San Antonio Part Two

Monday, November 5th

Today we needed to head back into the city on a shopping run. One the way out we stopped at the RV Park office to mention once again the green slime under the neighbours trailer. The trailer had stopped dripping but the wet, green slime was still there. Not a great view during breakfast or dinner.

On the list are groceries, whisky, wine and vermouth, and to go back to Home Depot to exchange a 50 Amp RV outlet that he had picked up with the 30 Amp outlets he had purchased a few days ago. The outlets in some parks in Mexico are often is pretty poor shape, nice to have a spare. He also always brings a couple down for El Manglar RV Park in Zihuatanejo as they corrode quickly in the salty and humid environment. As is common with RV parts in Mexico, they are made there but not available except perhaps in one or two specialty places.

Art also managed to contact our friend Lulu to find that she has a new Grandson. Mom and baby should be home from the hospital later in the week.

Back in the park we noticed that the the wet area next door was now dry after being hosed down by staff but there is still green stain on the concrete pad. A second notice is taped to his door.

Rain again last evening but it started earlier and very gently. We just got the windows in the Jeep when the rain stopped. But not for long! Soon there was a real downpour, so much water in the skies that the satellite lost the signal once in a while.

Tuesday

Maybe we're back on track; we were both awake before 8:00 AM for once.

Art used the ohmmeter to test the switch that he had sprayed with contact cleaner—no difference. He then noticed that it might be possible to take it a part. A little careful prying with a knife blade soon had it in pieces. It was obvious what the problem was. One of the copper contacts was black! A little work with a knife blade and sand paper soon had them both gleaming.

During this operation of course Art managed to fumble some of the tiny pieces and one of them fell off the table. Tia was a bit interested in what had fallen and looked around a bit but didn't appear bothered. Art looked though the grass without success when Gillian came to help and found the switch button stuck between Tia's toes!

When the switch was reassembled it was quickly apparent that something was wrong. The switch button did not move properly. It's a push on push off type but it would not stay in place. Art suspected that there was a part missing as it seemed that there was nothing to make the mechanism work the way it was. Another good look through the grass turned up nothing.

Next Art removed and disassembled the switch from Gillian's lamp. Hmmmmm. It contained one more piece in the push button assembly. Again Gillian helped in the search but this time without any luck. Art cleaned and reassembled the switch and reinstalled it in the lamp. Gillian now has a bedside reading light. Art will have to adapt one of the other switches to his. It's just a matter of soldering a couple of wires onto the switch terminals.

Before we left home we had downloaded updates to our North America and Mexcio GPS maps. (We know that Mexico is part of North America but Garmin, among many others, don't seem to realise that.)

As we were using the GPS on the way down we realised that the maps had not been updated. Today Art decided to try to download them again. (Garmin permits customers to download maps again if they had been paid for once.) The internet here is relatively slow, it comes from a satellite feed some distance away as there is as yet no fibreoptic cable to the area. This just outside of San Antonio!

I'll try to post a link to our location in the park using our SPOT. I have no idea how long it will remain active.

SPOT LINK HERE.

The first update took a several hours but finally was done. Art then started the Mexican map download.

It was getting late into the afternoon and as time went on the download ran slower and slower. It seems that when people came home from school, work, voting, they hit the internet. When the download started the estimated download time was 29 minutes. Now more than 2 hours later, the download is only 48% complete and the estimated time remaining varies from 28 to 55 minutes!

Two hours later it was showing the same thing! Seems something had locked up! We stopped thedownload, logged off the internet, enjoyed our dinner, watched a Saint movie (relatively new, a bit chronic) started the download again, watched an old episode of Mission Impossible and went to bed, the download still churning. We'll see in the morning if it finished. At the moment it says 40% and 51 minutes estimated to finished!

In the morning the map download was complete! Finally!

Friday November 9^th, Gillian's birthday.

We spent the day in San Antonio, first trying to find a quad band unlocked phone for her birthday present. This would be similar to Art's which allows him to insert a sim card for what ever country we are in. Art's has worked in Canada, US, Mexico, Britain, Europe and even Marrekech! Gillian has three phones: One for Canada, one for Mexico and one for Britain and Europe which won't work in North America! In the US we only the one phone. One each would be useful.

The only unlocked quad band phone we could find was a smart phone, which we weren't interested in. We eventually settled on one of AT&T's phones which we hope can be unlocked. The salesman at the store thought it would be unlockable. At least now we each have a cell phone to use while in the USA!

From here we drove into the middle of the city and found a place to park in the Rivercenter Mall. We left the dogs in charge of the Jeep while we went looking for a place for lunch. We found ourselves at Tony Roma's at the end of a canal from the river, right on the River Walk.

As soon as we finished a very nice lunch (Asian Salad with a Filet of Salmon) we returned for the dogs and set of along the River Walk. It was pretty commercial, right in the middle of the city, but still very pleasant. The dogs were most interested in the ducks!

Art and Tia walked to loop and partway around then returned to the car. They both had had enough walking by this time and Tia needed her antibiotics. Back on the Jeep Art managed to insert the large capsule down Tia's throat, aided by a few pieces of cheese, then settled in the front seat where he passed the hour waiting for Gillian and Trekker reading and napping.

Gillian returned and at 5:00 we set off to pick up our friend Lulu who was visiting her daughter on the north side of the city. We had judged 30 minutes would be needed by comparing the distances that we had traveled in San Antonio during the last week. We had missed a couple of important pieced of data in our calculation. One, it was rush hour, and two, much more of the population lives to the north of the than to the south, where we stayed! The GPS told us we would arrive at 5:50. We were due there at 5:30, and back to the north side of the city for dinner at 7:00. OOPS

Through highway construction along most of the way we finally arrived and spent a pleasant better part of an hour with Lulu and her daughter and the tiny week old son. We phoned Piatti Restaurant to change our reservation to 7:30 for which we were ten minutes late. 

  

An excellent evening with good food, (including a Birthday Cupcake!) good wine, good friends, eventually came to an end. We drove Lulu home where we went in to finally meet her son in law Stephen and Alan, the four year old big brother. The run home was uneventful, traffic much lighter; we were even in bed before midnight!

Saturday

When Art turned his cell phone on in the morning it beeped—text message. Before he even had time to read the first, a second text arrived. The first was a threat, the second lewd, as were the four more that quickly followed. Six messages in four minutes. The number was from Portland Oregon (as is Art's phone number). Art reported to the the local authorities who sent an officer around. They will contact Portland police who will follow up. Probably not hear much more, but it is likely that they will at least speak to the idiot and at least get it on record in case this is some nut who keep this up or worse.

Art spent some more time on the internet and finally phoned a local company who advised him that the phone was not on the list of unlockable phones! They did have a quad band phone that was already unlocked, they could give us $15.00 for the new $50.00 phone we had just purchased! $105.00 in total! We went out to have a look, (the other side of the city, a 35 minute drive each way) to find that the phone was 6 years old and they wouldn't include a new battery! So much for that.

Much of the rest of the day Art spent searching the internet for on line unlock companies and a couple of local companies. The end result; It was an at&t Go Phone, none of which could be unlocked! We were a touch annoyed—the salesman should have known this!

Sunday Gillian decided to sort out the “electronics etc” drawer (batteries, lamp bulbs, chargers and computer cords etc etc)r under the dinette seat and when she went to close it, it would neither close or open. Art went to help and discovered that the bottom was falling out of the drawer! Not too surprising, the contents likely exceeds its GVW!

Gillian emptied the contents onto the couch and we removed the drawer. As it came out it fell into three  pieces; right side, back, and the rest of it more or less still together! Another trip to Home Depot was called for. Target, where we had purchased Gillan's phone on Friday was nearby so we called in and received assurance that we could return the phone as long as we had the packaging and all the bits. We'll do that tomorrow.

At Home Depot we bought a handful of corner brackets and a some nuts, bolts and screws and returned to the campsite.

On the picnic table Art all cleaned all the joints and with the remains of the silicone caulking from the shower repair reassembled the drawer reinforcing all the corners with the angle brackets and bolts, adding a good bead around the drawer bottom, inside and out as well as a few screws from the bottom into the sides. It should hold together until spring. Art plans to make new drawers with real wood when were get back.



Later in the day the leaky 5th wheel pulled out leaving the green stain and an empty plastic container.




This evening a large 5th wheel pulled into the empty space beside us. Trekker was most interested the the cat, the cat not so sure the screen door between them was enough!

Monday

First chore today was to return Gillian's cell phone. This was done without difficulty. Although we weren't impressed with the knowledge of the sales staff in the cell phone department we were less than ideal, the staff in customer service were excellent. Just wish we hadn't need to find that out!

Today Tia was due for her second urinalysis. We needed her to pee into a small tray the vet had provided and with the provided pipette transfer the result into a test tube.  It sounds easy! We finally managed ti get it done, took it to the vet and were waiting around for the bill. Then we were told that the fee was included in the first round!

Her total bill was $149.65 including an injection of two meds combined and 42 capsules of antibiotics. The initial exam was "on the house" (Clinic policy for new clients.) Still, we think, far cheaper than at home. Gillian commented " 'Our Vet' could take a lesson from this! Or maybe this clinic could take a lesson from 'Our Vet' "!

Now we wait until tomorrow, the clinic will fax results to the RV park. If all seems well we will leave for Larado Wednesday morning and cross into Mexico bright and early Thursday.

Larado is a new crossing for us, we have never crossed this far east. Our favourite crossing had some problems a month ago which gave us pause for thought, and of course then we heard from Lulu that she was in San Antonio, so. . . we'll try the Columbia crossing near Larado. It should have us in Saltillo almost an hour earlier than crossing at Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras. We'll see how it goes.

After the vet we went grocery shopping then home to put it all away.

Last chore for the day: Put the repaired drawer back and repack it. A significant number items were removed to be placed in either the parts bin or the tool bin. That's for tomorrow. Now, it's after 6 O'Clock in Zihuatanejo. Time for a drink. Art's bedside reading lamp will have to wait until mañana.



Tuesday

Cold overnight, at least to what we have been used to, 8C. I don't think it even reached 13C. The heat pump has been coming on regularly all day to maintain 21C inside.

In the expectation that we will leaving in the morning we began putting things away--like the folding chairs an lounges--too cold to sit out today anyway, and the few bits and pieced that had been removed from the drawer.

Of course Art also had to get to work on his bedside lamp! He soldered leads onto the switch and installed it in the lamp. Eventually! The  thread part of the switch was just barely too big to fit through the mounting hole in the lamp! Fortunately the threads were plastic and with a bit of effort and a pair of slip-joint pliers he was able to force the switch into place. Surprisingly, he was able to get the nut to go on over those abused threads afterwards as well! The final appearance isn't too bad and the switch works, so all is well.


The vet says they won't have Tia's lab results back until the morning. She is looking and acting well so even if they don't have them by the time we are ready to go, we'll just go.

This will be the end of this post, and may be the last for a while until we find and internet connection again.