Well, for about a week, it's been overcast with heavy clouds sitting right on top of the mountains directly behind us, and the lake and mountains across are invisible. The temperatures have dropped as well with highs in the low 60s and overnight lows about 55. Then Friday came the deluge; it started raining and it's pretty much been raining ever since. Here's a picture of the terrace shiny with rain.
You can see that beyond the wall we have no view. This is evidently the result of an unstable low pressure system pushed very far south--called "el norte." In the northern estados along the border, the low temps have dropped below freezing and there's even snow in the highest altitudes there. Highly unusual, we're told, but then it's just tagged as another signal of global warming. I guess we'll just standby for much more of that. 😞
Mexicans are walking around in down jackets or vests with knit caps pulled down over their ears. Your dad is freezing, wearing his flannel jammies and sweatshirts. So cold is he that we actually turned on the gas fire this morning.
Too bad I didn't see this coming; I could have had some hot chocolate in the pantry. Appropriately, it feels very much like November/Thanksgiving weather. It's also good to know that Tuesday the "sun'll come out" and the temps will rise by 10 degrees.
There's a beautiful song called Guadalajara. Here's a great version.
Beautiful scenes from all over the city. Unfortunately we weren't anywhere near them today. This is mostly what we saw instead:
We were on a mission or two or three:
card stock to print cards with our names, addresses, phones, etc. so we can hand them out to new people we meet
a small blackboard for our kitchen list
a doggie gate to block the steps from the garden down into the carport so the dogs won't run out into the street and get run over when we leave them out in the garden and open the garage doors to go somewhere in the car (I know. We have at least two in the garage in Louisville.)
a small folding drying rack (I know. We have at least two in the garage in Louisville.)
a small drill for you-know-who (I have no idea how many of those are floating around Louisville.)
and other assorted things
First we visited Petco (where we found a $100 USD fancy doggie gate with a smaller gate set into for the cat if we had one). Looks like this:
Cute, huh? btw, this image is from Target where it's listed for $36.99 USD. So, absolutely not. Besides, see note above about how many we have back in the USA. Home Depot provided the drill but not much else we needed. Walmart was useless, and Sam's Club much the same. Didn't go to Costco because we aren't members. Office Max was our one success, where we found both the cardstock and the little blackboard. All of these stores happen to be on one main artery of the city, Avenida Lopez Mateos which stretches from SW to NE. Access is very easy for us by going west through Jocotepec where HWY 80/15 becomes Lopez Mateos. The problem with the street--and all the other main streets in Guadalajara--is that they're all limited access with side streets running parallel--laterals. So sometimes you have to go miles north in order to find a cross street (called "retornos") that will let you cross over and go South, the direction you really want to go in. We spent a lot of time going unwillingly in the wrong direction because sometimes we just couldn't get there from here. Frustrating on top of not finding what we wanted.
Times like this we really miss Amazon! But Bob is a pro: no way can you compare driving in Manila, Tokyo, Paris, etc. with Guadalajara.
After we got home, while I was checking Facebook, Maritza tapped me for a video message. Very cool. We had a nice little chat. She put her little boys on so they see and say hello to Bob.
Then we went upstairs to the terrace off our bedroom to watch the afterglow of the sunset. It was so pretty turning from gold to pink to red. Below us, it looked like a postcard with the village, the church steeple, the still lake, and Mt. Garcia silhouetted in dark blue against the darkening sky. I've tapped the official photographer to get some pictures at the same time of day.
Busy day but tomorrow will be quieter. Lazy day at home with some pool time in the afternoon.
