Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.

            At this point we don't know what is going to happen with the coronavirus.  I don't want to tackle this, my best guess is a lot of us will get sick.  So wash your hands and that's my best advice at present.  My main concern is what I'm doing with the rest of my life. I will be addressing that in the coming weeks.  Right now I need to come back to where I live and  why I intend to stay here.

            My first clue that something might be wrong came in 2011.That year we had many days when the temperature was above 110. Our life consisted of running from air conditioned cars to air conditioned houses and offices. Them came the fires to central Texas.  Large sections were burning.   That was went my wife, Sandy, said, It’s time to get me out of here. For somebody born and bred in Texas, that was a hard thing to admit.  The heat and fires had pushed her to the point of no return.  “Find me somewhere to live that is not as hot.”  We had attended seminar at Texas A &M that addressed climate change.  The prediction for our location was not encouraging.  

            Since I was approaching the time for retirement, I decided she was right. If the climate did get hotter and drier, we needed to be somewhere that living was more comfortable.  My first thought was we needed to be somewhere cool. A quick computer search produced the 10 best climates in the world.  Eight of the ten locations were scattered around the world, but two of them were in Mexico. Mexico, I thought, that’s drivable if I needed to come home but still it was going to be cooler.

            We did still own a home in Florida, right on the river, still very humid and hot.  The old home had been raised high above the ground because of flooding, which happens several times a year.  That along with pollution and the yearly threat of hurricanes pushed us to the conclusion that Florida was not for us.  It is when I realized that we could probably, because of our age, avoid the worst of climate change. Not a conscious decision but just a fact of life.

            Of the two locations, the one we decided on, after several visits was San Miguel de Allende.  San Miguel is located at 7300 feet on the central mesa of Mexico.  It’s a dry desert climate but high in the mountains.  It is a town of seventy thousand people of which a large number are Americans. There would be no lack of friends or lack on amenities. The town has many restraints, theaters and art galleries.  Gringos had been coming here since after World War Two. It would be our little piece of paradise.

            In this blog I will try to impart what it is like being an expat and living in Mexico.  Next week I will be visiting Vincente Fox’s ranch near Leon and later in March, we will be visiting the old mining town of Real de Catorce.  Stay tuned.