components separate colors will be a big time. Add to it the rust in some areas needing attention. So, I made an executive decision and told the paint crew they were done and that I wanted to bring back some rust sealer I could get in TX before the gate was painted.

On Oct 5th, exactly 2 years to the day since driving into Casa Abuelo I drove out on my way to Texas and Colorado. As with most trips I had been buying (and buying) and shipping stuff to my good friend George in Austin so I could bring it back down. I had also inadvertently allowed myself to get conned into taking a "box" of art supplies, for a lady artist who was moving to NYC for a year, to her daughter in Austin. This complicated things significantly as it ended up being 4 boxes and a large portfolio and the mother didn't know exactly where her daughter lived in Austin etc (can we say "dingy"?). I decided to haul the stuff to storage and dump it there and if the artist ever figured out where her daughter was I'd tell her to contact George and meet him at storage.

As it turned out the address for the daughter came through a couple days before I left so I planned to drop off the boxes at storage and continue on to see Mom in Denver and deliver the supplies later on my way south. I did the 700 miles to Laredo (where it was 103 degrees), spent the night and continued on to storage, dumped the boxes and stopped in town to get a burger at Wendy's. My trips consist of eating at all my favorite junk food spots I don't get down here (and amazingly I lost 3 lbs?). As I reached to shut off the car a puff of hot air from the AC hit me. When I came out it was super hot, not vent, but full heater. Now, it was cloudy, but 87 degrees in Marble Falls and AC would have been great, even vent air, but with neither all I could do was open the sun roof and a window and drive toward Lubbock - it was going to be a long long hot day, but I reasoned that it would be cooler in CO, but in a week back at Laredo it was going to be real toasty.

About an hour later I tried the AC again (being the optimist I am - and desperate) and it worked? Apparently it froze up and it automatically goes on super hot to defrost itself - wow, modern technology, what a hoot! (which also begs the question, if it's smart enough to thaw itself out, why isn't it smart enough not to freeze up?) The trip through the Hill Country to Abilene and on up to Lubbock was the greenest I'd ever seen, it was gorgeous and not a single tope.

I guess I've been gone long enough now to really notice how vastly different the two countries really are, the entire look and feel, the scale and magnitude were totally different. When I checked into the hotel in Lubbock (Texas Tech country) I noticed the kid at the desk looked at me a bit funny and then I realized I was wearing an orange UT football shirt (we beat them this year as payback for killing our championship last year). Oh well, but one thing I did notice everywhere in TX, CO and even NM was that they apparently didn't get the "there's a recession" memo because everything is booming like crazy, Lubbock has grown a whole new city to the west.

Denver with Mom was great and friends as well, but I definitely did NOT need AC, in fact I had planned to head S after lunch on Saturday and it was 19 degrees and snowing that morning, so I decided mid morning to head out. Of course being from MX where they never heard of windshield washer anti-freeze I had water and the washers froze until somewhere in New Mexico.

Back in Marble Falls I headed for George's warehouse and called the artist's daughter who, of course, was on the far east side from where I was, but I just wanted to dump the stuff and get on with my life. Side story: it turns out the "artist" (a dingy for sure) paints sort of abstract stuff and her technique is to paint with her eyes closed, then put the pics in the shower? Let's just say that after meeting the daughter "the nut doesn't fall far from the tree" - but I did my good deed.

I had bought a number of technology toys including a new weather station and some additional sensors for my security system. Getting things back across the border consists of unboxing everything and mixing it in with other old stuff from storage, so I spent some time unboxing and testing things to make sure they worked, if you're going to return stuff you don't want to try it from MX.

My shopping list included some new shoes and several things from Home Depot including a Qt. of deep maroon paint (more on this in another segment). Home Depot is an old man's curse, even though we have them here they just don't stock the same way. For instance, I have several timers for fuentes (fountains) etc. and here they cost $15 or more. As I rounded a corner there, they were $3.97 - I bought two, they were small and several other things including the deep maroon paint they couldn't match down here. And yes, I did find my rust sealer for the front gate - yet to be applied.

One of the items shipped into George was for my neighbor, a GPS with MX maps. She said "try it out" and that took some time to learn and program for the trip home (even though I've done it several times on my own). After 3 days of poking through storage and never yet finding my original computer disks for XP etc.

I loaded the Jeep with everything I could stuff in and Friday headed for Laredo via San Antonio to have lunch with my "little sister" Vicki. We had a nice chat and I was telling her a story about MX and electric hand grinders came into the story and I realized I'd forgotten to retrieve mine from storage. Everything is more expensive here in MX and she suggested I get one at - where else? - Home Depot just across the parking lot and around the corner. I did at a cost of $30, I checked exactly the same one in Home Depot in Guad yesterday for $45.

Saturday morning early I hit Customs and decided to "declare" the new weather station as it was still in its original box. Coming S on Saturday was a mistake, I was in the middle of a bunch of MX pickup trucks stacked to the max with Mexicans moving back home. There was some concern also as all the Customs (Aduana) officials were replaced in August due to wide spread corruption etc. and we're still watching to see if they're going to get tougher.

I had a complete list of everything in the Jeep and presented it to them, they looked at it, asked what the value of everything in the car was and I did my usual - "gee, I don't know??? - maybe $200" (oops, forgot the 3rd 0) and they said OK, pay a small duty and I'm off. Seriously, I probably had nearly $2K in new items in the car plus 9 storage boxes of stuff and more poked around the edges.

At about 20 miles S of the border you hit the big Aduana check point and you either get a green or a red light to "stop and chat" - I got a green and was off like a herd of turtles heading for Monterey and the dawn - yes, I hit customs a bit after 5am so I can be home for supper.

There was a bit of potential adventure woven into the trip which essentially ended at this point. When I leave MX I'm supposed to have my passport stamped out (which no one ever does) and also my FM3 visa stamped out. Additionally we have "import" stickers on our cars which you're supposed to turn in at the border and have a new one reapplied when you reenter MX as well as getting your passport and visa stamped back in the country. All of which makes sense - however, this IS Mexico.

My car import also contains the trailer and so I can't turn it in without the trailer and I'm sure not hauling the trailer to the border to get a sticker removed. Also, the last time I left, I stamped out, but when I presented my visa for reentry the guy said "no, you don't need a stamp"? So, I elected to not stamp out either passport or visa this time, nor turn in the sticker and just drive back in like I'd never been gone.

There was the potential of being stopped at the Aduana checkpoint S of Nuevo Laredo, but otherwise they don't know you ever left the country. However, by declaring, there was a record of my stopping at Customs, but hey, take a chance, if you get stopped play dumb, they're used to dumb gringos.

The GPS was doing a good job keeping me on the toll roads and we made good time across the endless empty miles of MX. I hit maybe two Federale check points where well armed Federales ask you where you're going and seeing you're a Gringo and heading for Chapala you're waved on through. Also a military check point somewhere along the way waves you through and you're on your way.

I wanted to take a new route to bypass a very ugly stretch of road by Lagos de Mareno and instead go through Aguascaliente and the GPS complained loudly for about 4 miles and finally realized it might as well go my way and proceeded to give great directions. Just S of Aguascaliente there is a big Federale checkpoint, again with well armed guys you don't fool with. All was going well until I made another executive decision to turn, and it was wrong, and I spent the next hour bumping through small villages, over topes, on Saturday and finding myself at one point in a VW caravan with 8 beetles, on Transporter and a Thing?

Eventually I got back on track but did eat up valuable time and frazzled my nerves considerably - after 9 hours on the road, all you want is to be home. Analysis of the GPS after the fact indicated the new route is about 30 miles further, but, if done correctly, would be much better - oh well, next time. It normally takes 12 hours to drive, this took 12 hours 11 minutes and boy, was I glad to get home, some 4,711 miles later. For two days after, every time I sat down in the recliner my hands automatically reached out as if to grip the steering wheel.

The next day I unloaded the car and stacked it inside the front door and chipped away at the pile for days fitting it into the house here, installing new stuff and storing things. I brought 3 boxes marked "kitchen" and when spread out in the kitchen I almost didn't have space for all of it. The really bad news is that there are 24 more boxes in Storage marked "kitchen"? - I knew Chris's kitchen in TX was big, but apparently bigger than I thought and I gave away a bunch of stuff?

As this is getting way long, I'll keep the other two stories of the deep maroon paint, and Max and me and the gato (cat) nursery duty - oh ya, until later!