Friday

. . . I was awake by 6am and ready to go, more or less. I had to get dressed and shave but that is just standard operation procedure. Natalia arrived at 6:30 and we visited on the Patio for a while before she took her shower and got herself ready for work. I had breakfast and cleaned the kitchen after myself. Natalia gave me a big hug before she left, we will stay in contact via email, and she told me I was welcome back any time I wished to be in Mazatlan. She insisted I take some bread and cheese with me. I had hardly room in my carryon bag for that but I found a spot. I left the key on the table with the ‘center piece’ I had purchased and pulled my heavy suitcase out the door, pulling it shut for the last time. I did not pull the suitcase more than 300 feet before a Taxi stopped and drove me to the Airport. That was almost a 30 minute drive and his charge was only 250 Pesos, I gave him 300 and was happy to do it. Inside I found that my baggage charge was 265 Pesos. It was also0 discovered that my bag was four pounds overweight so the baggage man helped me stuff more stuff into my carry on. My first thought was “Great. Now my carry on is too large to carry on”. I am having trouble understanding all of that because the total weight on the airplane did not change one iota. I made the mistake of mentioning that to the man in charge and he explained it but I was not able to follow his broken English. His heart was in the right place so I shook his hand and said thank you. By 10am I’m sitting at gate B3 waiting for the 1:48 flight to LA. I attempted to go online but in order to do so I had to register with the Airport “Wi-Fi” and it was in Spanish so I decided to wait until I got to LA to use the computer. I was not interested in receiving thousands of Spanish language commercials in my email.. . . The plane landed in LA at 4:40 and it was 6pm before I could get anything to eat because of all the TSA hoops you have to go through to get back in the States. After eating I tested my cell phone a couple of times and let Caren know I would be at Portland at Midnight waiting for her little smiling face to come get me. I attempted to get on the internet but it asked for a network security key and I don’t know how to find that. If I do find it I will post this before leaving thsomething to eat. First, though, I had to post this! Great trip! Wonderful place to be in the winter! I hope to do it again next yearis part of the world. Otherwise this will not get posted until I get home. As of the moment I am well pooped out so I guess I will really be ready to crash when I get home. Caren was waiting for me when I walked out of PDX with my bags in tow. It took me several minutes to find her because I still don’t know how to operate my cell phone. Not using it very often is my excuse. Works for me!. . . . . Caren had me home in record time and by 6:15 Saturday morning I felt rested enough to get .