Mexstan

Good morning boys and girls. Cawphee and ph00ey is hot, fresh and ready to be sipped. I did my part with the drinks, so somebody else can bring some grub.

For those of you that are interested in travel, here is a very brief rundown of where I was last week. I know that the majority of visitors to Mexico go to the beach resorts or to Mexico City, but few venture deep inland. I have done all that numerous times and on both coasts. This tour was considerably off the beaten track and explored a good chunk of the fascinating state of Chiapas.

Fist stop was the city of Tuxtla. Then go on a river trip by boat. The dam on this river produces a large percentage of the electricity for Mexico City. https://www.mexperience.com/travel/o...midero-canyon/

Next day we traveled by luxury tour bus to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamula. We arrived there in the middle of the indigenous Day of the Dead celebrations. Talk about a diferent lifestyle! That “church” has no priests and is rooted in ancient traditions, folklore and other really weird and creepy stuff. From there we went on to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinacant%C3%A1n

We stayed the night in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Cr...l_de_las_Casas Lots to see and do in this interesting old town. This was one of the places that was badly hit by the last earthquake. A local resident told me that their van that was parked inside the garage was shaken right out of the garage and into the street. During the earthquake they could not even stand up.

Now we moved on to Cascades el Chiflon, Chiflon Waterfalls - San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico - Sancristobaldelascasasmexico.com We timed it right as there was lots of water flowing. Impressive!

Next stop was the eco-tourist areas of Lagos ge Montebello and Tziscao. No more cell phone, or internet from here on for the next few days. We stayed in rustic cabins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna..._National_Park

Going to cut it short here and just say that from this point we were in the rain forest where it rains almost every night. Visited a few other really fascinating eco-parks. The amount of huge trees, wide, very deep and fast flowing rivers with gorgeous waterfalls was almost too much to take in. We did take a few more boat trips. One boat trip was to a Mayan site that is only acessable by boat. From the river it looked like nothing, but after we scrambled up the river bank, it was WOW! We spent hours exploring this huge, ancient plaza with multiple very impressive ancient structures.

Another Maya site that we visited was an almost 3 hour road trip and was at the end of the road. This site covers many acres and has a lot of very big buildings. For man made buildings, thousands of years old, they are well worth the visit. It is hard work to go up all the steps to the top and see all the sacrificial temples.

In total we spent a lot of time at 3 different Maya sites. I could write pages just on this alone. Discovered why the Mayan's disapeared. It is unbelievable about their knowledge of stars etc and how they aligned everything.

At one village I noticed a lot of kids running around and asked why they were not in school. Their school was damaged in the last earthquake and there are no funds to rebuild it. I asked what we could do to help and was very emphatically told to spread the word and bring tourists down. The earthquake caused a lot of people to lose their jobs and now tourism is one of the few methods thay have to bring in funds. If anybody wants to do a similar trip to the one I just did. PM me and I will get you started.

FiverBob

WOW!!! STAN THE MAN!!!!

What a way to start the breakroom for the week. The Mayan ruins have always intrigued me and saw many of them years ago. Always wanted to do Peru, but never got it into the schedule. Very pretty park - Lagunas de Montebello. That sounded/looked like a guided tour? YES??? How long (time)? Thanks for giving us the rundown.

Had to skip church today - - have two women with me in the house this morning. Wife brought her sister over so I could watch sis while she catches up on bookwork, pays bills, arranges schedules for week. Hospice was with her yesterday for three hours. When they left, they had ordered four prescriptions, some "furniture" - oxygen - and other things they needed. They are taking over the in-home care for now along with help from Marian. When the time is right, they will move her into the Hospice House. What a fantastic relief to know help is with us - - felt so alone trying to sort all this stuff out.

Grabbing my ph00 and heading out to store with a long shopping list for both houses. Be good and have a great day.

Bobby

Mexstan

Bob, you sure have been having it rough lately. Hope things settle down real soon.

Normally when I travel, I am on my own or with my wife. Occasionally I may take a local day trip with some locals, but for the first time went with an organized tour. This was a private tour organized by a person who was on her 21st trip to Chiapas, so knows the ropes very well. We went in a group of 35, mostly women. Being private, it sounds expensive, but in reality was quite cheap. This trip was for 9 days and 8 nights. The person that arranged the trip can do this for any group, even your own. Multiple languages too with advance notice.

Had trouble finding English links to where we went as most sites are in Spanish. The Spanish sites offer more info.

For you boating enthusiasts, the first boat that we were on had dual 120 HP Yamaha's. Most other boats had 60 HP outboards of various brands. One place had lots of all new 60 HP Suzuki's.

One big river we were on was on the border between Mexico and Guatemala, so as we cruised from bank to bank looking at things, technically we were in Guatemala at times. Once we were very close to a high bank with a big crocodile basking in the sun. It did not like our close presence so jumped into the river, so close that it splashed my wife and another women. Both yelled loudly!

cougar

1° will slow down any ones day. If this keeps up we should start seeing some minus signs.

Lary Ellis (Top)

Thanks for the coffee Stan!

Wow who tracked mud all over the floor?

If I didn't know better I would swear someone had been hiking all over a rain forest and river banks, climbing up and down hills and ancient ruins....

Got to run just found out my daughter is in a hospital in California, no clue why and having trouble contacting anyone

j_martin

Stan wouldn't have tracked up the floor like that. He wipes his feet before he gets into his truck.

Somebody left the freezer door open here as well. Put 2 rounds of 12G Hanady SST slugs through the gun last weekend. The cooler I would normally put the meat into before cutting it up was full of apples, so I left the 2 deer hanging in the woodshed. I'm hoping they'll thaw out enough to skin and quarter in the next couple of days, else I'll have to get them into some space I can heat, probably the kitchen.

Speaking of apples, the trees, including 3 that are dying, went nuts this year. We dried about 350-400 lbs. (yummy, like candy) and put over 100 quarts of pie apples in the freezer. The drying ran up my electricity usage about 400 extra KWH last month. The deer have been keeping the wind fall cleaned up, converting it to the above said venison now hanging in the shed. I'm getting too old to chase old bush rack any more, and will settle for a couple of nice does shot from an upstairs bedroom window.

Bobby, prayers for you and yours. Been there with the hospice in the home thing. The professionals really helped a lot. As we look back, we wouldn't change a thing on how we were able to help DW's dad in his last days.

Larry, scary eh. My daughter got royally banged up in an auto accident and we never knew till well after the fact. Sure wish our kids would consider communication a little more than they do. Hope yer daughter's OK. Keep us posted.

Lary Ellis (Top)

Good Morning Folks

Fresh coffee and tons of phoo to help keep BusyBobby going I sure do hope things get easier for him soon. IHOP has graciously agreed to cater the break room today so don't miss out!

John, it is scary when you are 3000 miles away and can't get a straight answer from anyone....thankfully she is OK and will be back slugging away at life as usual in no time

cougar

Called that one, -3°. And that is up from -4°.

FiverBob

Wow, ph00 and IHOP - - just in time for my lunch. Let's see - - Western Omelet with egg whites, dish of fruit - - - oh yeh - - ................................ph00

Yep - - good.

Just got back from sis-in-laws - - Hospice delivered more equipment and a hospital type bed, so had been over to help. Boy, looks like a hospital in there.

Cougar - - really hate to tell you this, but 81 degrees, bright sun, light breeze and friend says fish were biting. Bringing me some this afternoon.

Y'all be good.

Mexstan

Good morning from a slightly chilly Paradise. The rainy season has passed and now the early mornings are cool. That is not a problem because by 10 or 11 a.m. it warms up to the high 20's. That is C and not F. Every day has lovely blue skies. Still need the A/C on in our vehicles. Coug, please keep those really cold temps close to you.

Bob, glad to hear that things look like that they are slowing down for you.

Something from our last trip that may appeal to some of you more adventurous types. One of the places we visited had a long river with many waterfalls. It was a hard, very tiring climb to the top, but gorgeous. This place had a 250 meter long zipline down the river. My wife and others went down, but I did not as I became the assigned pack mule haul assorted jackets, bags etc back to the base. Nice to know that I still am some use in this world. The first photo is a part of some of the waterfalls and the second shows my wife on the way down. The tiny red roof in the distance is the end of the zipline.

cougar

The winds warmed things up a little, 10° above instead of 10° below.
More house hunting today.

j_martin

41° here. Been above freezing for 24 hours or so. Started pulling the hide off' the deer. freezing cold and tough going. Got one pulled down about 8 inches so far. Hope I can feel my fingers again soon and get back to work. gotta get it done today. It's going back into the deep freeze again tomorrow.

BTW, the deer are fatter and heavier furred than usual, and the rut is just starting, later than normal. The animals know. Plan on a long hard winter.

I am going to have a walk in cooler by next year. Enough of this either too warm or too cold to deal with this precious venison.

Mexstan

Hey John, got a quick technical question for you. I managed to stupidly blow one of the two fuses in my multimeter. The book for that meter stipulates a 600 volt 500ma fuse. Why such a high voltage when this fuse appears to be only used on the resistance scale? The only fuses that I can get are 250 volt 500ma. What difference would that make, if any?

FiverBob

Stan - - great pic of the zip line. I have only been on a zip one time - - my wife loves that kind of stuff, so she threatened me if I did not go with her. LOL It was a long one at Lake Tahoe - - went across a ridge so you could not see the end - - quite long. I don't enjoy jumping off cliffs or out of perfectly good airplanes, but I have to admit it was fun once I started breathing again.

Put some ph00 and coffee on but have to run. Stan, things are not slowing down - - just becoming a bit more organized and know what to expect so I can plan my time better.

Me gone............................

j_martin

The fuse is to break the circuit when you goof, like you did. It has to break the max voltage expected without flashing over. A high voltage cartridge fuse will usually have a pretty high pressure inert gas in it to accomplish that.

Other than that, no difference.


Mouser has 600v fuses. I would expect the others (Allied, Digikey, etc would also. they're about $7.50 ea.

Finally got the frozen deer skinned. Took me all day to whittle them off. Meat seems still frozen in the heavy sections and somewhat wet. It'll hover just above freezing all night. We'll see how they look in the morning. I'll have to get them quartered and in a cooler no matter what. Cold front coming through about 9am tomorrow.

The barn cats got pretty interested in the now naked deer. I got them turned onto the hides. (a little skin meat on them) Hopefully that'll keep them occupied till morning.

When I had dogs, I used to have to rig an electric fencer to a hanging deer to ward the dogs off.