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COVID hit home to us, as it took the life of Glorine's brother George.
He was 86 years old, living in a nursing home where eight other patients
were inflicted with the decease. |
We attended the vigil and funeral,
via ZOOM. His three children, Vickie, Roslyn, Tim and their children all
came home to Bismarck to say farewell. |
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Our Wednesday Road Trips took us to the Primavera, a large forest covering
139 square miles of pine and oak trees. It is next to Mexico's second largest
city and referred to as Guadalajara's lungs. |
The park is a Protected Area and
Wildlife Refuge. One of its most popular destinations is this Rio Caliente or
hot river ranging from 98 to 106 degrees. |
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The
trails running along the side of the river, varied from nice stairs like
these, to ungroomed paths overrun by some of the 750 species of plants that are
native to the area. |
This
road is typical in the park. It led to a gate, which was locked. The park is part of lands
granted to peasant communities during Spanish colonial times as a means to stem
social unrest. |
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COVID Entertainment Centers are in style. Friends Ron and Carole,
screened in their patio to create a space to socially distance plus keep the
mosquito at bay. Ours will be ready in November! |
Glorine arrived way early to watch an
outdoor movie. It was opened recently to provide another outlet to break
the routine of COVID yet maintain social distance. |
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During our Sunday morning bike rides, we find new and interesting places to
explore. This is Christiana Park on the east side of Chapala that runs
along the lake. |
While riding in the park, we ran into
friend Chris and Barbara, who were playing a round of Disc Golf. The discs
are not the Frisbees we thought they were, but discs designed for short and long
distance. |
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This map outlines the golf
course. Somehow, they made an 18 hole course meandering throughout the
park. |
Another Wednesday Road Trip took us
the Wild Boar Park. Hard to believe but they have a cypress tree that was
over 500 years old. |
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The park has been a work in progress for some 30 years and is made up of four
kilometers of hiking trails, including this Stairway to Heaven, which has
500 stairs, more or less. |
Overnighters have their choice of
pitching a tent or renting this luxury cabin with an open air restroom nearby
(with running water). At night, which we missed are an assortment of
fireflies and chiggers. |
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The park sits alongside a canyon that was cut by the Grand Santiago River,
that begins at Lake Chapala and flows into the Pacific Ocean. |
The
following Wednesday, we took a road trip along the north side of the mountains
overlooking Lake Chapala. It was Mexican Independence Day and this Plaza
was all decked out in honor of it. |
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Across the street from the plaza is the Santiago Apostol Catholic Church.
The cool thing is these murals were restored by Javier Zaragoza, an artist
Glorine had as a Career Day speaker. |
We arrived in the town of San Miguel
Cuyutlan just in time to take in an Independence Day parade. Three floats and
hundreds of horses. |
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Our goal was to tour a drag strip, next to the Guadalajara airport, but
instead, we got into this recently developed and cool condo development,
which took us an hour to find our way out. |
Our next biking adventure took us to
Chapala where we enjoyed seeing these boats parked next to the Malecon. |
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Our destination was Santa Cruz, a village of about 1,700 people just east of
Chapala. Like all Mexican communities, there is a plaza in the heart of the
village, with City Hall and random businesses. |
Next to the plaza, is the Catholic Church. This one was having
Mass while we were there. Parishioners were spread out and all wearing
masks. |
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With the rainy season coming to an end, we took a hike up to the
waterfalls, near the city limits just north of Ajijic. |
Within one kilometer there were
three waterfalls similar to this one. We ran into one couple going and a dozen
coming back. |
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On our trip down the hill, we were met by these cattle that were grazing
along the trail. Thank goodness there were only three of them. |
Steve Balfour, Executive Director of
the Lake Chapala Society led the Board Retreat that Larry is a part of.
Like most non-profits, LCS is struggling financially which we need to fix. |
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The retreat focused on setting annual priorities for LCS 2.0 (a long-range
plan) which consists of 42 far-reaching goals. These 10 rose to the
top to be dealt with over the next six to 12 months. |
The retreat was held on this open
patio at the Spa hotel near Ajijic and everyone in attendance were doing their
due diligence regarding COVID. Larry took the picture. |
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One last bike outing, again east of Chapala. This picture is homes on the
foothills overlooking the Country Club de Chapala, which is a nine hole that
Larry played a few times. |
The
destination this time was San Nicolas. The cool thing about biking is to
truly take in the side streets of the villages. This Plaza is graced with
a statue of our Lady of Guadalupe and a fountain. |
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Again, this church was across the street, but closed! A another way of
dealing with COVID. |
We had already ridden 14 miles, with
seven more to go, so we stopped at the Tomahawk Restaurant
for a relaxing meal and enough nourishment to get home. |
