July 23rd, 2007

Photo: Moth on our apt exterior wall.

Monday
Monday traffic is quite different to weekend traffic. I am still not totally sure of the benefit of having traffic police on every intersection, but there they are, blowing their whistle and doing their best to keep the flow of traffic. Between the buses, cars, and pedestrians, it gets pretty wild in downtown Xalapa. That does not make navigating any easier either!
We did find our way to Coatepec easier the second time around, though, but decided to take the new/old road so that we could see were the "country" homes were. We had heard about this area called La Pitaya were very nice homes were being built on the road to Coatepec. There are a couple of very good schools nestled along that road, too. We, again, lacked a map, so we just started driving. The drive was actually stunning, passing by the famed Clavijero Botanical Gardens and then through very thick subtropical forest.
There actually was a sign that said La Pitaya, so we turned at the sign... and then the road became a dirt trail that was more vertical than horizontal. There was no need for speed bumps since the rocky and uneven road made sure you drove very, very slow all the time! Suddenly I was very glad to have an SUV and not a low-clearance minivan. We did see huge homes nestled in the forest, we just could not figure out how to get to them, there were no real roads marked and the trails seemed almost too vertical for a car to be able to make the descent... So we gave up on trying to figure La Pitaya and headed back to the main road. We would either get a map, or leave the touring to the professionals (real estate agents in this case).
We were pretty lucky on finding information this time. We dropped by Ecomania, a real estate office on the main street heading to the Plaza in Coatepec. They are a small real estate office that caters to the Coatepec area and to other areas with Ecotourism. We had been studying their on-line offerings for a while so we felt somewhat familiar with what they would have to offer. We had planned to find something out in the forest for the boys to experience something totally unique, so we were pretty sure Ecomania would have something for us.
The Ecomania office is located in a wonderful patio of an old home that has been converted into retail space. Sofia, the real estate agent on call, was very nice. She immediately looked up what they had for rent, and it wasn=t much. There was just one property listed and, luckily, it was in the area we wanted to check out. So we made an appointment for Yolanda, the owner of Ecomania, to show us this house the next day, and headed to the Main Plaza.
It was dry and the tourism office was open, we got a map and I asked if they knew were the Colegio Calli was. This is the school the boys will attend. To our surprise (since no one had heard about the school so far) they told us exactly how to get there!
We drove to the school armed with our newly acquired map, which again was more a loose guide than a real map, but the directions we had gotten were good enough that we actually made it. The school is housed in an old home. It has a very curious façade since it is covered, from top to bottom and from side to side, with brownish tile. It is hard to miss, not just for the tile, but for the Previa minivan with Texas plates parked in front of the building.
We rang the doorbell and were received warmly by the owner/principal and her family. Aurora is a wonderful young woman full of energy and a love for learning. Her husband and she decided to start a school when they got married and added up the kids they had between both: 7, it was cheaper to start a school than to pay private education for all of them! But also they believed in a different approach to education, so they chose the Waldorf model.
The boys slowly warmed up to the place, Aurora and her daughter Lucia, and played for a little while. We filled some registration papers and took a tour of the growing school. They were adding a second story to the building so that they could have more classrooms, including a woodshop to make jaranas (a small regional guitar) and other musical instruments. It was wonderful to hear how this second story was designed by Ricardo, Aurora's husband, who is a laudero (an artisan that makes guitars, violins and other string instruments). It seems it will be a wonderful second story out of wood and bamboo and other regional materials. It also had to be "portable" since they foresee moving to a bigger building in the future.
We left Coatepec with a very nice feeling that the boys were going to be very happy in this school, with a small teacher to student ratio, an at home feel and a very artsy curriculum!

JULY 2nd...

Sunday add on...

To dampen the mood a little... We had the not so fun chance to see ATM fraud first hand. We usually get cash out at the bank's ATM, right down-town. Yes, we are always very careful and try to get cash only in weekdays (since the bank is open and security is high)... well, alas we were low on cash on a Sunday, so while I took the kids to eat across the street to the "Vip's", Jevon went to the ATM.
On coming back to the restaurant, he told me he had experienced something really odd. He said there were two really well dressed guys in the ATM room (there are 5 ATM's outside the bank in a little glass enclosure). They were "helping" people because it seemed the ATM's were broken, at least three of them. So the "helpful" guys were directing people to one that was "working". Jevon got a little suspicious, he did try his card on the "working" machine, but before he got cash out he decided to switch to another ATM.
After our meal, we went back to the ATMs. The helpful guys were gone, the "no funciona (broken)" hand written tags were gone. Jevon got closer to the ATM that they were leading people to and noticed a whole part of the machine was gone...
Well, he didn't pull money from there, but he was not sure how far the cloning had gone on his card... We are holding our breath.

July 22nd, 2007

Photo: Xallitic

Sunday

Our first morning in Xalapa was beautiful. Sunny and mild! We had breakfast early and walked down to the park to give Kiwi a good walk. The park, called "Los Berros", is a huge, landscaped city block with fountains, huge trees, benches and a kiosk. From very early in the morning, vendors start lining the park avenues with their wares, mostly fried pastries, corn on the cob and "chicharrones" (crisp savory non-pork rinds- like a dinosaur sized chip). Some entrepreneurs bring their battery ride-ons for kids to rent by the minute, others bring their miniature horses and offer rides on them for a small fee. The boys like the rusty old playground with the many see-saws and the kamikaze slide! (It is play at your own risk here, no safety standards whatsoever...)
After lunch at another favorite of the boys: "Vip's" (a nice, simple restaurant with very kid friendly menu) we headed off to Coatepec.
Coatepec is where the school the kids will attend is located. It is a few miles (5ish) away from Xalapa heading south. There are three roads that go from Xalapa to Coatepec: The Old Road, The Old Highway, and the New Highway... or something like that, maybe it is the old road, the new road and the new highway... It can be a little complicated when communicating with the locals on what road is which, but the main difference is that the only one worth driving is the New Highway, the one that is four lanes with a median. The other two are two lanes with no shoulder, one is longer and goes through more villages or settlements, and that means more "topes" (speed bumps). By the way, Speed Bumps in Mexico are not very well marked and they are HUGE! So, you better drive slowly is you want your muffler to stay put!
Xalapa is not a very easy city to navigate through. The streets are mostly old and narrow, they lack name signs and many of them are just one way... and usually not the way you need them to go. Getting out of Xalapa could have been easier if we had actually been able to match the street map we own to the actual streets, but maps in Mexico are a loose guide, not necessarily a navigation tool. So, yes, we got lost on one of the hills of downtown Xalapa before we actually found our way to the modern four lane "calzada" or boulevard that leads to the exit to the Highway (new) to Coatepec!
The exit to Coatepec goes by the Transportation Museum which boasts a nice array of old airplanes, tanks, trains, antique trucks, etc. set out on a large, nicely kept lawn. The boys had seen this place a couple of times on our last trip, but we had never had a chance to stop, so they made sure we promised to take them there this time around. They were especially interested since the "museum" had added a few inflatable games, a zip line, carnival games and a bungee cord area to the old vehicles.
Getting from the Transportation Museum to Coatepec is a breeze, about a 6 minute drive, then the freeway becomes a street that takes you to downtown Coatepec. The traffic is pretty bad on weekends since Coatepec is such a weekend destination and the Main Street is a one way and mostly one lane street (there are always parked cars on the street). The Main Plaza is a very busy and festive place. There are food vendors, balloon vendors, ice cream vendors and live music. Parking is hard to find around the plaza and the streets close by, so you have to circle on the surrounding streets to find a place to stop.
We walked a few blocks to the plaza to find the Tourism office so that we could get a map of the town, since we had no luck finding one elsewhere, but it was closed. We then headed to the Kiosk to grab an ice cream.
Last year, our friend, Doris, took us to Coatepec to get an Ice Cream. It seems the town is famous for its ice cream and its coffee, so she told us that many people drive all the way from Xalapa just to go get a good ice cream. And the ice cream was (is) delicious! The Kiosk is one of the safest options, since there is no FDA around to make sure things are produced in sanitary conditions. It is a bit pricey (as ice cream in Mexico goes) but it is extremely good!
A funny thing in Xalapa and Coatepec: usually it rains every afternoon. So, as we were starting our ice cream, it started to rain. Not a soft rain, but a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning. Luckily, we were in the kiosk, but we still were getting cold and a little bit wet because of the wind. Kiwi was shivering in his bag, the boys were nervous about the thunder and I was freezing... we decided to brave the water with our umbrellas and get to the car as soon as the rain slowed down a little.
The downside of parking a few blocks away from the plaza is walking back in the rain! Our legs were soaked by the time we got to where we had parked and most of us were freezing. Rain does not necessarily fall vertical around here either... We did find out something about the traditional architecture of the place. The single story buildings have eaves that cover the sidewalk; the two story buildings have balconies that span most of the width of the building also covering the sidewalk. Bear in mind that sidewalks are very narrow, though, and the wind blows the rain, but it is a nice practical and very pedestrian friendly detail in a rainy region like this!
Another thing we learned in the next few days was that, almost as clockwork, the downpour started between 2 and 3. It usually lasted 1 to 2 hours and then it cleared up beautifully! A funny thing that Mexican lunch time is from 2 to 4. Those two hours much of everything is closed, only restaurants are open. People close shop, office or whatever and go home to have the main meal of the day, then come back to work at 4. They close shop at 7 or 8 p.m. to get home for supper, which is a light meal.

July 21st, 2007

Photo: Pino Suarez and our first home -second floor, brick.

Saturday
Breakfast was another great surprise: it was a very nice spread of sweet bread, juices, yogurt (real, no gelatin added for thickening!), granola, eggs in salsa, pancakes, and more corn masa delicacies. The coffee was also very good. Already in this area, you are getting close enough to the coffee lands to be able to get good coffee!
The rest of the drive was fascinating in many ways. The road is narrow, but not too bad. The two lanes lack a shoulder most of the time, but it is not a high speed freeway since there are plenty of towns on the road and, at least the first part of it, is still "resort" (I am stretching the term here) area.
From the many little shops filled with all sorts of beach wear and inflatable beach toys, to the little "mariscos" (sea food) restaurants, it is hard not to want to stop and check some of the local goods out. I know from when I used to live in Mexico, that the some of the best food you can eat is in these little freeway eateries. It is, though, well known, that with the delicious flavors, comes the risk of contracting a huge amount of intestinal maladies... otherwise known as "Montezuma's Revenge"... so, even though Jevon really craved cold coconut water cut right out of the coconut, we decided to let our stomachs get a little more acclimated to Mexico before doing anything adventurous.
A few miles down the road we found amazing beaches amidst huge livestock ranches. It seems like a very dry region and, although it had been raining plenty in the last week all over the Gulf area, this part of the coast looked like it had had no rain in quite a while. The cattle seemed very content, though, and the beaches looked like paradise.
Another more miles down the road we came by a small lagoon that was very green and Jevon told me it was the infamous "Laguna Verde". I was stunned! When I was growing up, my dad used to talk a lot about "Laguna Verde", since he used to go there because of work. I never really knew what he was referring to, but in my mind it was a City in the State of Veracruz. Many years later I learnt that "Laguna Verde" was a nuclear plant, but I still had these images of a populated area. Well, I finally saw the tiny green lagoon with the huge nuclear plant near a cliff on a semi deserted area, many miles off the road. It is supposed to be in bad physical shape, although it has a nice road going to it and an information booth at its entrance. Security looks very high, though, with plenty of soldiers guarding the entrance. Every few kilometers you see a Afallout evacuation route@ sign, and the signs that mark the name of the settlements (towns) say something like "ecological radiation control area"...
Glad to get far away from the "fallout" area, we drove past another stretch of beaches that are quite famous because of their huge sand dunes. One of this beaches is called "Chachalacas", we have it in our plans to go back to check this beach out some time or another.
Finally we got to the "Super", in other words, the four lane highway that would take us from the coast to the mountains and our final destination for the day: Xalapa. The road we knew since we had driven it last year, it is a great road but very boring, not much to see. It takes no time to get to Xalapa, though.
We entered the city on a very quiet day for traffic, Saturday, so it was easy to drive around. We decided to head toward Roy's place and see if he had room for us to stay.
Roy is an ex-pat that came to Mexico over 20 years ago, got married to a Mexican woman and decided to stay. He now has kids and grandkids, a photo studio (he is a photographer), a couple of small furnished apartments that he rents out and a little "tour" business. He offers guided tours to Americans interested in retiring in the area, as well as offering his services as interpreter, house hunter, etc. We rented an apartment from him for a couple of days last year, so we hoped he had the apartment available while we found a more permanent place to live.
The apartment was available and the boys were thrilled to be back in a familiar setting. Although it is set two blocks off the Main Plaza of downtown Xalapa, the street it is on is very calm. I very much enjoy the fact that there is a small green area less than half a block away so that Kiwi can do his doggie stuff! The boys love that a mayor park is two blocks down and the Main Plaza is two blocks up! They also love the fact that there are "papelerías" (office supply mini-store) less than a block away, two convenience stores less than half a block away and a mini health-bakery across the street, two houses down (they love the amaranth-oat- fruit loops we get there and the home made yogurt).
The apartment per-se is not great. It is old and most of its furniture seriously needs to be changed, but Roy has been slowly working to make it better at least since last time we visited. It is also small for spending a whole year there, so we started the search for a place to stay right away. After Dinner...
Up the street from Roy's, right across the street from the "School for International Students" of the University of
Veracruz (Spanish Language School), is a very nice little restaurant that serves a small but very good buffet. Roy sent us there a year ago, and we headed there as soon as we got a little bit settled. The Restaurant, "La Plazoleta", is set in an old home with a huge covered patio. The patio is covered with a plexiglass cover which lets the light in, but not the rain (which is a very good thing in Xalapa). The tables are set around huge Ficus trees that grow freely in the patio and the buffet is set around this area. The food is very good, home made, and fast. There is a woman making hand made tortillas and "gorditas" (fat tortillas) with salsa and cheese right at the entrance. You choose your table, the waiter asks you if you would like a menu or buffet (we always go for the buffet) and then brings a pitcher of fresh squeezed Limeade, Alfalfa-lime juice or Jamaica (Hibiscus) water to your table. While you go and grab your veggies or salad, he goes and gets some "gorditas" with cheese (and salsa for the adults) and brings them to your table. When you go and get your main dish, he gets you fresh made tortillas for your meal. The kids don't like dessert there, though; it usually is a thick corn pudding with cinnamon or chocolate.
Since the part of the idea of renting Roy's apartment was to save some money on meals, we headed to a downtown supermarket to get some staples for breakfast. It was packed! There were thousands of people walking on Xalapa streets and most of them seemed to be going to the store we were going to. So we got some milk, juice, bread and cereals and headed back home as soon as possible.

July 20th, 2007

photo: Costa Esmeralda

Friday

Breakfast was... surreal. We stopped at a McDonald's! The menu was quite different than the US version, since it included regional favorites like "molletes" (hard crust bread toasted with beans and melted cheese) and "huevos rancheros" (eggs in red salsa)! It also took a little bit longer to get the food to the table, somehow fast food in Mexico isn't quite Fast and it does not taste that "Fast" either. The kids were very grateful, though, to get McD's even if it was so different, so they were ready for the long road ahead... again.
Leaving Tampico, we headed South to an area Jevon had researched for some time: "La Costa Esmeralda." To get there, we had to drive past the City of Poza Rica.
Poza Rica is a coastal Gulf city that has never been known for its beauty. It is an Oil city. I believe (but don't quote me on this) that it started as the home for the oil workers of the area Petroleum Fields (and Platforms). Maybe it was named for the richness of Petroleum wells (Poza means well and Rica means rich)... Well, it is still not very pretty, but seems to be rising in importance more and more in Mexico. New highways are being built to connect this coastal city to Mexico City. Unfortunately, the highways are still being built, so we got some pretty uneven roads. Some parts are very good, some parts are under construction, and others are just old and are being patched!
It still was an interesting drive, with sugar cane and banana plantations here and there, and even some coconut palms. The landscape kept changing from tropical to dry and back. As we approached the Costa Esmeralda area, the landscape became drier, still it was green, but the pastures were more common. The kids enjoyed counting donkeys placidly pasturing at the side of the freeway. They did not enjoy going through every bump and "tope" (speed bump) on the road, and there are a lot, since there are many towns on that stretch of freeway.
Costa Esmeralda is a long stretch of beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. As opposed to South Padre Island in Texas which has very brownish water, Costa Esmeralda has wonderful Blue/Turquoise waters! The sand is pretty soft, although there are a lot of plants growing close to the beach, so the strip of sand is not terribly wide. The hotels on the beach go from nice 4 star to camp grounds. It is not a very developed area and the tourism that it sees is mostly National tourism, mainly from Mexico City and some from the same State of Veracruz.
We found a nice hotel in a very comfortable price range to stay in. It had wonderful rooms almost on the beach with a very nice pool for the boys! No sooner had we gotten in the room, the boys were out the door heading for the beach. Even Kiwi was tremendously exited to check out that strange place with the moving water.
The water was a nice temperature, and the surf was soft enough that the boys had no problem at all jumping into the waves. Kiwi, on the other hand, was not as sure once he was in front of the water and felt it on his paws. I still took him for a little walk on the beach and pretty soon he was a very wet dog! The boys dug a tide pool for the dog and spent a long time just lounging around on the beach. When they headed for the pool, Kiwi and I headed for the room... and to de-sand the dog! I am just very glad he is not a Golden Retriever!
The food in the hotel restaurant was surprisingly good, too! The boys had there first taste of "Chocomilk" (Chocolate milk), quite a staple in Mexico. We just enjoyed the fresh corn masa tlacoyos (like a fat long tortilla- a very regional delicacy) with salsa and some rice with fried Plantain (another staple in coastal Mexico).

July 19th, 2007

Photo: Traveling in confort Mexican style.

Thursday

Now, time to cross the Border.
As you cross the International crossing Bridge, you pass through Mexican Customs. Your car goes over a bump and it activates a traffic light which tells you if you are going to be checked or if you pass without check. I often wonder if it depends on the weight of your car, so I was sure we were going to stop and be checked in customs. We had left a bunch of our stuff (including clothes) at my parents', but we were still carrying a lot of weight, mostly on clothes and inflatable beds. To our surprise, the light was green, and we were free to pass without being checked.
And then there was Reynosa! Talk about an ugly border town... city. Reynosa, in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas, is probably one of the ugliest Border Cities in Mexico, and there is absolutely no logic to it either, so getting through it to catch the freeway to Tampico, Tamaulipas... well, it was a feat! Oh, and traffic! Traffic in Mexico is chaotic no matter where or when. The lanes are not marked and the street names are nowhere to be found, and no one respects speed limitsY and stop signs are optional... At least traffic lights work the same as everywhere else in the World... that is if you find one.
The freeway was not bad at all for the first hundred miles or so. We even found a nice place on the road to have some lunch! It was a drive-through convenience store/ taco restaurant... The boys were amazed at this establishment! You just drive off the road on the dirt drive, and you can either go through in your car and the attendant will give you the stuff you want, or you can park and sit on the road-side rickety chairs and have tacos. We decided on the chairs, being it that we had no idea what we would ask for if we were to drive through! The "waiter/cook" took our taco orders, heated the tortillas on a huge "comal" (griddle) over a wood fire and then served the fillings out of big pots that rested by the "stove". Very yummy, very fast and kind of fun!
Then we decided to get fancy on our detours (to save time) and we went on a road that we had heard was very good, sometimes. Big mistake! We drove about 35 minutes in a semi-constructed road that sometimes became one lane (for both traffic directions)Y and at speeds of no more than 40 mph... We just had enough and turned around for another 35 minutes of misery to head back to the main road! So that delayed us about an hour in our progress through the Northern part of Mexico, and we were very grateful to arrive to Tampico in the early evening!
I had never been to Tampico, but I have a few friends that were born and raised there. We didn't see much of it, but it seemed interesting, with its renovated areas and a lagoon inhabited by crocodiles that is surrounded by the most populated areas (downtown) of the City.
We stayed at a very strange hotel. We have been cutting costs, and downtown hotels are not very inexpensive, but we found a very reasonable option. The Hotel Bonitto Inn downtown Tampico is not beautiful from the outside. It looks like a very old and run down commercial, one story building with no outside windows. As you walk into the lobby, you discover that the rooms have been fitted around the perimeter of the building with their windows facing the inside courtyard where the front desk is. The courtyard is very plain, but it has plenty of light from a skylight and the rooms are clean and pretty spacious.
That first evening in Mexico, we treated our kids with a Classic: "El Pollo Loco". This restaurant is a must in Northern Mexico. It is just grilled chicken, tortillas, salsas, rice and beans. The chicken is marinated in fruit juices and then grilled over wood. The result is amazing. Very juicy inside, very crispy outside! I have been told that the "Pollo Loco" in the US (since they exported the Franchise) tastes very different and is very dry... I am sure the FDA did not approve of the secret ingredients in the marinade!

July 4th -18th , 2007

Photo: Kiwi and CK playing in McAllen.


We stayed in McAllen, Texas, for about two weeks. Jevon had planned for a stay of about a week, but there were many, many things we needed to get ready before heading south. There was the matter of getting a visa for Jevon, and then a visa for our car (actually a temporary import permit).
It is amazing of how difficult it is to get everything ready for a move like this, even if it is temporary! Hey, but after two weeks, most of everything was in order and we decided to hit the road.
The boys enjoy their Grandparents (Abuelos) tremendously, but they miss being with kids their age. And, although they swim most of the day at the pool, well, you can only do that so long too... We also got to go to their favorite restaurants (too much eating!) and we got to hang out with their cousins. It was such a nice thing to have both our niece and our nephew around for such a long time. They are growing so fast and turning into teenagers! They are fun, though, they enjoy playing with the boys and the boys love the attention! We also got to meet my niece's horses: Beau and Guapo. We didn't get to ride them, though. Maybe next time!
When it was time for us to hit the road again, Mother Nature came back with her showers. It is the first time I have seen that part of Texas so green, but the drainage of the Border Cities is not designed to drain that amount of water. Actually, the soil is not designed to take so much water either! There were a few days there, that the Valley of Texas (the area where McAllen is located) had flash floods everyday! Many cars (and even trucks) got stuck in flooded streets- over 8 inches of water.
Luckily, the day that Jevon decided to leave town, there was a nice reprieve and the rains stopped for our departure! And just in time, because I was not going to have us drive a Mexican highway with rain!

July 3rd, 2007

Tuesday
For our last morning in Austin, we revisited Dominican Joe. It is hard to say goodbye to such a great brew!
It was a nice visit in all to the old 'hood! In a way, I wouldn't mind going back to live there, but it definitively is still not a very child friendly place- although they are working hard to get there- hey, but it is a very Dog friendly place!
The last stretch of road was a very familiar one to me, since I used to drive it at least 6 times a year. It is as boring as I remember! First, there are little strip-mall and outlet towns between Austin and San Antonio, then it is time to try to figure our way out of San Antonio. I didn't mention that Texas highways are... well, Texas highways... they are definitively traced differently that elsewhere. The on-ramps are suicidal (short and abrupt), the speed limit is a courtesy, and the trucks... everybody in Texas drives a truck! So it took us a couple of turns to get on the right Interstate, and we were on our way to South Texas.
South Texas is like driving in another country. It is a very desolate area and a very poor one too. There are no big gas stations every 20 miles, it is... different. You have to believe that it is a way of softening the blow when you finally cross over to the Mexican Highways! Oh, yeah, and Mother Nature decided it was going to be rain season in South Texas this year. It never rains in South Texas, never... That is until we decided to drive through it! There were stretches of highway in which I had to drive no faster than 30 mph since I could see very little through the rain, even with the wiper at full speed! So it took longer...

July 2nd, 2007

Photo: Poster for an ongoing cause @ Dominican Joe

Monday
Day 2, we decided to try something new, we found a new coffee house called Dominican Joe and, as the name suggests, it serves excellent coffee brought from the Dominican Republic. The brew is excellent, and the place is amazing. The design is clean, minimalist and they use light and a few choice materials (like bamboo and steel) to give it a very cool ambiance. We remember the coffee we drank when we were visiting Dominican Republic was always excellent, and we were happy to be able to find that coffee somewhere in the US!
The rest of the day we just visited some of the Hills around the city, checked out our old neighborhoods, and the boys relaxed for a long time at the hotel pool. We were all pretty burned out! I just managed to drive to another favorite from way back when: Taco Cabana. Not a fancy Tex-Mex, but very decent fare. I got some rice, beans, quesadillas and other goodies to-go, so when the swimmer boys came out of the water, dinner was served!

July 1st, 2007

Photo: Armando and I at Ruta Maya.

Sunday

Day 1 in Austin was a little bit better for all. After resting the night and a pretty bad breakfast at the hotel, we headed to one of our favorite coffee joints in the city: Ruta Maya (pic). It used to be in a warehouse downtown, but they moved it South to a very cool office/store mall done nicely in regional architecture (lots of sandstone, metal and the Hill Country Vernacular forms) by local architects. It is still a very down-to-earth, cool, whimsical, almost hippie joint: they give free yoga classes and serve vegan delicacies alongside high octane coffee and punk rock clienteleY oh, and they even offer a bowl of water for your dog while you sip your java (or smoothie for the boys) in their patio.
Austin is an extremely dog and jog friendly place. Everywhere you look (even in the heat of midday) you can see joggers around the lakes or downtown or heading to the green belt. There are quite a few dog parks, and the city passed an ordinance for all Restaurant patios to allow dogs on leashesY
So off we headed to check out our old home, where Armando spent his first 5 months of life. It still was as charming as back then, although the park down the street had seen quite a few improvements in the last nine years! The boys spent probably two hours playing in the new playground while Kiwi and I explored every square inch of park. Jevon checked out some of the home restorations that have happened around the park area. The restorations are impressive because of the quality of detailing, respect for scale and neighborhood, and the eco-conscious native plant landscaping that can be seen throughout.
I later on dropped off the boys at the Children=s Museum downtown (where I hear they had a blast playing with humongous dominos) while Kiwi and I explored the City a little more. I had to go back to Campus to see what had changedY that had remained mostly the same. So I headed to pick-up lunch(dinner) to-go to another one of our favorite joints: Kim Phung. This hole-in-the-wall has won prizes for best Vietnamese in Austin for the last 15 years, and it is still a hole-in-the-wall. It is very cheap, and it really has the best Vietnamese noodles and Pho (Vietnamese beef broth) I have ever had. Glad to report that it was a hit with the boys! We headed to Deep Eddy to find a picnic spot to eat our noodles. Deep Eddy is a great natural pool very close to the downtown are we used to live in. Unfortunately, we didn=t choose our picnic spot very well at all, and had to run from the insect life before really enjoying our meal! (Yeah, the Texas Hill Country is really buggy) At least the boys got to see Deep Eddy and want to go back and enjoy the water there.
We were supposed to go check out the bats under the bridge at dusk, but dusk comes really late in Summer, so we opted to pass on that.

June 30, 2007

Photo: Diego conquering the Hill Country.

Saturday
By the morning of the third day, we were all very tired of being on the road. We were also very anxious to get to Austin! I do not think we broke the speed limit too much, but we did try our best to get to the Texas Hill Country as soon as possibleY that is as soon as we finished driving through Dallas!
Talk about sprawl! I think we started greater Dallas around 11a.m. and finally got through about 2 p.m. and without stops! The sad part is that there is not much to say about the landscape, mostly strip malls and bad suburb semi architecture, hey, but at least Texans are proud of their DallasY no taste, but proud of it!
The rest of the road was somewhat familiar to us. We had driven from Austin to Dallas a few times when we were in school, the only new thing was a new outletY Oh, there is this town called Gruene in the middle
nowhere and it really caught our attention the huge sign that proudly proclaimed: "Gently resisting change since 1878 . Must be either a really charming little town with very well preserved historical buildings, or a run down town that is slowly dying, would definitively like to take a look on our way back North.
And finally we got to Austin, and got lost! Well, it had been nine years since we left, and Austin has definitively not been resisting change at all (and we are very grateful for this). The unfortunate downside if that Austin has not escaped the Texas epidemic: Sprawl. It has grown enormously into the neighboring Counties with bad strip malls and cookie cutter suburban homes. The really nice thing about the growth, though, is that it has taken downtown by storm. It was amazing to see the warehouses turned into state of the Art Convention Centers, Retail and lofts, as well as a new plethora of Museums for all ages and interests. Even the old Coliseum has been renovated with regionalist detailing that speaks a lot about the quality of minds that the Architecture School at the University of Texas has been producing. Even as we were leaving 9 years ago, there was already a strong contingent of obstinate Austinites who a) loved their city, b) knew change was good, c) had a very high education level, d) were ecologically consciousY anyway, they really changed Austin from a fun College Town, to a rather surprising Cosmopolitan City.
From names that started there and have grown nationally like Whole Foods, to the quirky little home-grown businesses like Book People or Amy's Ice Creams, it is a delight to visit and feel the energy. It is funny that each of the Austin home-grown businesses have their own t-shirts with their logo and, on the back of the shirt, all of them sport the same motto: KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD!
After being lost for a little bit, we finally found the hotel we would call home for 3 nights. Nothing too exiting, but it felt good to get off the road for at least a little bit over a night! The boys were already beyond grumpy, tired, hungry, just lovely. We took them to one of our favorite Ajoints@ from when we were in school: Texadelphia (Where the Philly Cheese Sandwich meets Tex-Mex cuisine) but it was not a big hit with themY it still was extremely satisfying for us. To me, it tasted like a little bit of heaven!

June 29th, 2007

Photo: The lookout at Hot Springs: The Ozarks.

Friday

The next 500 miles were a new experience to all. After a night of much Kiwi-hoping and some pillow wetting (couldn't stop mourning my home), we hit the road for the second day in a row out of Kentucky and down through Tennessee and Arkansas.
I had never been in the area and it was fascinating to see the changes, not only in landscape (wow agriculture land!) but in culture. From the capital of Country Music to the Mega Super Warehouse Christian Churches, it was amazing. You know you are not in Cleveland anymore when the signs on the road read "Jesus is the answer" or when every gas station has a Popeyes Fried Chicken attached to itY or when you see a glass Pyramid adorning downtown or a sign that invites you to see where the King slept (and they are not talking about LeBron!). It was fun, rather informational and a bit educational to see a little bit more of America.
For the second night, we decided to get off the beaten path and head for the mountains, the Ozarks. Although Texarkana sounded like a fascinating place to spend an eveningY we opted for a detour to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
What a fabulous little town carved right into the National Park! The main street actually cuts the Park in two and is lined with charming little shops and Historic Bath Houses. They are being renovated but, even with construction going on, they still preserve their almost Majestic vigilance over Main Street. We never really touched the hot springs water, but it was almost funny to see some stores selling empty gallon jugs to take water with you, I suppose for its medicinal properties.
The Ozarks themselves are beautiful. I hear they are a very different mountain range than any of the others in America, the vegetation is wonderful and dense, and the lakes and valleys are definitively something I would like to visit again.

June 28th, 2007

Photo: Kiwi at the backsteps. CleveHts.

Thursday

It was very hard to leave. The morning of the 28th of June was terrible for everyone but the dog. It was hard to say goodbye to our house, the Big Yellow House, to our neighbors and friends, to those that lined the driveway to see us off and to those who held us in their thoughts. Yet, it had to be done, and we were all ready to get on with the next phase of our journey.
The road ended being almost therapeutic, long and at times very boring, but simply getting out of the empty house was a welcomed change. The first 500 miles where uneventful since they were mostly familiar roads to Columbus and down to Kentucky. The boys entertained themselves for hours coloring. For them it was just the beginning of a very extended vacation like those we usually take, just longer.
The first night at a motel was the first interesting experience, being that Kiwi (our pup)had never been in a place where people walk by the door all the time during the night! He never barked, but I think he leapt from the bed no less than 20 times when he heard people outside the door. I don=t think he has still warmed up too much to hotel rooms, but he is getting better all the time.