More beautiful scenery in El Chico National Park near Pachuca, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Mineral del Chico, Hidalgo, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Back to Valle de Bravo at the end of the month.

Saturday, November 8, 2025

Never again!

As long as we own some kind of campervan, there are two things I'll never pay someone to do. The first is to wash it. I have never paid someone to wash my motorhome. If I'm still able to drive it, I'm still able to keep it clean myself!

And the second is an oil change...

Thursday, November 6, 2025

There's a reason the lake is full!

Because we've driven by it before, we knew there was a waterfall that you can see beside the road that leads to Avandaro. We were going into town anyhow, so decided to do a little detour to that waterfall because we had been told of a trail that leads up to another waterfall.

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

There's always something interesting going on

The house we are renting is located at an actual working marina. At this marina, the boats are not kept in the water. The marina stores the boats on land, normally under cover, and when the owner of the boat wants to use his boat, he calls ahead and the marina gets the boat out of storage, cleans it up, and puts it in the water ready for the owner to use when he arrives.

Most boat owners live in the nearby cities of Toluca and Mexico City and come here on weekends. So obviously things are busier around here at that time.

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Where are we headed next week...?

We have been to all 32 states in Mexico, and although we have seen almost all there is to see in Mexico, there are still a few items to cross off the list. As well as a few places that we don't mind returning to!

One of those places is El Chico National Park and the town of Mineral del Chicos.

Monday, November 3, 2025

Life goes on...

Sunday of course is the weekly market in Valle de Bravo, and we did hop on the ATV and go in to town to do some shopping and have some lunch.

But because it was the weekend of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the town was actually pretty quiet and many of the regular market vendors weren't there.

Sunday, November 2, 2025

October Expenses

October was an interesting month from an expenses perspective for several reasons. 

Bottom line... we spent quite a lot of money! 

Saturday, November 1, 2025

It's going to be a nail biter!

We've been busy here, but nothing really worth reporting on. In fact I went two days in a row without taking a single photo. That doesn't happen very often.

We've got our garage area totally cleaned up. It actually looks a little empty with just our ATV in there! But at least visitors who are driving will have a decent parking spot.

Thursday, October 30, 2025

That was a productive morning!

We drove Igor over to the mechanic shop at 8:00am, went over a few things with them, then walked back to the house. They weren't exactly sure how long it would take because I had asked them to check the brakes, but they said to check back with them in a couple of hours.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Took Igor to the mechanic this morning

We got up early this morning because we had to take Igor to the mechanic shop at 8:00am. 

Now, this is Mexico and so things don't always happen the way you think they should. So we wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to arrive at 8:00am and find nobody there.

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Igor is back on the road!

Yesterday's job was to get Igor fired up and see if we could move him out of the mud.

He hadn't been running since we arrived here at the beginning of May. So almost six full months.

Monday, October 27, 2025

Day of the Dead is coming...

We hopped on the ATV and headed into town to do our weekly fruits and veggies shopping at the Sunday market.

When we arrived, we went for a walk to the central plaza and found that they have a big stage set up.

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Now... how do we get it home?

Late morning, we hopped on the ATV and drove in to the big Chedraui super store in Valle. We needed to pick up a few groceries, but we also wanted to have a look at a few washing machines that they had on sale.

There is a washing machine here at the marina, but we always have to ask our host if we can use it, and it really doesn't work the best. So we wanted one of our own.

Saturday, October 25, 2025

Very strange...

The title of yesterday's post was "A lot of packages showing up today!"

And, how many packages showed up? Zero.

Friday, October 24, 2025

A lot of packages showing up today!

We had done some looking around town for beds and bedding, but it ended up there was a lot more selection and better pricing buying through Amazon Mexico. 

So we ended up ordering a bunch of stuff, most of which will be delivered today.

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

A little more work than expected

We were talking this morning and realized that we've been here for two weeks already. But we disagree on how much we've got done. Ruth feels like we haven't done very much, but I think we're doing okay considering it's only been two weeks!

And we're in no real rush. We have no time deadlines other than making sure the spare bedroom is finished for when my sister arrives mid December.