Category: Puerto Vallarta

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Winter storms and contemplations


Good grief. The photo at the top is what it looked like out the living room window last evening. The skies had cleared to a crisp cold 5 degrees and we were huddled by the fire. Sometime in the middle of the night the storm swirled back down….and this is what it looks like now….. Gone are the lake and the mountains behind it. It looks like a dense white cloud…but it’s snow, and lots of it. The temperature is hanging at 23 and the heat is working overtime. No solar help today!

Just learned the Girls Night Out dinner has been canceled. A wise choice, I’m sure, but a bummer! Guess I’ll thaw some chicken and make a good green chile chicken stew. It’s a good night for it and it will make John feel better. He’s been achy and down all day. Weather and temps like this do that to him. Makes me pine for Puerto Vallarta, and this view:

Ahhh…

Soothing….but now the washing machine is calling me and tomorrow I’m back at the gallery and praying for customers!

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM
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Time to go, but not quite….

Alas, the bags are (mostly) packed and sooner than we like the sun will set on our final day here. We’ve just returned from our extravagant finale’…lunch at El Colera and John is zonked out and I can’t paint (all packed up, no time to dry) so I’m typing. Wow. We ate in, for the most part (John is Chef excellente’, so why bother except to give him a break!) but we saved for today and went out for lunch.

I can’t quite wipe the smile off my face.

I started with a crab tostada, John with a glass of oysters. On most days, the tostada would have been enough for me, but afterall, this is our last day. John had pescado veracruz and I had pescado al ajo. (Fish filets (Dorado, I think)..his veracruz, and mine with garlic). And we washed it down with our final margaritas. Incredibly tasty. Total bill…390 Pesos including tip. About $30. I also picked up my laundry. 35 pesos, washed, dryed and folded. ($2.80) (Deep happy sigh here)

I’ve been keeping track of our expenses (we’re on a budget) and the sum total per day for the past 28 days, including laundry, wine/drinks and taxis, one night out per week for dinner, and day trips to El Tuito and the Botanical Gardens, and having friends over for dinner……… is $29 per day. Honestly, it’s a third of what we spend at home and we seldom go out for dinner, seldom have friends over for dinner, I do the laundry and we don’t take day trips (unless you call my daily jaunt to the gallery a day trip!) If I take out everything but friends over for dinner and it drops to $22 per day. I’m not sure I can do two loads of laundry for $2.80. Can you? It does give me pause…..

So, tomorrow we fly away. Back into the chaos that awaits us from the moment we land at DFW. I’ll stop typing now so I can savour the final hours.

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM
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Day Trips, New Friends and a Dash of Wonder

The past few days have been a whirlwind! Much to tell…so, hmmm, how to tell it?

First, there was the really cool discovery of the benefit of Google Alerts! In my last post I said we were going to El Tuito…the trip postponed from Tuesday would now be on Friday. I wrote that on Wednesday, and put “El Tuito” in the labels for the post.

On Thursday morning I sat down with my coffee to check the status of my online life, and had an email that my spam filter wanted to know what to do with. Since the subject said, “El Tuito on Friday” I clicked allow and opened it. It was from a couple from Kentucky…living part time in El Tuito. His Google Alerts had picked my El Tuito label and sent him to my blog, where he found we were here in Puerto Vallarta and planning a day trip to El Tuito. He wrote, “come see us and we’ll have some cold ice tea waiting!” Intrigued, I replied, then he replied, then I …..you know the drill. Anyway, off we went to El Tuito. 20 Pesos gets you there in a quite reasonable bus. It took about an hour. Then we wandered around looking for their street. We quickly found that this pretty, traditional small town, doesn’t have street signs. We walked into a friendly looking doorway to ask directions, and a smiling man greeted us “Hello! My name is Louis, welcome to my home! How can I help you?” (yes, in English, just like that). I asked where the street was. He smiled broadly and said, “in the back”. I said, “in the back of what?” “My house”, he grinned. He looked at my paper, “Oh, Hank and Vicki…do you want me to call them?”

Gotta love Mexican Hospitality. And, indeed, Kentucky hospitality too! The iced tea was indeed cold and refreshing. After a cool break and nice conversation we headed out to see the town, and marveled at how the internet has changed our lives. While some would argue, not positively, a connection like that just would not have happened! We would still have gone to El Tuito, and still have wandered around the town, but way more fun and so much richer to have made connections with people who live there! How fun is that!

Next time, I’ll write about our trip to the Botanical Gardens…and post a short video too! I’ll try and do that tomorrow (in between packing (ugh) and planning for the return (quadruple ugh). I’m SO not ready to go!

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM
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Walking fortifies the Soul (and legs!)

Wow. Guess I gotta take a camera next time I go out. It’s tough to describe the hill we’re on without looking up from the bottom. I tried looking down and it just doesn’t work. All you see is cobble stones and there’s no way to tell which way is up. Actually, it’s two hills. Up Jacarandas, and then up Rodolfo Gomez. I’ve quickly grown to enjoy it, even long for a reason to run to the store. Not that any running happens. Walking down is one thing. In the morning, the air is lightly cool, the roosters still crowing and the uproarious bleeting of the burrows has quieted. (Yes, we’re in a traditional Mexican neighborhood). Walking down requires one to lean back. bends the ankles just about as far as they go. It’s not too hard to keep from going to fast, because the ridges in the road (put there for just this reason) prevent it, as do the uneven surfaces of the coblestones in between the rows of ridges.

It only takes me about 5 minutes to walk down both hills. Of course, the rub comes in the return, particularly if one is laden with groceries, or laundry or even nothing. Up, and up and up and up. I get winded just thinking about it! But somehow, in the process, it’s cleansing. Time to shed the layers of stress and fear that have burdened me of late. It’s generally the time of day that I’m alone. (Most days…I am. Every few days we (John and I) head down the hill together, but it’s taxi back as the climb is just too much.)

So, clomp, clomp, clomp down and now I’m more familiar with the streets and what’s where, than I have ever been and we’ve been coming here for most of 15 years. The slow walk up acquaints me with the neighbors. It’s an oddity for them. I talk to them. They talk to me. We smile, and climb on. I’ve learned alot. My spanish is improving (still a very long way to go. Today a young boy at the green grocer told me my purchase was trese’ (prolly spelled it wrong). I searched my brain and couldn’t find that it meant 13! oh, criminetly!)

So, this Sunday, I’m thankful. Thankful for being here, for this time to rediscover and find what’s new…and I mean, in me.

I’ll post a picture or video soon.

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM