Last Days of the Season in San Carlos

 Mothers' Day dawned gorgeous and pleasant.  I woke up to these beautiful breakfast pizzas grilled by Jimbo and phone calls from the kids.  I miss them all so much!

I was getting itchy to get out of the house.  Mother's Day was the 2nd month "anniversary" of our self isolation.  We really aren't allowed to both be in the car at the same time nor go to the beaches but we did anyway and thought we'd deal with the consequences.

I drove, just in case I might be in danger of losing my skills. 🤣 (Never, kids, don't get any ideas). We drove out through fish camp and out to the desert where we didn't see a soul-no cops there!

This is in the car so no mask but as soon as I got out I put it on.
This is my first time of looking halfway decent:  earrings, a fine
hat and a dress!

Everyone, if there at the fish camp, was inside or in their boats.  The fishermen
live in these sweet shacks (maybe not so sweet if you had to live there.
But they have a certain flair about them.

This is right above the fish camp, overlooking the esterito and the cafe.
Beyond is the Bahia and the route out to sea.

This is a dirt road where we often go with the Plein Air painting group.  The
rocks are just magnificent and there were all kinds of flowering bushes and
trees, notably, the ocotillo.

Next up, I just had to get to the ocean. We looked at various places which looked likely that we would be seen and decided it wasn't a good idea.  We thought of going out to La Manga Tres but we
hadn't had the radiators replaced yet (we have now) and didn't want to get stuck out there.  So, we kind of hid our car behind a bush- you can see by the bushes in this picture, how effective that was!

One of our favorite beaches, Piedras Pintas or the Zorro Beach because
Zorro was filmed here.  It was glorious!  All tidy with crashing waves.

We walked this part for about 15 minutes before a very nice
Estado Policia couple drove up and so politely asked us
to go home after a few minutes more. A little too dangerous
for a dip.

Back home for our first take-out dinner from La Trattoria. Pasta, salad
and my favorite flan for dessert.  Nice to eat someone else's food for a change
and we are still alive and well!

We had one other couple over one night for sunset and drinks with
separate seating areas 6 ft or more apart.  Just makes us kind of nervous.
Need haircuts and exercise!

Two of my favorite people from my book club.  Their
husbands work at the Maquilas (US factories in Guaymas.)
This night the three of us snuck into Enrique's sister's (and
Cheryl and Bill's rental next year) home by the sea-
we probably should let him know!!
We probably could get away with swimming here but
the stairs down to the water are really pretty scary!

Totally amuses me to watch these guys climb the ladder,

jump off, wrap their belt around the tree and chop off

limbs with their machetes, all the time laughing and

 having the time of their lives swingin in the breeze.

Apparently roaches live in the dead stuff and it is healthy

for the tree to grow out new limbs that grow nicely

downward.  We have had roaches and I do not love them!

This you might recognize as the eastern side of the beach that was below us
when we lived on Almejas.  We can walk from here but decided this night to
just sit and let Boo roam and explore.  There are stairs down to the beach
but its a bit of a jump at the bottom.  We will do this again when the
beaches open and we will wear our sneakers and jump like youngsters!.

The view back towards our old house.  The white one
to the left of the empty lot was ours-looks so tiny now!

 Claudia and Phil invited us over for a Memorial Day BBQ and it was lovely.  What a great location they have.  Funny thing:  they are going to Boulder in mid June for the remainder of the summer!
They usually go to Chatham, Mass. but too far a drive in this pandemic and they have a daughter in Denver.  It will be great to show them our town.

The Grillmeisters
Don't you love the shells between the tiles?!

Our yellow plumeria

Close up of our pink plumeria
Both have the nicest scent!  We are so glad to be here when they bloom as we've always
missed them before.

The bougainvillea below

One last art group with the three of us who are here!  Diane, Laura and I.

Such a cute picture of Joe and the new puppies at the ranch.

Sweet Diane
Morning cocktails and pastel drawings

Me, Laura and the new puppies.  She also has baby chicks
and a new colt out here.  Very hopeful signs:  life goes
on!

Great terrace for social distancing.  Had neighbors on both
sides over for goodbye cocktails for Ole and Susan.  They
are going back to their home in Show Low, AZ.

And another sign that life goes on
Our grand nephew, Jeff, graduated from high school and we
all watched on Zoom.  Most of us with tears in our eyes.

His formal picture

The informal picture with Julie, his Mom, my niece
It was a thrill to zoom together and text each other through the whole thing.
I miss family!  Hopefully next year we can plan a get together-life,
although slowed down right now, is moving pretty darned fast when you are
in your seventies.  How did we get here?

Boo loves the cool tile in this house, inside and out.  And he
is watching too-very seriously.

We sent this picture to Jeff and family.
I dressed for the occasion. Jim, not so much!

Move to Linda Vista

We finally made it to Linda Vista (Yes, it is the name of the street!). We miss being right on the ocean but love our new house.  It has 3 bedrooms, a great kitchen and a deck that goes on forever.  There are beautiful views of the ocean and the Tetakawi mountains as well as Honeymoon Island and the mountains surrounding Guaymas and in the desert.  We already know many of the neighbors and have 2 neighbors that are still here-one house on either side of us.

The owner bought two lots-one for gardens, fountains, etc. and one for the house.  It is incredibly spacious and we find
it is so much easier than our beach bungalow which only had two bedrooms and one bath and a great room.  We have mango trees and plumeria trees and many palms.  There are bougainvillea bushes and gorgeous flowers.  Boo keeps his
eye on the whole neighborhood as he can run around from front to back and bark at anyone who goes by-he has an enormous job here!  It is completely fenced in.

This is the view to the east.  Honeymoon Island (where the pelicans breed and nest )and the mountains of Miramar and
Guaymas with the sun setting on them.

You can see that the sunset is just grand from our house, also.  The Tetas are a
little to the south in this picture.

Jim is right at home with an outdoor kitchen and bar area.  We pretty
much live out here.

It's a great place to watch the sunset and catch the evening breezes.

The birdwatching is incredible!  We don't get the
water birds as close up as we got on Almejas,
but lots of orioles, vultures, song birds, doves.  The
ocean going birds do pass over the water in front of
us, so we are not missing them entirely.  This is
a hooded oriole who just adored our aloe vera which
is in a pot outdoor our front window.  Made for
great birdwatching!  

We have a wonderful organic farm out in the Santa Clara area of Guaymas.
This is our first delivery.  Boy, were we busy cooking stuff up!  We got
rid of the packaging and put it on the tray and brought in inside to
wash everything-quite an ordeal!

The mango tree, the fountain and some palms

Our first walk around the neighborhood was down to the Manglares Beach.  I loved taking photos of all the interesting cacti on the way.

I think this could be one of my very favorites.  It's called Bishop's hat.

A kind of barrel cactus-maybe many headed?

Sign of the times:  deserted streets

A type of barrel cactus

Hard to tell-maybe a prickly pear tree?

Close up

Prickly Pear

Katy calls these Christmas trees

The only sign of life are these two dogs barking like crazy at us when we
walk by.  Boo ignored them but, if they walk by our house, he goes ballistic!

Sunset on the terrace

Everything turns pink!

The Tetas from our dining room at sunset

Even Boo has a pink tinge.

Our lovely neighbors, Susan and Oley

First full moon rising

Love this photo-so ominous-perfect for the times

Our first outing during the lockdown.  Kathi and Ron have a duplex, so
we sat on one side and them on the other.

Unlike so many, we are ok with being on lockdown.  We wish we could walk more and go to the beach but the beaches are closed, only one person to a car and no walking or exercising dogs!!  They are stopping anyone coming to town who doesn't live or work here.  We cheat a little but not much.

It feels so sad and frustrating that we can't do more than give to local charities but that is helping a lot.  This community is incredibly generous.  Most of our musicians, beach vendors and wait staff are taken care of for the near future.  I keep myself busy with painting, writing, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning and reading.  In a way this is a gift of time to us as we were getting so socially overwhelmed in February and March when everyone is usually in town.  We feel very fortunate to be here.  I've gone to the grocery store once, the doctor 3 times and the pharmacy a few times but that is it.  My lips, after almost 4 months of pain) are cured.  New doctor is a great diagnostician-it was impetigo, usually happens to children-just my luck!  But, I am finally over the hill on that one.  Jim's knees are pretty bad getting up and down but Life is good.  We are happy and miss you all.