Ruth, enjoying the view of the lake at Valle de Bravo, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Valle de Bravo, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun on December 17th!

Monday, April 30, 2012

A big hike

There are four different high points surrounding the valley where we are, and we had hiked to the top of three of them. I wanted to get that fourth one in before we left here so yesterday was the day of the big hike!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Another Mexican wedding

Yesterday morning, Barb and Sal were going into town so we hitched a ride with them. Saturday is market day, and that's when we buy our supply of fruits and veggies for the week.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Quitupan and a parade

We relaxed for the morning yesterday and then we hopped in a taxi with Doug and Nancy to go visit the nearby town of Quitupan. We had never been there before so it was a new experience for us all.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Company

Well, we have some company here at Hacienda Contreras! Long time readers Doug and Nancy arrived yesterday afternoon, just in time for happy hour.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Planning

Well, our time in Chicago next month is almost all figured out. It's going to be a busy five days! And our trip overseas in June is coming together as well. There's going to be another month of downtime in between the two, but then it's going to be a busy few months after that!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Interesting stuff

Guatemala, Romania, and Bulgaria. What do these three places have in common? They are all on the list of the 50 cheapest places to live in the world.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Hacked?

First, I have to apologize for the advertising yesterday. Some of you will have seen two posts show up here that were not normal. Some of you even warned that our blog might have been hacked! But it wasn't...it was just us earning some income.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Out exploring!

Yesterday, we went out exploring with Sal and Barb. We hopped in their pickup truck and went for a drive. There's still a few areas around here that even they haven't been to, so it was new for them as well. (And finally, some pictures!)

St. Lucia

This looks like a great place in St. Lucia.

Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands seems like it could be an interesting place to visit.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

A whole bunch of stuff

Sometimes we have to think of things to talk about, especially when we're not traveling. But not today!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Looking back

Funny thing happened yesterday to some of our readers. Anybody who has been following by Google Reader saw an update from us that said "Mission, BC". This update was from November 29, 2007!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Mexican politics and a house for sale

Okay, so not very interesting travel topics. But with a general Federal election coming up on July 1st, there is a lot of political activity going on in Mexico, and last night we attended a political dinner with Barb and Sal.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

England, the dentist, and a new blog format

Not at the same time though. Three different stories actually! We had some news regarding our trip to England in June, and Ruth went to the dentist yesterday. And you might have noticed the new blog format. First, the dentist story.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Australia

Thought I'd tell you why we want to win a trip to Australia. There are several reasons.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

"Budget" travel

What does that term mean exactly? Surfing the internet the other day looking at travel sites and I came across a website for the Budget Travel magazine. Hmph, I thought, this might be an interesting site.

Monday, April 16, 2012

The animals at Hacienda Contreras

We enjoy the fact that there are some animals here at Hacienda Contreras. We call it the Hacienda Contreras Zoo!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Past travels

We think we've done a fair bit of traveling in our lives, but we really haven't been to that many different countries. In fact, I think we've only been to ten countries! That's gonna have to change!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Things are coming together!

Received some exciting news regarding our trip to Chicago! We have been issued media press passes that allow us entry to all of Chicago's famous and popular attractions in order for us to tell you all about them. The City of Chicago is welcoming Kevin and Ruth with open arms!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Ruth's highlights of our past six months (Part 2)

Okay, it's on to Part 2 of our past six months in Mexico.  We explored many new places as well as a few of our favourites.  It is really hard to pick some of these as we have so many wonderful experiences but we don't want this to go on forever for you so I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Earthquake!

Our facebook followers already know that we felt an earthquake yesterday. There was a 6.4 earthquake (originally reported as 7.0) about 200 kms south of here late yesterday afternoon.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ruth's highlights of our past six months (Part 1)

Well Kevin did his reflection of our time in Mexico, now I going to do my version of some of our favourite highlights.  Be prepared there are just a FEW pictures!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Oil change

You know things are slow when the most exciting topic of the day is Sherman's oil change! I last changed the oil towards the end of September while in Texas, about 6,000 kms (3,700 miles) ago.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Couchsurfing

Some of you have had questions or comments regarding the couchsurfing program we have used recently to stay with local hosts in Mexico City and Las Vegas.

Here's an interesting article published in this months "New Yorker" magazine online....

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/16/120416fa_fact_marx

Reflecting on the past six months

We had a GREAT winter! Of course it didn't start off so well with the death of our faithful traveling companion, Whiskey. That was definitely not a highlight. But the rest of the winter went according to plan.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Food budget

We went and did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday and we posted on facebook that we spent $22.68. It actually turned out to be $23.28 because I forgot about some celery that we bought at a different store! Anyhow, readers Roxanne and Susan seemed like they want a little more detail.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

What have we been up to?

Not much, which is why for the next month or so we will be profiling some of our favorite pictures over the last 4 1/2 years. Every day will see a new picture from the past as the header.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Entering contests

Have you ever won anything worthwhile? We did once, back in 1999. A long weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Vote for us...

Entered a travel contest. Gonna be tough to catch up to the guy who already has 2,000 votes, but you've gotta try, right?

Planning for Chicago!

Our next trip is to Chicago. We fly there from Guadalajara on May 7 for a three to four night stay. I was looking at some different attractions and was hoping to get opinions from anybody who has been there.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

They don't make it easy!

So I tried to install the web famous Facebook "like" button here yesterday. Turns out it's not a simple matter. I managed to get it installed so that it showed up at the end of every post, but I don't want people to be able to like the post, I want people to be able to like Travel with Kevin and Ruth, if they so choose.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Blog changes

I'm going to make some changes to the blog. First thing gone is the Blogger "Followers" button on the right side. For whatever reason, this button and the followers weren't showing up anyhow. A Blogger "glitch" and despite trying to figure out why it wasn't there, I couldn't fix it. So it's gone.

Monday, April 2, 2012

March expenses

March turned out to be the most expensive month of our six months in Mexico, but that was expected due to our one week in Mexico City, and our one week in Las Vegas. Total expenses came to $1,881.08 for March, but $797.60 of that was travel related in order to actually get to those two destinations.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

A fiesta...again!

Yesterday morning, Barb was going into town so we hopped in for the ride. Saturday is market day and we needed to stock up on fruits and veggies for the week. We went to the market and walked the 30 minutes or so back to the campground.