La Gran Aventura Day 19: Goodbye to Hermosillo (for now)

Friday, December 29, 2023

This morning we woke up early and went for a hike. One of our goals for these winter months is to go hiking as much as possible so we be in shape for the Camino. Well, it’s been so busy just visiting friends that we haven’t had much of a chance. So today we decided to change that.

There are a couple of tall hills just behind the Ayala’s houses, and on the first of those there is a statue that looks like Jesus, but it’s San Judás  (Judasito) -- also known as Judas Thaddeus, possibly a brother or cousin of Jesus. As Saint Jude, he’s the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. In the US we know him best as the inspiration for Saint Jude’s children’s hospital. I’m sure I’ll have a chance to write much, much more about the veneration of saints, but I will just say here, that I’m grateful for the inspiring and faith-promoting stories that surround the saints. Jude in particular, as the patron saint of the impossible, seems like a great companion on our Gran Aventura.

The hike was not long (about a mile up and back), but it involved a lot of scrambling over rocks and boulders -- which is hard for River’s tiny legs. I ended up carrying her during much of those parts. In the end, she and the rest of us ended with a smile.

The hike wasn’t long, but it definitely helped some of us worked up an appetite (which I thought might never come back after the dogos last night). Personally, I was not in the mood for eating a ton, because my digestion just wasn’t up to snuff. After I confessed this to the crew, Valentín made a steaming cup of what he called “Té Divino” (Divine Tea), which Vale (who is a medical doctor) swears will make “even the bad spirits” come out of you.

I took the tea with some trepidation, and decided to go with the team to get some tacos de birria.

Birria has an interesting history . When the Spanish conquistadores came to the Americas, they brought with them a bunch of goats, which soon overpopulated -- creating a problem for the Spanish because they didn’t like the meat. So they gave the goats to the natives, who proceeded to marinate the meat in all kinds of spices including vinegar, dried chiles, garlic, and herbs to make something truly scrumptious. The Spanish called it birria, which is a word used to describe something ugly or of little value.

Clearly, those conquistadores either didn’t taste the meat, or they gave the name as a joke. Birria is awesome, and these tacos de birria were amazing. In Sonora, it’s pretty common to eat birria for breakfast, and the birriería where we ate on this morning has limited seating. If you don’t make it by a certain time, you just have to wait until tomorrow.

One unique thing about birria is that they give you on the side a cup or bowl full of broth to go along with your tacos. At this birriería they called the broth bichi, which is a Mexican word for “naked” because it’s just the broth -- nothing else with it. You can doctor up the bichi with cilantro and onions and lime and salsa, and it’s just perfect on a cool morning like today.

After birria, we went back to the Ayala Córdoba house and played a bunch more games and visited. It was so much fun! River especially enjoyed playing with the Ayala Luna “boys with the hair” Hyrum, Heber, and Helaman -- great LDS names. And it was so cool to meet someone in Mexico who is named after my great great grandfather  :)

After a while of playing, we had to eat again. This time it was tortas, which are sandwiches with cochinita pibil (slow roasted pork marinated in citrus and vinegar and achiote), and dressed with lettuce, tomato, guac, and spicy onions.

Then we loaded up the car and headed down to Guaymas for the next stage of our journey. The sunset was just finishing as we drove into Miramar, Guaymas. We’re so excited to be here.

In Guaymas, we are staying with Betty’s cousin, David, and his wife Irene. They also have two young daughters, Dairén, and Mía.

At some point in the afternoon, my plumbing started working again (Té Divino indeed!), and I was so grateful. Despite the late hour, David was hungry, and kept inviting us out for dogos, but after what I’d been through it was a hard pass for me. We’ll eat more in the future, but today is not the day.

As I get ready for bed tonight, I’m thinking that things are going to be good here.
Hours in the car today: 1.5

Total travel hours in the car: 48.5

Miles Driven: 84

Total Miles Traveled: 2,757













La Gran Aventura Day 18: The Mexicans beat us at our own game

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Finally, I was able to sleep last night. The key was to get River up on the top bunk with Alicia -- her favorite sibling -- and Anahi slept out on the couch.

I have no idea how much Coke we’ve had since we got here, but they drink it like water. Thankfully, I was able to sleep despite this.

I woke up early and got to work blogging. It’s really tough to keep up on these things.

For breakfast, Martha made these amazing tostadas raspadas from Guadalajara. The highlight of these was the habanero onions that we put on them. Alicia thought they were just onions, and she had a huge surprise. The food here has been the spiciest Mexican food I’ve ever had. I’m sure my face is totally red while I’m eating, and my forehead just drips sweat, but it’s so good!

Dani and Brianda and their family came over, and we spent most of the afternoon to play card games (Nerts and Scum), and then Valentín taught us a Mexican version of Scattergories called ¡Basta!

For dinner we went out to a food truck called “Dogos del Miami,” and we had hot dogs. If you’ve never had a Mexican hot dog -- specifically a “dogo” from Sonora -- you don’t know what a hot dog can really be. American hot dogs are all living beneath their potential. They are like caterpillars with no idea what it could be like to be a beautiful butterfly.

A “basic” hot dog at Los Miamis is two giant hot dogs, wrapped in bacon, nestled in a warm, homemade bun, and topped with mayonnaise, ketchup, onions, and nacho cheese. That’s what Betty and Alicia ordered. Kimball ordered a “dogo adobado,” which is a bacon-wrapped dog topped with taco meat (carne adobada), and then dressed with jalapeños. Anahi ordered a “Dogo Italiano,” which had two bacon-wrapped dogs, pepperoni, ham, tomato, onions, and mayonnaise. Ian and I had “Chile Dogos,” which are hot dogs wrapped in a chile, wrapped in bacon, and then topped with mayo, tomato, onion, crushed potato chips, guacamole, and nacho cheese.

I think Alicia said it best: “The Mexicans beat us at our own game.”

The problem with the hot dogs came after dinner, when I started to calculate how much food had come into my system since last week, and how little food was coming out. I have no idea where it is all going. Generally, when gringos like us visit Mexico, we have the opposite problem, but not me. Not this time.

I’m a little concerned.

La Gran Aventura Day 17: Sleepless Nights, The Lookout, and the Raptaniños

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

My Grandpa Kimball wrote a book called One Silent Sleepless Night. It was about his thoughts on a long night after having major surgery in which he lost one vocal cord and part of another and than had an infection.

Last night was my silent sleepless night. Not because of surgery, but because we had our whole family crammed into one bedroom in the Ayala’s house. Betty and I and River were on the middle of a three-level bed. Alicia and Anahi were above us, and Kimball was on the pull-out mattress below us. Ian was on an air mattress next to Kimball.

River NEVER sleeps still when she’s with us. She rolls and fidgets and she likes to grab my love handles. That is not conducive to sleep. Alicia is also what you might call a mobile sleeper. I think she rolls over every 10 minutes or so. Kimball has central sleep apnea that comes and goes, but when it comes he breaths in, holds his breath, and then lets it out in a creaky moan that might last 10-15 seconds. And Ian is allergic to pretty much everything, so his throat is scratchy at night, and he (in his sleep) scratches at this throat from the inside -- like trying to hack something up.

With all of that going on, I thought maybe I should put in my noise canceling AirPods, but then I was afraid that if there was an emergency in the night, I wouldn’t realize it. So I just laid there, fending off River’s attacks, and waiting for the morning.

Oh, and I’m sure all the Coca Cola isn’t helping either.



When the morning came, Vale invited Kimball and I out with him to get supplies for supplies for breakfast. We drove to a little corner store to get totopos (extra thick tortilla chips) and veggies and queso for chilaquiles. Martha is a great chef, and her chilaquiles are different than Betty’s, but at least just as good. I ate way too much of those, along with more of that super spicy salsa macha. The problem is that my own plate is heaped up big, and the kids’ plates are as well. But they almost never finish their food (except Kimball -- he ALWAYS finishes), so I end up eating all of the leftovers from the kids.

Shortly after breakfast, Ian came running in the house to tell me that he’d found some cool birds in the trees outside. They were yellow-headed blackbirds, which are a bit bigger than the red-winged ones we have back home. I think it’s wild that their song sounds really similar to each other.

After the Christmas festivities of last week, and a day of travel, I was falling behind again in the blog, so I took some time today to get some writing done.

In the afternoon, we drove up to a lookout over Hermosillo called El Cerro de la Campana (The Hill of the Bell). It’s called that because there is a rock that if you strike it with another rock, it sounds like a bell. The views of the city are really great, and the kids had fun scrambling around on the rocks. We also paid to have a drone shot taken of us :)

After that, we went down to the cathedral to look around. The kids got delicious street corn and homemade ice cream. I walked around and took some pictures.

Now a word about Betty’s father. One of the purposes of this trip is to see if Betty can learn anything else about her father. He was not married to her mother, and Betty only ever saw him a couple of times each year when he would visit her and her brother. He was a much older man, and she was mostly just scared by him. He passed away in the 1980s, when Betty was still a little girl, and Betty has had only limited contact with his other family, and they have given her only limited information about him. As you can imagine, it’s a delicate situation for them.

Betty actually attended her father’s funeral and burial, but the last time we came looking for his grave, they told us that he had been moved. Betty heard that maybe he had been moved to the cathedral, so we went looking. It’s very difficult because inside the cathedral there are niches where people’s ashes can be stored, but there are tons of them, and many of them are high up on the walls and can’t be seen well. We looked for him, but didn’t find him. I asked in the church offices if they could tell me if he was buried there, but they were very cold and told me that they could only give out that kind of information to the direct family. It was a bit frustrating.

But the cathedral was still beautiful.

They had a big bounce house in the plaza, and River told me that she wanted to go and make some friends, so she and Ian went to play for a while. It was really fun for them until some little girl started beating up on River. That ended that activity. And the kids had fun looking for birds -- that is until just as the sun was setting thousands of birds all started to congregate in the trees in front of the cathedral. Seriously, huge flocks of yellow-headed blackbirds and grackles would darken the sky like thunderclouds and their ear-splitting cacophony felt like it was working its way into our brains. It was like something from a horror movie. I thought it was awesome, but the kids were pretty done with the cathedral at that point.

On our way back to the Ayala’s house, we had a memorable moment.

Following Vale in the Sequoia is like playing a real-life video game. He has a little gray car, and Hermosillo is FULL of little gray cars. They all look the same. It’s like one of those shell games you sometimes see on the streets where you have to follow the ball that is hidden under one of the shells. Vale is weaving in and out of traffic, and I’m trying to follow as best as I can in this big tank.

So we’re following along, and he stops in front of this gated community. We’re thinking “Oh, he must need to grab something from here,” so we pull in behind him. He goes past the gate, and we try to follow, but the barrier arm thingy comes down almost on top of us. The guard says “be careful!” I tell him: “We’re with them,” and he lets us through. We follow the car through the neighborhood, and it stops in front of a house. Then a lady gets out who is NOT Vale or Martha. We had lost the Ayalas and been following the wrong car. I rolled down my window and apologized to the confused looking couple, and we all had a good laugh.

Valentín’s daughter, Valentina, was in the car with us, and she told us that the couple we had been following must have been terrified to see a big black SUV following them. She told us that car like ours (minus the top carrier) would be labeled a raptaniños (kidnapper) by kids in Hermosillo, and if she had been followed like we had followed that poor couple, she would have been certain the narcos were after her.

My kids looked at me and said sarcastically: “But Mexico is totally safe, dad. Right?”

Valentina didn’t help my cause as she proceeded to tell the kids that she basically lives her life in fear. She also taught us all about how to identify the narcos by their clothes and the cars they drive.

Thanks, Valentina ... thanks a lot ;)

After that adventure, we went to the church for a big carne asada. It’s like what we would do for a barbecue, except it felt totally different. First of all, the men set up and lit a grill with mesquite wood on it. As that burned down, the women got to work chopping veggies. Then the men put tomatoes and peppers on the gill and let them toast for a while. After that it was the meat, which in Sonora they say is the secret to the amazing carne asada tacos here. No spices necessary -- just a little bit of salt. It took quite a while to get all of those veggies roasted and worked down to a salsa, and then the meat went on, and it took some time as well. But in the end, we had some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. And we had all done it together.

The other great thing that happened at the carne asada was we met up with Valentín’s brother, Daniel Ayala, his wife Brianda, and their three boys Hyrum (who recently returned from an LDS mission) and Heber and  Helaman (teenagers). And their daughter Sara (9 years old). They immediately connected super well with our kids, and within no time Sarita and River were running around and chatting. River also almost immediately fell madly in love with these Ayala boys, whom she now just calls: “the boys with the hair.” You can practically see the little hearts coming out of her eyes when she looks at them, and they love her.

After filling our bellies with amazing tacos, we all headed back to the Cerro de la Campana to see the city lights and to visit more. The kids had fun scrambling around on the rocks. Even Kimball, who usually hates climbing around on rocks, got into the action and had a great time.

It was just an awesome day!



















La Gran Aventura Day 16: Sierra Vista, AZ to Hermosillo, Sonora, MX

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

This morning we woke up early because we wanted to get a really early start on the day. Everyone did a much better job packing, and we were ready pretty quickly. It’s time to leave Sierra Vista and the USA and drive to Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.

Photo by Alicia

The kids are all feeling pretty anxious about driving to Mexico. They heard us talking yesterday about how it might be dangerous to drive in our car, and they are feeling pretty stressed. Alicia told me that she dreamed that when we drove into Mexico there was a sign that said: “Welcome to Mexico, the Most Dangerous Country in the World.” When I tried to tell them that we were going to be fine, they just said: “Then why were you worried yesterday?”

...

... Touché.

Despite the fast pack, we actually got off to a slow start, because we had to stop at Ross again on our way out. Betty’s friends really like Ross ;)

The drive from Sierra Vista to Nogales is really nice. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it.

When we arrived in Nogales, we drove straight to the insurance company to make sure to have that all in order. The lady there -- Esperanza -- was super nice, and she told us we didn’t need to worry. I’m not sure it did much to help the kids.

When we went back out to the car, Betty looked at the tire and noticed that the sidewall had a big slash in it. I have no idea how it got there, but it was pretty clear to me that we needed to get it checked out and almost certainly needed a new tire.

Thankfully, there was a tire shop nearby, and I had purchased (against what I thought was my better judgement) a tire warranty on the new Sequoia.

It took a couple of hours, in which the kids were able to create all kinds of terrible scenarios about what was going to happen to us when we crossed the border. (Let’s just say it was not the funnest two hours of this trip.) But in the end, we got the tire replaced and didn’t have to pay a cent. And we were back on the road. After another quick stop to get some pesos, and some gas, we were ready to cross the border.

If you’ve never driven across the border, it’s definitely an experience, and the kids were on high alert as we navigated the crazy, crazy traffic. The Ayalas (Vale and Martha’s family) were all hungry (so were we), so we stopped at a taco shop called El Pescadillo for some fish tacos. Ian was NOT happy about this decision because he doesn’t like fish. The taco shop was stressing out Anahi because there were pigeons flying around inside looking for scraps.

Things were not looking good.

And then we ate.

And the world started to find balance again.

These tacos were incredible. Along with fish they had shrimp, and it turns out that Ian DOES like Shrimp. And the kids all got DRINKS (which we never get in the US), so they felt like they were living high on the hog. The birds left us alone. And I discovered (at Vale’s recommendation) the Queso-tote.

It was one of those food moments that you never forget.

The Queso-tote is a chile relleno topped with cheese and breaded and fried shrimp. Then it’s decked with coleslaw, pickled onions,  cilantro ranch, and salsa. Paired with horchata or agua de Jamaica it’s a meal made in heaven. And for a moment, everyone’s fears were forgotten.

Until we started driving again.

Driving anywhere in Mexico is tricky. Driving in Nogales during rush hour in a big SUV while trying to follow Vale is just insane.

So I’m trying to follow Vale through this swarm of cars when suddenly his minivan starts smoking. This was not just a little smoke. Within a couple of seconds he was completely engulfed. Visibility dropped lower than in the freezing fog in Wyoming. Miraculously, nobody rear-ended him or us, and we were able to pull off to the side of the road. He checked it out, and everything looked like it was in order, so we just continued on. He said he had put some different oil in it, and it looked like the van had just needed to cough to clear its lungs a bit.

It seems like wherever we go the sunsets are different. In my mind, a Michigan sunset is deep purple. In Utah, they are pink and reflect onto the snowy mountains.. In Arizona and Mexico I think of bright red and orange skies behind a dark jagged mountain silhouette.

That’s exactly what we got on our way into Hermosillo.

I was driving so ... no picture. You’ll just have to imagine it.

After we arrived at the Ayala’s house, we headed over to the church to play basketball. And after that we went out for ... more tacos. These ones were street tacos -- cow cheek and carne adobada (meat soaked in paprika, oregano, salt, garlic, vinegar, and usually chipotle or ancho pepper).
They were transcendent.

This was a good day.

Hours in the car today: 5

Total hours in the car: 47

Miles Driven: 242

Total Miles Traveled: 2,673

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La Gran Aventura Day 15: Christmas Day

Monday, December 25, 2023

It’s Christmas! I love this holiday. It’s the best of the year. In fact, the entire holiday season is just the best. When I was young, I was taught that the Christmas season is not actually the time of year that Christ was born, but that it was based on pagan traditions, and that the actual birthday of Christ was April 6th. But then I read this article from BYU Studies which concludes: “While people may always see things differently, the totality of the evidence presented above allows only one conclusion: that his birth occurred within those December weeks that we now commonly refer to as the “Christmas season.”

I love that. I love that Heavenly Father send His son to Earth in the darkest time of the year. It’s not just a metaphor, it’s a reality. It’s the perfect way to complete the perfect holiday triad: Halloween and Día de los Muertos in the fall, when the world is dying, to remind us of our mortality and the need for redemption. Christmas in the dark of winter to remind us that Christ is our hope in the darkness, and Easter in the spring to celebrate Christ’s ultimate victory over death and Hell.

After the great Christmas Eve dinner and party last night, Christmas morning was really low key. We told our kids a long time ago that this Christmas was going to be that way. This entire trip, along with the gear we all needed to get here ... that was our Christmas present. The kids all agreed to it, but they told me that they wanted at least to have a box of Pop Tarts for Christmas. So they all got a box from Santa. River is a little young to understand that, so she got a little doll.

Today I finally had to face my concern about taking the new Sequoia into Mexico. I checked the car insurance website, and they said that they will insure new cars in Mexico, but that they have found that cars with temporary plates tend to be more of a target for theft. So we all had a big council about the situation. Vale and Ozzie both told me that we should be a bit hesitant about taking it down. We thought about taking a bus, but that’s pretty expensive, and then we wouldn’t have any way to move around down there. Someone recommended that we take someone else’s car down there, but I didn’t feel great about that. Ale said she’d just take it down, but when I told her to think about what if she had my face, she said “No, you’ll probably have to pay lots of bribes.” Someone even suggested that we buy a fake license plate in Mexico and put in on there -- but that was too much!

In the end, Valentín shared a scripture from Esther 4:14: “Porque si callas absolutamente en este tiempo, respiro y liberación vendrá de alguna otra parte.” “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance [...] will arise from another place.” (Esther 4:14). After that, we found that we circled all the way around and ended up on the plan to say a prayer, take the car down, and park it in the safest places we could find. Once the decision was made, we all felt peaceful.

After that, we all loaded into the cars and drove back out to Benson to visit a lady named Hope and her husband Frank. Hope comes from a family of Mexicans who found themselves on this side of the border after the Mexican-American War in the mid-1800s, and Frank is Native American. It was another of these totally random and inexplicably awesome visits. Hope had made an incredible Pozole for us, and we just ate, and visited and she had the kids go outside and decorate her tree in front of her house with ornaments and garlands.

Frank is a great conversationalist, and Hope is so sweet. Their home is warm and cozy and full of Saints and Virgins and images of Jesus. Hope and Betty had a nice visit about faith and the Camino de Santiago. They just connected. Their house overlooks the valley, and as we got ready to leave I asked them to step outside for a photo. Just as we loaded into the cars, the sunset was reaching its climax. It was the perfect way to say goodbye.

After this beautiful day, I thought we were done, but there was one more surprise in store. On the way home, we stopped by a house that had awesome Christmas lights synchronized to a radio station. I know this is not uncommon in Utah, but my kids had never seen anything like it. It was awesome!!

La Gran Aventura Day 14: Christmas Eve

Sunday, December 24, 2023

This morning we woke up a bit early so that we could watch the Zoom feed of our home sacrament meeting. It doesn’t always work out for us to watch, but today we didn’t want to miss it because they did a special sacrament meeting.

The music was beautiful (as it always is in Jonesville), and John Coakley gave a particularly good talk about light. When River saw everyone she said: “Dad, those are my friends!” We miss our Jonesville family.

We went to church in Benson, Arizona. There is some kind of connection between Marta and the bishop of the ward there. Sometimes these connections between people seem so tenuous to me. Like he is the doctor of the woman that Marta’s daughter is a caretaker for. But with Betty’s people -- any connection is strong enough to go out of your way to see someone :)

The drive from Sierra Vista to Benson was really stunning. I always think of Arizona -- especially southern Arizona -- as being dry and barren. But this morning a thick fog blanketed all of the mountains. Oswaldo tells me that this country is perfecto for the wines because of the elevation. We’re at about 4,500 feet -- the same as Utah Valley, where I’m from. So when it’s baking in Tucson, it’s much cooler up in the mountains.

There aren’t tons of birds here, but there are some really beautiful ones. All along the highway, if you keep your eyes open, you can see hawks perched up on the power line poles, or on bushes. When we pulled into the church parking lot, we saw a Chihuahuan Raven perched in a tree above the parking lot.

Church was beautiful. The talks were nice, but the music was even better. One brother sang “Away in a Manger” and the last verse he sang and signed -- which was the language of his mission. There was something noble in it all. I love sign language because it is so concrete. Also, a sister sang “O Come, All Ye Unfaithful.” I had never heard this song before just a few weeks ago when I saw this YouTube video with my cousin Luke Christensen and the BYU Young Ambassadors.

After church, we headed back to the house and got ready for Christmas Eve.

In Mexico, this is the biggest celebration. Christmas Eve is much more important than Christmas Day. And it’s celebrated with lots and lots of delicious food. Everyone gets gussied up, and they do a piñata.

For our Christmas Eve dinner, we had green salad, tamales, rolls, and this incredible pierna that Valentín made. It was a huge pork shoulder that he injected with orange and pineapple juice, and then he poked a bunch of holes in it and stuffed them with bacon, and then he draped bacon over the top of it.

The other culinary highlight of the evening was this special salsa called salsa macha. It’s a beautiful deep red color, and it’s got an olive oil base. The main chile is chile de árbol, which is not the spiciest chile in the world, but this salsa is very spicy. Just a drop is enough to really heat up your food. And the flavor is delicious! Oh, and speaking of spicy: River is not a fan of spicy candy. It’s too bad because all of the candy in Mexico is spicy.

For dessert we had fruit salad, guava pie, and Betty made this awesome peanut butter cup pudding thing.

Oh, and we did a piñata -- which was totally insane. It was absolute chaos, with big kids and little kids and even adults just laughing and having a great time. I was certain someone was going to get their teeth knocked out, but fortunately, everyone was safe.

And finally, I just wanted to express my gratitude for Ale and Ozzie for opening their house to us. It’s clear that Ozzie loves wine -- it’s such an important part of his life. And for him to invite a bunch of strangers who don’t drink into his house on Christmas Eve and to just be so kind and warm to us -- it’s’ awesome.

To finish up the night, the girls all took some time to take pictures in front of the tree for Instagram. My girls learned a bit about the art of posing from Vale and Martha’s girls (they are masters, as are most Mexican women).

And I took some pictures of the families. I think they turned out OK.

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La Gran Aventura Day 13: Travel from Queen Creek, AZ to Sierra Vista, AZ. A Magical Day

Saturday, December 23, 2023

This morning we woke up and got everything packed up. It’s time to leave my family in Queen Creek and head to Sierra Vista -- the first of many visits with Betty’s friends and family.

This first part of the journey has really been amazing. It’s been years since I’ve seen many people in my family. But it’s been even longer since we’ve done anything with Betty’s family. Betty has been down a couple of times, but I haven’t been to Mexico in 9 years.

This is a really important leg in the journey. We want the kids to get to know this part of Betty’s life. We want them to meet their grandmother (the last time we were down here Ian was just 2). We want them to see where Betty comes from. Betty has some difficult family history questions that she’d like answered.

For their part, the kids are feeling some anxiety. New experiences are difficult, and they have heard some of the stories about safety issues in Mexico. They know that Betty’s personal story is complicated, and they worry about how they might be received.

So it’s going to be an interesting adventure.

Despite my system and insistence on people taking care of their own stuff, it’s still a major challenge. Good thing we’ll have lots of practice in the months ahead. We got out of the house a little later than we had hoped -- but I think it was better than it has been in the past.

Saying goodbye to Janie’s family

The birding thing yesterday turned out great today. We saw a beautiful red-tailed hawk right on our way out of town. I love the birds of prey. They are so majestic.

The drive from Queen Creek to Tucson was pretty uneventful.

For the first part of this tour into Betty’s past, we planned to meet up with a childhood friend of hers, Valentín Ayala, and his wife Martha. Like us, they have five kids: Enoc, Abish, Valentina, Ruth, and Caleb. Fans of the Book of Mormon will recognize that this is a faithful LDS family. Their older kids are a few years older than ours, but Valentina, Ruth, and Caleb are all right about our teenage kids’s ages.

We were supposed to meet up in In-n-Out in Tucson, but we got there a bit early, so Betty and I took the opportunity to run to Walmart and grab a couple of things that we needed.

It’s always a bit awkward meeting new people. As parents, you always wish your kids would just jump in and start chatting with your friends’ kids, but these things take time. In-n-Out was nice, but the kids all stayed a bit separate. I think it’s also a bit awkward for our kids because they aren’t used to speaking in Spanish all the time. Kimball, Alicia, Anahi, and Ian all speak pretty well. River refuses to speak, but she understands it well. We’ve tried to get her to speak, but she just won’t.

So with the anxiety and just meeting new people and having to do it all in Spanish, things were awkward. But then the kids started talking about what they like, and Ruth mentioned that she liked Taylor Swift. My girls are big fans as well. It was just the ice breaker we needed. After that, everyone relaxed, and the kids started chatting with each other more freely.

Anyway, after lunch, Vale’s kids wanted to do some shopping, so we walked around Ross and Burlington.

That took up the early afternoon. When we were getting ready to leave, Vale and Martha said that they wanted to take us to the house of a lady named Lucerito. She is from Guaymas (the town next to where Betty is from). She’s a bit older than Betty, but they had known each other 25 years earlier in the young singles group from church.

So we drove a few minutes to Lucerito’s house. The kids were all asking me “Who is this lady?” And I just told them: welcome to visiting Betty’s people. From here on out we will be meeting new people, most of them will be super nice and we won’t have met them before. We just have to roll with it all.

It was the best first house visit we could have possibly had.

Lucerito and her husband José are kind and warm. They’ve got beautiful orange and mandarin trees all over their front yard.

She’s also got dogs. Kimball and Anahi are terrified of dogs. At firs they were really nervous, but these little poodles (Cindy, Buddy, and Penny) were the sweetest things ever. After just a few minutes there, Lucerito asked if we wanted something to drink -- maybe hot chocolate. Valentín immediately said yes, so she started to whip up some delicious Mexican hot chocolate. Then from somewhere in her house she conjured up several bags of Tostitos, and before I knew it we were drinking hot chocolate and eating nachos and oranges. I looked over at the couch, and the kids were all laughing and visiting with each other, and Anahi was petting the dogs.

When we left the house, I think we were all in a little bit of shock. Lucerito’s house was a whirlwind of love and kindness and warmth. Things couldn’t have gotten off to a better start.

The next stage of the journey was in a little town southeast of Tucson called Sierra Vista. Valentín’s wife Marta’s sister, Ale, and her husband, Oswaldo, live there. He is the head winemaker at Los Milics Vineyard , which was recently voted the #3 wine experience in the country. I didn’t even know you could grow wine grapes in Arizona, but they are higher up in the mountains, and apparently it’s a fast-growing area for wines now.

Every time we get to a new house, the first question on the minds of the kids is: “Do they have dogs or cats?” Ale and Oswaldo have a little dog name Zoe, and within just a few minutes, Ian’s eyes swelled up and he started having a hard a time breathing. But we got him some eye drops and some Zyrtec, and things calmed down quite a bit.

As we settle down for sleep, there are two main concerns on my mind. First of all, Facebook has started blocking my posts from the blog, which is super frustrating because it’s the main way we have to contact people. The second concern is that our new car has temporary plates, and I’m not sure if that will be a problem or not in Mexico.

But those are concerns for tomorrow. Now it’s time to rest.

Hours in the car today: 3

Total hours in the car: 42

Miles Driven Today: 176

Total Miles Traveled: 2,431

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La Gran Aventura Day 12: A Rainy Run, Ian’s Anxiety, Fina’s Hospitality, and Anahi’s Struggle

Friday December 22, 2023

This morning Betty’s leg was feeling a bit sore, and it was raining, so she decided to stay home, and I went for a run on my own. I decided to run to the Gilbert temple -- hoping that the weather might afford me a good photo opportunity. Thankfully, the weather held up most of the time, and I didn’t get much more than a drizzle. It was good to stretch my legs, and clear my head, and the smell of the desert rain -- wet earth and sage -- was transcendent.

And then there was the temple with moody clouds and a dim morning light.

It was definitely worth the five mile run.

Uncle Steve came in the morning to say one last goodbye to us, and he brought his dog Pepper. She’s his new best friend, and it’s not hard to see why. What a fun dog!

After that, we drove to the house of Betty’s cousin Fina. She lives on the northwest side of Phoenix. Fina has always been kind to us, and today was no exception, but the visit was a challenge.

Let’s talk about Ian for a minute.

Ian is absolutely amazing. He’s kind and generous, and his talent is being talented. Pretty much anything he sets his mind to, he excels at. Harmonica? No problem. Rubik’s Cube? Give him a couple of days, and he’ll do it with his eyes closed. Ukulele? Of course. Sign language club? Best in the group.

But Ian also struggles at times with pretty crippling anxiety. And today, for whatever reason, he was feeling really anxious about being at Fina’s house. He was mad when we left Janie’s, he was mad during the drive, and by the time we got to the house, he was totally twisted up in knots. Anyone who has struggled with this knows that once the wave of anxiety comes, it’s really tough to get sorted again.

We got to Fina’s house in the early afternoon, and for the first couple of hours, Ian really struggled. He was just in a surly mood, and kind of treated everyone like poop. Finally, as dinner was about to start, I pulled him outside, and we had a good chat. I told him that he needed to do something to pull himself together because Fina had gone to all this trouble to make this delicious meal for her. Her kids were there, and they were all being super nice as well. All Ian wanted was to get in the car and go home -- or just spend the rest of the evening there -- but to his credit, he gave me a hug, turned around, and marched back into what was to him, the belly of the beast.

The meal was incredible, but at first, Ian was still determined to give everyone the cold shoulder. But after just a few minutes, someone asked him a question, and he responded. Then I saw the ice melt from his face, and he warmed up. After another few minutes, he was relaxed and joking with everyone. He was back. It was a remarkable display of courage and submission, and I love him for it.

Fina is the first of many visits to come to Betty’s family and friends. And if this is any indication of how things are going to go, I’m going to be glad for 500 miles of hiking in Spain to work off all the calories.

First off, Fina fed us a “light” snack of spaghetti, pollo asado, and orange chicken. I tried to warn the kids to pace themselves, but they are still amateurs. When actual Christmas dinner rolled around -- a couple of hours later -- they were still stuffed. Unfortunately (for them) Fina had loaded them each up with a plate of more spaghetti, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, green salad, Christmas turkey, rolls, and tons of soda. They all took one look at their plate, picked at them a bit, and the looked at me for help. That’s when I went into Dad mode. I couldn’t let all of that good food go to waste, so after downing my own plate, I proceeded to help them all with theirs. I haven’t eaten so many calories in years.

While we were visiting, Fina told me that her father had been a journalist in Mexico. His name was José Ramón Valdés Romero, and his column was called Las aventuras de un anciano lúcido y feliz . It’s an awesome name for a column, and seems appropriate for this trip. Betty tells me that the other interesting thing about José is that after a long life of what we might call “riotous living,” he found God in his old age, joined the church, and was baptized just two years before dying at over 100 years old. That’s awesome.

The other awesome thing about dinner was watching my kids visit with Fina’s kids (all adults). Their circumstances could not have been more different than those of our kids. They were raised in tough neighborhoods in big cities. Jonesville has 3,000 people. My kids are about as sheltered as can be. They think that the escalator at Hillsdale College (the only escalator in the county) is a roller coaster ride. They get anxiety about visiting new people. So these kids all come from totally different worlds, and yet they just talked for hours about life. It was just a really nice evening.

After dinner we had a long drive back to Janie’s, and after a tough evening with Ian, I thought I was free, but Anahi was waiting for her turn when bedtime came.

So now a word about Anahí.

She is gentle, and sweet, and deeply loyal to her friends. So many people are drawn to her. On Day 1, we gave her the nickname The Invisible Woman, and she kind of lives up to it. She is the quietest in our family. Like Kimball, she struggles with autism, and has a tendency to retreat into herself. It’s not uncommon for us to just lose track of her, and then find her as far from people as possible, poking away at her phone, or just talking to herself.

The other thing about Anahi is that she is a planner. Some people (Alicia for example) like to talk about what has happened. Anahi almost always likes to talk about what is going to happen. And that is a special challenge on this trip because practically nothing has gone according to plan so far. We are all learning to go with the flow, be flexible, and take things a day at a time, but that is harder for Anahi than for anyone else.

If I don’t have a plan for her, she will make one up. For this trip, the one plan that she has is to watch the movie Hidden Figures. She read the book quite a while ago, and she hasn’t seen the movie. The problem for her is that we don’t have a Disney+ subscription, and that is the service where it streams. But that shouldn’t be a huge problem here because on this trip we are staying with so many different people, and almost everyone has a Disney+ subscription. But the other problem is that nobody else in our family wants to watch Hidden Figures. I know, it’s a great movie, but it just hasn’t worked out for us to want to see it. At Janie’s house it was tricky because she’s got little kids. At Fina’s house, everyone decided to watch Hawkeye (our new favorite holiday movie tradition).

For days now, and unbeknownst to me, Anahi has been harboring this frustration about not being able to watch this movie, and tonight, just as everyone was going down to bed, she decided it was time to talk. And when Anahi decides it’s time to talk, she makes it known. She went off on me, her siblings, Janie, Janie’s kids. It was her own little breaking of the storm. So I pulled her in the laundry room, and we talked and talked and talked. And eventually, she was able to understand that at some point the circumstances will be right, and she’ll be able to watch Hidden Figures.

When I got that taken care of, I went to bed, and Betty told me that after all of the stress of the past few days, she was considering not taking the kids to Mexico, but rather that I stay with the kids in the US and that she could go on the rest of this part of the trip alone. I told her that was totally out of the question. Has it been hard? Absolutely. Is everyone on each other’s nerves? Without question. But the whole purpose of this trip is growth. And WE ARE GROWING. These kids need to meet these friends and family of Betty. They need to see where she comes from. They need the challenges this trip offers them, and I won’t deprive them of that. We are a family, and we are doing this thing together.

If you are enjoying these posts, feel free to comment, ask questions, etc. We love knowing that our friends are keeping track of us.

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