With Pat out of town, I've been trying to leave work at 4:30 this week, to get home and walk the Mdog before dark and have a brief nap before whatever else I need to do for the evening. This afternoon the training dragged on until 5:00 as I watched a great sunset develop then fade away outside the classroom window. It really agitated me - seeing that I was missing the sunset, the dog walk, probably the nap. I really wonder if it's worth it. The less time I have remaining on the planet, the more things like this matter.

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Jonna seated on her 'front porch', with a map of her travels visible behind her, on the right.

Two and a half years ago, I went up to see an RV encampment in Cheyenne, and meet a guy who's blog I had read about his life post-retirement roaming about without a permanent fixed residence. He introduced me to two very independent and adventurous women from the Bay Area who had also shifted from a fixed address to life in a large comfortable RV which had allowed them to travel extensively in the US and Mexico. During this visit, and again later in Wyoming where they stayed at a reservoir near the ranch, we chatted about Mexico, and our interest in Merida especially. A year later, they were in Merida and bought a hundred-year-old house to renovate. Since then, I have been watching their project through Jonna's blog, and absorbing their take on life in Merida in general as their house evolved and neared completion.

When Patrick went down there this week, I emailed Jonna and she graciously invited Patrick to contact her to see if there was an opportunity to hang out and see the house. This happened, and Pat had an opportunity to see the house almost ready to move in, and enjoyed an evening with Jonna and Mimi and some of their friends at the in-town RV park where they have been staying while construction has been underway.

Jonna and Mimi have been building quite a network of friends in Merida (and elsewhere on the Yucatan peninsula), which is encouraging to me as I consider being so far from the few remaining friends we have here in the North.

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