Arriving in Mexico

On the day I left for Mexico, I flew first to Houston.  The organizer of this workshop, Rebecca Brooks, had suggested that we arrange our connecting flights so that we all flew from Houston to Leon together.  As a result, most of us met first in the Houston airport.  I had lunch with Kathie Vezzani (at a restaurant called "Whataburger", which served the biggest burger I've ever seen - yes, everything is bigger in Texas!) and we quickly discovered we had a lot of artistic friends and interests in common.  We met up with everyone else at the gate and headed off to Leon, Mexico.  As it happened, four of us sat one in front of the other on the plane, which led to this fun photo:

Sherri, Ann, Bonnie and me

I took several photos from the plane, as the topography below was fascinating.

Once we arrived in Leon, we were met by our driver.  Suitcases were loaded onto the shuttle bus and off we went on the 1.5 hour drive to San Miguel de Allende.  Along the way, I took several of the worst photos I have ever taken in my life!  The bus windows were spotted, the road was rough, we were moving fast - it was a perfect storm of conditions not at all favourable to photography.  A lot of my photos turned out like this:

when what I really wanted was this!

Although sometimes the blurred effect turned out pretty well.

There were lots of interesting sights along the way, like this one, which appeared to be arrest in progress:

an unusual water tower

Mexican cowboys

and a town with straw reindeer lining the street.

There were also magnificent clouds in the sky along the route

and the sun was setting behind us as we drove.

When we arrived at Casa Carmen, we were greeted by Rebecca and her husband Billy and our two instructors, Judy Wise and Katie Kendrick.  We were shown to our rooms.  This is the one I shared with Ann Carter.  I had the ground floor room, she stayed in the loft above.

We were immediately served bottomless cup margaritas (no sooner did you notice your glass was empty, when it was magically filled again!) and sat down to a delicious meal prepared by the staff of Casa Carmen, including handmade tortilla shells.

The conversation and laughter continued as the musicians began to play (they were excellent!) and everyone began to dance.

The bonding between us all was immediately apparent!  All in all, a great beginning to what promised to be a special week.