We both agree that we need to slow down, stay home and chill for a while. But oh what fun we had this past Friday, Dec 1st. Mazatlan was hopping what with it being Art Walk, a play reading at El Recreo, The Nutcracker ballet , a baseball game as well as it being the Mazatlan Pacific Grand Marathon weekend.
My day started with a ninety minute massage by my favorite masseuse. Mary lived here for many years and I was privileged to receive professional massages from her over the last five years when both she and I were in Mazatlan. Last year she moved to a different state as she finds the Mazatlan heat too much for her during the shoulder months of the winter season. Over the years I have been fortunate to receive an occasional massage from her when I visited Edmonton where she spends her summers. Mary was back here for a ten day visit and offered to come to the Isla to give me a massage. Yeah me. It was perfect and the time went much too quickly. I tried two other people last winter and finally gave up. I am trying out a new girl mid December and I so hope that she works out as she comes highly recommended and I could really benefit from some good massages.
Just prior to my massage was the official RV1 shuffle. Ron and Kathleen left early Friday morning out of site #3 on their way south to Rincón de Guayabitos where they will be staying for a few months before returning here in the spring. By the way we made it out of the RV to say adios and just saw the dust as you headed down the road. Meanwhile our neighbors, Darwin and Audrey moved from site #2 onto site #3, their new home for the winter. Then Wayne and Donna shuffled over from site #5 to site #2 where they will be our neighbors for the rest of the season. Fortunately the dust settled before my massage. In the photo Darwin had just pulled into #3 while Wayne was about to back into #2.
I hadn’t been out of the shower more than a few moments post massage when Erik, the RV tech showed up. We have a long list of to do’s for him and today he was getting a few crossed off that list. Here he is removing an added piece of chrome to the inside of our RV door. He took this piece off and added another that was higher. If you look closely you can see the gold paint bubbling up in the center above the chrome. This is happening because of the sea air getting under the paint. This happens over many years of camping next to the ocean. We have had to replacing rusting parts over the years but we still choose to be close to the ocean. The new strip of stainless steel will likely last many years.
One of the other things Erik did was create a special brace for the overhead cabinet which is directly over my head as we drive. This year we noticed a lot of noise as we drove and tried to pin point it to the window rattling, the curtain rod, etc., but we just could not pin it down. Once we got here and started to vacuum we found 3 screws on the carpet behind my copilot seat. I looked up and both brackets that held the cabinet in place had no screws holding the brackets in place tight to the wall and one of the brackets was almost rusted through. All the bouncing about over the years had loosened them. Fortunately the cabinet which happens to be my book bin did not come crashing down on my head. Erik created such a strong brace that the cabinet will never move again.
Sadly the most important thing that needed doing was not able to be done. Our fridge needs a new seal on both the main part of the fridge as well as the freezer. The fins in the regular part of the fridge often freeze up, the actual freezer is just fine. So we found someone who could bring in the seal needed for our particular model fridge and had it shipped to the US where we picked it up on our way here. Most RV fridge seals are installed by simply pressing the new one into place. Not ours 😕 It will take at least six hours to do as both doors have to come off, the fridge has to be unscrewed from its brace and moved out at least 4 -6 inches. In all his years as a Canadian RV tech Erik has never come across this type of install. I made the executive decision that the install was not going to happen until mid March or later. Where the heck would I put all my fridge contents? We all arrive with full fridges. It will be much easier to borrow enough coolers in March and get the job done then as we will have eaten a good deal of what is in the freezer. Hopefully I will be able to control the icing /frost issue in the meantime.
I had time for a quick sunset photo before we headed into Mazatlan.
Mazatlan has had much construction over the past several months including new roads, sidewalks and interesting lighting.
We were joining some good friends for a play reading of ‘Sylvia’. Sylvia is a female dog who is portrayed by the second person from the left. You can Google the play but basically it is a story about a man who brings home a dog that his wife does not want. The play was very funny in parts and it was interesting listening to a dog interact vocally with it’s owner. However having recently lost our girls the ending brought tears to my eyes.
Us, as well as our friends Linda and Kevin, Mary my masseuse and one of her friends who were also at the play reading walked a few blocks over to the Plazuela Machado for a very late dinner at Il Mosto. The Plazuela was decorated for Christmas but we didn’t have time to walk about. I caught this quick shot from the table. A great end to a wonderful day over a meal with friends.
We were able to catch the last regular lancha from Mazatlan to the Isla and were inside the RV by 12:30AM. A long but fun filled day.
