Mexico RV Caravan Travel Day - Valle de Juarez to Uruapan, Michoacan

We were on the road yesterday at our planned 8:00am start time.

Our original schedule called for us to spend a night at Lago de Camécuaro National Park on the way to Uruapan, but because we took an extra couple of days to fix Garth's oil cooler line, we decided to make the park a lunch stop instead to make up one of those days and then head directly to Uruapan.

The first part of our drive began on what is arguably the worst stretch of highway in Mexico!

Time to hit the road!

Sunday morning, most of us decided to go to La Cocinita for breakfast. It's a popular spot and we've been here for two weeks now and still hadn't made it over there.

We arrived at about 9:00am to find that a large group had taken over most of the tables. Still, half of us managed to get seated and served, while the other half had to wait another 45 minutes or so.

But it didn't matter. After all, we have lots of time!

Market day, bike ride, and steak for dinner!

Saturday is market day here in Valle de Juarez, so we walked into town at 9:30am to do our weekly grocery shopping. We think it's fun stopping at the wide variety of stalls and shops to do our groceries.

There is one larger grocery store here, but almost everything is available if you know where to go to find the smaller shops.

Nice to take a relax day every now and again

With an unexpected three additional days here at Valle de Juarez, yesterday turned into a mostly relax day. It was supposed to be a travel day, but we have now put that off until Monday. Nobody in the group seems to mind, and that's the whole idea... a relaxing trip with lots of flexibility.

I did get a few things done though. About a year ago we had bought a new shoe hanger thing that was designed to go over the back of a door. But we cut it into sections and then attach them to the bed frame. Just for another use of space in the motorhome.

Time ran out!

Ruth and I like to play Yahtzee and Backgammon. In fact, we play those games almost every day. It's become kind of a habit when we are traveling in the motorhome to play a game or three of backgammon before happy hour. And we play Yahtzee while we eat supper!

A few years ago, we started keeping track of our scores on an annual basis. Are you ready for the final scores of 2019?

Kicking off the New Year with a 20 km hike!

But before we get to that, make sure you check out our December and 2019 full year expense report, published only yesterday evening.

And next, we have to back up a little to New Year's Eve! In the morning, Ruth went with the group over to "the castle"... an event center located nearby that has some interesting things to see. Late afternoon, we had wine and cheese happy hour, and then an evening campfire to ring in the new year.

December Expenses and 2019 Expense Review

December was a bit higher than expected. Seems we are having a lot of those kind of months lately. Still, at $2,175 CAD ($1,680 USD), we saw an awfully lot of neat things during the month! Plus, a big chunk of that was gas for the motorhome.

But, we finished the month with pretty much a full tank of gas and the liquor cabinet is full and so is the fridge. So maybe it wasn't such a bad month after all.

2019 Year in Review, and 2020 Preview

Wow, what a year we had!

We were on 21 different airplanes and we were in 7 different countries... bringing our total countries visited to 38.

We began 2019 in Mexico leading an RV Caravan group. We were with them for the months of January, February, and March.

Whiskey's tree, and Mazamitla for lunch

Yesterday was a bit of a cool, overcast day with a high of only 17C (63F). Things look back to normal today though with sunshine and 22C (72F) in the forecast.

In the morning, a bunch of us walked over to the old Hacienda Contreras campground. It's only just down the road from where we are staying now. We spent a lot of time there between our first visit in March of 2009, and our last stay there in March 2016.

Market day in Valle de Juarez

Saturday is market day here in Valle de Juarez, so around 9:00am yesterday we all headed into town. We were still early enough that some stalls weren't yet finished setting up... but they were quite happy to sell to you anyhow. Besides, we wanted the best selection of fruits and veggies, which is why we were going in the first place.

I've mentioned this before... market stalls in Canada and the U.S. tend to be overpriced artsy fartsy "organic" events. But here in Mexico, the local weekly market is where you go to get the best produce, and at the best prices.