September 4th -
As I write this I am hearing the wind through the riggings, the boat is heeled approximately 3-5 degrees, and it is raining sideways. It is officially hurricane season in the tropics, and as I have written before, we are holed up in a marina in La Paz, on the peninsula of Baja Sur (or South Baja Peninsula). We have survived the medical issues, although at this point I am still walking with a cane if you can believe that. It makes me gag when I think about it in the .... but I am also a little scared when I think of letting go of my crutch - literally. I tried yesterday and was in a lot of pain.

Today
Back to the boat heeling - it was the time of Hurricane Norbert when I wrote the above, which veered off the Baja's Pacific coast by about 100 - 150 miles, but we got some of the rain and wind. It was the first big system to come up from the warmer tropical waters, which developed into a strong storm. We took down the boat awnings, which for those of you who don't know what those are, they are made of cream/white colored canvas and are fit to cover our boat completely, to reflect the sun and provide extra shade for extremely hot days. Our bimini and dodger are a darker material and attract light and heat, of course (I don't care - I LIKE the color!), but we cover them with larger material, which creates kind of a tent-effect over the whole boat. This allows for breeze to be between the boat and the covers and gives a little walkway on the upper deck. Does this sound totally confusing? If so, see photos!

Español! Si, muy Bueno!
What the heck has taken me so long to write again!?! Spanish classes! Ron and I enrolled in 4 week-long Spanish immersion classes, meaning the vast majority of time everyone there speaks Spanish. The classes are every morning, 5 days a week for 2 hours and then we have 1-2 hours of "la tarea," homework! I haven't had homework, since, well , I guess graduate school, but for Ron? It has been a while! We are enrolled in a school (escuela de Español) Se Habla... La Paz. It is housed in a LARGE home, with several levels and a swimming pool - well, what did you expect?! The Director, Juli, is a fun, and enthusiastic woman, with a big smile, ready to accommodate our needs. For example, I needed to stay home one day to take care of my knee when I re-injured it. She was adamant that I stay home and that I would not lose the hours with my instructor. We have one-on-one classes, which is not the norm, but we are in low season (due to hurricanes and the heat, no doubt), so we definitely benefit. She also volunteered to give us the summer discount, even though we didn't know about it, and most of our class is in September. Juli's two dogs greet us every morning as we come in, and we can get coffee or bottled water before class begins. Once a week we have additional cultural presentations in the afternoon; this week was on the history of the Mexican flag and national song. Last week was on La Loteria, a game that was kept from the masses until Mexican Independence from Spain in the early 1800's even though it was brought to Mexico via Spain in 1769. It is like Bingo (!), but uses pictures and spells out the name of the item, such as a rooster, "El Gallo." Only the wealthy aristocrats could play, I suppose as one way to keep the poor from educating themselves/learning how to spell. Next week our cultural presentation is on Mexican Independence Day, since it falls on that day. By the way, all lectures are in Spanish only. So we are learning how to hear the words, as the speakers speak very simply and slow enough for us to catch on to most of it!

Se Habla... La Paz also has specialized medical/healthcare, legal, boating/maritime, and marine and desert ecology classes. They've had cooking classes in the past too. Our language instructors are exceptional, working at our individual levels with good pacing, as well as CHALLENGING us! They also take us on outings one time a week. We walked to a tienda (food store) last week and they educated us about different vegetables we didn't know the names for, and how to cook them; how to order cuts of meats at the meat counter, etc. We are planning to go to the Old Mercado this week I think. That is the original La Paz market place, with different stalls for fresh fish, vegetables, meats, cheeses, eggs, as well as clothing, you name it. By the way, I never buy refrigerated eggs anymore - something I couldn't see myself doing, but when they've never been refrigerated, they are just fine. Anyway, we are definitely in a Spanish immersion class, and I love it! It is opening up so much for us - to be able to have more conversations with taxi drivers, waiters, the boat workers, as well as people on the street. We aren't ready to talk politics or philosophy yet, but we are beyond "Hola! Cómo estás?" (Sorry to my Spanish-speaking amigos, I haven't found the correct Spanish-language pronunciation on my program yet. I know I need an upside down "?"!)

Our Failed Plan To Escape The Heat
You were probably not aware of this but we had a plan to leave the truly hot month in La Paz, August. Or so we've been told. We suffered through the 104-105 degree hot spells in July and repeatedly heard "This is the hottest early summer we have ever had here." So we made the brilliant plan to head up to the mountains for 6 weeks to San Miguel de Allende, the "little" artist community/town that just about everyone has gone to except us. We originally wanted to go further south to San Cristobal de las Casas, a less touristy town down in the State of Chiapas, but we were having some trouble finding a VRBO to rent that would allow cats. The travel plan to get there was proving to be a challenge as well. So we found a beautiful place to rent for 6 weeks in San Miguel, without breaking the bank. It had an enclosed courtyard for the cats and a rooftop deck. Ok, all is good. I called to get airline reservations and we would have to make a brief layover in Mexico City and it was not going to be a problem to have the cats with us on Aeromexico. After I made the reservation though, I was told that no animals could be on that particular plane as it was too small, so they would have to be in the hold. Oh, no. That ain't gonna happen! Not in the heat of the summer AND we were going to have to pick them up at the Mexico City Aeropuerto and take them to the other plane, in the one hour layover. Well, we have never been to the Mexico City airport, but my understanding is that it is a BIG airport, and we didn't want the cats to have to take two planes, in the cargo, freaking out and tearing their skin off! And ours once we would take them out of their carriers!

So.... okay, we'll go with plan B, which would be to rent a car and do a road trip! Yea! Road trip! We haven't done one of those in years. Only problem is that we are in La Paz, and you have to get across that big Sea to get to the mainland. So there is a nice fairly quick modern ferry to take us across, which even has some (4) staterooms. Okay, we'll rent a stateroom, keep the cats with us on the 18-hour overnight crossing and rent a car in Mazatlán. No problem. I looked at car rental prices - really cheap - like $9.00 US/day! Good, okay. Then I found out that you have to insure the car with Mexican insurance, not your American Express insurance... and Mexican insurance is REALLY expensive. Additionally, we needed the car for 6 weeks, which would be outrageous, OR we could do a one-way drop. Pick up the car in Mazatlan, take a two day scenic drive, and then drop it off in San Miguel. BUT the one-way drop-off fee put the price of the vehicle, with insurance of course, over the price of the place we were going to rent. And that's ONE-WAY! So our little road-trip was a bust. We also subsequently found out that the rooms on the ferries go lightning-fast, AND more importantly, our cats couldn't be in the room with us, but in a "holding area which passengers aren't allowed to go into more than once without a special veterinary permit to visit your pet." So the cats would be rocking and rolling with dogs, goats, whatever, for 18 hours. Again, not happening. So that was the end of our plan to escape the heat. Instead, we put the money toward punishing ourselves with a foreign language. Actually, we are very happy about that decision!

September 11, 2001. I want to say a little about 9/11, because, well, I just have to acknowledge it and honor it. It's been thirteen years since 2011. Not some special number of years like 15, or 5 or 10, but for some reason this year I am reflecting a little more about that time, maybe because I have the time to. For those of you who don't know, I was quite involved with the 9/11 aftermath, the emotional trauma of that tragedy. California experienced more losses than I believe any other states west of the Mississippi due to the flights that went down. They were headed for San Francisco and Los Angeles, so Californians lost a lot of family members. And that is not to speak of the number of people who were out there from California on business. Those who had been staying in a hotel or working across the street and saw it all, those working up in the towers and luckily escaped. Anyway, not to relive it, but to just say that I have become acutely aware of that time and remembering the stories of those that I worked with for over 3 and a half years. The clinic in which I worked was THE clinic chosen to work with those people who lost family members, and the survivors who witnessed the events and lived to "re-live" it for many months, if not years. A small group of five of us met with family members, and the survivors, one time monthly for a full Saturday. The meetings and groups were in L.A. area and in northern California. So half of us would fly off to L.A. on a Friday night, run groups and educational presentations on Saturday (never knowing how many people would show up - 10 or 50), and then fly back exhausted Sunday morning. The other half would be doing the same thing the next week in Sacramento, or Oakland, with the Director of the TRC doing both Saturdays each month. It was exhausting and painful and poignant and healing. As difficult as it was, I wouldn't have missed out on that opportunity to know such massive grief and pain could turn into hope again.

Hurricane Odile - September 14th

From Ron:
Today we await the arrival of our share of Hurricane Odile. This is a major storm (category 4) and will really pound Cabo San Lucas where major damage is expected. For those of you who know Cabo's famous Arch, the waves are now breaking over it, and they are afraid they might lose it - a huge loss for that infamous landmark. At this hour (4:15 PM) the storm is still a couple hundred miles away but the skies are cloudy with occasional rain squalls. We are expecting winds of 40 to 80 mph with torrential rain. We have removed all sails, all awnings, most of the dodger canvas and cockpit screens. Also all the stuff we normally keep around the cockpit. The V-berth is full to the top. The boat is double tied to the dock with new lines and sewn on leather chafing guards. I hope we're ready. The cats are very nervous because of our scurrying about changing their familiar boat. We will stay aboard unless the storm makes a hard right to hit La Paz. This will be my first encounter with a hurricane, though Vanessa experienced one in Houston when she was a kid.

Vanessa now:
This whole storm is really sad as tomorrow is Mexico's Independence Day, and a lot of outdoor fiestas were planned, with music and fireworks, parades and gunfire (unfortunately).

Please note that we just wanted to get this out. I will include more photos at a later date. I have lots of interesting shots of street/sidewalk stone designs that seem to be prevalent in this town, as well as shots of the boat, ready for the storm.

Much amor a nuestra familia y amigos,
Vanessa y Rrrrron (Ron's name in Spanish!)