Playa del Carman

arrived in playa yesterday afternoon after a super drive from chetmal. saw how they make super freeways with white crushed sand, gravel, pavement, and many workers without hard hats

got lucky on the hotel room. staying in same hotel as last year ...copa cobana..we have the best room in the place. we have an ocean view, watch sunrise in the morning from the bed, windows on both sides so the ocean breeze blows through. big living room, kitchen, bar stools and a bar, balcony. it was 2 hotel rooms that they made into one suite.

we went swimming, shopping at wal mart, moved the stuff into the room, watched the tourists strolling down 5th avenue. we are the white ones here...van parked a block away, and owner of the hotel says it is safe.

hot during the day now....winter clothes in storage and van is resting.

Russ and Chrisy are looking for names for the new kid on the block. peter was thinking of Walter Martin and then we an call him Walmart.

we are hitting the beach now.............adios amigos

ardell and peter

Villahermosa

Just to let you know we are still alive and loving it in Mexico. We are at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico...that sounds wrong...at the South of the Gulf. Passed through interesting farm land today...oranges, pineapples, sugar cane, aguave. Highways are better than Saskatchewan´s. Toll roads are the best, smooth, 110kph, little traffic.

Had lunch on a beach today by Vera Cruz. Water very cold, not warm enough for swimming. Weather great, finally.
We had terrible weather everywhere we went untill today. Ice storms in Texas and San Antonio where they closed the schools for 2 days, and a bunch of businesses too. We drove through it since it was normal winter driving conditions for us. They use de-icer on the trucks in San Antonio and they ran out of it, so they closed some of the turnpike ramps.

Used a GPS for the trip and it is absolutely the best invention for a motorist since fuel injection. You simply can´t get lost. In Canada and the USA, that is. In Mexico it is some help, but the maps on this Garmin GPS are not current nor complete. We spent over an hour lost in Tampico. Met some Texans that night and they had the same experience. So avoid Tampico if you ever drive down here.

Staying in luxury tonight, Holiday Inn, to make up for last night where we stayed in a place on the highway that lost power sometime in the night. Good thing Ardell packed some candles and the wind-up flashlight. We left in the dark, and I almost ran over a guy on a bicycle. I could imagine his conversation that morning, ¨"Honey, where is my hiway colored coat? I´m going for a ride on my black bicycle that doesn´t have any lights or reflectors""

Seems this email account was made inactive so we couldn´t receive email. Dunno why. It should be OK to use now. If you sent me anything in the last week, we didn´t receive it.

Still laughing and having a good time.

Peter and Ardell