I spend a good 7 hours a day on the computer; you’d think I’d have more than enough time to squander making posts. You’d be wrong. I generally have one window with 3 tabs open and another window with 2-5 tabs open and I’m flipping back and forth between those 5-8 windows, copying, updating, searching and verifying. I rarely even get to email. I do a 5 hour stretch in the morning, make lunch and do some chores (generally head to town to do shopping). The kids who don’t accompany me to do shopping (don’t think I’ve gone alone yet) will be queuing for their turn on the computer when we get back from shopping and then in the evening, I’ve got 2 more hours to put in. I generally finish around 10pm, and honestly, by that time I just want to go to bed. For a family with 4 laptops, we are really feeling the pinch from Ellen’s forays into computer repair. Lenvo Mexico STILL has the T-40 but I spoke with them today and they promise to start (?!!!?!) working on it tomorrow. Maybe they got caught up in the World Cup and Presidential elections and it just slipped their mind.
Election day here in Guanajuato was very quiet and calm; just like a normal Sunday. Course, the boys and I (in town for shopping, natch) didn’t get to town until Sunday afternoon and by then most of the town had voted. It was rather exciting to watch the TV coverage afterwards and TV Azteca remains my favorite of the major networks (there are only two, right?).
Guanajuato has simply stolen my heart. I never left it in San Francisco, but will definitely leave it here in Guanajuato. I sure wish I could think of a nickname for this city; Guane? It is a large city but since so many of the streets are tunnels, it is a HUGE walking city. Most of the above-ground streets are pedestrian streets and it is common to walk from one end to the other, zig-zag here and there, and never hit a street with cars. It is breathtakingly beautiful with the very old rock walls, the ex-hacienda and old mines; history simply oozes everywhere you look. The boys and I took the opportunity of voting day to visit the ex-hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera. According to Toni Dabbs, “Located on the outskirts of Guanajuato on the old road to Marfil, this colonial estate was built at the end of the 17th century by Captain Gabriel de Barrera, whose family descended from the first Count of Valenciana of the famous La Valenciana mine. The house has been beautifully restored with European furniture and art. It includes a tiny chapel dominated by a gold-embellished Gothic altarpiece, which came from a cathedral in Spain. The grounds, originally devoted to the processing of ore from La Valenciana mine, have been converted to gardens, with pavilions, pools, fountains and footpaths. The estate has operated as a museum since 1979.” For more pictures of the hacienda, check my Flickr link.
On another ocassion I successfully dragged all 4 reluctant children to the Diego Rivera museum; it is his childhood home and a wonderful peek at how the homes were designed and structured in Mexican middle class. I think the kids liked the architecture and space just as much as the paintings; Ellen was very un-impressed by the famous painter. It is so rare that everyone is willing and agreeable to an outing; the kids are having such a fabulous time playing in the bricks and paving stones stored here in the campestre, that they are loathe to leave. The city of Guanajuato apparently has an agreement with the owner and stores all city road repair items here. We’ve watched the entire process, from the 18-wheelers delivering the goods to the laborers replacing the paving stones in the kilometers and kilometers of cobblestone roadway that comprises downtown Guanajuato.
We had a very easy repair of the Ford’s alternator; they actually repaired it instead of getting a new one (and we were skeptical they could get a new one) and it has been running reliably ever since. Our brake controller, the component that controlls the trailer brakes, has rolled over and died however, and this is not an item easily found in Mexico. We are now the proud owners of TWO failed brake controllers and after emailing Hayes to try to get an electrical schematic (so a local electrical repair shop could fix it), they immediately offered to send us a new one! It would actually be easier to get it fixed here (and probably cheaper, once we pay all the customs fees and “tips”) but Hayes insists on no-one but them working on it. So we’re probably going to be here at least another week. I also have an angel who lives in Monterrey messengering us a brake controller he picked up for us in Monterrey this weekend; I am hoping, since the cost will be at least double what we’d pay in the states, that the Hayes unit arrives and we can return the Voyager (I think?) he got us. Once again. rv dot net comes to the rescue.
The weather has been so very different from the humidty we got so accustomed to but it is amazing how quickly we adapt. When we first arrived here in Guatajuato, we were shivering in 80 degree weather as the humidity would climb no higher than 30% or so. We’re now only shivering in 70 degree weather, so our blood must be thickening. There is an amazing wind which blows here to the point of actually rocking the trailer and it blows almost nightly. Here in the middle of the rainy season, Guanajuato is hit hard with rain, but we simply watch it pass all around us, many times we will have dark, threatening, ominous clouds absolutely surrounding us, thunder and lightening joining them, but we stay dry. The encargante says it is because he doesn’t want the rain here.
Jesse turned 12 yesterday and had a wonderful day. He began the day with a candybar (the theme of the day), chorizo, bacon, toast with cream cheese, Corn Flakes and mangoes. For a boy who regularly exists on air and sugar, this was a banner food day for him; Pike, who enjoys food like none of the kids, was in his own food-heaven-coma. We had homemade pizza for lunch and dinner, along with Mexican rice, which Jesse requested, but never ate. Must have been all the candy. Pike and I headed to the mercado to pick up some presents for him and he was overjoyed with Pike’s suggestion of a chess set. We’ve already played a number of games and he has even allowed Ellen to play games with me. Ellen ALWAYS wins, of course.
I have taken more pictures of this lovely town and the surrounding area than I ever thought possible. I have been reluctant to upload more to Flickr as I’m not sure there is anything new there; I just can’t stop myself from taking yet another tunnel or rock wall or colorful house picture. And then I NEED to upload it so everyone else can see it and revel in its beauty. I think I just might need to start saving for something more than point and shoot; in the time that I should have been updating the blog, I’ve been Flickr-obsessed.
