Dec 25th to 29th - San Carlos

Dec 25th - Tues - MERRY CHRISTMAS from San Carlos
Another lovely day. One of the Rvers in the park arranged a pot luck dinner here so I made (leftover) turkey enchiladas for the event. It started at 2:00 and the wind was cool so everyone ate and broke up early.
Pat, Geri & I went walking on the beach and picked up interesting shells and rocks for Cathy to use in landscaping their lot. Short happy hour until the cool air sent everyone inside.

Dec 26th - Wed - San Carlos
Our group of 8 and one extra (Diane) went kayaking this morning. There is very little tide fluctuation right now so the water was not supposed to be too low in the estuary. It was beautiful - calm & birds everywhere. On the way back we found out that the tide was going out and Terry & I “ran aground”. Terry hit first and got out of his boat and towed it. So when I then got stuck, he was sweet enough to come tow me to deeper water!
After lunch, Rick & Pat and we went golfing. We played the back 9 this time and the guys struggled quite a bit. I got the best score - 52! I think we should not kayak and golf on the same day. It really cooled off just before the sun disappeared which is when we were on the 17th green.

Dec 27th - Thurs - Hermasillo
Rick & Pat and we went on an adventure to Hermasillo today. It is 133 km (about 90 miles) away. It is a large city that we drove though on the way here. We found Home Depot, WalMart, Costco and a casino. Costco has hot dogs like U.S. stores so of course we had lunch there. The casino has slot machines that accept a card with money (pesos) on it. When you hit a bonus, the instructions on the screen are in Spanish. Luckily, we have played enough slot machines to guess where on the screen that you have to touch. Pat & I lost our 250 pesos (about $25) but Terry ended up covering my losses so it only cost us 10 ($1) pesos to play for a couple of hours.
We will go back to Hermasillo sometime. It is clean and fairly easy to get around. They have an outdoor market that we want to check out and apparently have a couple of more casinos!

Dec 28th - Fri - San Carlos
Washed sheets this morning and they were dry on the line just in time for Pat to hang up her laundry. After a late, big breakfast, Terry & I went for a long walk downtown. We started out just on a short jaunt to the visitor info center to look for a Hermasillo map. The info center wasn’t open so we just kept going and checked out a few gift shops.
While we were walking, we saw a truck go by with Oregon plates and a sign that said “mobile RV repair”. Dave & Margo’s hot water tank is not working so when we got back, Dave & Terry hoped in the truck and went to see if they could find the repair guy. He was in the RV park at the other end of town and was just finishing fixing something for someone else. He agreed to look at Dave’s tank and was able to fix it. While he was here, other people in the park came over to see if he could look at their problems but he said he was on vacation and was only doing this work for a friend. Now, hopefully Dave & Margo will stick around a while!
Pat organized a hamburger dinner for our group with everyone contributing something. Again, it was an early evening out due to cool weather. Dave & Margo came over to our rig for coffee afterwards.

Dec 29th - Sat - San Carlos
Busy day today. Dave & Margo, Rick & Pat and we went exploring on bicycles with an eventual destination of Craig & Cathy’s lot. We admired all the work they have done and then stopped on the way back at Charly’s Rock for a beer and some tacos for lunch.
Super-organizer Pat (thank you, thank you, thank you!) made reservations for 18 of us to go bowling and then to dinner. The bowling was a kick - unfortunately the “Happy Hour Bowling” from a few years ago was no longer happening as the alley does not have a liquor license any more. The rental shoes are pretty grungy with no insoles but everyone was smart enough to wear socks.
Dinner was outside on the patio at El Gallo. They have tall propane heaters so it was comfortable. Food was pretty good, service a bit slow as apparently a waiter did not show up so the owner was moving very fast serving and trying to keep an eye on things in the kitchen.
I thought I would be tired enough to sleep through the nightclub noise but I went to sleep too early so was wide awake at 12:40 and a long time after listening to the racket.