Bird hunting.

Last year we had only been here a few days when “The Amazing Race” was held for the teens in town. Ouest and Lowe joined together, were teamed up with two other kids, and they took third place. This year they made the mistake of splitting up.

Ali and I volunteered to manage one of the challenges and were given the Cup Tower. Build a solo cup tower taller than your tallest team member. Simple. I gave it a shot before the kids showed up.

But quickly realized it was way easier if built against the wall. Would the kids figure out the trick?

Ouest’s team arrived first and immediately nailed it.

There was then about a three hour gap between teams. We started to reconsider our volunteering. Because of our location on the race map all the other teams put off our challenge until the end, and began piling in right near the finish time. The kids all seemed to have a great time. However, there would be no first place finishers in our family, and the prize of horseback riding would go to someone else.

My Wanderer business partner arrived and had his camera glued to his face for a week. This town invites that sort of behavior.

A molcajete built for four.

Walking down Salida Real a Queratero  at night is nice, as each cross street drops down into a pretty view.

It’s always fun having visitors who aren’t well-seasoned Mexican tourists. Eyes, smiles and appetites seem to just get bigger and bigger as their visit goes on. Makes us realize what a great place San Miguel is.

I stepped outside late this night and noticed all sorts of planets lined up near the moon. I looked it up later and discovered there had been a planetary parade that night. Nice that even in the middle of town the sky is still dark enough to see this stuff.

We went out to the nearby town of Atotonilco. It’s just a small village with a Sunday market stretching down its one street for a couple of blocks. The market itself wouldn’t be anything to get too excited over if not for the heavenly experience of my favorite gordita stand. The church itself is pretty spectacular, too.

We loved the giant smile on this man’s face. You could see that he was absolutely thrilled to be standing in this spot.

Restoration work is always happening when we visit.

Essentially, “Hey Buddy, you have to water it in order for the seed to grow.”

Picking Ouest up at this nearby park entrance there is almost always this VW bus parked there. My powers of observation must be failing me, because it wasn’t until looking at this picture this time (I’ve taken many pics of this bus) that I noticed the “Photo-Tip” piggy bank on the front. I’ll get it next time. The owner must love the surprise of finding coins jangling around in there.

No tip jar, but a nice bug.