I was too darn tired and a little shell shocked to blog last night.

Our second attempt to leave Dallas, took another turn and amidst confusion we did manage to leave later than we expected.

The flight was great… there was  comraderie amongst the passengers… many of us didn't speak the same language, but we communicated with smiles and gestures…

We finally reached Leon in Mexico and breathed a sigh of relief.

But we were a little premature…. the jolly luggage had come before us and so we had to wait for ages till someone came and identified it for us. "That's mine honey"… but you do need the official to do it…

We began the hour long trip to San Miguel Allende smugly believing we were almost there….

But that was not to be folks…. the car began to die… the driver kept turning it on and off as it rolled down the hill..

For 10 minutes he struggled and then it finally died… I figured it was the battery or the alternator…

In a depression in the road we sat, no signal on the telephone with huge trucks racing by rocking the car and leaving us in the dust and the heat…

OK, so what would Alice Isabella do in this situation…?

Our driver was so worried……(and rightly so) any minute I thought the calvary was coming over the hills… there was a field of big cows with horns the rose to heaven….

After an hour or so, the driver hailed a bus which took him 5 miles down the road to a higher place for a phone signal… despite that he still had to walk a distance… it was 95 degrees.

Cheryl and I sat in the car, each thinking our own thoughts and so Alice became our inspiration and out came the sketch book and she came to life…

We just laughed… it was so funny after what had happened to us in the past 24 hours.

She, (Alice that is) collected a large piece of stick and tied it to the agave bush. She used her shoelaces to tie her petticoat to it and wrote "Soccoro", Help in Spanish… or something like that…

So with her petticoat flapping on the agave bush in the breeze, she set about creating a mode of transport with my new case with 4 wheels…

An abandoned hub cap served as a steering wheel… she oiled the wheels well with the juice from the agave plant and sitting on top of the case she took off down the road… it was down hill… however, she got stuck down there because the case refused to go up the other side…..!!!

Luckily for her, our driver returned and the sketchbook was put away….we waited another hour and a truck picked us up and we finally made it to our destination in the dark.

whew…..!

We had no food in our house so in the dark we began to walk…

Now I know my way around San Miguel rather well, (I thought) but I took us up a huge mountain of a road and got us lost.

We ended up at a party in the street… food, music, flowers, trumpets… you name it… it was there.

But it clearly was the wrong place so a taxi rescued us and we were able to get to the Jardin for a late dinner and to buy provisions for breakfast…

There was dancing and music and the most wonderful atmosphere in the Jardin… and we toasted our cokes to yet another adventure.