March 22, 2007

Mazatlan (con't)

Golf at the El Cid

Just returned from a badly needed golf fix at the El Cid course. The former Canadian golf-pro was still suffering from la turista, so he opted to recuperate. He bagged it. I was thus deprived of some badly needed instruction. All in all I played well, despite the fact that we were required to have a caddy (who spoke no English), which was absolutely unnecessary on this course. Simply a way to create more jobs, like pumping gas in Oregon.

Because I just wasted 4+ hours of my life (Janice's description of a round of golf), I am unable to report on today's tourist hot spots. Didn't take the camera with me either, so no new photos. Where's Janice today?? She's on a 4+ hour tour of a Tequila factory and other such local places of cultural edification. Taking photos.

Thus I will use part of today's blog to reflect on the miscellaneous.

I write these blogs so that someday I can sit in the rocking chair and enjoy remembering travels, times, and people when recollections dim. After a blog series has run its course, I copy and paste it and download it as a word document, printing a copy for for the JM Archives. This way I will not lose them when the mother of all maverick 'delete' worms infects the internet.

Blogs prior to this one were a way to provide my late mother with the opportunity to enjoy travel vicariously outside of her confines. Whether it was cell phone calls from the high seas off the Alaska Coast when my sister cruised offshore, or postcards or blogs from me, Mom loved to travel in her mind. On this trip, I often catch myself looking at something and thinking, "Mom would enjoy hearing about this." She would even chuckle at the thought of pig snouts if I wrote about them simply because she enjoyed my writing. She had hoped to live long enough to see me write a book, but even as she passed away at the grand age of 97 this past September, she could not outlive my procrastination.

Blog notices are sent via e-mail to a list of about 50 friends, relatives and travel junkies. It's sometimes difficult trying to imagine what topics would interest such a varied audience, assuming that some of you out there are actually reading this drivel. When I experience such episodes of writer's block, the certain antidote is simply to "write it for Mom," even now. She was a most appreciative audience, no matter what I wrote about. (She had saved every postcard that Janice and I sent her over the last 30+ years.)

Because this is miscellany day, I'll upload a few pics from the past couple weeks to provide a glimpse of what we have enjoyed seeing.









1. Mennonite kids 2. Indian children playing in washwater 3. Mexican kids looking at the 'Stars'



Views from the train





Bonus blog entry coming:


What I learned at the tequila factory—by Janice!