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WOOD SHOP & GUAD

Wow!  We are wiped out.  Got a couple biggie things taken care of this weekend.

(took me all this time to get the pictures and video compressed)

Friday -the wood shop

One thing we liked about the Joco cong is the RBC wood shop.  Many from our cong work in it.

The RBC work is different outside of the US.  Lots of reasons -I’ll expound sometime if we chat.

There are just 4 shops in ALL of Mexico (and Mexico is a much larger country than you all think it is) that take care of the wood funiture for each Kingdom Hall.  This can include the podium, literature counters & storage cases, contribution boxes, bookshelves, sound cabinet, and information board.  This particular shop currently has hundreds of halls on the waiting list to get these items.  There is a full time crew here 6 days a week -all are volunteering their time and skill.

I have been itching to see it and work in it.  We finally had our chance Friday.  A truck came to get loaded up and make an 18 hour drive to deliver to 3 halls across the country.  Our whole little family team was able to go and help out.

Oh, the sweet smell of wood and sawdust and spray booth and power tools. ::deep breath inhale::

By the way, the spray booth is first class.  Plus, the dry climate makes spraying finishes a breeze.

Austin, India, and Ginger Kitty each had an immediate case of homesickness for Papa’s shop.

We enjoyed helping out for the day (and Austin especially enjoyed trying out some power tools)

…and I hope to return.

They brought their tools and are ready to work.

The wood shop -with a load ready for the truck.

India is trying to convert inches to centimeters on her tape measure.

A sound cabinet ready for the nail holes to be filled.

Kitty likes using the putty knife.

Safely packing to survive the long ride on bumpy mountain roads.

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Saturday -Guadalajara

The kids have lists of school textbooks to purchase and the bookstore is called GONVILL and is in Guad.  Guad is not far but there is a lot of road construction going on in prep for the PanAm Games this summer.

http://www.guadalajara2011.org.mx/ENG/01_inicio/

Our 40 minute drive turned into a couple hours.  The good thing for us is that our friend David offered to be our tour guide.  He is a true adventurer and brought us by the new bypass and offered some interesting pieces of info along the way.

This new road will help us avoid the traffic through town.  Problem is the new road is not finished yet.  Does that stop people from using it?  No way Jose! The good thing is that David knows where the road suddenly ends and turns into a gravel bank and how to get around it.  (welcome to driving in Mexico)

Just ahead the road abruptly ends.

We do what everyone else does- keep on driving through.

Thousands and thousands of raspberry bushes.

That mountain rises an additional 10,000 ft (we are currently at 6000)

Notice the hand placed rocks to keep traffic out of the right lane.

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We pass acres of white plastic tents.  They house Driscol brand (sound familiar) raspberry bushes.  In the spring they will each be dug up and put into cold storage until time to replant them.

This new section of road is quite a piece of work.  The heavy duty equipment breaks down the rocks and dirt of the cliff.  While this work is done traffic in both directions is stopped while the rocks are knocked into the road and moved out dump truck by dump truck until a single lane on the road is cleared -a process that takes about 30 minutes.  Since only a single lane is clear traffic is let through one side at at time -an additional 30 minutes.  Finally, it our turn!  Crews are working on this endeavor 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  This will be a very nice, speedy highway when it’s finished.

Waiting for the road to be clear.

A lot of dirt and rocks to still be moved.

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Our drive into Guad is rewarded by the site of Costco, Sams, Home Depot, Staples, Gap and some other familiar places.  We checked out Costco.  It’s funny.  We have become used to the local brands and are pretty content with them for the most part.  But we did get some tuna and cookies and chewy treats for Macie.  Although we were all tempted by this super cool water slide.

(by the way, the Costco brand tuna is the BEST tuna ever!)

Our true destination is the bookstore.  It is located in a super large indoor/outdoor mall.

Note to self:  Get back there again!

Mission accomplished -kind of.  Of course you didn’t expect me to say they had all the books required that they are supposed to carry.  And one preschool workbook we want to pick up for Ginger Kitty was “out of this world” expensive -ended up getting it online for $2.  We checked out ebay, amazon, half and ended up purchasing from textbook.com.  Now we just have to wait for them to come down in our next box from the States -and pay the crazy duty.

Mark this on the GPS. I'm coming back!

Lots of shoe stores.

It took forever to find the bookstore.

The kids section.

Some familiar faces...

...in spanish.

We were going to buy this for Kitty until we found out it cost $80!!!

This is a very nice mall with some familiar places like...

India thought these pink shirts in the men's store were funny.

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I was wore out but still enjoyed the show by these street performers at the traffic light.

{ 7 comments… add one }
  • DAD March 3, 2011, 10:00 am

    INTERESTING TRIP. HOW MANY HOURS & MILES?

    • admin March 3, 2011, 11:09 am

      Hi Dad. The wood shop is right near us -about a half hour away. Guadalajara is about 30 miles away. It’s the road being shut down throughout the day for construction that makes the trip longer.

  • Rebecca and George Duarte March 4, 2011, 8:33 am

    Ok first of all is it sad that I am like a dry climate to spray stuff in super jealous and what no cold snap to slow the paint down. That wood shop looks like so much fun happy the kids got to go I was probably India’s age for my first quickbuild have been hooked ever since its sad not to have kids there(even though I understand why) it just really shaped my life as a youngster. Any way that mall looks awesome nice picture of the shoes.

  • ginny brown March 4, 2011, 9:01 am

    those books in Spanish look so cool. your children will be fluent in no time. back in middle school i took a few years of Spanish and still remember a few words. but the girls and i have just started taking Portuguese classes in fall river. it’s similar to Spanish.

    • admin March 4, 2011, 10:05 am

      That’s great for the girls Ginny. A second language is a valuable skill.

  • Heather E March 4, 2011, 9:28 am

    Loved the circus street performance! Question: with the prices of everything so much lower down there- why was that book so expensive? How strange!

    • admin March 4, 2011, 10:04 am

      Prices are low on meats, veggies -because they are all local- and anything from Mexico. Anything from outside the country is super duper insanely expensive. (so if anyone is thinking of visiting us 🙂 i might have a couple requests of things to bring down)

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