Ok, this was such a fun day!  

Kevin's girlfriend, Robin had been telling us she wanted to take us to some new places we hadn't seen.  She has lived in Mexico for 28 years so she knows her way around and seems to know everyone.

She came and picked us up in her car early Monday morning and we headed for her old home town Santiago. She had a older Chevy blazer that was probably not meant for holding 6 people and three of them were big men.  Ha ha!  so Kelley sat in the front with Robin and KC, Katie and I sat on the back seat (kind of turned sideways cause our shoulders wouldn't all fit)  and Kevin rode in the very back.  I hated that he was riding back there but he insisted. We were doing pretty good till we got off the freeway.  then there were a lot of speed bumps, which sent Kevin flying.(She kept forgetting that Kevin was in the back until she would hear him hollar when he hit his head. 

We drove through some cute little towns and she would tell us everything about them.

She wanted to take us to a saddlery cause she said it was fun to watch them do the fancy silver work and leather work on them.  We drove to a couple of places that were closed, then found this place.  The owner said they only did saddles by order now so they weren't working on any.
We walked around and looked at their workplace. They had a room with some things for sale.  Katie found a cool cowboy hat she bought.

These were the stinky vats where they tanned the leather.

We drove through the town and there was a really pretty church.  We walked in and stood for a minute in the back.  A sweet little lady that had been up at the front of the church came back and gave Robin and I a kiss on the cheek and said some things I didn't understand but I didn't need to understand to feel her kindness.  

We went to the neatest place for lunch.  It was called Palamar.  Robin said her dad had been good friends with the owner and he came out and met us all. The food was wonderful and it was just a beautiful place.

Robin had been telling us about this hot mineral pool that was really neat  to see so she took us there next.  It was quite a long drive to get there. Imagine the bumpiest,most washboard, rockiest, big dippiest road you have ever seen.  This was worse.  Ha ha I thought her car was going to shake to pieces..and poor Kevin got the crap beat out of him.  He had the back  window open and it would keep flapping down on his arm.  We were bouncing all over the place and we were in seats, I can't imagine what he was going through back there.

  We finally got there ...you could tell we were there because there was this...

Ha ha  I love Mexico!  There was a man sitting there on a stump with some wrist tags and a booklet.  He wanted 80 pesos from each of us and our name written in his book.   It was all pretty official! 

We walked down this path for a ways, then there was this little oasis.

The water was pretty hot, but nice once you got in.  It was a little stinky like sulpher, but not bad.  I couldn't handle the heat for too long so I got into a nice cool fresh water pond right next to it.

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We stopped off and had a little refreshment before we headed for home.  We sure appreciated Robin and Kevin spending their day with us and taking us to all these places  It was great to see some new things and spend the time with them.