Mexico Day 6

We got up and went to catch a bus over to Mitla to see the ruins there, and spend some time outside of Oaxaca City. The bus ride took a hour and we rapidly were out in a rural area.
We got off the bus and checked out the ruins at Mitla. The ruins at Mitla were Zapotec, like Monte Alban, and Mixtec. The ruins were ramsacked and then a colonial church was built on top of the largest temple so today, there's a church in basically the middle of the ruins complex. These ruins were more intricate than Teotihuacan or even Monte Alban.

We walked around for a while and then it was about lunch time. Across from the church was several stalls of women cooking food. We got flautas and quesadillas. Both were excellent, and Kelli still talks about the squash flower and string cheese quesadilla we had. As we were waiting for our food, a funeral procession went by.

After we ate, we did some shopping and then headed back to town. We went to Tule, to see the largest tree in MesoAmerica. The Tree was massive, and there was a church built right next to it. We marveled at the tree, had a mid-day snack of enchiladas and shaved ice and then went back to Oaxaca. At Oaxaca, we went around the Cathedral and then ate another large dinner.

Mexico Day 6

Mexico Day 7

For some reason, I never wrote down what we did our last three days of our trip. Yeah, I'm lame so I'm winging it from here on out. On Day 7, we were still in Oaxaca and decided to track down where Nacho Libre was filmed. On the way there, we saw a motorcyclist get hit. He didn't look dead.
We looked around Etla and couldn't figure out where it was. We then went to the church in Etla, and thought, well this looks more or less like the church in Nacho Libre. Kelli looked over the valley, and yelled to me. The church was over on the other side of the valley. We hired two teens in a moto-taxi to take us to the church, and then took pictures of the place. We didn't stay too long, and headed back to Oaxaca. I really enjoyed that town.

We then traveled to Puebla that afternoon. We got to Puebla at 9:00 pm in the evening. Kelli slept most of the bus ride, I stared out the window. We drove past a simply incredible looking volcano. Anyway, Puebla at night was sketchy. I was exhausted so when we got there, I let Kell communicate with the taxi driver. Both were extremely fustrated with the other, and so I stepped in and talked to the taxi driver and we got to where we were staying. I apologized to Kelli for not stepping in sooner.

When we arrived at the hostel, the receptionist claimed we had no reservation. After arguing for 15 minutes, I showed him the reservation on-line. Needless to say, we shouldn't have stayed there. That place had no security, the shower sucked, we were staying in a room that didn't lock. After we got that straightened out, we went out for water but didn't go real far. I was a little spooked by the city, and it takes a lot to spook me in Latin America. Anyway, we didn't sleep all that well that night and I wasn't sure about Puebla.

Mexico Day 7

Mexico Day 8

We woke up in Puebla and decided to take a stand about our crappy hostel. We told them we weren't staying there the next night and got a room at the "4 star" hotel three or four doors down for 40 dollars for the two of us. We had two beds, it was clean, the door locked, and really compared to where we were staying, it was well worth the splurge.

We then decided to take a 15 dollar tour a piece of Cholula, the largest pyramid in Mesoamerica (that was covered, and a church was put on top of it of course.) The tour was alright, it was nice not having to figure out public transportation etc and just kick back and take it all in. When Cortez got to Cholula he encountered very hostile natives. They fought and fought, and Cortez vowed he would put 365 churches in the town. Actually there's about 40, but the ones we saw were amazing and elaborate.

We first went to the pyramid topped by a church. We didn't get a chance to tour the pyramid, but we did the church. I bought a hat on top, and at the bottom, an old cowboy asked for my hat. I should've gave it to him. We then went to several churches and then back to town. Kelli and I ate lunch at the square, went to the Museum of Revolution and befriended our tour guide, or he befriended us. The story of the Revolution is jaw-dropping and sober to say the least. We then went to a few sights and ate chile al nogada for dinner. Kelli still talks about it. We went back to our room, kicked back and watched tv in our posh room.

Mexico Day 8

Mexico Day 9

Somewhere I'm missing a day. Anyway, we got up the next morning and headed back to Mexico City on a bus. There are second class buses and first class buses. We were on a second class bus and it was slummin' it a little. The lavatory reeked, it was pretty old, but Mean Girls was playing on the television, and it passed the time until we got to Mexico City.

We checked out Diego Rivera's murals. I'm a huge fan of his work, and his wife Frida. Fascinating people. We also went to their house in a nice neighborhood. We also went to see Diego's murals in a museum, and the palace of bellas artes. We couldn't get into the department of education where a bunch of Diego's murals reside. We also went to get hot chocolate and churros for Kelli. We were headed there one evening, but both of us had a bad feeling about it. We both think we were probably being followed and we turned back before we got there.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff. Oh well.

Mexico Day Nine

Holy Toledo: Recap

When Kelli and I heard from our friend Carolyn that she was moving up to Michigan to live in July, we immediately started scheming to go up and visit. Well, we didn't make it up there until the first week of November. We drove up to the Pittsburgh area on Thursday night, stayed literally 500 feet from I-76 (noisy ol' road), and drove up to Cleveland the next day.
As we got to the Cleveland Suburbs, we ended up in the express lane, and by the time we realized what we did, the next exit was Kirtland. Kirtland Ohio wasn't even on our radar, but we decided we might as well stop since we had to get off that exit anyway. We found the Kirtland Temple and did the Community of Christ tour. The tour guide did an amazing job and was very knowledgeable about the history of that grand old building. We also ate at a great restaurant and had pierogies and paprikash. Good meal.
As we both were planning to go to the Rock and Roll Museum we headed on down the road. We made it to the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland two or three hours before it closed and stayed until closing. The building takes advantage of natural lighting and is pretty good sized. We spent most of our time on the ground floor. As you walk into the museum, the first picture is an Annie Liebowitz of Chuck Berry. On the other side was a Beach Boys exhibit, including film of Brian Wilson performing with the Boys. There was costumes, a great music influences section, early drawings by Lennon, exhibits of the music scene in various cities, Janis Joplin's Porsche and I could go on. We then went up and watched the Hall of Fame inductees video and spent a couple of minutes in an exhibit on the early years of Rock and then it was closing time. After a quick tour of the Gift show we were on the road.
We drove through Toledo and made it to Detroit a little after nine where Carolyn was waiting for us. We talked for a bit and then went to bed.
The next morning we got up, Carolyn made fabulous cinnamon rolls and we decided to go into Detroit since Carolyn hadn't been yet. We first went to Detroit's Eastern Market, which frankly is incomparable to DC's. It was extensive, the produce was cheap and we had a great time. We stopped in a few shops, bought a few things and then ate at one of the many Coney Restaurants that populate Detroit.
After lunch we headed over to the Motown Museum after a bit of a detour in one of Detroit's "finer" neighborhoods. And by neighborhoods I mean, extensive abandoned warehouses. We arrived at the Motown Museum which is actually two houses linked together. We took a tour of the buildings and were awed by the history. We spent a few minutes in the original recording studio and well, wow.
After that we went to Downtown Detroit, saw where the Fox theater was, gawked at the baseball field and then went down to the riverfront. We gazed over at "Canada," and wished we had our passports since Carolyn had never been. We spent some time at the Underground Railroad Memorial and then headed back to Carolyn's. We ordered pizza and then watched Rocky Balboa(Carolyn loves Rocky). I only watched about 30 minutes before I crashed.
The next morning we got up, hugged and thanked Carolyn and headed out. We stopped at Lake Erie, bought a ton of cheese and sandwiches at the "Cheese house," somewhere in Ohio and drove the rest of the way back to DC arriving home about 7:00. Anyway, great trip and thanks Carolyn!

Carolyn or Bust!

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