Day 9 – January 13

We started the day by changing out the spring on my rear shock absorber. Vincent pulled the shock out in only 15 minutes and we ended up using a moderately heavy spring replacement. We couldn’t use the entire shock assembly because it made the bike too high (I like to be able to touch me feet flatly on the ground and with the new shock assembly I would have been on tip-toes).

It poured rain last night and my fancy leather covering on my seat absorbed a lot of water (it’s going to be a wet fanny for a while). I swapped GPS’s with Vince – so I will now presumably be able to follow the route more effectively.

We did a quick tour of San Miguel first stopping at Harriet’s art school and saw some of the sculptures on which Harriet is working. The teacher was sick so we didn’t hear from him but there were a number of students working on projects.

The school was an attractive structure and it’s a wonderful place to study.


We went on to the institute where Harriet has a series of pictures on show – extraordinary vivid colors with a cubic feel to them. She shares this space with some exceptional artists.
We then went to the botanical gardens – high on a hill overlooking San Miguel.

The gardens feature mainly desert plants like prickly pears.

A collection of trees and cactus:

And one of the nasty little cactuses that deposited a quill in my leg through my leathers:

Harriet had a cocktail party tonight with a variety of interesting people – including some Clevelanders, Ali Eilers, Bill Edwards, and Dave and Sandy White, in addition to a bunch of Derek’s friends from Stonington CT. They were a group of vibrant and active people, a number of whom spend part of the year in San Miguel and others, natives of Mexico City, and this is their “country place.”