It’s been a different snowbird year in terms of blogging. I just don’t really have much to write about. There are a few other blogs I read who post daily, I admire their commitment. Our days are pretty low key here, so a daily blog would get boring pretty fast. After all, this isn’t a “vacation”, we are living down here. So like when we’re home in the summer months, we have the same “chores” like cleaning, cooking, laundry and of course taking care of/entertaining our pets. There isn’t too much excitement, lol! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We like low-key. We’ve had many years of adventure leading up to now.

This year I’ve found myself more interested in cooking and baking. I even bought a Ninja Foodie dual drawer air fryer off Amazon Mexico. Amazon MX is great for all kinds of things, though electronics tend to be a little pricier than at home. I was happy to find a pretty good deal on one that was already in MX (so no international shipping/duties charges). I contemplated waiting until we got home then thought the hell with that, for the sake of an extra $50 I’d have four months of use down here. Well worth the little bit of extra money. I’ve had fun making different meals. Our convection microwave oven is great for baking bread and cakes, but sucks at baking chicken or french fries. It just can not get hot enough. Now that we have the air fryer I can make many more things which is fantastic and has me excited about trying new recipes.

The boys inspecting my equipment as I get ready to make bread 💕

Yummm 🤤
This year I feel I’ve “mastered” my bread making skills
On average I make two loaves every couple weeks

Stuffed Zucchini boats

Twice baked potatoes - soooo good! 🤤

What to do when you are craving Greek pita’s but can’t find them anywhere?
Google a recipe and give it a try
Looking forward to making chicken souvlaki and homemade tzatziki tonight!

Now that we’ve entered February the weather is warming up a bit. We’ve seen some 27-28 degree days here and there mixed in with 23-24 days. Evenings can still get chilly with lows down to 8 but on a cloudy night, the lows can stay quite warm at 16-18. I’m curious to see how quickly the temps start warming up as we get further into our 6 month stay. It continues to be quite windy here, usually picking up in the afternoon. We typically bring our electric awning on the RV in by noon or so just to prevent it from bouncing around and getting damaged.

Recently we purchased a Gazelle collapsable screen tent. We’ve haven’t had a need for one until this year. Although not “bad” there are little mosquitos that buzz around on hot days, and they ALWAYS find me! The real nuisance however are the numerous little flies. It makes sitting outside frustrating. Thankfully they don’t bite, they’re just very annoying. At first I thought we’d just put it on our list of items to purchase once we got home. Then, like the air fryer, decided to just buy it now so we can use it for the rest of our trip. After all, we’re only at the 1/2 way point. Hopefully it holds up well in the afternoon wind.

Purchasing it also gave us a reason to clean up the clutter of our outside space. We took down the shade curtains that were attached to the awning. We were really only able to keep one of them on for any length of time anyway because it was an easy zip off style. When the wind picks up in the afternoons we pull the awning in and before doing that we always had to remove the hanging shade cloths. They were often strewn about on the ground making the site look messy whenever the awning was in. It looks so much cleaner now with them put away.

One thing I’ve known for awhile and confirmed this year…I prefer cooking inside. We have a Blackstone grill and a small BBQ we set up outside. Well, we’ve been here almost 4 months and I haven’t started up the Blackstone once and I’ve only BBQ’d maybe three times. Yes, I prefer hamburgers and steak on the BBQ, but I’ve found the air fryer or a pan does a pretty good job too. So, while getting the site ready for the gazebo I packed up the Blackstone. I left the BBQ outside for now. We also took apart some of the cat tent/tunnel system. The boys don’t use it now that they get twice daily walks. Rather than put the whole thing away I left some of it thinking we may try putting them in it when we’re sitting out in the gazebo. So long as HeyZeus doesn’t start howling at us when we put him in there that is! We’ll see.

Something new I’ve started is audiobooks. I find my eyes are tired at the end of the day and although I’d like to read a book, I can’t make myself pick one up. Then I remembered Audible through Amazon. A few years back I had a subscription and with the one free book credit you get each month I’d get a volume of the Pimsler Spanish lessons. I LOVED that and really felt like it up-ed my Spanish to a different level. So, I signed up again but this time with the intention to listen to some books. First thing I noticed was that no matter the book, I have to like the readers voice/accent. So before selecting a book I always click on the “sample” to listen to the reader’s voice. So far I’ve only started one book and it’s been great! It’s like a sleeping pill for me, haha! I listen and within 1/2 hour or so I find myself drifting. Dan has even had to tap me to let me know I’ve crashed and need to turn it off and take my headphones off…and hit “rewind”! I’m just about done this first book so will soon be on the hunt for a new one.

Speaking of tired eyes, I booked myself an appointment with an Opthalmologist in the nearby town of Guaymas. It has been a few years since I’ve been to the eye doctor. The doctor I found here had good reviews and he also speaks English. For a mere $600 pesos ($47 Cdn) I got an appointment the day after the day I called. To see a specialist! The very next day! Craziness. The doctor was friendly but the experience left much to be desired. I arrived about 10 minutes early for my 12:00 appointment (yes they book over the lunch hour here - in Mexico they have their lunch breaks between 2 pm and 4 pm). The waiting room was completely packed! While Dan waited for me outside, I sat and waited for TWO HOURS before I got in to see him. Insane! Then, after all that their onsite optical store was closed for lunch so I couldn’t order glasses. I had even picked out a frame and everything - after all I had lots of time to browse! So when I paid the bill I asked for a copy of my script. She went to the doc and he wrote down only two numbers OD and OS (right and left eye). There were no other numbers…and I’m used to seeing usually three numbers per eye. Hmm….when I got home I looked up what the numbers mean on the script. The additional numbers of Sphere and Cylinder are to correct astigmatism. Although I’ve always had a correction for a slight astigmatism in both eyes, this doctor hadn’t written any numbers down to correct that. That seemed very odd to me, astigmatisms don’t just go away. Not feeling too confident with the script now, I decided I’ll wait until I go home to book another eye appt. No way I’m booking another appt with him and waiting that long again. Disappointing, but at least it didn’t cost much.

Nice clinic front
Many different specialists in this building - listed on the sign to the right of the entrance

Packed waiting room - ALL for the eye doctor
There is another full waiting section as big as this around the corner 😳

One of three small exam rooms

We enjoy fishing in our inflatable boat. We’re getting out on the water on average about once per week. We can’t get out more than that primarily because of the wind, but we have found we also need a day or two “recovery” after an outing. Our bodies don’t bounce back as quickly as they used to. Fishing has been pretty crappy though. Primarily because we don’t go out when the bite is on in the early morning. I’m primarily to blame for that. I typically don’t sleep too well, I’m up numerous times in the night, which means I like to sleep in later. That said, we still really enjoy our time out on the water, to catch a fish is really just a bonus 😉

Dan has pretty easily adjusted to my “retired” schedule. I’m typically up by 9 a.m. and that is followed by morning coffee then walking the cats around the yard, usually before we’ll even have something for breakfast. I made a video of my morning walk/meditation with HeyZeus and Gizmo. It also includes a brief clip of Heffay’s daily routine running like a fool with his squeeky ball. These guys sure fill my heart and make me smile 🥰. A warning, it is quite a long video at 30 minutes and you’ll want your sound on. Even at 30 minutes, it’s only about 1/2 the time of our actual morning walks!

Morning routine in Mexico with the boys

We really enjoy our new boat this year. It is SO much lighter and easier to load/unload than the Hobie Tandem Island Kayak we hauled down here the last couple of years. The irony is that the Tandem Island, with its sail would have been great on the windy water down here. But, it was simply too heavy for us to manoeuvre in and out of the water.

Sea Eagle Fish Skiff
Our new inflatable boat this year
Perfect to pack up into the RV
We’ve added a small four stroke motor to the back

Even though fishing has been crappy, we have managed to catch a few fish in our outings. We enjoy catching and releasing them. We’re not big fish eaters so we choose to release them to catch another day 😉.

The waters here are so beautiful. I was surprised to see so many turqouise water beaches along the coastline. There is one beach named Playa Aquarium…I hope to be able to swim/snorkel in it before we go. First we need to wait for the water and temperatures to warm up a bit. I took a few photos of the water and that beach the last time we were out. Just beautiful!

Looking south from the Playa Aquarium beach

Looking at the Playa Aquarium beach
I don’t see any roads to this beach either, so it may be water access only

Looking East of the Playa Aquarium beach
Beautiful turquoise waters

I put together a video by linking a number of small video clips I took coming into one of the two marina’s here in San Carlos. It gives you an idea of the landscape from the water as well as the houses perched along some of the cliffs and of course the marina and boat launch. You can find it on YouTube below.

Fun on the water in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

Surprisingly this blog turned out to be much longer than I expected when I first sat down to write it. I initially didn’t think there was much to write about, then I guess my fingers got going ha ha! I’ll end it here with a few more pictures taken out on the boat. Remember, to see any picture larger, just click on it