Saturday

After a mostly restful night, I got up early and walked outside to give dad a call, since I hadn't talked to him in a long time. It was a really nice call, I sat outside on the grass in the sunny, cool morning, and after awhile, Saori came out to join me too.

We woke up Cassie and Kevin and all trooped over to Bobo's restaurant, which was even more of a tiny dive than Zarchary's. It was really old, with a breakfast counter in the middle of the room and the place crammed full of people. We actually had about a ten minute wait for a table, how crowded it was. I got a "short stack" of pancakes, and ate half of them. The pancakes were literally a 12"x8" rectangle, each one a half inch thick. Really delicious, with hot coffee.

We started talking about strange happenings that always occur whenever I go visit Tucson. One visit, we ran into a restaurant where people kept breaking out into operatic arias, for example. We were discussing the lack of an anomaly on this trip when the restaurant was pepper-sprayed. There was a slow wave of coughing and sneezing that began by the door, and migrated across the restaurant, as people began to get up and leave. My nose was a little clogged, but it hit us too, I could taste the cayanne in the back of my throat. But we recovered quickly, and continued on with our breakfast.

We split from Tucson around 11 and continued south to Rio Rico. In contrast to the flatlands between Phoenix and Tucson, the road to Rio Rico was filled with mesquite forests, rolling hills and canyons, and other interesting features. Rio Rico is a tiny town about 15 minutes north of Nogales, one high school, 80% Hispanic, and home to retirees, new families to the US, border guard workers, and produce repackers. Off the freeway, its a town that's really far removed from everything, which is really its charm. Old houses, sleepy country lifestyles, one small grocery store which is the main event in town.

Our destination was a brilliantly colored blue and yellow house, the residence of the Patinos, Sal's family. It was everything that a north of the border house could be, shady porches, bold sunny colors, and potted plants and flowers everywhere. Sal and Joyce met us outside and walked us through. The house was filled with old Mexican furniture mixed with old modern furniture, woodcuts and watercolors on the walls, and every room painted in bright yellow, blue, or red. The colored walls were especially beautiful with the many skylights, which bounced the colored light off the walls. We were introduced to the many extended family members, rested for awhile, and then took off on a guided tour of Rio Rico.

We drove through winding mountain residential roads, visited historic Rio Rico high school, and even drove by the infamous "Garrett's IGA Grocery" before heading south to the border. Saori has never seen Mexico before, so it was really interesting for her. For me too, as we cruised a few streets of Nogales, then climbed a beautiful hill full of decaying adobe and stone mansions. Its amazing to see the favelas of Nogales across the border, right up to the wall of America. Through the buildings, we could see the whole town in the distance.

By the time we got back to Rio Rico, the rest of the party had arrived. It was nice, we wandered around, introduced ourselves to people, drank mexican beer and ate really amazing salsas and party foods prepared by Sal's dad's side of the family. The party lasted long into the night, and the end of the party found us chatting in spanish (or really, mostly listening) to Sal's aunts and Uncles as they told stories.

Rio Rico must be approached for what it is: an escape, an open-range slowdown and that's really what Saori and I enjoyed the most about it. After all the partygoers left, we sat down and played cards until we started to fall asleep, and then headed off to bed.