Patrick Schulte's Blog, page 2

Abundance

I think we underestimated just how long it would take to find furniture. Eventually we just started having carpenters build stuff instead.

I have no license plate on the motorcycle I’ve been driving around for the past few months. Nobody seems to care. There are traffic cops standing all over town and they never give me a second look. But still, it feels like I should have a license plate. So one day I went up to the “DMV” to get that done and the first thing they asked me for was a utility bill with my name and address on it. That would seem easy enough except in order to have that you need to have your home’s original title in hand. Well, that finally arrived, so I made copies of the twenty page document and headed off to the electric company. On the first visit I waited about an hour only to find out that I needed photos of the electric meter, printed out for them to add to the file alongside my title. I’m not sure who is trying so hard to get bills issued in their names, but this seemed like a lot of hoops to have to jump through. But hey, after seven hours, I had successfully taken ownership of both the water and electric bills. And after that process I can now see why all the DMV cares about is seeing one of those bills as proof of who you are and where you live. Getting TSA pre-check status was easier.

Start at the door, work your way into the chairs, and then shift over a seat whenever someone finished and the next person was called. Kudos for the orderliness of it all.

This dog lives down the street at this little shop. Almost every day we’ll see him, when the shop is closed, standing stock still on the sidewalk with his face pressed flat against the door waiting to be let back in.

The Schulte’s getting dolled up to the best of our abilities for a friend’s quinceañera.

It was a fun party. A family of nomads originally from Australia with Mexican friends who insisted they let them throw the party. So we had a good 50/50 mix of gringos and Mexicans, lots of food, dulces, drink, and dancing.

Determination.

I’ve mentioned the trees around town before. It’s funny how many massive trees come tumbling over walls that you would think housed a… house.

Finally, we found chairs for the kitchen table. Six of them. Fortunately, I have a pickup truck that looks like a small motorcycle.

Nature will eventually take back the bug.

This is the view from Ouest’s swimming pool. About five miles outside of town there is tons of land like this. I don’t mind the brown of the winter dry season, but these couple of months in the summer when we get some rain and everything goes green is pretty spectacular. We were happy to hear that the reservoirs are full thanks to the several heavy rains we’ve had. Apparently, they had gotten down to about 30%. Water shortages do not sound enjoyable at all. We’re used to boat life and making our own water—where we never run out, but we never have enough, either. If all it takes here is a few hard rains to have an abundance, we’ll gladly accept that.

 

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Timmies

Lowe and I hopped on the bike and went off for a ride out of town one morning, after first stopping off to enjoy the view from up above.

The landscape has gone from brown to green in a matter of days. The Laja River flows past San Miguel to the Presa Allende reservoir.

The first thing developers do in Mexico is build a humongous grand entrance to their planned neighborhood. Very often this is as far as the development gets. Sometimes, as in this case, not even that gets finished.

Looking out across the reservoir.

On our way back into town we stopped off at a Saturday only BBQ place. You’d think that little dog would be fat and content living here, but he mercilessly chased every motorcycle up and down the street, including us, clutching out take-away containers.

Ouest needed to go in and have her wisdom teeth stitches removed, which meant a trip back to Queratero. Last time there I’d noticed a Tim Hortons, and I thought, “Ha! Our Canadian friends are in Japan, so I’ll order some poutine and send them pictures to rub it in their face.” Well, pretty much anyone who has ever been to Canada will realize my mistake already (note: I’ve been to Canada plenty). Somehow I was always under the impression that Tim Hortons was sort of like a Denny’s, or an IHOP or something. Imagine my terrible disappointment when I walked in and found myself in a Dunkin’ Donuts. Or at least that’s what it looked like to me. Why in the world is there such hype for Timmies? Ouest ordered a “frozen cap”, which I’m pretty sure was just a cup of sugar with syrup poured over the top. We then walked right back out and drove to the IHOP.

Morning walk to Spanish class. I don’t usually tag along, but felt like getting out myself this morning.

I’ve had Heineken, of course, but I really don’t think I’ve ever willingly purchased a Heineken. Unless the bar was completely out of other beer, or everything else was warm and the only remaining cold thing in the fridge was this green water bottle. I’ve just never understood its popularity. I really can’t grasp the purpose of it in Mexico. This is really my only reason for this picture.

She said yes! To the tamales.

When the rains do come, they tend to come very hard for a very short period of time. In a town of cobblestones, this makes for some instant rivers.

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Art Everywhere

Plants, flowers, vines, and trees poke out everywhere in San Miguel.

After months of complete dryness, we got a few days of rain and everything exploded in green.

Drive-up tamale stand complete with live music.

Swim contest at the upscale golf community. Nice place to spend a couple of hours watching the races.

Ouest got put up against the boys this time. She was right in the hunt.

Little corner nursery near home. Since we only have the motorcycle we tend to visit often and pick up like two things at a time.

Sunshine, hard rain, and a river down the cobblestone road.

A street with a couple hundred yards worth of continuous street art.

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Observing

Just some random shots from around home.

Vietnamese Banh Mi place down the road from us. I always appreciate a place that focuses on doing just one thing very well.

The hands of a woman who has probably pressed, and flipped, a million tortillas in her lifetime.

Breakfast art.

The center of a hospital in Queratero.

Time for the wisdom teeth to come out.

Trying to get clothes dry after a few days of rain finally moved installing a dryer vent up the to-do list.

Bit of work to do in the laundry room, but at least chiseling through 7″ worth of concrete/brick was far easier than expected. Of course, the necessary location wasn’t ideal. It never is.

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Convite de Locos

The Convite de Locos is a parade held every year and is one of San Miguel’s biggest celebrations. Convite means, invitation to celebrate, and just about everyone in the town and surrounding area does. It’s held in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua (our neighborhood’s namesake), who, among many other things, is also known as the Saint of the Gardeners. The tradition began a couple hundred years ago when the orchard workers would dress up as scarecrows and go around town distributing fruits and vegetables to celebrate the harvest.

Over time the scarecrow costumes evolved into “Locos” costumes. There are now scarecrows, clowns, Disney characters, political figures, and just about anything you can think of.

The modern day parade began about 100 years ago with groups of neighborhoods beginning to form into organized parade groups (families, neighbors, coworkers, etc.) that dress alike and dance down the streets together distributing TONS of candy instead of fruits and vegetables.

The population of San Miguel de Allende is ~75,000, with another 100,000 in the surrounding municipality. Estimates for the parade this year were 13,000 participants, and 80,000 spectators. So, yeah, this parade is huge by San Miguel standards. Not to be missed.

The candy haul was already getting heavy for these little arms.

This older lady was having as much fun at the parade as anyone else I saw. Dancing and laughing the entire time.

Her husband was a very nice guy who was shooting Facebook videos the entire time and kept trying to tag us, though I don’t think that ever worked out.

After a full morning of eating candy and cheering on the parade we needed tacos. Tacos de Alambre—my kids don’t like cheese on their tacos, but every so often I can’t resist ordering a plate of this deliciousness for myself. Pastor, cheese, onions and peppers.

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Competition

A short walk through nearby neighborhoods.

Apparently this was going to be a Walmart and movie theater. Got approved by one city government, and cancelled by the next. It’s not been missed.

Ouest joined a swim team when we got to San Miguel, practices three times a week, and finally had her first competition. Learning proper technique and feeling the difference it makes has been fun for her, so it was good to put it all to use.

She cleaned up, handily winning the freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke. I think I was more excited than she was. Who taught her to be so humble? Sheesh.

I mean, how beautiful is that?

As soon as Ali started scratching the surface, Zazu was in there to help.

Yet another taco stand. This one is on the kids’ walk home from Spanish class, and has become a common stop. Crazy fresh salsa and each tortilla hot off the grill.

He was looking back at a dog, not ducking away from the camera.

We pay a guy 100 pesos a day during the week to take Zazu on a nice hour-long walk. Don’t judge; I don’t have the time or desire, the kids are at school, and Ali isn’t comfortable on her own owing to the amount of street dog aggression out there. Anyway, apparently they walk past the same butcher shop each day and the butcher has taken a liking to Za. So now, every few days when Za gets returned to us, she also comes with a huge bag of random bloody butcher parts.

After a couple of months we got the call and went in to pick up the title of the house. Last time we had been handed the title to a house we had just survived the Y2K scare.

Honestly, every few days you walk around the corner and run into something like this.

Ummmm…

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Some SMA Walks

San Miguel de Allende isn’t a big place. You can walk across the majority of town in thirty minutes, and if you need to be somewhere quicker, ten minutes on the motorcycle will get you anywhere.

This is just a random underpass near home. They’ve lined it with nice art, and it’s even well lit at night. It’s just one of those unexpected little touches you find all over town.

Religion. After a couple of thousand years I suppose it’s inevitable that there would be pretty much 365 days worth of reasons to celebrate something or someone. We live in the San Antonio neighborhood, which on June 6th, 2025, means… checks notes… Festival San Antonio de Padua. It’s actually a week (plus) long celebration in San Miguel, but today we were along the route for one of the processions.

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Got Gas

In order to stop making weekly runs to fill up small gas bottles, we did what is normal here and had a big tank installed on the roof. A friend recommended their “gas guy” and we were surprised, but happy, to see him show up with a crew of five. That gas tank was heavier than it seemed.

The five of them deciding the best way to run the lines. One goes out to the front of the house, where about ten feet off the ground they install a big hose connection. The gas trucks drive through town, and at least once a day you’ll hear their gas truck jingle playing loudly as they drive past. You can call one of the companies, or you can just flag them down as they drive past. They’ll park wherever they can, unroll their hose, and climb up a ladder to make the connection. In a couple minutes you’ve got all the gas you need for a few months.

The other line was run to the main connection that runs throughout the house (fireplace, stove, and hot water heater). Since it was the first fill of the new tank the gas guy had to come on up and purge the tank.

And just like that, in a couple of hours we had some nicely installed copper piping, and a full tank of gas.

Our first scorpion visitor to the house.

At first glance you’d think the bug broke down. Then you remember the engine is in the back. This was the VW mechanic’s car.

I know, all I do is wander around town taking pictures of VWs.

Rainy season is upon us. Clear skies give way to a late afternoon downpour a couple times a week now.

Za is very happy to have the water fountain running. She’s in and out of there all day long.

Another Teen Connect get together. Cool property about 15 minutes outside of town with a pool, outdoor games, pool, ping pong, and amazing food.

Interesting view of Centro from a side of town we don’t get over to very often.

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The Law

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Leaving where I’d been parked I eyed a short street that could get me where I needed to go while shaving a few blocks off the trip. Only problem was it was a one-way. It’s more like an alley than a street, so I whipped down it really quickly and as I got to the end who should appear, turning into the street from the correct direction? Whoops. He stopped in front of me, had me hand over my license, then told me to flip around with him. He wrote up the ticket, told me where to pay, and said I’d get my license back then.

A couple hours later I went up to the office, directly across the street from the cathedral, paid my $22 ticket, and was handed my license back. Easily the most efficient and reasonable ticketing process I’ve encountered in my life. I broke a minor law, received a minor ticket, paid a minor fee, and all was settled. I almost felt good about the whole process.

Ouest started piano lessons, and Za finds the home practice sessions quite nice.

She’s a digger.

Our favorite carnitas place. There’s a few tables on the street, but we like sitting back inside and watching the action.

There are a lot of gated communities around San Miguel, most of which are on the outskirts and cater largely to expat retirees and the Mexican upper class. We’ve never been the gated community/HOA type, and our brief experience with our rental down here was enough to cement that for us. The area around our house is very local. The painting on this house gives a sense of just how local. Fortunately, the family that lives here seem to just love cockfighting, and do not actually raise roosters themselves.

I have seen this bug driving around town a dozen times, and never without the dog. Most of the time there is a human driving.

A bridge underpass has a bunch of local artists’ work. Even the local graffiti taggers seem to respect it. It’s kind of a funny place—it’s not a busy underpass, it just leads off the “highway” nearby and into a neighborhood. Under here there is almost always a car or a motorcycle pulled off to the side to sit in the shade to use the phone, or eat, or wait out a short rain. I like that the city spruced it up so nicely.

I build the shelves, Ali paints them, the dog sleeps on them and gets paint in her ears.

Our favorite tree in the neighborhood. It’s beautiful, bright, and creates a shady canopy that is always enjoyable to walk underneath.

Adjusting the idle and searching for more power.

After just a few lessons, Lowe and I can now play a pretty good match against each other.

Bugs, bugs, everywhere you look there is a bug.

Tacos de Canasta—basket tacos—are such a wonderfully simple food. These tacos are just filled with beans (like a mashed refried bean) and then piled up and steamed in the baskets underneath a bunch of towels. Order the 10 pack combo and he throws in about 13 of them, an egg, some nice spicy salsa, and a liter of agua de jamaica. This guy is popular. I think he moves somewhere different every day, sometimes setting up tables and a canopy, other times just parking on the highway in front of Don Pedros (the big hardware store) like he was this day.

Supporting the kids’ friends who were putting on a, dare I say, pretty solid rendition of Peter Pan.

Our house looks painfully boring compared to so many others around town.

You just have to appreciate the colors of the food.

We’re still hunting down furniture, which in San Miguel means poking around in any shop you see that from the outside looks like it might, just maybe, have some furniture inside. One day we were in a shop that sold ceramics, and hand blown glass stuff, when a table that was piled high with stuff caught our eye. “Is this table for sale.” Of course it is. Later that afternoon it was in our kitchen.

This red storefront housed this collection. We actually bought this piece that’s sitting on top of the blue one.

This cactus “nursery” is tucked on a small slice of land between a road and a rain wash. The land would have appeared useless to me, but someone didn’t think so.

While we procrastinate on our rooftop tank project, I make a weekly run out to the gas drive-thru.

It has rained about three drops in all our time in San Miguel, but we knew the rainy season was coming. The first rain, however, wasn’t a light drizzle. While Ouest was swimming the building’s metal roof was pelted with a deafening hail storm. Fortunately it passed and we were able to make it home dry a little later. We wouldn’t always be so lucky in the days ahead. The rains always come in the evenings, which, of course, is when swimming is.

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Día del Niño

Día del Niño is one of those pleasant holidays they have here in Mexico that doesn’t exist in the States. Here it includes some local festivities, lots of junk food, and maybe some small toys. Here in San Miguel there was a free Lucha Libre match in Plaza Civica, with the sun setting and the beautiful backdrop of Templo de Nuestra Señora de La Salud. Free popcorn, ice cream, and wrestling, what could be better?

Lowe’s been hitting the climbing gym. Like swimming, it’s fun to see the improvements that can be made with a little instruction on technique.

I keep mentioning the Teen Connect group here in San Miguel. We’re starting to count ourselves lucky that we’ve got teens, because it seems there is always something going on for them to participate in. This weekend it was camping. Well, camping for the kids (and some of the adults) and “luxurious” Airstream living for others. Ali somehow randomly scored what seemed to be the best spot in Campground La Joya.

Ouest had swimming the first night and didn’t want to miss it, so Ali and Lowe took off for camp alone.

I showed up with Ouest the next morning to find that there were exactly zero dads there and a bunch of dogs. We were on about day four of dog ownership ourselves and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be much fun keeping an eye on her here with so many camp dogs about. Chalk one up in the “I told you so” column. Having pets puts an immediate cramp in the travel category of life.

Back down the hill I go. Zazu would be puking in the backseat just a few minutes later. This would not have been a great day to ask me how I felt about having a dog.

They did some nice hiking during the day, and had a talent show that night. Good fun had by all.

Airstream art translation: José de la Corte y Sánchez, son of Manuel and Doña Josefa, at the age of five years, was charged by a furious cow and remained unconscious for three hours. He came out unharmed thanks to the intercession of the Virgin of Sorrows, to whom his mother entrusted him.

The stairway up to our second and third floor is way too narrow for furniture, which has necessitated some ingenuity and all hands on deck.

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