Mazatlan (Jan 17)

Today we had an epic roadtrip with Bill and Carol. They have been coming to Mazatlan for 17+ years and pretty much know everything about every area in and around the city. You can check out her blog at http://travelinginrvandlivinginlasvegas.blogspot.com. Chock a block full of beautiful pictures of pretty much every old building worthy of photoing in Maz.

We went off to a small town about 40 minutes away called La Noria. Just before La Noira is a spectacular hacienda style restaurant called La Martina. It's even more beautiful than my pictures can possibly show:

Carol mentioned that the bougainvillia were only about 

5-6 years old, same age as this establishment.

Just gorgeous....

View from the restaurant into the back yard. 

Used for weddings and other special events.

Really, really great food.

View from the back....

All that great food comes from this hard-working kitchen.

After this yummy meal we went into the actual town of La Noria. Super nice little town. Apparently the whole town is being painted. Must be some government inniative. Carol said they were here just a few weeks ago and so many of the buildings are now a different colour.

Bill rolled into town and these kids were coming home from 

school and he always has candies for them.

The following pictures are from the hotel that is behind us.

Every restaurant needs a resident duck in a wishing well.

After this is was a short drive over to Puerta de Canoas where they make the most delectable candies. These ladies make them in the front of their house and then their husbands take them into town and the markets and they are sold.

All ready for market.

Of course some came home with us.

$983 ps....about $71 CAD. Not bad.

Hey, there are a few healthy items in there....look harder!

Yikes - I guess I should have warned you about the length of this post. when you go out with Carol and Bill, there is always lots of interesting things to see and do. Things that you might not get to do otherwise. We REALLY appreciated it and we had a blast with them. Thanks friends!!

Maybe a beach walk is in store for tomorrow. 

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day: Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them but you always know they are there.

Las Glorias to Mazatlan (Jan 15)

Just in case you missed it, there are two blogs posted before this one! 

We left Las Glorias at about 9:30 AM. No, we didn't have any problems getting back to Guasave and the 15D highway (thanks for asking all you smarty pants!!). It is only about a 4 hour drive to Mazatlan, all on toll roads. HOWEVER....the condition of the roads in the state of Sinoloa is nothing short of dreadful. I didn't even drive. Doug spent the whole day dodging horrendous potholes. Back and forth between the left and right lanes. We couldn't believe that they were still so bad. We are lucky that we have a small vehicle (small but mighty, right Eurii?) and it was possible for him to use all his driving skills to avoid most of them. Still, even without the potholes, the pavement is super rough.

It was a very uneventful drive (unlike the day before...which you are all still laughing about). We saw nothing out of the ordinary. Well, maybe one or two spots where something might have been burned. I think most of the big problems occured right in the city of Culiacan which we don't go through. It is a little way off the highway. Hopefully things will settle down now. The Mexican people deserve better than that kind of upset in their lives. This state, from what we can see, is full of agriculture. Mostly corn as far as the eye can see. Beautifully maintained fields with irrigation a large farming equipment. I think it is important to say this because it seems that people only remember the bad news events and don't realize there is a huge state of hard-working, honest people. They are awesome.

We arrived at Las Jaibas in Mazatlan about 3:30 pm, after going to the bank and gassing up so our tank is full (right Jerry?). Always fill your gas tank up when you arrive at a location so you are ready to go when it is time to leave, so says our Nova Scotia friends and we always do as we are told.

My normal passenger face after a long day...

Doug trying to figure where to heck to drive on the road.

Eurii all set up.

I have finally stopped long enough to put up my line of 

pictures of my beautiful people. For those who need an update (l-r, our grandsons) August-10 yrs, Jasper-8 yrs, Rudy-6 yrs and little Holden-1 yr), plus the family pictures and our Moms.  

Mon, Jan 16th:

Vegetable man arrived this morning. 

Just another reason to love this place.

My laundry helper this morning!

So, here we are. We will likely be here for at least one week, likely more. Today is computer day, laundry day. Maybe some wine day too.

We will be able to keep you up to date on our adventures as we have good internet.

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day: Life is better when you are laughing.

San Carlos to Las Glorias (Jan 14)

Well, so for the sort of funny story.....When we left San Carlos, we put in Las Glorias SINOLOA into the GPS. Two almost identical ones came up about 1 km difference in overall distance (about 350 kms from San Carlos). We figured that it was the difference between the little town square and ?? so off we went. Long boring drive but no problems on the toll roads. I know with the recent events that people were a bit nervous about us traveling down here but all was perfectly well. Lots of military on the road. We love that. Even went through a drug enforement check-point where Doug got his first frisking. They were super kind, professional and polite and just doing their jobs.

We got to our turn-off and the GPS (both) took us off to the right of the 15D Cuota highway. Perfect. But then it wrapped us around to the east and over the highway. Uh-oh....last I checked, the beach was west of us so although I know we haven't been around for a few years I was pretty sure it didn't get moved. Of course, we couldn't find a place to pull over and check our maps right away so we ended up going about 7 kms out of our way. Not bad. Weird thing is that we actually had two GPS' running and they both sent us the wrong way. Full disclosure, the GPS on my phone wanted us to go off before Guasave and we figured it was wrong as our other, tried and tested GPS had got us there before. so we ignored the phone GPS (ha ha). I'll insert here that the only thing we could figure out was that there is a small puebla named Las Glorias somewhere EAST of the highway and also Las Glorias at the beach.

Just before we got to the ill-fated turn-off we went through a toll booth. It was only 23 pesos. I said to Doug that it was so cheap we could go through it twice (remember that I said that...). After we got turned around guess where we had to go? Back up the highway to the SAME toll booth and got to pay again (guess it was foreshadowing...) but this time it was 24 pesos. Guess it is more expensive going north? NOT ONLY did we get to go through the same toll booth twice in 30 minutes just before the toll booth we had to go through a "fruit" checkpoint where I lost my five apples. No, there was not a fruit checkpoint going south.

If this was the end of the story it would be funny. So we re-programmed in Las Glorias again and beat the GPS into telling us to go west. turned us off the 15D highway and down a dirt road. Now, when we came to Las Glorias with our friends Al & Colleen in 2013, we remember going down some pretty lousy roads for the first part of the drive. Well, this took us down a dike and beside a cornfield. Doug turned us around (good thing we are small) and AGAIN we headed back out to the highway, about 3 kms away. I looked behind us and a LARGE corn truck was bearing down on us. I'm sure he was as surprised to see us out there, on probable private land, as we were to see him! Anyway, a friendly wave to follow them (we knew the only way back out) and we were, once again headed the right way. If you have been able to keep track of this, send me an email because I'm not sure I can even figure it out.

Yes, we did FINALLY arrive at Las Glorias. It was once a lovely (I'm sure) little place but the sun and sea has taken it's toll and it is pretty beat up. Apparently the new owner is making changes and hopefully he can bring it back to it's former "glorious state". The lady who checked us in for one night was lovely and so was the owner. We wish them the best of luck! However, it has a super amazing beach, right out front....

One of the many toll booths of the day.

The view out the van door.

I must have taken this picture after 

several glasses of wine!

Let the Sea of Cortez wash your troubles away.

Eurii was happy to be done with us for the day.

And man was he dusty.

Lovely....

We had a pleasant evening. Made our own dinner and fell asleep listening to the waves crashing on the shore. 

On Sunday the 15th we are off to one of our favourite places, Las Jaibas in Mazatlan. We absolutely love it there and we have some very wonderful friends waiting for us. 

Peaace out friends!

Thought for the Day: Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure. Right??!!

San Carlos Still

We decided to hang around in San Carlos for an extra day. We have been moving quite a bit lately and we both find that we really enjoy getting somewhere and chilling for a few days before pushing on.

Jan 13th: We packed the van up and went cruising around town for a bit. Went up toi the mirador (look-out). Beautiful up there. It was funny to see a whole different side of San Carlos as we hadn't been that way before. It is surprisingly a big town with small neighbourhoods scattered all over the mountains. 

I think Eurii enjoyed his rest stop....

I have it on good authority (thanks Carol...) that there are 21 of these dolphins around town. They are all sponsored by different groups or companies. They are all pretty special.

Last night here we walked to the new to us pizza restaurant. 

It was pretty darn good.

So that wraps up our three days in San Carlos. We always enjoy our stop here. The water pressure was problematic for a a few years but that is resolved. It was VERY busy. Busier than we have seen it for a long time. That is good to see. However, it seems that the internet still struggles at each site, at least it did for us again. I would imagine it is because there are so many people here. It works fine as long as you go into the clubhouse. small price to pay for a nice park!

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day: As soon as I saw you I knew an adventure was about to start...Winnie the Pooh.

Puerto Penasco to San Carlos

We left Puerto Penasco at about 8 AM on Tueday. It was a long driving day, 8 hrs but all was well. We went through a few military checkpoints and saw a good number of military presence on the highways. We were happy for that. There were no problems.

Gosh, who knew sunrise could be so pretty! (ha ha)

Puerto Penasco

Doug always looks cooler driving than I do...

...but drive I did do!

Quite a few hours of this....

We arrived at Totonaka RV Park in San Carlos at about 4 PM on Tuesday. We have been here plenty of times before but I don't think we have ever found it to be this full. It is nice to see for sure. the internet still isn't good so we are sitting in the club house. I'm sure it is hard to manage with so many people here. We also noticed how many people have StarLink. Elon Musk would be so proud!

But then this made it worthwhile!

Right across the street from the RV park.

Jan 12th: Well, first things first....HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our beautiful daughter-in-law, Kathy. Sorry we aren't there to celebreate with you but we are sure you have had an amazing day! Love you!!

Anyway, today we just slept in (surprise...) Well, at least until 8:15 when the first Pickleballer showed up next door. they are a very competitive bunch but there were no arguments or issues (bit disappointed I must admit). 

First though, coffee......

Funny little "look-out" from the front of the property.

Dolphins jumping in the bay!

Went for a long walk down the main drag and enjoyed some local tacos. Loved it!

Saw quite a few of these hearts that are used for 

recycling the plastic bottle caps. Pretty cool idea. 

Small taco vendor. Great tacos and Doug finally 

felt like he was back in Mexico!

So that wraps up day two in San Carlos. Glad we were able to get out and walk 5.2 kms. After spending so much time in the van driving it was so good to be able to get in some excercise. Tomorrow we plan to explore the town a little and maybe buzz over to Guaymas. About 10 kms away.

Plan is we will stay here until Saturday morning when we will high-ball it to Mazatlan. 

That's it for today.

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day: I, myself, am made up entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

Why AZ to Puerto Penasco

It was REALLY nice to get to Puerto Penasco and be able to just hang out here for three days. What a luxury!

Mon, Jan 9th: Just a run-around type of day. Not much to report other than we got our Mexican sim card for my phone, groceries, laundy, etc. Kinda took up the major part of the day but it was good to get it taken care of. Doug took care of the sunset pictures, which, I must say, are epic! Good job!

It was really beautiful and the pictures never do it justice.

Tues. Jan 10th:We were "supposed" to leave today but decided to just stay and hang out. glad we did.

"Lava tubes"? Not sure but they are fantastic to explore around

They dot the whole beach line and you can see 

shells embedded in the rock.

They follow all along the beach line....

Shrimp boats on the horizon. There were five yeaterday.

This beach area, with it's development, 

reminds me of north Mazatlan.

Told you foot shots were back in style...

Lobby parrot. There are signs warning you not to pet it.

Enough said....

He's plotting something....

Outdoor lobby where said untouchable parrot lives.

Just through the lobby and to the right Eurii is parked.

Yes, that's another day in the life of Doug and Nancy. Tomorrow we move along. We will either end up in Bahia Kino or San Carlos. Either way it is about a 7 hr driving day so we will be up early. Yes, even we can do it once in a little while!

Thanks for tagging along everyone. We appreciate knowing you are all out there.

Peace out friends!

 

Thought for the Day: "The answer might not be at the beach but shouldn't we at least check?"