January 4, 2015 by Rae

The Pelican Length

Mid-afternoon is my favourite time to hit the beach. Lowish tide means lots of clean hard packed sand to walk on and tidal pools to wade through. Sometimes, they are shallow. Sometimes, like today, I find myself in water up to my mid-thighs! I walk away from the crowds, towards the golf course and airport. Sometimes, it’s a short walk. Sometimes, I forget that I’ll have to come back and walk far enough that the trip home is a bit of a chore.

Today’s walk was marred by my coming upon two sick or injured pelicans. The first still had a lot of spirit, spreading its wings when I got too close, but unable to otherwise move. What a wingspan it was, likely close to my height (5’6″)!

I was certain the other was dead because it did not react to me at all when I came upon it the first time. On the way back, it opened its eyes slightly, startling me!

Both were surrounded by ATV tracks, so I hope they were merely in shock from fright and not injured.

January 4, 2015 by Rae

Sunny With a Chance of Goats and Stingrays

I only had a little work to do for tomorrow morning, so I finished it first thing today and then headed out to hike up Goat Mountain a second time.

It was a gorgeous hot and sunny day, the first that we’ve had in almost a week. I ran into Janet and Grant on the way and caught up with them, as well as getting cuddles from their dog, Boo!

Watching ships in a harbour is something I really enjoy, so I took my time getting to Goat Mountain, using the zoom function on my camera in lieu of binoculars to watch containers being loaded on and off ships.

The pelicans were out in full force. They never cease to amuse me, even though they are not an exotic creature to me since we have them in SK and I saw plenty of them in Texas!

Check out the wary expression on his face!

Check out the sly expression on his face!

The goats were also out today and did a good job of ignoring me!

Put in sheep or hairy coos instead of goats and I would wear that this picture was taken in the Scottish Highlands!

Scotland, seriously!

There were also lots of a bird of prey, probably a hawk, at the very top of Goat Mountain. Getting up and down it was again rather anticlimactic because it looks so imposing from a distance!

Can you see the spires of the cathedral?

Dale and I are going to climb up to the lighthouse soonish. She’s done it once.

Lots of these birds flying around.

Using my excellent zoom to show off this incredibly clear water.

More goats with lots of bleating, probably telling me to go away!

On the way back, I passed a municipal police truck. Both the driver and the officer standing in the back holding a weapon were wearing bandanas over their face, which I read means that they are narcos attempting to protect their identities. They slowed down to give me a once over and I removed my sunglasses, smiled, and nodded. I got no reaction from them at all. Goat Island is quite an isolated part of Isla with little traffic, so it’s nice to see it being patrolled. The police force here does a good job keeping order. I’ve witnessed one arrest for what was very likely drunk and disorderly conduct.

I came home by the beach, which was eerily quiet for such a beautiful day, but explained by the numerous yellow flags warning swimmers that there was a risk of stingrays. Some hardy souls still braved the water!

Yellow with logo is a warning for stingrays.

It took about two dozen pictures to get one with the wind catching the flag just right so that I could capture the logo!

December 24, 2014 by Rae

Blogger Happy Hour Meetup

Around 4:30 today, I headed over to Contessa and Colin‘s for a happy hour gathering with fellow RVers Chris and Juan and Kevin and Ruth.

I know of Chris and Juan through Croft and fellow former Ottawans Kevin and Ruth have been following me since even before I got on the road. But here’s the kicker. The five of us met here in Mazatlán tonight, but Kevin and Ruth spent the summer just a few hours northwest of me in Saskatchewan and Chris and Juan pretty much drove right by Haven heading for the border after visiting Kevin and Ruth!

I’m telling you, the continent’s small and all roads eventually merge! I’m pretty sure the only (formerly) RVing bloggers I have left to meet are Sean and Louise from Our Odyssey! It was lovely to get to match voices to writing styles and faces.

At any rate, we had a nice time eating munchies and watching the big cruise ships sail out of port at sunset. Talking about RVing again was great, making me realise just how much I’m missing the lifestyle!

December 22, 2014 by Rae

An Unexpected Afternoon Off

Yesterday’s work file was very easy, so I got an early start on today’s. Today’s wound up being very easy and so I decided to get an early start on tomorrow’s. Surprise, tomorrow’s was mostly music and singing, which I do not need to transcribe, so I was done with tomorrow’s work by 1:30 today! And the best part is that this client pays me for all my minutes, whether there is anything to transcribe or not. So I’m essentially getting a day and a half off, but am still getting paid for it. This doesn’t happen often and I enjoy it when it does!

I don’t know if I’ll have any more transcription this week, but I have some non-transcription projects to work on. I am coming in alarmingly short for my January budget, so I’m keen to do as much work as I can before the 31st even if these projects aren’t due until the second week in January. This is the first year since I started freelancing that I haven’t been swamped this week. I know that will likely mean a busy start to the new year, but being overloaded in January won’t make up for being underloaded in December. 🙁

With the rest of the day to fill, the obvious thing to do was head to the beach for a long walk. I really enjoy walking between 2PM and 4PM (ish) because the tide is going out and there is lots of lovely firm clean sand to walk on. I head towards the airport, away from the crowds and garbage, and can take off my sandals. My goal for today was to go some distance past the last house or until I found an intact sand dollar, whichever came first. Well, the two goals coincided and I found a beautiful, albeit cracked, sand dollar a few minutes past the last house!

I headed back home, arriving around 2:30, and had a late lunch. Dale gave me a copy of Pacific Pearl, a free local newspaper, the other day and Contessa gave me a copy of M! Magazine (both in English), so I sat down to read through them both properly and learn about local venues and events. Thanks, gals!

That done, I debated cracking open a beer as I mulled over what I was going to have for dinner. The stores were rather bare. I’m going to Maz tomorrow with Dale to pick up stuff for social events this week and thought it would be stupid to go to City Deli to get something for dinner tonight. Then, I remembered that, really, prices between here and town are comparable, so why not pick up what I wanted and have less to carry tomorrow?

So off I went. The Lala truck had been by, so I stocked up on crema, a big tub of peach yoghurt, and Oaxca cheese. I also got a potato, two carrots, and an onion. I really like sautéed cubed veggies (including a chayote I already had in the fridge) with a little bacon, crema, garlic, and some cheese. Very simple and reheats so well, with the flavours being more intense the next day.

I chatted with the lady who weighs and prices the veggies about work and family. As she was finishing up, I thought that bacon would be nice with my supper. I now know that you can get some convenience meats by the weight at the City Deli. They just open a big package and weigh out however much you want. I asked if they had bacon, yup, and the lady weighed me out nine pesos worth, perfect for a meal with leftovers.

Then, I moved into a new phase of linguistic exploration, discussing cooking! I said that I like cooking the potatoes with bacon, onions, crema, and garlic. She said yum and asked if I use a comal, a traditional Mexican griddle that is often made of cast iron. As best as I could, I explained that I use a pan that is like a comal, but has higher sides. Pantomime was involved, but I think she got it!

For some reason, the price sticker often falls off my bags by the time I get to the cashier and that was the case with the bacon. So I told the man that the veggie lady said it was nine pesos. He once again said that I speak lovely Spanish and that it’s such a pleasure to serve me. That’s enough ego stroking, people, my head is big enough as it is! 😀 But seriously, comments like that give me confidence to push my boundaries and chat more. I keep waiting for a negative person to tell me how horrible my Spanish is and that I should give up, but that person does not appear to live in the vicinity!

Back home, I cracked open that beer and started on this post. 🙂 It’s been so long since I’ve been been able to work ‘normal’ days that I’m struggling a tad to figure out how to fill my evenings! For tonight, I’ll be putting a movie on the iPad and continuing work on a puzzle Dale loaned me. I’ve been picking away at it for several nights while rewatching the wonderful movie Cloud Atlas. I finished it last night, so I’ll see if I can find anything on Netflix tonight that catches my eye. Otherwise, I have lots of movies on an external drive that I can rewatch.