Shopping in the USA

[Bethers]

Jean told you before I'll be doing a post about dos and don'ts for Baja (most will probably be true for mainland MX also). But without going into that - you know we loved MX and we both are planning to go back and spend longer next winter. But... but ... but... there are somethings that you can't wait for home. And, yes, we went to Walmart in 2 cities on the Baja - but hitting Walmart in the US - oh, it was heaven, ... singing this now... We also went to Sam's Club and bought some things we could then split. Split a bag of apples, there was an extra apple. Etc etc - so now Jean has the extras and we have a new game we just learned called Greed which we will play to hand out the extras.

My fridge is full to overfull - will have the crockpot going tomorrow. Stopped at a farmstand and got big, luscious strawberries and just ate all of them. My cabinets are again close to full - and I'm exhausted. Shopping and moving home - hopefully tomorrow I'll be up to updating the blog to finish with MX and get it back in the USA, too.

[Sparkle]

I had a problem with food in Baja. I never want to see another Fish or Shrimp Taco. Corn tortillas are fine when they are crisp, but they deep fried the fish and wrapped it in a soft corn tortilla, Yuck! Most of the chicken dishes served were dark meat. The quality of the restaurant meals was hit or miss. We did have a few good meals, but in one really nice restaurant I was enjoying chicken enchiladas until I took one more bite and it tasted like a mouthful of mold. The waitress didn't speak a word of English so I couldn't complain. There were many bakeries, but the pastries are very dry and not sweet. Anything made with pineapple was usually edible. Trying to cook at home was difficult, there was always one ingredient I couldn't find. Next time we will stock up on basics. Not once was anything taken from us as we went through border checkpoints and Federale crossings. Except for when we crossed into the US and they took my dog food. He was nice enough to leave me two scoops until I could get to a store. Oh, in the "Why me?" department. At a Federale crossing this yound guy was poking around my rig and asked if I had any beer? I said no. He then asked if I had Tequilla. I said yes, I had an opened bottle. He poked around a little and then said Tequilla? I pointed to the cabinet. He opened it and took out the bottle, hugged it and said with a big smile, for me? What could I say? Beth says I should have said no, but I told her I was afraid they would strip search me, but she said no, they would have insisted I keep the bottle rather than that.

[asirimarco]

Had to laugh at the mention of fish tacos - neither Bill nor I eat much in the way of sea food - I'm allergic and he just doesn't like it - especially shrimp, oysters - anything with shells - so we were kind of out of luck at a lot of restaurants along the coast. Usually end up eating deep fried fish filet. You cannot get a decent steak in any place but a very big city. Even then it is iffy - The walmarts on the main land have more of a selection then those in Baja. But still lots of things you can't get. Much to my surprise in Ajijic I found Salad Sprinkles - but most of that town is norteamericano -
I've been trying to find a new battery for my camera - can't find one even here and this is the 2nd biggest city in Mexico. One of the ones I have doesn't want to hold a charge any more.
About the tequila - sometimes it is just better to go with the flow.......
So far this year we haven't had any encounters with the Federales or the local police.
Love to hear more of your adventures.

[Sparkle]

Speaking of Tequilla. We had the worst Margaritas ever when we were in Baja. We gave up on them and drank Bloody Mary's instead. We did love the venders that came around the campsites. One guy in particular was a charmer. He's come around calling out "almost free! non profit organization!" Then when a caravan came in he called out "fresh meat". The venders we bought from got to know our rigs and what we bought. The veggie guy knew he always had a sale with us. Beth stocked up on these pizza things she liked from the bread lady.