Another manic Monday in San Felipe and this weekend just flew by.  What gorgeous weather the we had the entire weekend and my laptop is working like a gem as well as my Internet, so life is sweet.  We did have a lot of people in town and if you missed the full moon this weekend, oh what a sight.  Tony’s written an update to the Late Breaking News on the main site, and you can read that here.  Kat’s Gallery #1 has been viewed 119741 times and I’m not sure if I told you, but I posted some photos of flowers I took in Lake Chelan of gorgeous roses and other flowers on Gallery #2.

So sorry – pero no tengo la culpa. (It’s not my fault).  Can’t seem to keep a connection but I managed to upload this album from the event at Rumors Friday evening, which was a blast – and I will post more (mañana) as soon as Carlos Slim is through having brunch with Bill Gates and now Apple boy the “Woz” meanwhile my machine made by Apple starts acting up possibly with software engineered by Bill but life goes on and whether it’s a network, server or electrical problem.  We live in paradise – tomorrow is another day.  Happy Sunday.  Enjoy the photos. I’ve allowed downloading of one or all to share, however, if you’re putting them on a site, photo credit would be appreciated but not mandatory. Click here, por favor and as always, you can make the design how you want to view them photo by photo or in a slide show – how big the photos are on your screen and what color background.  All the tools are at the bottom right of the window.

11:45 p.m. We’re staying at the John Jay Inn & Suites on the third floor and it just felt like a truck hit the building.  It was short and sweet, but an earthquake just the same.  I’m sure you’ll hear about it tomorrow, but I did call the front desk to make sure the building was safe and sound and she assured me it was.  It must have been a strong one to jolt the building like it did, because afterward, the desk where my laptop and I were just having a reunion started to shake.  Briefly, I just want to share with you my first reaction – grab the laptop and your purse and split.  I didn’t, of course, but how lame.  If you’re ever in a situation where you have to evacuate, leave everything.  Your life is more important than “things”. Tomorrow, the high up here will be 105 F as opposed to 108 F! Can’t wait to get home and see my dogs.

Good morning San Felipe.  Luis, my webmaster, made the header above, which you’ll see before each posting on my column.  I understand things are a bit slow down San Felipe way.  So slow, tourist wise, that you could actually get a parking place in front of the bank downtown.  Let’s hope things pick up over the 4th of July holiday weekend.  What I have found very interesting this trip is the amount of people who do not realize that San Felipe is not involved in any of the violence that’s been reported throughout Mexico.  When I’ve told people I live in Mexico, they are shocked and ask me “aren’t you afraid” and of course, I go through my spiel of exactly where we are located (on the Sea of Cortez, 128 miles from the border) and pass out my card for them to look and see for themselves.  We need a campaign in San Felipe to get our tourism back; our spring breakers and snowbirds.  I know I harp on this quite a bit, but it’s very important for our survival to get the word out to people who otherwise would come down, they will be safe.  I also think if all the residents who leave for the summer told their friends that it’s not all of Mexico and certainly not San Felipe that is having problems, it may help.  I am so afraid for our little village by the sea and not because I have a business downtown.  I’ve lived there for almost 16 years and I’ve seen the ups and downs in our tourism and our economy.  But I have never seen it this bad, and quite frankly (tourism wise), through no fault of our own.  I suppose hearing it first hand from so many people, really hit home.  We got a bum rap!! Maybe if we decorated a small motor home and drove around the United States showing slide shows of San Felipe and short testimonies of retired folks who live there, it would help alleviate some fears and get some folks to drive on down.  I’ll put it on my list of things to do.  This is a photo of Lake Chelan yesterday morning and it was a beautiful day (weather wise) when we took Turtle down to the river to get his feet wet.  Photo by Kat.