R-V There Yet?

From the earlier post you can see how beautiful the beach was on Thanksgiving Day morning.  Well, as the day wore on, it became urgent to find a sports bar from which to watch the Dallas Cowboys take on the New York Jets.

We hopped on our bicycles and headed along the road closest to the beach, toward the center of town (Sayulita).  We had heard that we could find the NFL on a television at Don Pedro’s.

The word was correct.  We perched ourselves at the bar to get a good view of the television.  As expected, our Cowboys performed admirably and dominated the game.

During intermissions, it was nice to be able to look over our shoulders at the extraordinary view behind us.  Over the left shoulder were several beachgoers with their army of umbrellas.

Over the other shoulder were dozens of surfers waiting for that perfect wave.

Don Pedro’s was planning a traditional turkey day feast for the Thanksgiving night meal.  ($35.00 USD per person) Here are the tables prepared for the event.

We opted for less expensive fare.  We headed out on our bicycles to the main square in town. (which is really a triangle)  We spotted La Betola, an Italian restaurant that promised excellent pizzas.  All of the pizza places in town, and there are several, use the old style fired brick ovens.  In general, the pizza was pretty good except for that one little thing, price.  What we would consider a medium pizza with sausage, mushrooms and pepperoni came to $20.00 USD.  Where is a Papa Murphy’s when you need one?

As you can see from the photos, it was getting dark when we left the restaurant and hopped back on our bikes.  We have no headlights on the bikes so we decided on the most direct route home.  This path took us through the center of town on cobblestone streets.  Having not learned to support most of her weight on the pedals, Tinka says ouch.

We headed home to await another day in paradise.

We want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all our family, friends and new readers.

Not much activity on the beach today—

But you can still get burned.

Happy Birthday to another granddaughter.

Happy 7th Birthday, Ayden !!!!!!!!!!

Also, Happy Birthday to our daughter-in-law, Kiri.

We have had a spike in readership because we are listed in www.hitchitch.com . That is a list of people who write blogs while living in their RV. So we want to welcome our new readers. We do not write a journal article every day. We try to do it every 2 or 3 days. We started out trying to write every day but it became too much like work, pressure and being on a schedule. You can make comments at the bottom of the journal entry or you may email us at tinka@tinka.net for a private message, comment or question. We do have a spam blocker so make the subject a title we can spot as a legitimate email.  So again, welcome readers!!!!!! For the past couple of days Tinka has been doing nothing but sitting in her recliner and taking pain pills. We think it must have been kidney stones.  Hope that doesn’t hit again as that was very painful.  Now we can get back to investigating Sayulita and sitting on the beach. Yesterday, for supper, Rick walked down the block to an open air store. The lady cooks chickens every day on a grill outside.

We bought a whole cooked chicken just like you can in the supermarkets in the states.  Oh, so much better though. It was so delicious.  She split it open and cooks it on the grill that way. When it was done she cut it up in pieces, put the most delicious sauce on it and put it back on the grill for a few minutes.  Cheap?   No way!!!!  We usually buy cooked chickens in the supermarket in the US for about $6. This chicken cost $7. There are no bargains near the beaches in Mexico.We’ve spent our share of time at the beach at the Sayulita RV Park.  Most of our time there is reading and taking in the sights.  This is a view towards the north of the park.

And to the south toward the town of Sayulita.

We see workers at grocery stores wearing painter type masks to keep from spreading their germs on the food.  They usually have them on their chin though, not doing any good.  Anyway, I spotted a guy laying on the beach with what looked like a painter mask on his face — Alas, after closer examination, no. 

More beach vistas.

Sayulita is a pretty famous surfing beach.  We haven’t seen any spectacular waves yet, but there are several surfers taking short rides.  One heavy set guy, (there’s hope for those of us so inclined), shows off his talents.  Here he is jumping on his board and he turns backwards and then forward again.

 Here he is doing a head-stand.

It turns out that he is a jack of all trades.  He teaches surfing, he’s an artist, and has several other “vocations”.

We still have an issue with our truck.  The “brake” light comes on when driving.  It is probably an adjustment to the emergency brake switch.  We’re trying to get hold of the guy that worked on them. 

On Friday morning we left La Peñita and headed off on our last 20 miles toward our original goal destination, Sayulita.  Here is a map of our plan that didn’t include our slight, 6-night, interruption.

Sayulita is a really interesting coastal town in the southern part of the state of Nayurit.  We’ll provide better information about the town after we get a little more familiar with it.

Not a surprise, but the road was jungle covered, curvy and narrow.

The surprise was that our trip was pretty uneventful.  During the week we had traveled, with some acquaintances, to take a look at the RV park because we had heard that finding the entrance road was a little tricky.  It is a good thing that we did, because if we had missed it pulling our rig, we would never have been able to turn around.

Here’s a shot of the road heading to the park.  It ends at the ocean. 

When we scouted out our rv site, on the earlier trip, we noticed that the trees were really low and there was no chance that our trailer would fit.  The park was made several years ago and it wasn’t designed with rigs our size in mind.  We contacted the on-site manager and he said that he would get the trees trimmed prior to our arrival.

The job was completed and the lot cleared with room to spare.

The next obstacle was maneuvarability.  This is a shot from in front of our site toward the ocean. 

As you can see, things are a little snug.  Getting into the site required a trick that we hadn’t tried before.  We pulled ahead and backed into the spot as best we could.  We were really crooked with the nose of the 5th wheel toward the ocean.  We decided to unhook the trailer, reposition the truck so that it was facing to the right and re-hook up.  This allowed us more room to move.  Another surprise, it worked!!!!!!!  We were able to straighten things out and get ourselves in place.

We may never get out, but we don’t have to worry about it for about two months.  Someone else is due in this spot on January 10th.