On The Road and Our First Few Weeks in San Carlos-December 2016

We left Erin and Todd's house in Golden on the 28th of November and drove to Albuquerque, NM-our usual dog friendly La Quinta was the first night's destination.  We spent two days in Tucson, getting supplies, purchasing a new IPhone for Jim (which took FOREVER) and visiting our favorite haunt here, Tucson Botanical Gardens.  This year they had a special exhibit, Frida Kahlo, Art, Garden and Life.  It examined her art through the lens of her botanical interests and displayed replicas of her gardens.  Her depictions of flowers, botanicals and fruits helped define the art that followed the Mexican Revolution.

I love these tile benches which are here and there in the gardens

Agave

Organ Pipe Cactus

Such a sweet altar

Can't remember the name but beautiful

And these photographs of Frida really captured her unusual beauty and flair for the exotic.

Check out her earrings!

The flowers in her hair!

Ethnic dress always

Perhaps my favorite

Don't miss the eyebrows and the mustache!

We got together with some friends for a delightful dinner in Green Valley and then left for the border on the first.  We had no problems at all crossing and the lines at Kilometer 21 were thankfully short.
The roads to Hermosillo were quite nice but once we got on the other side of Hermosillo, there was an over-abundance of road construction, reducing a four lane highway to two.  And, without shoulders and with lots of crazy fast Mexican drivers passing us, it was a bit white knuckled driving to the cut off for San Carlos.  We tucked in behind some of the big semis so, if anyone was going to take the hit, it wouldn't be us!  We arrived at Encantado Realty around 3:30 and Thonda drove with us to our new rental on the Caracol Peninsula.  The first year, we were at the Bahia, and we thought we'd always want to live in the Bahia area.  The second and third year, we lived in Villa Hermosa and thought we'd never want to leave there.  This year we are on the Caracol (means snail in Spanish) and, so far, we don't think we'll ever want to leave here either.

Here are a few first pictures, taken in early December:

Those three pictures are from our deck, our first night here.  Wish I knew how to do a panorama-maybe I'll learn sometime soon.

This is the street side of the house and the infamous cactus garden with
the cobblestone path.

We bought a mini Christmas tree...and
decorated the fountain with paper flowers
and the beginnings of this year's shell
collection.

We have a resident committee of turkey vultures.

Beautiful sunrises

A girls' Christmas party with homemade biscotti and wonderful
coffee at Norma's:
Sylvia, Norma, Graciela, Heidi, Gisella, Leticia
and, in back, Margene, Maggie, Debbie and Jackie

I've kept up with the birding group, who know about 99% more than I do about birds-I'm learning.

There were 52 white egrets at the Esterito this morning.
(We are in the midst of the Christmas bird count)

One of the settlement ponds in the desert-we saw lots of
ducks this day.

The back side of the Tetakawis

A cactus forest outside Paradiso

Can you believe the algae on this pond!!!?

Algodones Beach area by the old Club Med

SO MUCH MORE TO COME!