The Wetlands and stuff

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all. I'm getting ready to prepare Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner.  Cut up the carrots, potatoes and onion. Put them in crock pot add the corned beef some water and a can of beer. Eight hours later it will be ready. So delicious. 

This will be a little different blog. I've been walking in the mornings again. Last Saturday we did 3.5 miles and yesterday 3 miles. Saturday was a little longer than we are used to. I ended up sitting around and doing nothing most of Sunday. Body was saying, "What were you thinking?" It was kind of an accident but The Wetlands has a lot of interesting art exhibits which are in the Nature Center. Well with all the pipeline construction through the Wetlands several of the trials can't be used so to get to the Nature Center and back home we have to go the wrong way then find a trail clear back across the area to get to the NC - then to get home we have to go clear back to where we started from. Can't wait until they finish and open the closer trails again. A week ago we went to the Nature Center to pick up our Wetlands Walkers button for this year for our first five walks of the year. So. The current art exhibit. About every two months they change the exhibits. This one was watercolor painting on wood and batik? There were several paintings but I'm just posting a few. This one is called Neil and Connie. I guess the artist named the animals. So cute.

This one is called Bait and Switch. Aptly named. And unfortunately kind of true. Why do people throw trash all over in a protected area?

This one is Above and Below. And the set is selling for $5000.00.

Just a few photos from the walk. One of the views I love. 

See the river in picture? It is about a third of the way up the picture. You can see the white water as it goes over the rocks. 

A better picture of it. If we walk about a hundred yards we can see The Strip and Downtown Vegas. 

And the snowy mountains. In a day or two the snow will be gone as we are headed towards 90 degree weather. Today it will be low 90's by end of week it might hit 100. NO NO NO. Not already. But then should cool down into low 80's for a while again. 

Last Saturday we set out for the Nature Center again to see a new outdoor exhibit. There is an outdoor one by several different artists every year in March and April. Saturday was the first day. It usually takes a week or so to get all the art set up and labeled. This year the exhibit is called "Sound" Well some of them we could figure out some...not so much. This one we decided the sound would be the water and the dragonfly's wings. The whole thing. See the dragonflies, butterfly and bird?

One of the dragonflies. 

Closer look at the water -glass bubbles - flowers and butterfly. This is one of the prettier ones.

Okay not sure about this. Hope they label it.

This one is great. Bumble bees - their buzzing - (no there is no sound just imagination) 

Closer look, check out the wings and eyes. 

Okay, flapping wings and honking sound when flying. Right?

This surprised us, in a good, funny way. Understand the Sound here. 

These are ceramic and appear to be the like the sticks the Native Americans use in dances that produce a rattling sound. A lot of work on this one.

Absolutely no idea!

No idea there either. Might be sounds waves? 

Last year there were a lot more pieces, maybe by the end of this week there will be labels, and more pieces of art. Not sure. So we continued walking and just some flowers bloomint. 

Walked through the area where the big fire was last year. Kind of eerie looking. 

Bill wanted a haircut. His lovely curls before cutting them all off. If I had those curls I'd let my hair grown. My hair is as straight as a stick. So I got a haircut too.

Tomorrow the home insurance adjuster is coming. We have a major problem with our nine year old roof. It is rotting and cracking. Sure hope it is covered. Times like this I wish we were renting. 

Last few days in Mazatlan.

We complained a few days that it was hot in Mazatlan, well welcome to Vegas. We might reach 100 in a week. But it is DRY heat right. 

And so here we are again back in Mazatlan. Off and on I will be sharing more pictures from there and our time spent there. In this picture we are at our favorite - well one of our favorites - Torres Mazatlan right on the beach, see the ocean outside the window? And being served by another favorite. Paco. The first time we show up every year he gives up big hugs and says, "Welcome Home!" And he means it. He is a waiter of excellence but also a very good friend. 

Took me a minute to figure it out but it is a brown pelican flying to the left. (Thank goodness for spell check, I had three misspelled words in that short sentence. Having trouble getting my fingers on the right keys.) We also go there for the view!

Looking up at the intricate ceiling. Nice tropical feeling while there. 

After we had breakfast we took a short walk around where the hotel is. This used to be a gentlemen's club. Marylin has seen better days. Club is closed. Her dress is in tatters.

Woops kind of a naughty view. 

And this lovely decoration on the ceiling is in another of our favorite restaurant's Pancho's.  Way back I posted a picture of their aprons. It was about a half a block from the hotel. So easy to get to. Very good food. My favorite was the shrimp tacos and believe it or not the chicken soup. It had all kinds of vegetables in it along with rice and surprisingly hunks of  avocado. This decoration is made of crepe paper and foil. I finally asked how they cleaned it. Was told the cleaners go up a ladder with feather dusters. Glad that is not my job. But when I took this picture they had just replaced the old one - they look the same - a week before. 

Our last full day there we went to the Centro Historical one last time. This building is one side of the Plazuela Machado. It is two very old buildings full of restaurants and little stores. This area is actually a pizza restaurant. 

The utility boxes here have sayings on them. This one says, "True success is that which is shared"

This building is at the west end of the Plazuela. Three different restaurants, one upstairs, never went there. On the bottom are two of the restaurants we went to a lot. The one on the left usually for lunches. The one on the right usually for dinners when we were listening to Rafael Rodriguez playing and singing. It was built by a wealthy German family. And at one time was their home and a big pharmacy on the bottom. I posted the information about in back a few weeks ago. 

Walking along the buildings there, just a couple of the doors. 

If you just pay attention there are so many beautiful and wonderous things to admire. any where you look.  

A plaque set in the Juarez Building. I posted about that building a lot.  It says, "Centennial of Cinema - One hundred Years of Imagination and Dreams - Juan Maxemin presented the first cinematic screenings in Sinaloa here. The Union Club, December 22, 1897" In other words the first movie theater was here. 

Walking up a side street towards the middle of town. Who wouldn't want to be here. The pretty blue building on the right is a big parking lot behind the old walls. 

This says, "Please do not mistreat them." Referring to the plants. Thank you." These big planers line all the sidewalks in the Historic Center.  

If I were ever to return to Mazatlan one of the reasons would be this building.  It just had a new paint job. And is being completely restored. 

Such beautiful original workmanship on the building. The family Medrano built it. 

More of the same building. 

Working on it inside. The front half of he building was more or less restored five years ago and turned into an art gallery. That part was never open this year. This is the back of the building. You can see the second floor with the big wooden beams. The fancy columns holding up the upper floor. The arched doors and windows. 

The beams were all hand cut. 

And I'll stop there for now, finish this walk another day. 

In the last few days managed a couple of walks in The Wetlands, 3 miles one day 2 the other. Also getting Bill out there to walk some. He is interested in all the construction out there. I'm waiting for a call from dermatologist as the biopsy came back positive for cancer cells. So that's it for now. 

Our lodgings in Mazatlan

And a few other things. We are just adjusting to the time change from Mazatlan to here and then the time changes on Sunday, back to the same time as Mazatlan. Body is going to wonder what the heck is going on. At least Bill is more comfortable with our mattress and sleeping better. 

Wow! I just learned that a friend that lives in Mazatlan slipped on a wet curb and fell and broke an elbow and hurt her hip. I guess I was REALLY lucky. So about my trip/fall. This is the tope I tripped over. The sole of my sandal caught on the little 3/4 inch lip - the part shadowed. And over I went. Thank goodness nothing broke and I had no problem walking or getting around after. My knee is still a little swollen and still has a few sore spots, but well on the way to normal. Both hands still have red spots where they got skinned. 

This was my knee a day later. More road rash than anything. Swelling and bruising didn't happen until about a week later. Bruised about half way down front of my leg. 

Both hands had the same scrapes on the inner part of the palm. They took a while to heal and as I mentioned the spots are still red. I could have so easily broken my wrists or knee. Very lucky. Bill said his heart almost stopped when I went down. And no I'm not going to tell our primary doctor I fell. 

So this is mostly about our lodgings at Blue Pacific Hotel and Suites. 750 Pesos a night - about $45. So for sure not five star. I took this picture cause for some reason they kept changing the bed spread. Our first spread was blue and the curtains were blue. One day we came home and the spread was black and the curtains were black. We had very good cleaning service every day. 

The new curtains. The sign next to them is about how to properly wash your hands, it was put up during Covid and never taken down...

I miss a picture of the next bedspread it was red, but no curtain change for the rest of the stay. Another bedspread.

And the last bedspread. We had lots of pillows.

Lots of sheets  that were so soft and felt so good. But they were very thin. In fact you could see through them. This is one layer of sheet over my e-reader. I can read it fine through the sheet.  Were they made that way or washed so many times they just got thin.?

Same page on e-reader but with two layers of sheet over it. As I said very thin fabric.

 Some of the pillows had vinyl over the actual pillow. So the pillow case slipped and slid all night. Plus a whisper of slipping sound.  

The spring coil mattress sat on the concrete base of the bed. Bill had a terrible time sleeping, woke up with a back ache every morning. I slept better than I do here. Go figure. 

A toaster came with the room. A very unusual toaster. It only toasted the outside of a slice of bread. To get the other side toasted I had to watch the outsides with a flashlight to see how toasted they were getting, when they were just right I took them out and turned the slice around. Toasted side to the center and toasted the soft side. Also watching them with a flashlight. Got pretty good at it. Sorry its so blurry. 

The suite came with a two burner stove, never used it. Couldn't figure out how to turn it on. And didn't ask. Rather go out to eat. 

And a nice sink in the kitchenette area. 

Refrigerator was fine for what we used it for. Again, we didn't eat here. And no picking at stuff we didn't need. Both of us lost weight while there. 

We bought the coffee maker and microwave at Walmart and gave them to the cleaning lady when we left. The hotel gave us a coffee maker but it needed filters and no store we went to sold coffee filters. So this coffee maker came with a reusable filter. 

This is actually the third time we've stayed in this very same room, so nothing came as a surprise except the toaster. Last time it toasted both sides of the bread. These signs were up the last time we were here. The one on the left says, "There will be a charge $$ for leaving dirty dishes." The one on the right, "It is prohibited to boil or cook shrimp or fish. Thank you for your understanding." Well I can understand why. Phew!

This one says Please turn the AC off when you go out. 

The view from our private balcony. On the other side of the wooden wall is where the nightly concerts were. Sounded like they were in the room with us. Lots of interest things going on in the street and new by buildings. 

A very short video of the room taken the morning we were getting ready to leave. 

We are both glad to be home. But I've already gained two pounds back. And we aren't eating as good as we ate there. Our son sent his cleaning ladies over this morning. That is always nice. Been making doctor appointments. Made one with the dermatologist our primary had sent a referral to. Was there Tuesday. She said our Primary was right to send the referral. I had a basal cell melanoma on my leg biopsied. Will know by next week if more has to be removed. Also had a weird thing on my chest frozen off. And on Friday we have the wellness visit our insurance likes to have. A health care person comes, checks if we know what meds we take and if we can remember three words for 15 minutes. If we can stand up and trim our nails. All the things they check us old people for. Nice thing is they give each of us a $50 card for CVS. So we use them when we renew prescriptions.

It was in the 80's for a few days and is now cooling down into the low 60's for a few days with lots of wind. Going to try and walk on Saturday. Bill and I have been going out in the late afternoon for short walks. Next time I will go back to our time in Mazatlan with things I didn't post about.