Still here in Summerland

I don't want this to turn into an online diary. We are looking forward to our trip to Mexico. It will be our first road trip so it should yield a lot of observations. We will be going through the U.S. and haven't traveled there by road for at least 15 years or more. I want to see some of the toxic changes wrought by 8 years of Republican rule and W. We will be crossing at Nogales and then working our way towards Lake Chapala. I'm a little worried about going through Culiacan where the narcotrafficantes have been very much at work. Headless corpses have been turning up on the streets on a fairly regular basis. It's a struggle for turf but innocent bystanders have been caught in the crossfire. Lately this fight for control appears to have spread elsewhere in Mexico. In the heavily touristy area of Cancun a dozen headless corpses recently made a very impromptu appearance. The trend seems to be catching. Across Mexico kidnappings are significantly up. While foreigners are not the target, at least not yet, it's still far from reassuring. Near Lake Chapala 3 Mexicans were recently kidnapped and two were killed. There was some drug connection, the details are sketchy but this happened in the small town of San Juan Cossala which is a little town close to the main town of Lake Chapala. In any case it should make for a very interesting journey. I'm starting to get itchy feet.