We made it!

Since we left Pacific Grove at the end of May life has been an adventure. First stop was in Amarillo, TX where we stayed with my sister Carol and helped her get her house back in order after my parents died. Boy, did they save everything! Just cleaning out the garage so we could have a garage sale was a huge undertaking. Did I forget to mention the weather? Not only was it over 100 every day, but the wind howled at least 30 mph for the first few weeks. Needless to say, we were not amused! At least we had some terrific thunderstorms and even the threat of a tornado-enough to make the sirens go off!

After several weeks, we started to get acclimated. Thank heaven for the swim club five minutes away; that saved our bacon big time.

We stayed in Amarillo til August 14th. By that time, Carol had a new roof on her house, the funky shed was gone (traded for a new fence) and numerous other home repairs were completed. We packed up our new (to us) Blazer, stuffed the cats in and away we went. We figured it would take us two days to get out of Texas, then a day at the border, then three to five days to get to our new home on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

We stayed in Kerrville, near San Antonio, for the first night. The Guadalupe River is a beautiful river with lots of restaurants, etc. lining the banks. I wouldn't mind going back there someday.

Then came Brownsville, where we would cross the border. After getting all our documents ready to go we girded our loins and headed for the bridge. Our thinking was cross early, before the shift change because nobody wants a problem at the end of the shift. Due to Chief's great pre-planning, we got through immigration and registering the car. Then came the part where you have to declare everything. The cute young lady who came to the car asked us if we had anything to declare. Before we could answer, she saw the cats. She backed away with her hand cvering her nose and mouth saying "Allergic, allergic". We held out the health certificates and she mumbled, "What else do you have?" We told her we had just a few fishing poles, two computers, cameras and our clothes. She waved us through and that was that. Needless to say, we skedaddled and found ourselves driving through Matamoros, Mexico just at daybreak!

The drive through Mexico was fascinating. The countryside is lush and green, the houses colorful and the people we met very very friendly. We had no problems except for the road signs, which were confusing to say the least. All of a sudden, a sign would announce that you were on a different road. There were a few cities we had trouble leaving, but we figured it out. Whenever we got frustrated and cranky, we called it "making memories"

We finally arrived in the Yucatan on the 23rd of August. Our good friend Marta, who manages our house, found a place for us to stay for a few days til our house was ready. We moved in on the 25th and boy were we all happy!

So here we are...after a month we are pretty relaxed, but not bored. It's nice not to wear flannel PJs in the summer. We had a brush with Hurricane Ike, just a lot of wind and crashing surf. There have been some great thunderstorms and beautiful sunsets. We sleep with our sliding glass doors open and listen to the surf as it lulls us to dreamland.

Life is good! We miss our friends, neighbors and co-workers, but we are right here on the good ol' web. We would love to hear from you.....