Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. Wishing you a happy day. Good weather, good food and good company. 

It will be about  80 here with the cool wind coming up just about the time the RV park is having its Christmas Dinner. We're not much in the way of pot luckers so are picking up a cake at the supermarket. But still should be fun. The park is filling up. More rigs every day. Though a few are leaving after New Years. 
Took a short walk yesteryear morning looking in the area that has been cleaned out. Is this a termite nest?

 Some bananas growing in the park. 

 Where they are cleaning up next door used to be a big RV park. All that remains is the entrance arch. 

 We had an unexpected meeting up with Santa Clause yesterday morning. Ho Hoing along in his sleigh. 

 Our only outing was a trip to WalMart to buy a gift for Willie, the Jeep. Got him a car cover. The WalMarts here sell a lot of things they don't sell in the states. Always interesting to walk through one. It wasn't as busy as I expected it to be. 

Spent pretty much the rest of the day at home. 
Today, Christmas Day we also stayed home. Did go to the pot luck dinner here in the park. Very nice meal. 

Merry Christmas Eve to all

Even with all the Christmas lights up around the RV's it just doesn't feel like Christmas. Didn't even put up any decorations this year.
Late afternoon there is a Christmas Eve happy hour here in the park. Been invite but not sure if we'll make it. And tomorrow there is a big Christmas dinner here. Turkeys provided by the manager, pot luck from everyone else. 
The weather here has changed again. Nice, 81/82 during the day but by 4:00 the wind picks up and the temps drastically drop to low 70s high 60s. During the night down to the 50s. Bill is freezing. Had the furnace on yesterday morning and the little heater on all night last night. 
He was so cols last evening he decided to cook. Sounded good to me. He made a tortilla - no not the flat flour or corn tortilla, but a meal in itself. A Spanish Tortilla. 
Spanish omelette is the English name for a traditional dish from Spanish cuisine called tortilla española, tortilla de patatas or tortilla de papas. It is an omelette made with eggs and potatoes, sometimes also with onion and/or chives or garlic; fried in oil and often served cold as an appetizer. It is part of the cuisine of Spain and many South American countries, especially those in the area of the Rio de la Plata.
Here is his. Very good and filling. It has sliced carrots, potatoes and onions. Pieces of thinly sliced ham and of course eggs. He put slices of cheese on top of it. We ate it warm. 

There is a lot of work going on in the RV park. Whole RVs being painted and other having maintenance or mechanical work done on them. Our neighbor having his slide worked on. Getting under it was pretty tricky. 

The only thing we did all day was go to the supermarket to pick up a few things and order a cake for the pot luck Christmas Day.
Think it would be uneventful. BUT! We'd left the market and were waiting for the traffic light to turn green. When suddenly there was the sound of a BIG EXPLOSION! Right near us. WHAT? Then I realized the car had quit running and other people were looking at us. At us? WAS THAT US? I asked. My heart was beating so fast it thought it would come out. "Hum..." Bill answered as he put on the hazard lights and unlatched the hood. OMG we just blew up - went through my mind. OMG! But there was no smoke and/or no fire that I could see. By then Bill had the hood up and was fiddling with something. Put the hood down, got back in the car, turned the hazard lights off and started the car. And off we went. "What the #@$% happened?" I calmly asked. Yah right, I could hardly breathe my heart was pumping so fast. "Nothing to worry about," was the calm answer I got. "Did we blow up? Is the car okay?"  
"It's fine. A line from the air conditioner BLEW apart and the freon came [exploded] out." No problem. Called mechanic he will be here on Tuesday to reattach the line - tighter I hope and put in more freon and all will be well. Except I aged 5 years in 5 seconds. This will be the third time he has worked on AC. First he had to replace the condenser, then a couple of days ago the gasket on the compressor - it was old and rotted and he put in a new expansion valve - that is what blew. 
And so another day passed in paradise. 

Rain, Repairs and Harvesting Coconuts the hard way

Friday morning, it would be a good day to stay under the covers. Very gray and cloudy out. Bill is cold but I'm in a sleeveless t-shirt and fine. 

A day that I should try to cook something in the oven again, but still haven't found thermometer or a tile to control the heat. All the unglazed terracotta tile in Home Depot has a rubber/plastic type backing on it. I imagine it would burn off - stink. Don't know if it can be removed or not. 
Just outside talking and a few drops of rain came down. And it has gotten much darker. 

Been outside watching the construction/destruction going on next to us. Didn't realize the houses were so close to the RVpark. And we can even see clear across to the Convention Center with its beautiful mural. 

This area that has just been cleared out used to be a big RV park - name of Escondido. It went clear to the beach. When we started coming down here it was already closed. 

 The bulldozer is clearing the dirt pile away from the fence today.

 And he has a big following of birds. Guess there must be some good bugs etc in the turned dirt.

The mechanic is coming today to do some maintenance on the Jeep. He asked Bill to meet him across the street because the manager of the RV park charges him 200 Pesos to just come into the park. Bill was agreeable until it started to rain. So Bill called Pablo and asked him to come into the park and he would pay back the 200 Pesos. By the time they got here it had been raining kind of steady and hard. Luckily we have Willie's awning to work under. 

The sun came out about noon. And the mechanic left to get a new gasket. It is 4:00 and he isn't back. So the day has been spent in the RV doing not much of anything. Bill has been outside with another drone enthusiast. I'm so bored I even plan on cooking dinner.
Had an interesting thing to watch going on back where the brush has been cut down. There is an older Mexican man out there with a long bamboo pole cutting down coconuts. He has several lengths of bamboo tied or taped together to make the pole long enough to reach the coconuts. You can see him at the base of the tree.

The pole bends and sways with the wind. Sometimes he can straighten it out. Other times it just falls to the ground 

 A closer look at the pole. The black around it is either tape or cord holding the two parts together. 

 It is a very tall tree, the coconuts are way up there.  

Doesn't quite reach high enough, going to stand on the bucket. A least the wind is barely blowing today. But it is raining. 

 The pole is laying across a pile of brush, See how easily it bends.  

 Notice the coconuts on the ground behind him. They came from that tree. Saw one coming down but couldn't catch a picture of it. 

 He has a blade on the business end. Looks like an old scythe. Yep that's what it is  "a tool used for cutting crops such as grass or wheat, with a long curved blade at the end of a long pole "

 One of the dump truck rivers came over to him and bought? one of the coconuts. The harvester took his machete to it and cut off the top down to the milk. Enjoying fresh coconut milk. 

And that is it for the day.