San Diego – Day 5 WE PULL ALONGSIDE THE HUGE PORT of San Diego on schedule. San Diego was originally centered in the Old Town district, but by the late 1860s the center of focus had relocated to the bay front in the belief that this new location would increase trade. As the "New Town" – which is the present day downtown - the waterfront location quickly developed. It eclipsed Old Town as the center of San Diego. Currently the tallest building in San...

We set sail on Ginger and Eloy's pontoon boat today for a "three hour cruise" on Chapala. Lake Chapala is located about 45 km southeast of Guadalajara, and is situated on the border between the states of Jalisco and Michoacan. At 1,525 metres (5000 feet) above sea level, its approximate dimensions are 50 miles from east to west and an average of 7.8 miles from north to south. Chapala is an extremely shallow lake, with a average depth of 15 feet and a maximum de...

We were a little early arriving at Catherine's today, so I took some shots of the flowers that lined the road here in Vista Allegra. Today was a tour of Chapala. It's about 15 minutes west of Ajijic and represents the larger of the two communities. This is where you go to pay your taxes and shop at the bigger Monday market if you want. It's much more "mexican" than Ajijic but it has a lot more shops and variety. We started off at the old Chapala Railway stati...

After a night of good friends, good conversation and more than enough libations, I was a little slower than normal getting out of bed today. Laying in bed with my eyes shut, I heard the gate intercom go off with what seemed to be a much louder ring than normal. Jumping out of bed, pulling on some shorts it was our good friend John to give us updates on the Chapala cruise scheduled to take place in the next hour or so. We had agreed that with the overcast day an...

Tonight was a good night. Dinner with friends on the patio here at Casa Forster. With eight people for dinner it called for desperate measures. We had to move the mahogany table and five chairs out to the patio to accommodate everyone. We had John & Catherine, Don and Dale and Eloy and Ginger over for Deb's Creamy Baked Chicken, Vegetables on the BBQ with Fettucine and potatoes with bacon. Everyone seemed to enjoy dinner as there wasn't much left. After dinn...