What Next?

Don from Pahrump, NV asks what we will be doing next, short and long term. Tomorrow we leave on the short drive to Monterrey where we will visit with Chris who has been a great help to me in planing these trips to Mexico. We will explore Monterrey for a couple of days while watching the weather NOB carefully. In the short term we want to see San Antonio, TX and walk the River Walk but we do not want to fight freezing temperatures to do it. Been there, done that. The motorhome needs to be serviced and even with the dollar difference, I will have it done in the USA. I should have brought extra oil and a filter so I could have the oil changed in Mexico for $30 Pesos. 5W20 is not available in Mexico, even at Ford dealers.

We do not have to be home until late April when we Canadians have to send in our taxes and when our out of country medical insurance expires. We will do a few chores at home like tile two of the bathrooms and maybe the laundry room and kitchen. It is also my birthday around then so we will have a few friends over to celebrate and to show off my new hammocks. Our son Brooks and his partner Linda might come up from Victoria if they can spare a couple of days away from their fencing business which has suddenly picked up. That should take up most of May.

At the end of May is the AGM of the BCARTW, our Retirees Organization of which I am an Executive member. That meeting will be in Vancouver and is followed by a camp out in Oliver, BC with a bunch of old farts I worked with back in my Union Activist days. It is always fun to re-fight the battles and remind ourselves how much fun we had doing it. We will then continue up to Edmonton, Alberta where the family will get together to bury my brothers ashes. Gord passed away suddenly while we were in Mexico this winter and we all decided that we would do this in June rather than interrupt our (and my nieces') winter in Mexico. This was the way he wanted it and what my big brother wants, my big brother gets. It will be nice getting everyone together, although I wish it did not have to be under these circumstances. We will have to start doing this more often and think of better reasons to do it.

Hopefully we will be able to get our granddaughters out in the motorhome for a bit but they are both getting so involved in their own "stuff" that it is getting harder and harder to schedule some "alone" time with them. We will have to work on it.

Once again, we will probably only be in our house for three or four months this year before heading off to Mexico again in late October. Our son says we should sell the house and buy a diesel pusher but we want a place to call home. Plus with the financial situation as volatile as it is, one wonders if it would be possible to get back in the housing market when the wandering days end. Not a risk I am willing to take. Who needs a diesel pusher anyway? I would be crying over every rock scar and parking lot ding and it would be too large for Mexico anyway!

So much to do and so little time! I don't know how I ever had time to work for a living!