OurBiggerPicture

The forecast for the next few days calls for rain, thunderstorms, and high winds. The harbor just north of here is closed through the weekend...and this is a problem. In my continuing quest to see as much wildlife between here and Argentina as possible, we planned to spend a couple extra days in the Cancun area to see the whale sharks. We tried to see them in La Paz, Baja (bad weather) and Placencia, Belize (too early). John and I have been in Mexico for 7 months and we are r

From our little house in Tulum, we moved at a faster pace the next couple of weeks, covering lots of ground. First, we headed for the ruins of Chichen Itza. Another very old pile of rocks but this one has been named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, so we had to go. This time though, we hired a guide. The conversation of how many ruins to visit on this trip seems to fall into two camps. The, “I don’t want to miss any” and “I’m done after half an hour”. Most of the overl

Productivity, Relaxation, Yoga, Kiting, Reality vs Expectations. Basically, me....rambling. When we have the interweb, I love it with my whole heart. I love being informed with up to the minute updates on the markets and news and stock prices. I drink it in with the satisfaction of, of well, being up to date. Other than checking in with the finances and emails, I am really wasting a whole lot of time under the guise (my guise) that I am doing something productive or worthwhi

Although we loved the beach and were happy to be there, we do have a bit of an agenda these days. We need to make our way to Belize. We have to cancel our temporary vehicle permit for the truck and eventually re-enter Mexico with a fresh 180 day permit for LoJo, and ultimately a new visa for Paula and I. This wasn't in our initial plans for our trip. We planned to exhaust our visa here in Mexico and then move south to Belize, Guatemala, etc.That was before my nephew decided t

We came to Puerto Escondido on a bit of a mission. Before we left home a friend of ours in Petaluma, Michael "Bug" Deacon, asked us if we would deliver a book he had written to a friend of his down here. The friend, Dan Clemons, owns a little hotel on Zicatela Beach in Puerto Escondido called Hotel Casa Dan, and he's been down here for 25 years. It is a cute, cheap & chill place. We decided to check in for a few days. It was long and roundabout delivery, but the book made it

We found ourselves on a quiet road heading up a volcano on the way to Oaxaca. By the time we hit this particular road, we have been driving in Mexico for close to 4 months and every arrival feels like cause for celebration. The toll roads stop us every 30 or 40 kms for more pesos and the free roads through towns slow us every 3 or 4 kms because of the topes (speed bumps). The forks in the road all seem to have the same (or no) highway numbers to cities that are unpronounceabl

We left LoJo at the campground in Teotihuacan, and headed into Mexico City by bus and the surprisingly efficient Metro system. This is the second largest city in the world with over 20 million people, but it was a relatively easy journey in on public transit. Ben and Emma decided to go the same time as us, so the four of us rented an apartment in the trendy Roma neighborhood to experience Mexico City as locals…with the help of Anthony Bourdain. For those who don’t know Anthon

From San Miguel de Allende we headed about 4 hours south to witness the phenomenon of the monarch butterfly migration in the eastern-most corner of Michoacán. Every fall, millions of monarch butterflies flock to the Sierra Madre mountains for their winter hibernation, having flown all the way from the Great Lakes region of the US and Canada. These Monarch butterflies use the very same trees each and every year when they migrate, which is weird because they aren’t the same bu

We spent 10 days in a row in a hotel because of John’s injury. It was just too hard in the camper to deal with trying to keep things sterile and the walk to the bathroom was way too long. They were not easy days. I'm cleaning and changing the dressing twice a day, and applying suture strips to try to keep the wound together since the stitches didn’t take. John can't walk far. It’s no joke. So we splurged a few nights on a nice hotel and then got the cut looked at again. The

I first came to Puerto Vallarta and then Yelapa 25 years ago. Paula and I were dating when she came across an ad in the newspaper for a cheap all-inclusive package to Puerto Vallarta. This was my first trip out of the U.S. and my third time on an airplane. I was 25. It was a difficult weekend for me as I was so focused on not being a tourist or doing touristy things that I was a bit of an ass, got my sister’s camera (and our clothes!) stolen, missed the panga to Yelapa and