Long Time No Post

The Vivadore Indians climb an 82' poll and coil four ropes around a drum at the top and fasten one end around their ankles. They then fall over backward and hanging upside down spin their way to the ground hanging upside down.

Seems like everything went haywire since last post in January. My handicap scooter electronically crashed and could not be repaired. Working through Pride International they contacted their operation in Mexico City who contacted new distributor in Merida. We headed for Merida (not too far from Cancun). They were not able to repair so I traded for a new one, not as large or rugged as the old one but best I could do. Shortly afterward started having laptop problems. Partially repaired in Puerto Vallarta but had to buy a new Dell Vostra 1700 in Tucson.

So, over the next few days I will try to bring things up to date along with photos and recounting special events along the way.

Our small caravan of four motorhomes worked our way down the gulf coast of Mexico. The above photo was taken at the El Tajin run

Park de Alba, Emerald Coast, MX

After 3 days of hard travel we have reached Park de Alba just south of Monte Gordo on the Emerald Coast. Our Americanada Caravan of 4 coaches will spend a week here. The park is right on the beach. Today we drove about 50 km to El Morino to shop and eat at Tacos. All you could eat for $3. You walk along the tables and make your own tacos.

On our return to the park we passed a statue of Emeliano Zapata, a leader of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. One of his famous quotes was "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". He was a man of the people and worked with Pancho Villa who was even more famous and made raids into New Mexico. "Viva Zapata" was the battle cry of the people.

Just south of Casitas we saw our first lighthouse in Mexico. Pat is a great fan of lighthouses, took the photo and added it to her collection of lighthouses. She has photos of most of the lighthouses on both the east and west coast of the U.S. as well as almost all of them in the maritime provinces of Canada, including Newfoundland. We will always cherish our years we spent living on the boat, much better than RVing but things change with age and the problems that go with it.

Bad news today, my handicap scooter ignition stopped working and unless we can repair it I will have to skip a lot of visits to the ruins etc. There are no dealers in Mexico with the exception of Mexico City and Guadalajar and we won't be there. I'll spend those times dog and cat sitting as we have five dogs and one cat in our group.

We learned today that when we reach Campeche in about ten days, all of our pork, chicken and eggs will be taken from us by the Federales of that province. Tonight we had our first potluck dinner of which the main course was a large pork roast baked with a wash of orange juice, ginger and honey. We bought strawberries today for 25 pesos for a kilo (about 2 pounds for $25 cents U.S., so we had strawberry shortcake, salad, mashed potatoes, chips with homeade salsa and mucho Margaritas

Hasta Luego

Nolan Ryan

BASEBALL FANS, as we were rolling down Rt. 77 toward Corpus Christi we passed through the town of Refugio and on the Welcome to Refugio sign was the notice "Birthplace of Nolan Ryan'.
Nolan Ryan known as "The Ryan Express" played 27 seasons in major league baseball from 1966 to 1993. Recordings showed he pitched at speeds over 100 mph after the age of 40.
He was and MLB ALL STAR 8 times. He pitched 5,714 strike outs and at the end of the 2007 season he led Roger Clemens by over 1,000 strikeouts. Base on balls, he threw more than any other pitcher has in baseball history. He is the all time "no hit' leader with 7 games, after him it drops to 3. During his career he played for the Mets, Angels, Astros and Rangers.

He is in good health and active in many areas of baseball and owns two minor league teams.

Rolling Southeast Through Texas

We enjoyed a whole new epicurean experience today driving south on Rt. 59. We spotted Jr's Texas Best Smokehouse and pulled our 40' Purple Monster motorhome into their lot and went in for lunch. The choices were smoked sausage and brisket, sliced or chopped. It was delicious. In addition to serving meals they have a meat counter where they sell 31 varieties of Survival Sticks (jerky) in every type imaginal; beef, turkey, pork, jalapeno, rabbit and many more. The prices per pound run from $9.95 to $31.95 a pound. (upper left photo).There is also a very large selection of all kinds of saugsages.

2008 IS HERE

HAPPY NEW 2008 YEAR

Curly (front) and his new friend, Stitch, woke up to a bright, sunshiny very cold New Years day at "Camping on the Gulf"

in Destin, FL We just came from a New Year's Day, pot luck dinner here in the park.

The rest of the day will be spent doing last minute packing up to pull out early in the morning to head west to Brownsville, TX to meet three others to begin our three month adventure in Mexico. This is the beginning of a 19,000 mile eight month trip, returning to MD the end of August.

"Camping on the Gulf" is the only RV park on the panhandle of Florida where you can camp right by the beach. The owners, workers and the people staying here were all great. Christmas, New Years and breakfast meals were very good.

The campsites are much too close together to the point where we could not put out the awning on one side and our slide overhung the patio of our neighbor. The weather for a month left a lot to be desired, I don't think we had two nice days in a row for the month. Much, much colder than expected and high winds most of the time and usually cold. It would probably be very nice here in the spring and fall. I would guess it would be very hot in the summer.