We spent a couple of weeks in Portland, visiting with Grammy, walking her dog, running errands, meeting with caretakers, and trying to squeeze in some other typical Portland fun, too. Grammy is doing great right now and feeling much better knowing we’ll be back within range for a while.

Racking up the air miles lately. From Portland to…

…San Miguel de Allende. We’ve known for a long time that if/when we got ourselves a piece of dirt, it would be in Mexico. We just didn’t know where. The Puerto Vallarta area was an obvious choice, but summers on the coast are miserable months, and we didn’t want to be stuck hiding in air-conditioning all day. Our gaze turned to the highlands. San Miguel, a Unesco World Heritage Site and beautifully preserved Spanish Colonial town at 6200′ is just about the most perfect place in Mexico. We visited many times over the years when traveling around in our motorhomes, so we already knew what to expect, but it was still nice to see that our memories of the place matched up with reality.

The view from our rental place was nice enough, but we hated the place. A gated community built on an impossibly steep section of hill that faced north and never saw the sun. We’d look at two homes for long-term rent in gated neighborhoods and would hate them both. This was just a 3-week rental, though, meant to give us time to figure out what our next step would be.

Each day the kids go to language school for a couple hours. Thanks to years spent with their online tutor, Gise, and their years spent in Mexico, Ouest is essentially fluent already, and Lowe is quickly catching up. Ali and I still have a long way to go.

The entire town is cobblestone, which is awesome. That, combined with the narrow streets, makes it just about as fast to walk across town as it is to drive. A slow-paced pedestrian friendly place. The one downside is it virtually eliminates bikes and skateboards from a kids’ life here. You rarely see either.

Everywhere you look there is something unique or interesting.

As with most towns in Mexico, the church, and the plaza out front of it, are the beating heart.