Making Soda at Appalachian Brewing Company, Part 2

After
learning how the Appalachian Brewing Company in Mechanicsburg makes its
delectable soda (see Part 1), Bob and I had the opportunity to make a couple of
bottles ourselves!

Making Soda at Appalachian Brewing Company

Road Trip to Mexico City, Day 2

Kaylee loved hanging out in Bob's messy suitcase in the Wyndham Super 8 in Athens, TN this morning.

She also enjoyed sleeping with us in the comfy king-sized bed. Today we head out toward New Orleans!

On the Road Again!

After 7 ½ months back in the States, we are back on the road again – this time, bound for Mexico City!

We left Bob’s mother’s house in Mechanicsburg around 8 this morning, with a considerably lighter load than the last trip to Mexico: no Gavin, no Gavin’s luggage, no Ellie the adventure cat, and no bari sax. They have all migrated to Burlington, VT, where Gavin is in their freshman year studying filmmaking. We were also able to leave a few things at Bob’s mother Jane’s house. She passed away three weeks ago, and we will be returning in the summer to fix up the condo and sell it.

Bob and the cats are ready to go!

But till then, we are getting on with our life! And that means driving south.  First stop, Athens, Tennessee, tonight! We are staying at a clean, cheap Motel 8 that accepts cats with no fee and has a number of dining options within walking distance, plus about eight cheap gas stations.

The newest addition to our dashboard menagerie,
an African wild dog that Aryk gave Bob for Christmas. 
(He needs a name)

Tomorrow we will hit the road again by 7:30 or 8 Am and drive to New Orleans, where we’ll spend two nights. Then we’ll spend two nights in San Antonio to break up the 40-hour trip.

If all goes according to plan, we'll cross the Mexican border at Laredo, TX, spend a night at the Midway Inn in Matehuala, México, and arrive in Mexico City on Feb. 2, hopefully in plenty of time to find a bar with the Super Bowl on TV. 

Hasta luego!

Exibicion de Nacimiento (Nativity Show) in Leon

We stumbled upon an exhibition of Nativity Scenes from around the world on our first day exploring the central Mexican city of Leon. Enjoy the show!

 

We Have Booked Our Mexico City Lodging!

We have booked a wonderful penthouse apartment just a couple of blocks from Chapultepec Park in Mexico City for our 2 1/2 month stay this winter and early spring.

We have done a bit of research into Mexico City, talking with friends who have lived here or visited, and reading books and perusing online resources, to determine which were the safest and most fun neighborhoods to live in -- Polanco, Juarez, Roma Norte and Condesa among them. We knew we wanted to live near a park for running, near public transit, and within walking distance of restaurants and other amenities.

This apartment in Juarez was on sale for half-price because it was a new listing on Airbnb, so we are getting a big place in a great location for pauper's prices. It’s also a new apartment, and newly furnished, and the landlord says most of the other apartments in the building are not yet occupied. It has two bedrooms with large closets, a little room with a bar, a full kitchen/dining/living area, a patio, and even a roof garden, where the landlord, Eduardo encourages us to practice our instruments. He doesn't normally allow cats but is making an exception after I begged. (I think he thought it was worth it for the income.) This is the unit:

Kitchen/Dining

Living Room

Outdoor space

This location is perfect for us because it’s just a couple of blocks from Chapultepec Park, one of the largest city parks in Latin America. This park is more than twice as big as New York’s Central Park, with a zoo, seven museums, live music, and of course great running (which we missed in Tlaquepaque). There’s even a lake where I can kayak!  

One of the lakes at Chapultepec Park (Source: Pixabay)

The apartment is a couple of blocks from Paseo de laReforma,  a wide, tree-lined avenue that runs across the heart of Mexico City. We’ll be able to run down it to the city's historic district. It’s also about three blocks from Calle Chapultepec, another popular avenue with lots of restaurants and nightlife that starts at the park by the same name.

Paeo de la Reforma (Source: Fortepan — ID 73834: Adományozó/Donor: Romák Éva)

There are several close subway stations, which is good, because we will park our truck in a secure parking spot when we arrive and not use it again until we leave.

We are confident this is an apartment where we – and the cats – will be able to spend a safe, happy two and a half months in Mexico City.

By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt

León, Mexico: El Centro Histórico

Rather than sitting in long lines at gas stations, we turned left and drove to León, where we discovered an exciting city we had never heard of before! On Day 1, we visited the historic center, el Centro Historico. We saw churches, plazas, even bullfighters, and heard some truly indescribable music!

Check out the video on our Messy Suitcase YouTube Channel.

Back in the Saddle Again

It’s hard to believe it has been seven months since we left Mexico. A brief summer interlude in Vermont getting one of our vacation homes ready to sell and settling our youngest child, Gavin, into Champlain College in Burlington turned into a much longer stretch in the USA when Bob’s mother, Jane, called us in August to say she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

So after spending three months painting a house, tiling a kitchen, planting two gardens, refinishing a wooden floor, staining two decks, replacing multiple windows, and doing more tasks than I care to remember on both houses – punctuated, thank God, by a couple of long weekends in Montreal and Burlington and a lot of visits to local craft breweries – we moved into Jane’s house in Mechanicsburg, PA, in October to care for her in her last months.

Nanowrimo winner's certificate

While living here, Lisa signed up for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) in November and wrote a long-postponed book, and Bob threw himself into editing of his many videos from our time in Mexico and started populating the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel. We both have spent countless hours studying Spanish and playing our instruments (Bob saxophone, Lisa guitar). We spent 9 days in Cancun in November, during a period when Jane was doing better and we needed a break.

We also had a chance to spent time with some of Lisa’s family members around the holidays, and got to know Jane’s neighbors in her over-55 community. As her health deteriorated, we became close to her regular visitors from Homeland Hospice, who became our family’s lifeline: her CNA (certified nursing assistant) Sherry, who came every day to bathe and dress here; her hospice nurse Hannah, who came weekly; and our social worker Pam, who supported us in too many ways to count.

Meanwhile, we bathed Jane and dressed her and fed her and loved her. We watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with her. The kids came home for Christmas break and got to spend time with their grandmother. Bob’s sister Beth came to visit regularly. We celebrated New Year's Eve in her bedroom.

Jane celebrating New Year's Eve
 with champagne and shrimp

And on Jan. 7, 2020, at the age of 89, Jane Greenawalt left us.

Now the funeral is over, the spawn are back in school, and we are officially empty nesters. Although Jane’s stuff needs to be sorted and dispersed, and her condo needs to be fixed up and put on the market, we are deferring that till the summer.

It’s time for us to get back to our lives, at least for a while. So we are planning to return to Mexico later this month and spend the rest of winter and half of spring there. We’ll return in late April, before Gavin’s school lets out for the summer.

This time we are headed for Mexico City! We are excited at the prospect of living in a big city, after spending the summer in rural Vermont and the fall in this Harrisburg suburb. We are currently deciding between several condos in a safe neighborhood – Condesa, Roma Norte or Polanco – near a huge park (a requirement for us as runners). We are also looking at language schools, because we plan to study Spanish every day, at least for the first month, the way we did in Tlaquepaque last year. It will only be for two hours a day this time, because Lisa is editing her book and we want time to enjoy the city.

We’ll keep you posted as things develop! Right now the plan is to leave Jan. 28 and drive our trusty Toyota Tacoma (with two cats on board; the third now lives with Gavin at school) slowly south, stopping in Cincinnati, Memphis and Austin on the way so we can see some friends and take some breaks from the road. We should arrive in CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico, Spanish for Mexico City) on Super Bowl Sunday. Wish us luck! Hasta luego!