Turkey.....as I saw it

First, let me explain why Turkey. I have a cousin that has lived in Turkey for 5 years, when he first went I said I would come and visit him and I meant it. It was time. It was an awesome time. 

He would leave the house at 7:15 am and return around 5 pm from work. I was on my own during the day. Turley is home to many many old old sights, historically sites and Biblical sights, however, the highlights of my trip was the early morning coffees before my cousin would go to work and the long suppers in the evening, just chatting. We have known each other our whole lives and had never spent this much time together, that was the highlight. But you're not interested in that.

Turkey surprised me by being richer, cleaner, more organized, more European, and  more expensive than I thought. Definatly very European, even the Asian side seems very European. The streets are clean, the traffic is organized, the markets are calm, the people are all in stylish clothes, clean shoes, the cars are new, the shops are posh, even the feral cats are clean and well fed. My travel experience comes from Africa, South America and Mexico, aside from a brief side trip to Paris I have never been to Europe, but I imagine it to be like Turkey. I could very well be wrong, and I was only in Istanbul, I did not travel throughout Turkey, this wasn't a site seeing trip, I was there to visit my cousin. I was there to see everyday local life. Here are my observations:

The city of Istanbul takes care of stay cats, the Muslim people love cats, this has something to do with Muhammad, and so the city takes care of all stay cats, they are  everywhere, lazing on stairs, sunning themselves on top of cars, sitting on chairs in restaurants, sleeping in doorways and on window ledges. They are clean, well feed. Randomly people put little cat houses out for them.

Older men (retired I am assuming) sit around in sidewalk cafes and on door stoops drinking tea, not uncommon to see someone hurrying up the street carrying a tray full of little tea cups. The tea cups are all the same, there is no variation in tea cups, they have a tea cup standard and they stick with it. I like that.

Every 300 yards or so I see the Turkish flag, they are a very proud people, you can also see that in their fancy cars, fine clothes and shoes. They don't buy a car unless they can afford a new shiny one, no old junkers on the road here, none. The same goes for clothes,  I did not see a Walmart, no cheap clothes, and no cheap Chinese made plastic junk stores (that  I saw).

20 million people in Istanbul  and it is quiet, no music blaring anywhere, no honking, and no venders with megaphones, no dogs barking at night, just the occasional cat fight, people aren't yelling across the street....the biggest surprise was no music. I can't even tell you what Turkish music is like, didn't hear any.

Smoking seems to be very chic and cool here.I didn't like that.

There is limited space, houses are small, no space for junk and stuff you don't use, no yards, just apartment style homes stacked one on top of another. Perhaps if you get out into the countryside homes are bigger, I'll check that out next time. Why do we have to have so much stuff to be happy, does our stuff make us happier? We have so much stuff therefore our homes are so big, therefore we need more money to pay for all this, therefore we have to work so much harder and longer and therefore don't have time to sit and have tea and a dainty therefore we pull up to a drive in and order a supersized drink and a banana split, therefore we are overweight and unhealthy, therefore our government has to spend more on health care.....I could go on.

They have amazing little sweet dainties to have with tea, I had about 6 everyday, they are only about a cubic inch in size, (or smaller) I like this, we should drink more tea at home in little cups and eat little dainties instead of our massive big mugs and huge plates and bowls of sloppy drippy desserts.

Which brings me to this, no overweight people, seriously, none. Why? Not a lot of junk food stores, people walk lots (if you can't afford a BMW), not a fast food joint on every corner, people are eating real food, drinking tea instead of pop, I did not see pop coolers in shops.....this is the only explanation that I can come up with.

It is a Muslim country so there is the call to prayer 5 times a day. I found it comforting, to me it was a sign that I was in amongst people that worshiped something other than the world, I was not walking amongst heathens and that there was something out there that they revered higher than themselves. Even though I am Christian and worship someone else than them, it was still a comforting sound.

The women dressed in Muslim dress do not appear to be unhappy and they don't seem to resent their way of dress, they seem proud and certainly don't look oppressed, they seem just as free as the non-Muslim women, if anything they look better taken care of than us North American women, and certainly take more pride in how they look. I felt fairly frumpy, dumpy and lumpy there...in Jordan as well.

The food was incredible, eating was far more important to me than site seeing. I ate meat with yogurt smothered in melted butter (you had to be there) I ate all kinds of kabobs, different kinds of meat  balls, all kinds of bread, clotted cream soaked in honey, fried cheese, a Turkish version of a stuffed potatoes, pizza with an amazing crust and of course all kinds of little dainties. I drank yogurt with water and salt (you had to be there ), Turkish coffee (yuck) and lots and lots of tea and some wine.

I discovered that I am a lazy and bad tourist, all the guide books and tours are wasted on me, I prefer to let my eyes be my guide book and my feelings be my guide. I don't have to go inside the Blue Mosque, I saw it from the outside, I ate a pita type sandwich at a place close to it. I don't have to take a tour through the great grand palace, I wandered around the grounds and  admired the pond, the plants, trees and the beautiful view of the Bospherous sea and found a little sweet shop right close to it and sampled sweets there every day. I didn't feel the need to go inside the Cisterns, I was there, but saw a large market close by and got lost in it for about 6 hours and bought some Turkish scarves and a little compact for my daughter and a Istanbul t-shirt for my grandson.  I don't need to see the home of Abraham, but I know where it is now should I ever need to. I did take a boat trip down the Bospherous sea, I love the sea and I like boats, it was nice. They served tea on board.

I discovered that neat, tidy and pretty Turkish Romeo-like men are also wasted on me, I don't want a man that is prettier than me, it seems they would be high maintenance. To make him go away  I agreed to meet him that evening in front of the Blue Mosque, but I didn't show up. I'm sorry I stood you up, you just seemed too desperate to connect with me and you called me "princess".

I've decide that expensive silk Turkish rugs should not be for sale in posh shops, they should line the sidewalks with them so we could all walk barefoot on them and everyone could enjoy them, not just the rich.

I love people that like to eat, my cousin is one of them, I loved to eat with him, we had so much fun eating. We were so good at eating we ended up in the promo photos of a new restaurant for their web site. We are eating professionals, you can hire us to eat in your restaurant, we make it look so fun that everyone else wants to come. We might collaborate and write a book about food. Stay tuned for that.  

I had a Turkish bath, apparently what I have been doing in the bathtub all these years wasn't bathing, I have never actually been clean. Nothing like a heavy handed Turkish women armed with a loufa and some amazing herbal scented soap (more soap than I have ever seen used in a bath in my life), now that's a bath. It was a 6 hour process....now to stay this clean. My skin was so soft I couldn't stop touching myself all day, and I loved sleeping with myself that night.....I smelt so good. If you go to Istanbul have a Turkish bath here. http://kilicalipasahamami.com/  Do it. They sell the soap there that they use, I wanted to buy some but, what do you do when it's all gone? Now you're addicted to it, my cousin would have to schlep boxes soap back and forth for me, so I resisted. 

Turkey was nice, I had a great time, a time I will never forget, but if my cousin wasn't living there I most likely would never go back (maybe for a bath) but as long as he is living there I may be back.

From here I went to Amman Jordan, but I had a 5 hour layover in Egypt,  had planned on taking in a quick tour but after the first 20 minutes in the airport I got spooked and huddled next to a group of Muslim women that were covered from head to toe in black, and wishing I had a black gown and head covering. The Egyptian men were way too aggressive and desperate, and a desperate man is a scary man. I would like to think that I am not easily spooked, or maybe they just got me at a bad time, tired and jet lagged, maybe my spook radar was off. I got 2 very serious marriage proposals within 20 minutes of deplaning. At first I thought it was a joke and there was a candid camera hidden somewhere, but it was no joke and me laughing and turning them down was no joke to them either. I decided not to leave the airport. I don't want to judge all Egypt by what happened in 20 minutes at an airport, however I will not be visiting Egypt alone anytime soon. Sorry Egypt. Next stop, Amman Jordan.....it was a good idea to go there....really good. Love love Jordan. Had a Jordanian sheep Sheppard proposed to me I might have said yes....it was that good. I imaginary bought an imaginary house, if Mexico ever goes away I could live in Jordan. 

Of course I always have friends in high place, my cousin lives at the top of these stairs. 

Apartment style homes that are typical in Istambul

A school, or University, I can't remember. 

Every neighborhood has a mosque

Cat on a hot tin roof

You can take a cruise in any type of boat you wish

Delicious Kabob 

The only big green space that I saw. I will say I did get a little lonesome for green in Istanbul 

Typical homes

Cats everywhere

A posh hotel, ,which there were many

Used to be  the entrance to a castle, there is nothing be hind this now except a busy street. 

breakfast, note the tea cup, all tea is served in this little cup. I now eat cucumbers and tomatoes soaked in olive oil and I have been frying my cheese.....fried cheese is the best

The famous Blue mosque, where I sat on a bench and ate a great pita sandwich that I bought from a vendor

Walking home after taking a ferry across to the Asian side......for supper of  course

A cat  house, a plastic container, what a great idea

So that was a quick tour of Turkey, as I saw it. Stick around, Jordan is next. I flew into Amman and then stayed in Ramtha the rest of the time. It was amazing, so amazing, I loved Jordan.....think I said that already somewhere. 

Where Have I Been?MY

I'm baaack! Oh my it's been so long. I have only one reason for being absent, work. From the time my plane hit the ground in Edmonton to the time it took off again it was all work. Crazy work. So get a cup of tea/coffee/wine whatever you fancy and let me spin you a tale.

I noticed the last month that I was in Mexico last winter that I wasn't feeling right up to snuff, something was off, not off enough to go to a doctor. Sometimes a nagging head ache which I blamed on my swimming goggles (I learned how to swim and boogie board), sometimes just not very energetic, sometimes a fever, sometimes constipated (yeah in Mexico, that's really off) and yet sometimes not. It was cold in Chihuahua, thought maybe I'd caught a flu bug. Day before I left Mexico I was covered in a very fine rash, then I knew something was up, but no time to go see a doctor, I would wait until I got home......this was my big mistake.

It took 2 weeks to get in to see the doctor, by then I had done my own research and had diagnosed myself as having Dengue fever, doctors hate it when you diagnose yourself. During the course of 3 more weeks I had 3 doctors, all of which had to goggle Dengue fever. After a blood test it was confirmed that I did indeed, to their surprise (not mine) have Dengue fever. Now they don't know what to do with me, except monitor my blood to make sure I am not bleeding to death internally. Meanwhile i am working  my ass off breathing life back into a frozen and dead golf course after a brutal winter. Working long hours. Not to bore you with all my whining, let's just say I slowly and quietly suffered for about 4 months, I dragged myself to work and back each day. Everything around me suffered as well, my yard, my beautiful garden, and my house. Here is the surprising part, I didn't care. I didn't care to work in my garden or my greenhouse.

 It was clearly time for a change, a big change, one that I had been thinking of for awhile but just wasn't ready for. I no longer needed a big house, a big yard, a big garden, I need to simplify my life. To hurry this along for you, I bought the prefect little 19 ft holiday trailer (a glamper), I searched online and held out for the prefect one (this took all summer) and it's a beauty, a 1974 Squire, bought from the original owners. It was love at first sight. I sold/donated most of my "stuff", aside from a small chest stored in a friend's shed full of some "worldly treasures" my life now fits into my little 19ft glamper. I am so proud of myself that I managed to do this without buying a shed or rent a storage unit and it was easier than I thought. The more I got rid of the more freeing it felt and the more I wanted to get rid of. I had to totally clean my house which was very cleansing and therapeutic. I learned so much about myself.

I was living in the past, mourning my broken marriage and my child growing up and moving out. I couldn't believe it. I was not mourning my x-husband....gosh no, I was mourning the marriage, I hadn't moved on from being married and having a child to raise to being single, to living alone. I hadn't embraced being single.  Single people don't have a deep freeze full of food, single people don't have 30 jars of salsa or 25 jars of tomatoes sauce or 30 jars of jam in the pantry. They don't have boxes of teddy bears in the shed, or old hockey equipment for a 7 year old. they don't have dishes in the cupboard for 20 people, they don't have 20 containers of pumpkin sauce in the freezer (nobody does) and they don't have a 3 bedroom house with 2 bathroom and a huge "rec room". When I say this was easy I don't mean that I didn't cry, oh I cried buckets of tears as I came across all kinds of treasures. All kinds of tears. Things were dealt with though, dealt with so that I no longer need to hang on to a house full of crap. I Learned that I don't have to hang on to a box of my child's teddy bears, getting rid of them does not mean I am a bad mother, I learned that I don't have to keep living in this house, my child is not coming back to sleep in her old room, I can move, I can leave, and I don't have to hang on to her stuff anymore, stuff that she doesn't even want. Single people do not store other people's stuff, other people store their stuff.

It was a hard summer, it was a summer of tears, nostalgic tears, tears of work frustrations, tears of fear of change, ghost tears of the past, tears of pain from the present, tears of tiredness,  and the cleansing tears of finally letting go, and lets not forget tears of guilt, guilt for not being able to keep up with everything.

And if all that wasn't enough, I also quit my job (gasp), I finished the season and then resigned. I spent 9 years at that golf course, leaving that beautiful place brought a few buckets of tears too. I won't bore you with my reasons for leaving. Member....this space is never to be about work. It was also just time.

So, come spring time I will searching for a new golf course and a place to park my home on wheels. Right now it is safely stored at a friend's farm.  Stick around, life is about to get very very interesting. I am finally really single and totally free. Free of baggage.  So.......I booked a ticket to Turkey and Jordan and Mexico. Yup, that's quite a trip. Stick around and I will tell you all about it.

 But first, I spent some time with my kids. My first grandchild almost makes me cry every time I see him, he is the exact imagine of my daughter at his age. Not only does he look like her, he acts like her, talks like her and this may sound weird, when I touch him or carry him he feels like her, he has her bones structure and carries his weight just like her. My second grandson has her nose and her smile but he is built differently, he will decide who he is and by the looks of him, will beat his own drum and make up his own songs as he goes. These 2 little darlings melt my heart.

So, now, hang on, right after Halloween we're going to Turkey.....I hear they have good food there. 

My new home, everything I own fits in here. 

I did discover paddle boarding, bought a board and had time to put it in the water 3 times, enough to know it will be a new hobby. In looking for a new job and a place to park my new home I will be making sure there is a body of water close to paddle. 

This little man has stolen my heart. 

Did you ever see a cuter face

This guy can't stop smiling, he is adorable like his big brother

Hanging out after a hard summer, relaxing. 

Halloween, this little man shares his grandma"s love of all things green....including John Deeres

Seeing as I will not be back to this golf course I figured it was fitting to add some last golf shots......to us turfies, we call it "golf porn". While this space is never supposed to be about work, a part of my job is who I am.

Stick around, we"re going to Turkey

I call it My Loop Trip

As some of you may know I have family roots in the state of Chihuahua, both my parents and both my grandparents (on both sides of the family) were all born there, I am the first generation born in Canada. My mother's whole family moved to Canada when she was a young girl, so she does not have too many memories of Mexico but my father didn't come to Canada until he was a young man, and he came alone. To this day I still have aunts, uncles and many many cousins still living in the state of Chihuahua, scattered from Cuauhtemoc to Saladas.
This was my 4th visit, once as a child with my parents when I was 8, once with my daughter when she was 11, and once with my daughter and my mother, and now alone.

My loop trip

I have done it a few different ways, I've flown there from Canada and then taken the train from Chihuahua through the Copper Canyons to Los Mochis and then a bus to Mazatlan, or I have flown to Mazatlan and taken a bus to Los mochis and then the train through the canyons to Cuauhtemoc. This trip was always combined with a trip to Mazatlan. This time I took a bus from Mazatlan to Cuauhtemoc and then took the train to Los Mochis and then a bus back to Mazatlan. That has put me on planes, trains, buses, boats and cars this winter.....sounds like a movie.

The bus from Mazatlan to Cuauhtemoc is a 17 hour ride, In Chihuahua city you do a bus switch, this is where I was a dumb ass and missed my bus. Let me splain the bus system to you. When you buy your ticket there is a bus number on the ticket, then you go outside where many many bus lines pull up to drop off people and reload and hit the road (quickly), so you find your bus that has a number that matches your ticket, if your bus is not there yet you ask one of the "bus directors" that are standing around and being ever so helpful. Here is the problem with "ever so helpful". Mexican men take the whole "macho" thing to a whole new level than American men. If you ask them something that they do not know the answer to they will still give you an answer, they will make stuff up, not because they are deceitful or mean or because they get kicks out of sending you on a wild goose chase, they just want to help, seriously....it's really very sweet, they want to help you so bad that they make stuff up, they can't just say "I don't know", this is not a personnel thing it is a cultural thing. For the most part you can get around this by learning how to ask things (different story). So, I let my guard down (14 hours on a bus can do that to you) and messed up. Was told to wait "here" for my bus, when in fact my bus had already left, but I wasn't alone. Another Mexican couple asked the same guy (I overheard this) and they were told to wait "here" as well....see, not personal and confirmation that it wasn't my Spanish that had failed here......that is always a huge probability too.

So what now? Wait 3 hours for the next bus? Not in Mexico, once it was determined that we had been given false information......yes we both tattled on the guy, another bus was pulled out of the parking lot and we got a private bus trip to Cuauhtemoc. Seriously. Not sure if this would have happened if the Mexican couple had not been there as well, but I do know this would never have happened in Canada regardless of why you missed the bus.

The reason for taking the bus up was to see the new road to Durango and the world's highest suspension bridge but as it turned out we passed through in the dark, which I knew, but passing during the day met arriving too early in the morning (or too late at night) for my family to pick me up at the other end. My destination is not Cuauhtemoc but a small town called Rubio. However I did see the bridge because it is lit up nicely, I just didn't get pictures so I stole these off the internet. It is beautiful at night too, well worth the trip. It's like seeing the Eiffel tower at night, it's beautiful during the day but almost magical at night, as is this bridge. Had this been a sightseeing trip I would have made  the trip in 2 or 3 days but it wasn't, I was in a hurry to get there. I had left this trip to the very end of my stay in Mexico and was in a hurry to get back to the Island to spend my last days there. This happens to me very year, once I get settled on the Island I don't want to leave, I want to travel around and see things but I just can't leave. I've stayed too long, become too attached (different story).

The world's highest suspension bridge, It is in the Guinness Book of records

She's a beauty

My cousin picked me up at the bus station in Cuauhtemoc and drove me to Rubio giving us time to catch  up. Oh, the weather.....ugh! Cold, windy, dry dry air.....shockingly dry for me coming from a high humidity area, so dry it burns the nose, makes your skin crinkle and itch and ages you as soon as you cross the Sinaloa-Chihuahua border, your insides dry up too. If feels like everything in your intestines shrivels up and sticks to the sides and won't come out.....you get the picture. Reminded me of Philips Seymour Hoffman's line in Cold Mountain "if they open my gut up right now they would find turds stacked up like little black twigs". ... yeah, enough about that, It's dry. The wind howls and blows, luckily they all built their houses like the smart little pig....of bricks, houses made of sticks would have blown away. I think there are only two crooked tress in Chihuahua that are taller than me (but not wider) this is because the German people have a tendency to clear all the land without leaving a single tree, they work up the land right up to the back of the house, up to the side of the shops, garages, and barns, never leaving even a single row of trees. Unlike in Sinaloa, in Chihuahua they can only have one crop a year because of cold winters, during the winter months the land is worked up, all you can see for miles and miles is black dirt......and then the wind comes. I used to think it was dirty and dusty on Stone Island......not, I will never complain of dust on the Island again.

Now, Imagine a wind blowing through here.....close your eyes

Nothing to stop the wind

Apple orchids 

Land is worked up right to the house, see the mountains in the background, you can't get away from them

How lonely, how cold, how brown.......the mountains are beautiful though, never

It was so cold I wore all my clothes I had brought with me at once, a pair of fleece lined leggings saved my life, and I went out and bought some socks, I came without socks, what was I thinking? My past visits had never been in the winter. When I tell you what the temperature was my Canadian friends will snort and laugh,  but remember no heat in the homes, or in stores or in the restaurants except for little electric or propane powered portable heaters that they are all too cheap for to crank on high, there is just enough heat to keep you alive. The temperature went from a -3C overnight to 16C (that was the high) during the day and a 150mph wind (that's a "feels like" guess).....don't forget, stick dry air, and remember where I had come from, 33C with 90% humidly. You get the idea....carrying on now.

The mountains of Chihuahua have a way of romancing me, they court my heart, they make me feel like I am the star in a movie, and old old movie, it's old, but right away I know I have seen it before, I don't think it's a good movie, I think it's a sad movie, I don't think I would like to watch it never mind be in it, but for some reason I know my lines well making me feel like I am meant to be in it, I fit, I remember it like it like it was filmed yesterday........but I can just feel it, I get drawn in. I know it's not my story but it rouses me when I see the mountains. The story that belongs to my father, most of which he took with him when he passed away, but the mountains stayed behind and since they don't talk I can only wonder what the rest of the story is. ......and I ask my aunts and uncles to tell me stories of how they survived this desert like land and squeezed a decent living out of the dry rocky countryside with their hands. I dig through their old pictures and try to imagine what if.....what if I hadn't been born in Canada, what if I had been born here, am I privileged for having grown up in Canada or did I miss out on something. I feel I missed out. Those mountains always bring these questions.

They pull at me, every time I look up, there they are, pleading with me, telling me I belong here, my roots are here, part of me says I should be here, then I quickly look away, shiver from the wind, squint my eyes to keep the dust out. Never. 

Then later I forget and I am awed once again by the mountains and I imagine myself with a little square plot of land, a little brick house, a little chicken coop and some sheep or goats in a white fence, a little apple orchid, making a living selling eggs, butter, apples, apple pie and knitted mittens, scarves and wool socks, speaking German/Spanish, braiding my hair (that would become dreadlocks), snorting Vaseline up my nose, I can almost see it when I am focused on the those mountains....... thank goodness when I look away I remember it's not my story or my movie.

I cruise around in my aunts car and visit cousins after cousins, I pet calves, cows, little wee kittens, I go from fabric store to fabric store (didn't even buy any), I attend a Spanish/German church, I eat progies & sausage, noodle soup, tacos and beans, pie, and good old fashion German Hones broden. I see cowboys, little boys in overalls, cowboy boots and belt buckles of all sizes and kinds. Lots of the cowboys here wear the cowboy gear, whereas in Sinaloa the cowboys are barefoot or in flip flops (unless they are going dancing) It's more of a "wild west" like look here, the rough terrain and the dress, the vehicles, there seems to be more "attitude" as opposed to the relaxed "ahhh manana, manana" ways of Sinaloa, these people are more driven by making money, no laying in hammocks at 4:00 pm here, not sure I even saw hammocks.

 The farmers are indeed big farmers, not content to just harvest enough to feed themselves, they are after big crops, filling semi trucks after semi trucks of corn. All you see is corn, unlike Sinaloa where we have a variety of crops, everything from tomatoes, chilis, onions, lemons, mangos, papaya, etc, colorful crops. Along with the big farms here you see big farm equipment, nice shiny green farm equipment, and a John Deere dealership on every corner (across from the fabric store) unlike Sinaloa where we see tractors that are held together by twine, string, tape and Gods grace, tractors that were bought from Tio Jose's nephew carlos's wife's brother Rigo.....not from a shiny John Deere dealership. I've never even seen a new farm equipment dealership in Sinaloa. Chihuahua is real farm country,  I even saw hay bales, I have never seen hay bales in Sinaloa.

My mother's family came from Rubio  (right here) which is very very much farm country, and very straight and staunch German, my father's family came from Pedroneles, more ranch like and more Mexican, although they were German, it seemed my grandfather didn't like to go with the flow, he liked things a bit more messier than the straight, manicured, orderly German farm thus not ever really fitting in with his German neighbors so they opted to live in a more Mexican populated area, more ranch like, less orderly, where the chickens aren't penned and the goats run wild, the clothes line hangs low with the sheets brushing against the chicken poop on the ground, the cowboy rides his horse to the front door and walks into the house with his shitty boots. The ranch cowboy drinks beer on Friday night, howls at the moon and dances around a fire, his gun is a show piece, and his shirts have colorful flowers embroidered on the shoulder pieces, and his cowboy boots are pointed. He lives high on the hog when he has money  and lowly when he doesn't.

The farm cowboy has a nice little chicken coop, all animals are fenced in with nice red barns, the clothes line flies high, there is a walk way leading to the house and a porch where you leave your square toed cowboy boots, he has no time for dancing and howling at the moon is just for fools and coyotes, he hides his gun until it is time to slaughter a pig, his plain shirts are freshly ironed under his overhauls. He manages his money so he can live simply all the time. He hides his beer and drinks in secret.(haha, I made that up....maybe)

These two places exist here not far from each other but ever so different, my father came from one and my mother from the other, same...only different. Me....I'm a mix, sometimes I am tore between the 2 worlds. Sometimes I like things orderly and straight and sometimes I like them more mixed up, but, I always howl at the moon (when I'm alone), and I am not hiding a gun or beer, but I would love embroidered flowers on my shirts and I prefer flip flops over cowboys boots.....guess I am not a cowboy at all. Just don't look at the mountains of Chihuahua, turn the other way, south to Sinaloa.

My great grandmothers house, as it stands today, empty, abandoned. A new roof and one could move in. Never

Ready to seed, waiting for spring

2 different worlds can sometimes only be 1 hr and 45 minutes apart

From Cuauhtemoc  I take the train to Los Mochis, I am tired from laying in my bed shivering at nights and am still carrying my little black sticks with me, all in all not feeling overly great, I am thinking I will sleep the whole way, I have taken this same train through the same Copper Canyons 2 times before, I have seen it all, (so I think) I will sleep and when I get to Mochis I will jump on a night bus and head home. Not. Did not sleep a wink, the view from the big windows is amazing all the way. It was very noticeable when we crossed the border to Sinaloa, almost immediately it got greener and more colorful, more tropical, lush and full. Since I didn't sleep I decided against getting on a night bus and got a room in Mochis and had a good warm night's sleep and a relaxing morning with coffee and sunshine and Chilaquiles with beans for breakfast. Oh it was so warm. I never realized how much I love Sinaloa (now that the Chihuahua mountains are out of sight and can't woo me).

Copper Canyons

Canyons

starting to get greener and more trees

but yet still a little too brown for me

 I left my little black sticks behind and got on a bus to go home to Mazatlan. On the 6 hour bus ride through Sinaloa I fell in love over and over and over again. I love Sinaloa. I love that the corn was standing 7 feet tall with the second crop in the next field just starting, I love the rows and rows of tomatoes plants with shiny red tomatoes, I love the chili trucks on the road, loaded to the top, I love the messy ranches, but most of all I like the trees, big bushy trees, everywhere, and the flowers and the colorful houses and the laundry hanging on the ground, the kids running around barefoot, the trees, oh the beautiful trees. Just when I thought I couldn't be more in love with sinaloa.....there it was, behind green field of tomatoes, the ocean, the ocean, the reason I don't have to snort Vaseline anymore, the reason my skin feels younger the reason for the salty taste when I lick my lips, the reason my hair goes wild and will not be tamed. 

And then BAM! Sinaloa, the corn is high

Tomatoes

See the trees in the background

See how the land is not worked up on the right

trees, and water

Soft mountains in the back, and trees

Farmland and mountain

Mountains behind farm land on one side of the road....

The ocean behind farmland on the other side of the road....the best of all worlds

We have mountains in Sinaloa too, they just look softer and aren't so demanding on you (me) as the ones in Chihuahua, they don't try to steal you away, they are what they are, they complete the landscape. They don't have to romance me, I'm already in love with them. Sinaloa be still my heart.

Home.....where the horse run wild. Stone Island

Just to clarify, my mother's family packed up and moved to Canada when she was 8 so she didn;t really grow up in Rubio but she did grow up in a German farm community in Northern Alberta, where the wash line flies high, where there is a walk way leading to the house, a porch where you take your boots............