Uaymitun 2024-Blog Post #1 “Winter in Uaymitun!”

Welcome to this blog post that captures highlights from our 2024 Winter in Uaymitun!

Welcome back to our 2024 Winter in Uaymitun blog. However, it’s only appropriate that I take you all off tender hooks from last year’s “Cliff Hanger” post!

If you remember from last year, the 1st unknown was about a building being built near the Police checkpoint… we now know that it’s a grocery store, part of the AKI brand, called MyMarketPlace!

The 2nd unknown was a plot of cleared land… now still a plot of cleared land but with an impressive fence and gate! However, if one were to walk to either end of the fence, you can get to the other side!

The 3rd unknown was would the new PEMEX actually ever pump gas! The answer is YES! Only a year after the pumps were installed.

The 4th unknown was the mystery Chunkies… no one may ever know as the red sign is now faded yellow and it’s no longer by the road!

And for the 5th and final unknown, we opened the door to a new phase of our lives!

Our actual occupancy date for the new apartment was while we were still in Uaymitun! Our daughters were amazing… they worked with the movers on getting our furniture into the right rooms and totally unpacked all but the boxes of pictures and other art work! So when we arrived it was awesome!

While we had visited the model suites before and had seen a few pictures sent by the girls, we hadn’t yet actually walked into our new apartment until that day!

So here’s a few pics from our new home!

And now back to the regular scheduled blog…

On New Year’s Eve, we drove up to Kitchener to visit with Elaine’s Mom and then spent the night in Wellesley at Kerry and Bryan’s home. We did manage to stay up to was the Ball Drop in Times Square on TV!

On New Year’s Day, it was on to the Sandman Signature Toronto Airport for our overnight before the flight the next morning!

The next morning, it was up at 5 to catch the 6:30 shuttle to the airport.

Gone are the days when you check in with a helpful agent who thoughtfully inspects your passports, gives you your precious paper boarding passes, tags your luggage and puts them on the conveyer and wishes you a bon voyage!

Now it’s queueing up for a heartless kiosk who rejects any inappropriate button pushes, can’t read your passport the first go round, spits out luggage tags and then instructs you to go to it’s big brother luggage machine! Then it rolls your luggage into it’s maw and on into the void… more about that later!

In any case, after a shared Eggs Benny at Fionn McCool we made our way to gate area and met up with friends Dave & Jeanette Poisson and Rod & Berri Peters to await our 10:15 flight!

Our flight left on time and actually arrived a little early. It’s always a great feeling when the wheels touch down and you look out the window at the local surroundings!

And now to continue the story of our luggage entering the maw of the soulless machinery of a major airport!

We were quickly through Immigration and waited expectantly at the luggage carousel. Well, it is Mexico… sometimes luggage waits for break time etc. However, it took a looooooong time for the first dribs and drabs of luggage to appear and it certainly wasn’t arriving in Priority order.

Many folks came and went with their luggage! Finally one of our appeared… yeah! Then more waiting and more waiting! By now a second flight, this from Miami, had arrived and then the luggage was mixed between both flights! Then, behold, our 2nd piece arrives… but now it’s all Miami luggage!

Thankfully, for a birthday present, Kerry had given me a set of 4 Apple Air Tags and I had put one in each of our bags!

So, now I’m trying to get enough cell signal for my iPhone “Find My” app to locate our luggage!

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine from the above screen capture that this was not good!

So yes, I believe the baggage handlers at Pearson pushed all the luggage in except some Priority bags which would be last on/first off and decided that’s enough luggage for this plane! I could tell from the app that our bags were likely on a luggage cart close to Gate B40 in Terminal 3.

So we arrived late Tuesday afternoon in Uaymitun, without our 2 large bags which contained most of our summer garb!

So, the next two days were full of trying to get settled in and calling WestJet lost luggage folks. I must admit, that they were helpful and proactive in ensuring that our missing bags would, in fact, be put on the Thursday flight!

Wednesday was more settling in and doing some of the normal activities upon arrival!

So, after 5-6 calls to WestJet lost luggage folks, many hours of checking out whether the luggage actually was going to leave on the Thursday flight and a stressful 6 hour wait for our bags to make the 1 hour trip from the airport, at 10:45 that night, our bags arrived!!!

Well, I think I’ll close out this Winter’s 1st blog for now! The next one will highlight a visit from folks from afar and our 52nd Wedding Anniversary!

Cheers!

Love to all,

-Doug and Elaine