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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Short trip to the US

19 October 2007
San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

We made a quick trip across the border this past week to pick up some things we'd ordered for the boat and to do some US style shopping. This time we went to Tucson where we stayed with friends, Alain and Mary of S/V Blue Moon. They have a lovely desert home complete with javalinas and quail, and we were treated to delicious meals made with exotic ingredients such as whole wheat fettucine, fresh basil from their garden, and romaine lettuce - not things you find every day in Mexico, especially not in BLA!

They invited us to bring Ziggy along which, in spite of my misgivings, turned out very well. In fact John and I both felt that he was better behaved on the trip than he is at home, perhaps because it was all a new experience for him. He was very quiet in the truck, mostly sleeping the whole way. We put him in his soft carrier to cross the border and he didn't make a peep. Technically he's still an illegal alien because he hasn't had all his shots yet, but the border guard missed him since the carrier looks like luggage.

We discovered that Ziggy isn't much of a shopper when we took him (in his carrier) into Pet Smart. He didn't care which toys we picked out or what kind of food we got, he just wanted back in the truck. He loved staying in our big room at Alain and Mary's - his tail went up like a flag as he explored foreign territory. We put him on his new leash and harness and he had a ball outside, but it was time to leave after he tried climbing a prickly pear cactus (only two spines in his right paw).

When we got back to San Carlos John made several trips by dinghy to transfer all our new purchases to the boat. It seemed like an impossible task but it only took us about a day to stow everything. We went through and cleaned out the major storage bins to make room for everything, and managed to find a few things that could be sold or tossed.

Yesterday we bit the bullet and took Ziggy to the vet for the "big event." He's only about four months old, but most shelters nowadays do it at even younger ages. We dropped him off and went back to pick him up after a couple of hours. It's a good thing he was still pretty out of it because it was a windy, wet, and bouncy dinghy ride back to the boat (of course today it's nice and calm). We tried keeping him in his new carrier (one of the hard, airline kinds) but he wouldn't fall asleep and seemed agitated so we let him out and took watches, mostly to make sure he didn't jump up or fall down since he still didn't have full use of his hind legs. He's back to normal today, and even goes in his carrier for naps (with the door off).

We are now waiting for Kiko and some forecasted northers to pass before making the long passage to Mazatlan. We should be leaving San Carlos sometime by the end of this coming week assuming nothing else comes up.

Linda and John