July wonder Daze

July was filled with great fun as all of our young families came in to visit bringing grandchildren! The weather was hot but not so hot as Texas and there was always a seabreeze. We spent days down at the beach at Yanten, swimming here at our hotel pool, snorkeling with the turtles at Akumal and culminating with a trip with Sue and kids to Isla Holbox to swim with the whale sharks. It was a wonderful summer for us. The worst thing is packing up the palapa and going back home. this has become home for us and I really don't want to leave! An I nuts for feeling this way? We have found a little bit of Eden in this place and I don't want to go back to the real world. I would rather stay in this one. We are beginning to talk about building a permanent apartment under the palapa like a few of the folks here have done. At first, I didn't like the idea but it does have merit when you really think about it. Time will tell..maybe next year. Right now, I wish my health were a little better.

Palapa Life is Good!!

We are once again enjoying the good life in our wonderful palapa! We are getting the cabinets installed by Mr. Marcos from Playa who did a fantastic job. Freddie poured concrete runways for the big coach to back down leading into the palapa and they worked just fine. We have to literally wrap this coach around the big poles so he had a slight slope put onto one of the runways and it helped keep the upper canopy frames off of the poles.
It is so hot! It rained all weekend and today it steamed! Felt like a lobster in a pot. Thank goodness for the fans and slight breeze. Some construction still going on. I feel sorry for these good men who have to work in this heat hauling gravel, digging holes, mixing cement, etc. But I have yet to hear one complain. Pop moved some rocks for me and did a number on his back. He laid around for a couple of days and took some muscle relaxers and is doing much better. The flamboyan trees are in full bloom. They are the mimosa looking trees that have huge cascading blooms of fiery red blossums. So beautiful. I hope to get one for the back yard by the jungle. The little aguti comes out each evening for the fruit I leave for him. Lots of big iguanas coming around and chomping any blooming flower they can find. Our boat sprang a leak and have ordered one to replace it. Supposed to come in to Cancun and be delivered to us. Hope it gets here soon.
Life is good. children and grands coming in July. Yippee!!

Rain, Rain in Paradise

We arrived back in PaaMul just in time for the first summer rains! How wonderful. After 2 weeks of consecutive raining in Texas, we come back to Paradise and it is raining here! Only thing is, they need it so badly down here. Life giving rain. It feeds this thirsty jungle and runs in little rivers down the gravel, dusty roads here in the park. The birds are so happy that they sing all day long in spite of the downpour. They fly out for a good soaking then scurry up under the palapa roofs to preen and clean their feathers.

The palapa still is not complete. Dino used the time we were gone to work on someone else's palapa! Go figure. He has been well paid and promised over and over again to complete it before we returned. Hard to maintain faith in somebody who cannot grasp the meaning of completing a project as you promised. Mexico! Manana!
But we plod on ahead and console ourselves that One Fine Day, we will have our own piece of Paradise completed.

May showers

We had doctor's appts. made by the kids for us the first 2 weeks of May, so we drug ourselves out of PaaMul and on a plane to fly back to Texas. In spite of all the swine flu hoopla! Such a crock! We hated to leave. Freddie and his masonry crew are laying the last of the tile in the kitchen and bath and it is so pretty! The palaperos have vanished for a while. Maybe it is because I am not there to cook for them! Ha! They can sure eat but somehow I don't mind. I sometimes wonder if it is the only real meal of the day that they get. And they work so hard..unbelievably hard. Pop backed the BBB under the palapa last Thursday to see if it fit...and it does!! Yippee!! 43 feet of honkin' motorhome and it takes every inch to clear the palapa posts...well, almost. The front left "tree" post lacks about 3 inches clearing the slide out so Sobriano will have to do his magic with that chain saw and make a "niche" to slide out the extension for the LR. No problem. We are also putting a 2nd bano upstairs in our so called "Tarzan" room. I can just see our guests trying to negotiate that catwalk, crawl down the stairs outside, and back into the palapa in the middle of the night to get to the bathroom! My sister would never make it. Dino has promised it would be completed by the time we get back on the 17th. We'll see! Hey..it's Mexico! Will post pics when we get back...they are all on the web album.

Palapa Poop

This is a few days ago, actually last week. The back of the palapa now has a deck area and guano covers the remaining rear section. We now have the first of the concrete work done, which is pouring the foundation for the block walls. It is such hard work...about 2 ft down, you hit limestone rock which has to be jackhammered out. One whole interior wall was too close in and had to be redug. But we sat and had coffee this Sunday morning at the back of what will be our kitchen, watching the beautiful blue lazuli buntings, the orioles and the Yucatan jays. We love it. In less than 6 weeks, we should have the insides done that includes the front bodega (store room), talavera tiled bathroom, and our wonderful kitchen and eating area. The coach is 43 ft. long so it takes up most of the length of the lot. We have about 5 ft out back of the coach but we will have another 10 ft. of wood deck.

To get away for a breathe of fresh air, we went into Puerto Morelos with Rose and Guy (neighbors next door) and had a lovely afternoon..Lunch at the Pelicanos restaurant right on the water, walking the plaza and looking in the little shops. Watched the fishing boats come in and couldn't resist buying this wonderful grouper that they filleted for us on the spot. Ah...dinner Tuesday night when all our company arrives.

Have spent our first week of looking for tile, flooring and getting an idea of what we are dealing with to get this palapa done. Since we never actually built a house, I don't think we could have survived building one. Just this palapa is trying enough!!

My sister, Pauline, and her husband, Chuck, are flying into Cancun tomorrow to visit us for a week. We will pick them up in Playa tomorrow afternoon and bring them on in to stay at the hotel here in PaaMul. It will be so nice to have them here for a while.

Lots of folks have already left out of the park, most of them heading back to Canada. We will wait and get our FM3's in the Valley, we think, instead of here. Too much hassle here. I can't wait to get my paints down here so that I can try to put on canvas the beauty of this place. The flowers are all a riot of blooms and today I found myself just drinking every color of the beautiful hotels and houses in Puerto Morelos. It is a lovely little town. Lots of folks on the beach there today. Ah...Mejico.FYI...someone the other day said that instead of Trailer Trash,we are just Palapa Poop!

The Palapa Bug here in PaaMul

We have decided that we need a palapa if we are to continue to winter in this little bit of Paradise on the yucatan Riviera. Our RV site was the last site available to build on so we made a quick decision to go for it. We are now enjoying the agony and ecstacy of designing and poring over notes and sheets of design papers to make this palapa be our own place in the sun. The palaperos are fabulous builders with eons of erecting these structures in their heritage. They can be works of art. Our back yard fronts onto the jungle that is filled with birds, reptiles and little forest animals. Can't wait to sit on my back porch and drink my morning coffee and listen to the birds. From the 2nd floor deck we may can see Cozumel in the distance. Check the web albm for more pics. Life is good.

Found the Camera!

Kathy had inadvertently packed my camera in her suitcase when she flew back home. And I found my spare one the same day! So all is well again. Met the wonderful lady who is behind the clinic in Playa that is doing such a wonderful job in the barrio community. She has big plans to build her hospital and put in a cardiac clinic. Such a great gal!
Didn't go fishing today as this was cruise day and too many people coming in and out of the beach here. Will wait for tomorrow....man~ana!