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Well that was a fun surprise! 7:15 AM (6 hours ago)

Sundays are our favorite day here at Valle de Bravo. Why? Because it's market day!


We are located about 6 kms from the center of town. Normally we wouldn't mind walking one way, but the road is busy and much of it has no sidewalk. We've done it once in a past year, but it's really not the best for walking.

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It's going to take some effort to get Igor moved! 12 Oct 6:01 AM (yesterday, 6:01 am)

We've had a lot of rain here since we arrived, but some parts of the neighboring state of Veracruz have been hit really hard. Reports say they got 21" of rain between October 6-9 and there have been landslides and flooding.

The bright side is that our lake is filling up quickly and it might even reach capacity by the end of the month. It hasn't been this full for over four years.

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The water keeps rising! 11 Oct 7:34 AM (2 days ago)

We woke up to a beautiful day yesterday morning. That's normally the way the weather works here during rainy season. It's nice in the morning, then the clouds and showers move in around noon hour. Temperature is about 23C (73F) during the day, and 13C (56F) overnight. 


So, since it was so nice in the morning, we decided we had better tackle the ant problem in our campervan Igor.

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More about our new home... 10 Oct 8:20 AM (3 days ago)

We think this house was built around 2018. But we don't think anybody has lived in it on a consistent basis since then! It was always the owners intention to rent it out on a short term basis, but he never advertised it properly and so the only time it was rented was by word of mouth. So it sat empty most of the time.


And, It was never properly furnished or outfitted for being lived in. We knew we were going to have to spend some money getting it to that point, which is one of the reasons we were able to secure such a good deal.

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Arrived at our new home 9 Oct 6:50 AM (4 days ago)

Our flight from Toronto to Mexico City went well. AeroMexico is well known for its on-time performance, and we departed the gate a minute or two early, and arrived ten minutes early.


As has been every past experience entering Mexico, we were welcomed at immigration with a smile and stamped in with a six month visitors permit. And then we were pulled over by customs for a closer inspection!

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We are off to Mexico! 8 Oct 6:47 AM (5 days ago)

Well, the Blue Jays lost last night, but we get another chance at it again this evening. At this point, part of me wants the Yankees to win again tonight to make it a nail biter do or die back in Toronto for game 5. It would be nice for them to win at home! 


Writing this from the premium lounge at Toronto airport.

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Starting our 19th year 7 Oct 4:49 AM (6 days ago)

It was October 2007 when we closed the sale of our house, moved into our motorhome Sherman, and took off into a different lifestyle traveling Canada, the U.S., and Mexico by RV.


Wow... 18 years ago!

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Two more sleeps 6 Oct 4:56 AM (7 days ago)

Well, anybody who cares already knows that the Toronto Blue Jays have won the first two games of a five game series against the New York Yankees. 


What a great couple of games for Blue Jays fans. Not so much for Yankees fans.

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Friends and family photos 4 Oct 6:59 AM (9 days ago)

We've been doing some more visiting with friends and family during out last week here in Canada.


But first, a little update on my medical problem...

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Go Blue Jays! 3 Oct 6:07 AM (10 days ago)

I'm a big Blue Jays baseball fan. This season, they won their division for the first time since 2015, and had their best regular season win-loss record since their back to back World Series wins in 1992 and 1993.


Last night, the New York Yankees won the wild card series, so Boston is done for the year and the Blue Jays will play a five game series against the Yankees starting tomorrow (Saturday).

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September Expenses... not bad! 2 Oct 5:41 AM (11 days ago)

We had a budget of $1,800 CAD ($1,290 USD) for the month of September, but I knew that was an ambitious target. Sure enough, we exceeded it by quite a bit. 


We ended up spending $2,289 CAD ($1,641 USD) which at first glance seems really good right? But considering we were house sitting for the entire month it's actually higher than we expected.

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What are our winter plans? 1 Oct 5:40 AM (12 days ago)

One week from today, we fly to Mexico!


You can't fly direct to Mexico City from Ottawa, so we have no choice but to connect somewhere. This is where the choices got interesting.

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Ruth's weekend while I was away... 30 Sep 6:13 AM (13 days ago)

So, I took off on Thursday afternoon to spend the weekend away with the boys. Ruth was looking forward to seeing some of the girls she worked with 35 years ago when she was a hair stylist at First Choice Haircutters.


They got together Thursday evening for dinner.

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Update on my condition, and weekend away with the boys... 29 Sep 4:45 AM (14 days ago)

I went away for my annual guys weekend on Thursday afternoon. 


Of course the major concern was my medical condition, but we decided that if I'm going to feel like crap, I might as well feel like crap up at the cottage visiting with my long time friends. So first things first, an update on my progress in that regard...

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No, everything is not entirely okay. 23 Sep 7:26 AM (20 days ago)

Regular readers will know that I had a "medical emergency" on our flight a month ago from London to Barcelona.


I had passed out on that flight, and taken to hospital when we landed. All of my tests were fine, and they didn't tell us that anything positive came back that would have given us any indication as to what caused it. 

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Shopping for a new car 22 Sep 6:00 AM (21 days ago)

In the last post, I had mentioned that I thought my sisters car was going to be a write off, and that turned out to be true.


So now it was time for her to go shopping. The only question was... how much would the insurance give her for her old car?

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Just an update... 16 Sep 5:57 AM (27 days ago)

We've been meeting with friends the last few days. And lots more of that to come over the next three weeks. And yes, it's only three weeks until we fly to Mexico City!


We spent some time with my older sister on Saturday. She was in a car accident on Friday, and I thought I might be able to help a little bit given that I spent twenty years in the collision repair business.

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We know so many people around the world 13 Sep 8:11 AM (last month)

We always come back to the Ottawa area in September. It's definitely the best time of year here in our opinion. The kids are back in school, the weather is still nice, and the bugs are usually gone.


And sure enough, this year has been perfect in that regard. the kids are definitely back in school, the weather has been great, and we haven't seen a mosquito since we got here!

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We've been here for two weeks already! 11 Sep 6:32 AM (last month)

Well, apparently there's not a lot of interest in gold and silver around here! That's okay though... it proves my thesis that we are only in the third inning and not many people are paying attention yet.


We've just been relaxing here at the house for the most part. Ruth is spending a lot of time sorting through and scanning old slide photographs that were her fathers.

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Investing in gold and silver miners 9 Sep 6:32 AM (last month)

As I mentioned yesterday, we have been invested in gold and silver mining stocks for several years. This has paid off substantially, yet I think the really big gains are yet to come.


Studying past bull and bear market cycles in the precious metals shows that we are maybe in the bottom of the third inning... gold and silver have been rising nicely and now outperforming the stock market, but the general public are only just starting to notice. 

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Gold and silver 8 Sep 6:51 AM (last month)

There's sometimes not much to talk about when we're sitting in Ottawa for six weeks. So don't expect daily updates during this time period. 


Also, I'm sure most of you have noticed that there is some kind of glitch occurring with this blog and you're often getting an error message. 

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If it's not fresh, it's free 6 Sep 6:52 AM (last month)

We did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday. It's a fairly stressful thing for us! Even though we know to expect it, we're still getting sticker shock every time we come back to Canada. 


So on Thursday evenings, the local store flyers are issued. Some are done online, but we can still pick up the paper versions down at the mailbox at the corner. Ruth prefers the old style paper one rather than the online one.

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Race Day! 4 Sep 6:29 AM (last month)

One of the things that we had planned for Cameron was to take him to the big indoor go karting track across the river in Quebec. I've known of this place for several years and have always wanted to go myself.


So, we had an early lunch and then headed off across the border.

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Humane society and fishing 3 Sep 5:14 AM (last month)

Monday morning we went and met for coffee with Mary and Blair, a retired Ottawa couple who are now living in their Airstream trailer, however have booked this winter at an Airbnb in Mexico.


They've been reading this blog for a while now, and wanted to meet up. And we like to meet our readers!

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It's a bit frustrating... 1 Sep 5:24 AM (last month)

When we were in Mexico in April, I tried to buy new shock absorbers for Igor. I'm pretty fussy about what brand of shocks I wanted though. There is a Bilstein model that's specifically made for the Econoline E350 chassis, and that's what I wanted.


But I couldn't seem to find them available in Mexico. I even tried to order them in from Amazon U.S., but there was some kind of shipping problem that wouldn't allow them across the border.

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