Hot fun in the summertime

It’s all about the ebb and flow here in Loreto Bay, from the tides of the Sea of Cortez to the home owners who fly in for a few days and then fly back out. Our lives here have a rhythm that seems to hinge on the ebb and flow.

The weather dictates our own ebb and flow and right now at 98 degrees we're definitely in the ebb phase because we've been heading indoors as much as possible. And that means we spend a lot of time trying to find things to entertain or amuse ourselves.

Today I broke out one of the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles we brought down with us, but too many of the pieces matched the color of our dining room table so I threw in the towel pretty quickly. Hey, you try finding brown puzzle pieces on a copper-top dining table!

George persevered with the puzzle for a little longer than me, but eventually he drifted away from the table, too, and we both settled down for some Web surfing. It was while I was going through my usual sites that I came across an interesting article about a Web site called ‘I Write Like.’ The site asks you to submit several paragraphs of your writing for analysis and then in mere nanoseconds tells you which famous author you write like.

I took a few paragraphs from one of my blogs and ‘lo and behold the ‘analyzer’ spit back the name Margaret Mitchell. Yes, the very same Margaret Mitchell who wrote that epic Southern novel “Gone with the Wind.” I was surprised to say the least. Sure, I have more than a little Southern in me, but Margaret Mitchell? Sure, we both started our journalism careers in Georgia, but Margaret Mitchell? I just don’t see any similarity in writing style at all. I’d like to think there is, after all she wrote one of the best-selling novels of all time, but I’m thinking not.

Reading a little further into the article I discovered that Margaret Atwood (one of my favorite writers and another Margaret... can that be a coincidence?) had some of her writing analyzed and was told she writes like none other than Stephen King. Yeah, right.

OK, so the ‘I Write Like’ site still has a few bugs (if Ms. Atwood and I are any indication), but it was a fun way to spend some time here in hot and steamy Loreto Bay.

Try it yourself at http://iwl.me/

The walls come tumbling down

Apparently Homex officials were less than pleased with the look of their two model homes after a tour of the homes during the recent Homex confab held at the Inn of Loreto Bay. No word on what took place during the meeting, but shortly after the bigwigs left town workers started tearing down walls and those odd square dome-y things perched on the tops of the homes. As far as we’re concerned, this can only be considered an improvement and a smart move on the part of Homex. But it does beg the question: What were they thinking when they approved those architectural plans?!

Closer to home, some contractors have started removing the security fencing and cleaning up the construction mess from around the clusters. Although we did hear from some home owners living a bit farther south that the gates around their homes had been put back up to prevent damage to exposed wires.

Another sign that things are picking up in Loreto Bay is the trimming of the palm trees along the Paseo. Crews were out all last week cutting off the dead fronds, making the trees appear much healthier and happier. I’ve often wondered, though, how these trees manage to survive with virtually no water. Although Fonatur regularly waters the palms in Nopolo, north of Loreto Bay, I’ve yet to see any watering on our end of the Paseo.

On another note, we found a surprising guest in our courtyard this evening – a little frog. We can’t imagine how it got into the courtyard or where it came from but it was nice to see. Maybe it’ll take up residence in our fountain, but if that’s the case it will have to fight off the birds that regularly stop by to take a quick dip.

And speaking of critters, one of our Founder's neighbors took us out on his beautiful boat earlier this week and we came upon two separate pods of incredible dolphins. It was our first sighting of dolphins and they put on quite a spectacular show, leaping and diving alongside the boat. Our host and his captain, Chino, went out of their way to give us this wonderful experience. Chino got out his binoculars and called other boats to find out if there were any dolphins in the area. And boy, did we hit the jackpot! First we came upon a group of large grey bottlenose dolphins and just minutes later a much larger group of smaller dolphins, both near Puerto Escondido. Without a doubt, it was the very best day we've had since we moved to Loreto Bay.

We had another first a couple of days ago - sprinkles of rain! It's the first time we've seen any precipitation since we arrived. It was very short-lived but it was still rain!