We are home.

Our last day was relatively short and we were home about 2:30 p.m. after making a quick stop to buy some essential groceries. We didn't lose much time at the border and traffic was moving well on both sides of the border. While driving, Wendy checked her organizer and found that we had Stage West tickets for that night. We went and had a good meal but both of us drifted off a couple of times during the show which was not too stimulating. Besides wading through mail, doing laundry and income tax, we have done some shopping, Paul has gone to the health club and we both have kept busy. That is all until we start travelling again, next October.

Yesterday was a full day in Branson, in the morning we shopped, some pants for Paul and a blouse for Wendy. In the afternoon we went to a show "Legends"; singers imperonating singers of the past. In the evening we saw another show; a variety show, "Grand Jamboree". The the first half was Country & Western followed after the interval by 50's hits. The evening show was much better than the first!

Today we got off to an early start at 7:25am and drove for 11 hours, it was easy driving and the weather was warm and sunny with a high of 30 Degrees C for most of the afternoon. There were several slowdowns due to construction but otherwise the driving was easy. We lost an hour due to the time change when we entered Indiana so did not arrive in Auburn, Indiana where we are staying the night until 7:25pm. We
are now on Toronto time. Late this afternoon we have reached the point where the trees have yet to leaf out. Along the route today the scenery was beautiful with many flowering trees in full bloom. Below are some of the pictures we took. Tonight was the first night we have ruffed it, we were tired and Burger King was right next door so we eat there!

Tomorrow with an 8am start we should be home by about 3pm depending on the wait time at the border in Port Huron/Sarnia.


Pictures: Top row: Flowering Trees.
Second row: Missouri Native Plant Garden, Bridge over the Mississippi in St. Louis.
Third row: St. Louis Arch, Elvis impersonator.
Last Row: Buddy Holly impersonator.

We had a later start yesterday morning but a much shorter trip. We Left Denison, Texas about 9:00 a.m. and arrived in Branson Missouri at 3:00 p.m. The drive was through different country than in Texas. Many flowering trees are in bloom, there were lots of lakes and rivers and the last part of the trip was through mountains (I think the Ozarks). Wendy did most of the latter driving, first on a great divided highway which wound its way around and through the mountains. We got off this road in Fayette, Arizona, through part of the city and then onto a reasonable 4 lane highway but narrowed to a 2 lane highway which was all curves and hills. I haven’t driven a road like that in a long time. We will stay here until Wednesday morning and then make an early start. Tonight we went to see the Shoji Tabuchi Show. He is a violinist. The pictures at the top were taken during the show. It was a very entertaining show with singing and dancing as well as his violin playing. The washrooms in his theatre are like no others. The pool table is in the men's. Pictures are below.

I have no idea what is happening with our blog, but the post I did yesterday isn't on it so I will quickly recap it. We left El Parque, Mexico at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at customs in Laredo about 6:45 p.m. after a couple of rest stops and a stop to eat the lunch we had brought with us. We travelled about 1170 km. Most of the day was uneventful until we arrived at U.S. Customs. We were in line about 45 minutes and then the agent spent about 5 minutes looking through our well packed trunk and the metalic pictures in the back seat as well as asking questions. Finally we got into Laredo, found a Days Inn Hotel we had been told about and had a good night's sleep.

Today we chose to have a leisurely start and left Laredo at 8.55 a.m. We drove to San Marcos and visited the outlet malls. Back on the road we had heavy traffic most of the way to Denison, Texas which is on the border of Oklahoma (a distance if about 765 km. today). Some of the trip was very slow due to traffic and we are thinking that Sunday is not a good day to travel through Texas. On the other hand there were many road construction areas where no one was working and thus no one stopping traffic because it was a Sunday. Denison is the destination we were aiming for we just arrived a little later than expected. The wild flowers by the roadside were in full bloom. I have attached a picture we took in southern Texas. The other pictures we took in Dallas. This time we took a different route through Dallas so the views were quite different. One is the downtown buildings, the other is a multilevel highway interchange.

Our Trip Home

Sorry we haven't kept this up, as promised, but we never seem to have time when we think of it and don't think of it when we do have time.
We are getting packed to head home and will leave early tomorrow morning. We plan to spend a couple of days in Branson Missouri and should be home on April 15th. Our proposed route is on the map above but the GPS (which we will use once we are on our way) may make suggestions of better routes than Google gave us.
We have had a great winter down here although we have had cooler weather and more rain than is typical. This has kept everything greener than normal even though there has been no rain since the middle of February.
We had a wonderful cruise from San Diego through the Panama Canal and up to Fort Lauderdale. The only problem we had was not eating too much.
We will update this whenever we have an internet connection on the way home.

Halloween at the El Parque gate

We had lots of children at the gate to our community for Halloween and a good supply of candy to hand out provided by the residents. The children, mostly belonging to the workers, were well dressed as were some of the adults. Our resident disk Jockey, Howard played appropriate music.
We are slowly getting things in order and have washed all the dust covers. The basic shopping is now done and Wendy has had her semi-annual dental cleaning. Saturday afternoon there was a party for one of our most popular security guards who is leaving to work at a local golf course, we will miss his smiling face!
Everyday has been hot in the sun, comfortable in the shade and cool at night. Three other couples arrived the same day we did, and more on Thursday and Friday so that the complex is getting livelier. Sunday we sent a pleasant afternoon playing euchre by the pool, just another couple and us, the boys won, but it was close!


The picture to the left is of the Shrimp Plants we planted last December and we couldn't get them to fill in. It took the "rainy season" for them to grow and fill in.

We have arrived

Sorry we didn't post anything yesterday but we couldn't get Wendy's computer connected to the net. We started in the dark from Pearsall but arrived at the border in good time without too much traffic. It always takes a while to get a car permit but were on our way again without any problem. We had a pretty good day, driving yesterday and managed to get to San Luis Potosi which left us with a much shorter drive today. We found a new highway on the way which saved us about 30 minutes. We stayed at a very nice Holiday Inn Express and met another couple there that we new from El Parque. We had a drink together and then went out for PIzza.
Today we left about 7:30 a.m. and arrived in Ajijic about 12:30. We went right to Telmex to get our interenet connection and were home shortly after 1 p.m. We were greeted my several of our neighbours and chatted with each but finally got down to some unpacking and getting things in order. Still lots to do, however, but it will be done eventually.
All for now. We will try to post something once or twice a week.