Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Leaving where I’d been parked I eyed a short street that could get me where I needed to go while shaving a few blocks off the trip. Only problem was it was a one-way. It’s more like an alley than a street, so I whipped down it really quickly and as I got to the end who should appear, turning into the street from the correct direction? Whoops. He stopped in front of me, had me hand over my license, then told me to flip around with him. He wrote up the ticket, told me where to pay, and said I’d get my license back then.

A couple hours later I went up to the office, directly across the street from the cathedral, paid my $22 ticket, and was handed my license back. Easily the most efficient and reasonable ticketing process I’ve encountered in my life. I broke a minor law, received a minor ticket, paid a minor fee, and all was settled. I almost felt good about the whole process.

Ouest started piano lessons, and Za finds the home practice sessions quite nice.

She’s a digger.

Our favorite carnitas place. There’s a few tables on the street, but we like sitting back inside and watching the action.

There are a lot of gated communities around San Miguel, most of which are on the outskirts and cater largely to expat retirees and the Mexican upper class. We’ve never been the gated community/HOA type, and our brief experience with our rental down here was enough to cement that for us. The area around our house is very local. The painting on this house gives a sense of just how local. Fortunately, the family that lives here seem to just love cockfighting, and do not actually raise roosters themselves.

I have seen this bug driving around town a dozen times, and never without the dog. Most of the time there is a human driving.

A bridge underpass has a bunch of local artists’ work. Even the local graffiti taggers seem to respect it. It’s kind of a funny place—it’s not a busy underpass, it just leads off the “highway” nearby and into a neighborhood. Under here there is almost always a car or a motorcycle pulled off to the side to sit in the shade to use the phone, or eat, or wait out a short rain. I like that the city spruced it up so nicely.

I build the shelves, Ali paints them, the dog sleeps on them and gets paint in her ears.

Our favorite tree in the neighborhood. It’s beautiful, bright, and creates a shady canopy that is always enjoyable to walk underneath.

Adjusting the idle and searching for more power.

After just a few lessons, Lowe and I can now play a pretty good match against each other.

Bugs, bugs, everywhere you look there is a bug.

Tacos de Canasta—basket tacos—are such a wonderfully simple food. These tacos are just filled with beans (like a mashed refried bean) and then piled up and steamed in the baskets underneath a bunch of towels. Order the 10 pack combo and he throws in about 13 of them, an egg, some nice spicy salsa, and a liter of agua de jamaica. This guy is popular. I think he moves somewhere different every day, sometimes setting up tables and a canopy, other times just parking on the highway in front of Don Pedros (the big hardware store) like he was this day.

Supporting the kids’ friends who were putting on a, dare I say, pretty solid rendition of Peter Pan.

Our house looks painfully boring compared to so many others around town.

You just have to appreciate the colors of the food.

We’re still hunting down furniture, which in San Miguel means poking around in any shop you see that from the outside looks like it might, just maybe, have some furniture inside. One day we were in a shop that sold ceramics, and hand blown glass stuff, when a table that was piled high with stuff caught our eye. “Is this table for sale.” Of course it is. Later that afternoon it was in our kitchen.

This red storefront housed this collection. We actually bought this piece that’s sitting on top of the blue one.

This cactus “nursery” is tucked on a small slice of land between a road and a rain wash. The land would have appeared useless to me, but someone didn’t think so.

While we procrastinate on our rooftop tank project, I make a weekly run out to the gas drive-thru.

It has rained about three drops in all our time in San Miguel, but we knew the rainy season was coming. The first rain, however, wasn’t a light drizzle. While Ouest was swimming the building’s metal roof was pelted with a deafening hail storm. Fortunately it passed and we were able to make it home dry a little later. We wouldn’t always be so lucky in the days ahead. The rains always come in the evenings, which, of course, is when swimming is.