Summer in Mazatlan

This is our first summer in Mazatlan. Previously we spent 6-7 months in Mazatlan and then headed north for the summer months. After several years of this we decided that we missed our home and the ocean during our time away. Now we are living in Mazatlan year around with short jaunts up to Washington where our kids, grandkids, friends and medical professionals are.

I will start this off by stating Joel likes the weather more than Janice does. It is warm, upper 80's, low 90's every day. Also the humidity is high, this is where we differ. We have great ocean breezes that make air-conditioning not necessary until mid afternoon. Also we have a pool and are across the street from the beach. We have had a few rainfalls, but we are told we are heading into the rainy season. There are loads of thunder storms. Luckily, most days are great and the rain comes at night. To date, this has only happened a few times.

A lot of gringos just live here from November until May, and then head north, and so many of our friends have left. Probably 3/4 of expatriets leave, Luckily there are wonderful friends that are still here. Joel has a friend that he meets a couple of days a week at The Pau Pau. This is a Mexican bar that is roofless, but has great shade trees over it. We meet around 1:30 and spend a couple of hours solving all of the world's problems. They always serve free food sometime between 2:00 and 3:00. It is always a surprise and is always good. We are the only gringos there and are treated very friendly. Janice has friends come over for pool exercise three mornings a week. Also, there is a bridge game three times a week, but Joel only goes about once a week.

Normally we would be doing more, but have had two of our grandkids since June 17th and they will leave July 22nd. Both of our daughters visited about a week on separate occasions that helped split up the grandkids time. All though the kids are having a great time, they will be ready to go home and back to their normal routines. In the future, probably two weeks is probably a better length of time.

As we live on the Malecon we are close to some of the more popular Mexican Hotels. In the summer Mexicans from all over come to Mazatlan for vacation. The beaches are busy with loads of families. In Mexico school doesn't go on vacation until early July. It is great to be the only gringos on the beach or in a restaurant. Our grandkids have adjusted to this and I suspect this can only be a good experience for them. Whole families, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and loads of kids travel together. A couple of days ago there were several families gathered on the beach that had hired a brass band to make music. Loads of people were dancing on the beach and just having a good time.

We’ve hosted a couple of Happy Hours at our homes this summer, and Janice has had a couple of girl-type parties at the condo. With the grandkids here though hospitality has been on the back burner. Janice brings the grandkids home July 22, returning August 4 and then we have 3 weeks left before we head off to the mountains for 2 months. I suspect that the next blog will be about our trip to the mountains here in Mexico. We are having some friends and family already let us know when they are coming starting in November. We’d love to see more of you if you are interested. Send us a note!