San Miguel de Allende

Noel Campbell and I are in San Miguel de Allende, which is about half way between Mexico City and Guadalajara and 1800 miles from Prescott. Noel is riding a BMW 1150 GS and I am on my Triumph Bonneville and we will attend a BMW Moto Tour along with 150 BMW riderss from around Mexico. This is the bridge over the Pecos river in Texas. This is the latest one after several others had been washed away in floods.
We couldn´t resist staying here in this downtown Matahuala hotel on the main square. The price was 270 pesos, about twenty bucks. Old, but quite clean and we enjoyed the people there. We rode our bikes through the large front door and parked them in the lobby.
Noel and Fedencio, one of the best waiters I have ever experienced. He even gave me the recipe for frijoes chollas and I promised to send him this picture. The ride through this part of Mexico from Saltillo down is a very dry and flat desert akin to west Texas. We also had a cross wind to add to this unpleasant part of the ride.
But worth the trip!! This is the first view of San Miguel coming in on a high hill overlooking the city. The main cathedral is on the town square and our hotel is about on the left side of the photo, half way up, and is a fifteen minute walk to the cathedral. Temeratures are 60 to afternoon highs of 85. Quite perfect. The other riders are somewhat clickish and wear their club jackets and shirts. One on one they are very friendly and open, but when it comes time for a social function, they gather with their clan. Mostly our age with too much stuff hanging off of thier mostly BMW GS bikes and wearing mostly BMW logo clothes. Maybe 20 percent brought their wives along.
This is the view from the area where I worked when I took my sculpture class here in 2004 at the Instituto de Allende. In 2004 there were eight of us but now the studio is closed and I didn´t even see any students studying spanish, the main portion of thir curriculum. The town is packed though as in addition to our group, there are five major weddings and the pope and Mexico´s President Calderon are in the neighborhood. Police are on every downtown corner.
Parque Juarez in midtown is host to a group of students waiting for their turn to perform at the anniversary of Juarez´s birthday or death. A very patriotic event in a very beautiful and large park.
Harry´s Bar, now owned by Bob, is the hot spot for meeting locals and other visitors. It is just off of the square and it quickly became somewhat of a habitual happy hour for Noel and me. Twofers margarita´s and popcorn for 70 pesos, five bucks!
Thursday night, we paraded from the hotel to the cathedral led by two donkeys all decorated and a 12 piece mariachi band with a very entertaining conductor. The city has a sound and light show that projects onto the face of the building and lofty music floats down. It was extremely enjoyable and normally only shows on the weekends, but bikers are special. And the band played on... Afterwards, Noel and I went to a hotel that had a live band and salsa dancing. A small dance floor, but great dancers. Noel and I did our best.
Friday we had a tour for one hundred miles, some of it quite lovely with hills and windy roads between picturesque pueblos. But half of it was on flat roads with too many cars, trucks, and topes. We stopped for ice cream in Delores Hildago, thats my bike about half way down. We all posed for a group photo on the steps of their cathedral and then returned the 30 miles to San Miguel, detouring through what they call the Santuaria on the old road between Delores and SMA. All cobblestone and a ton of churches and chapels. This is also where the hot springs are located and was a very rich part of the area.
This large scultpture is on the outskirts of Delores Hildago on the way to SMA. The cleanliness and greenery is typical for larger Mexican cities, but lacking in the poorer smaller towns. We have had a great time here so far and will take a different and hopefully more enjoyable route home going northwest to Zacatecas and staying to the left of Chihuahua, crossing into New Mexico at Columbus. We will leave early Sunday moring and take five days or so to get home. I saw a bumper sticker in New Mexico on the way down which said ¨Welcome to New Mexico, actually it is not new. Actually, it is not Mexico.¨

La Ventana activities

This is my living room for my trailer. I spend a lot of quality time here reading or playing anagrams with friends. The tree is full of woodpeckers, doves, finches, humming birds and LGBs. Local food includes homemade tamales for $1 and dried bouganvilla leaves which are used to make the jamaica drink.





We took a day trip to Sol del Mayo, a government sponsored Eco spot run by locals. The pond was 25 feet deep and the jump for Travis was 40 feet. Another woman dove off! I took the photo. The interior of Travis's school bus. He had previously changed out all of the side windows, installed the stove and the floor. I helped him with the side paneling and varnishing. We picked up some used car seats from the junk yard and had new mounts made for them and bolted them in. The old driver's seat was very uncomfortable.

This will be a mosaic on the wall just outside the kitchen door in Prescott. Brightly colored tile is hard to come by in the states, so I bought a bunch of it here. It will be 7' x 10' and has a pond in the lower right fed by the waterfall. The browns are mountains and desert, blue and white sky, yellow sun, a beige road zig zagging into the distance with the front wheel of a motorcycle entering from the lower left. This was a layout just to make sure that I had enough tiles, the rest will stay here in my trailer til next year.

Tony & Sandy

Tony of Tony & Sandy died last week of as quick heart attack while walking from his wind surfer up to his trailer on the beach. Go to La Ventana
for photos of Tony, his friends and life here in La Baja. He is missed by all.

Everything is still going well here. We had the competition for windsurfing, kiting and paddle boarding last weekend and I had volunteered to help with the beer booth but wound up walking around with another guy with two galvanized pails full of canned beer and selling it to the crowd. It was fun being the shill and trying to spot a likely customer. On Saturday, they had the Luche Libre style of Mexican wrestling. Sort of an overacted WWF with costumes and egging the crowd on. At the end, they had a greased pig competition with one kiter, one windsurfer and a local Mexican trying to catch the pig, and return to an old couch that had been set up. The Mexi didn't quite get the rules and after catching the pig, he flung it over the heads of some bystanders in the direction of the couch, but he missed and the pig bounced off of the hard packed dirt. I big Ooohhh from the crowd and Suzy, the MC quickly announced that no animals were injured during the making of this event. It reminded several of us old timers of the WKRP turkey drop.

Then we had the volleyball three person competition on Monday and Tuesday mornings. We start at 8 am and go till the wind comes up around 10 or 11. One guy on my team had pulled a muscle windsurfing on Monday afternoon, so we didn't do to well on Tuesday. I think we came in 4^th or fifth out of ten teams. The two person competition starts in the morning and I am playing with the guy that I first camped next to 13 years ago.

Noel, the buddy from Prescott that is loaning me the bike in Sweden should get back from the main land this week after picking up another of his bikes in Guadalajara and taking the ferry back to here. So I have sort of been looking after his girlfriend who stayed here. Fun stuff like emptying their black water and changing over the propane tank. He and I are also planning on riding down to San Miguel de Allende in March for a BMW bike rally.

Joe,I think we had planned on doing Texas early because I wanted to go to Sweden in May, but that got pushed off to June 19^th. So I have from Dogwood til its time to pack up in mid June. I want to take the Vixen down to Cave Creek sometime in May and see if that may be where my next wintering place is. It is getting crowded and noisy down here with a lot of development going on.

La Ventana sounds like a summer camp for adults, doesn't it? It may well be one.

Down to Baja

Hi All,

I enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with Oakley & Liseanne and Rebecca and Dan in Phoenix. Isabella had graciously loaned me her home in Scottsdale while she was visiting her family in St. Louis. We all went down to Tucson and had lunch with Chris and Steve Beck - they are doing great!


I closed up the house on New Year's Day and went over to Jerry's in Borrego Springs. We played a round of golf and then Jerry made a great dinner for us and his friends Mike and Teri. Monday morning I headed south in the SUV. I was going to take the Vixen, but I don't think that it is ready for Baja yet with no solar electric or propane appliances. Plus it will be better to have the SUV for picking up Oakley, Rebecca etc when they come down in February.

I crossed over easily at Tecate and glad that I didn't get the red light at customs as I was carrying a full load of wine. The road to Ensenada was in good shape and there must have been at least 8 new wineries and I also saw a new Museum of Wine being constructed. The mountains were very green and the weather was perfect for an afternoon's drive.


The remainder of the trip was uneventful and relaxed. I really poked around this time, taking excursions, starting late and stopping early. I stayed at the Mission Inn in Catavina the first night, the Frances Hotel in Santa Rosalia the second, and the Perla Hotel in La Paz the last night. I stayed in La Paz as I wanted to make a dental appointment and do some shopping before going out to La Ventana.

The trailer was in great shape, all four tires still holding air and not too much dust on the inside, so I was pretty well set up before dark. Six utilities are required. Water from trenching over to the nearest spigot, batteries connected to the solar, propane tank filled and connected, the refrigerator and hot water heater lit, and a septic tank dug. The weather is still a bit on the cool side, 60 at night and 70 in the day. But it makes for great vollyball.


It seems less crowded in the camp this year, but the usual gang is here. I think that as more people buy or build a house and more resorts are popping up, the campground gets fewer customers. Jack & Nancy from Hawaii showed up in their Vixen. I had met them in Napa when I picked up my Vixen in August.

So life is good. Otto

Open Barn Doors

After a day in Nashville I went over to Taylorsville, KY and spent the evening with my sister Betty and her husband Carl. They certainly have built themselves a nice nest there with a partially underground home and a huge shop. Betty continues here genealogy projects and Carl is way into his CJ-3 Jeep project. They had just returned from a Jeep outing in Utah.




I unloaded the Sportster and road up to Ohio for Gary Mac's annual Open Barn Doors party. I arrived on a Wednesday and it had started raining 30 miles from his place and I arrived wet around the edges. It continued to rain off and on until Friday evening and the ground was very saturated. But Saturday, the day of the party, the sun came out and the wind with it and started to dry things out. It was still an inside party though. Gary and I built a wine glass holder over the bar and I helped with the clean up and decorating. The boy needs a barn keeper!


Then the long trip home. I returned to Betty and Carl's, loaded up the bike and spent the night. The next day I went over to Charleston and spent the evening with daddy and Ron and left out after coffee at Boomland with daddy's clutch. A long driving day on Tuesday and Wednesday and I arrived mid afternoon at Pueblo, CO to pick up a 2010 Triumph Bonneville that I had bought on ebay. Then I made it down to Raton, NM that evening and finished up on Thursday evening back home.

This was my first extended trip with the Vixen and it performed well. There are still a lot of little things that need attention, but I have plenty of time to see to them.

King Biscuit Blues Festival

The Deco design Hotel Seville in Harrison, Ark was a delight to stay in and we enjoyed dinner there and made some new friends.

We visited Eureka Springs and had lunch in the old downtown area and had to add on some home made dessert. Lots of motorcycles there as it is only a short ride from Fayetteville. The loop on the old highway 62B was lined with Victorian homes and tall trees - very attractive. The Springs are not note worthy and had names like Black sulfur and Arsenic. This chapel is located a couple of miles west of Eureka Springs and is very interesting, both the story behind it and sitting inside of it with music playing in the background and looking at all of the trees outside.

Next stop was Helena for the King Biscuit Flour Hour Blues Festival. We had arranged to meet up with Bill, Joe's brother-in-law on Tuesday. We caught up with him at the campground and I went to pick up my Vixen motor home. We had a very spacious camp spot on the edge of town and we met several other campers. We took Bill's truck and toured over to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and the Shack Up Inn, where we had camped two years ago. The place had expanded quite a bit and is worth stopping in when you are in the area. Thursday we went to the Festival and stayed all day. We were all disapointed with the style of music being played. I was counting on old style piano and guitar slow strumming and singing, but it was more high energy electric guitar and drums with a bit of rap/blues singing. We did finally find some buskers (street performers) that met our expectations.


So Friday morning, I decided to move on, the Festival just wasn't doing it for me. Joe and Bill concurred and we took the long way back towards Nashville, Joe's home. The tires on my new to me trailer looked a bit low and on checking, one had 6 lbs and the other 10 lbs, both showing major cracking on the outside. The trailer was 6 years old and barely used, but the tires had rotted in the sun. So two new Goodyears from very helpful people and we were on our way, only to have the trailer hitch break off of the Vixen when we pulled into a gas station. Luckily, this didn't happen while on the road as we could have done some major damage to the bikes. $50 and an hour later and we were good to go, this time with a second safety chain tied to the frame of the Vixen.


This is in front of Joe and Diane's home in Southwest Nashville and Bill's Airstream on Saturday. I left later to visit a friend of mine east of Nashville.

BBBQ

We met up with the Daniels, our third cousins in Fort Smith. Joe and I had last met them in 1955 just before they moved from Cape Girardeau to Fort Smith. This is Pat on the right, her husband Cosby Hodges on the left and Tom Daniel in the middle. The youngest daughter, Julia was also there. We spent the night in their luxurious home on the golf course and we all went out to dinner. Anne, the fourth family member and my childhood favorite, died from cancer about four years ago.

The Bikers, Blues & BBQ bike rally in Fayetteville, Ark is supposed to be second only to Sturgis in size. We heard numbers like 300,000 but it must be very difficult to get a good head count as no tickets are required. There is a ton of bikes though, all throughout NW Arkansas. We camped at Dan and Debra's place in Fayetteville, a 30 acre hilltop that was a 20 minute walk from downtown. The rally itself was mainly vendors and outdoor music, the fun part being just watching people and bikes parading up and down the main drag which was closed off to cars. Lots of custom bikes and different creations. Our hosts are currently building a low energy house and we enjoyed their company and interaction.

We had had enough of the noise and congestion by Saturday afternoon and rode over to the Buffalo River and camped at the Steel Creek campground, making some friends and throwing horse shoes. The temp has been in the mid 40's at night, so we don't hit the road til 9 or so.

Sunday, we toured Eureka Springs and continued our habit of eating BBQ and catfish. Sunday night we checked into the 1929 restored Seville hotel in Harrison which had special rates for bikers and met some of the local characters in the hotel bar after doing our laundry.