Today was my day out with the girls, leaving Bob to fend for himself in any activity that he could find. Our day started at 2:00 p.m. with eight of the local expat ladies. We loaded ourselves into two cars and headed off to one of the restaurants on the north side of the Caraterra up into the hills called El Risco in Piedra.

It seemed to be a new restaurant and overlooked the lake complete with a palapa roof. The view was outstanding of Lake Chapala with an Ariel view of Ajijic.

A couple of the ladies had steak, some had pasta and the balance of us had meals prepared with shrimp as that seemed to be the most common item on the menu. Some had margarita's - most had wine....a lot of wine. Most of us followed up the meal with some of the best chocolate cake with cream cheese icing I've ever had. The waiter spoke excellent English and they even had music playing in the background. We had a good time, a lot of laughter, a lot of just being silly.

Our designated drivers got us back to El Dorado just fine (we passed several police and federali's on the Caraterra which frankly made me feel very safe). They are fierce looking - very intent on doing their jobs. I wouldn't want to get on their wrong side.

We went to one of the ladies homes and had more to eat and drink and of course the talking and laughter never stopped. We talked about everything and anything. I finally made my way back to Casa 50 around 9 p.m. and I think that I scared the **** out of Bob as I found him on the couch eating a pizza with his ear buds in and watching a Bruce Willis thriller.

Since I don't care for wine and had only one margarita, I was in much, much better shape than some of my new friends - I don't doubt that there might be some ladies with headaches sitting in the church pew this morning! That's all I say on that subject!!!!

There was no camera with me so there's absolutely no proof of anything that happened during the ladies night out. We continue to monitor the weather NOB this long weekend and we can only say that we hope that the winter that continues up north will end by the time we arrive back in town next Saturday night.

We've done most of the things that we wanted to accomplish while we were here so the last week will be spent relaxing by the pool working on the tan.

Deborah