Dear Friends, known and unknown,

It is with very mixed emotions that I am finding myself writing this letter. One the one hand Nadine and I are off to a brand new adventure, with all of the sense of adventure and anticipation that goes with trying something new. On the other hand, we are leaving our beloved Mazatlán, a place we've called our primary home since arriving here in 1991. This will probably come as a surprise to most of you, for we have been playing our cards pretty close to the vest these last few weeks. We thought it would be best to explain what led us to this decision for those of you that care, and at least to lessen the crazy rumors that are sure to follow.

First let me say that I have always considered myself a lucky person. I was lucky to be an army brat and travel the world at the government's expense. I was lucky to meet my friend Alex Lushtak, who allowed me to retire at the ripe old age of 33. I was lucky to meet Nadine the first night I ever went to a Club Med by myself, and to have her be a part of my life since May 20th, 1990. I was lucky to meet our "friend" Nancy Chaffin, whom Nadine and I called "our sister by choice." At least I thought I was lucky, but it turned out our new best friend was busy embezzling money from us over a period of about 3 years. That, combined with everyone being asleep at the financial wheel over the last 8-12 years has taken its toll on our nest egg.

This year we tried to live in Mazatlán over the summer, and discovered that we were not true Mazatlecos. The heat and humidity were just too much for us. We did this because we realized we could no longer afford to keep two houses up and running, and we wanted to see if we could live here year round. We discovered that we couldn't, and realized we needed to consolidate.

In August we took a trip to Ajijic, and discovered that not only was the area beautiful, but the climate was wonderful as well. While we were there, we took a look at the houses that were available, and fell in love with one of them. We made the crazy decision to buy it, and turn our lives upside down.

After our trip to Ajijic, we went back to our home in Reno, packed it up, and put it one the market. By the way, part of the reason for our lack of financial success is that I have incredible timing when it comes to real estate. I think we have bought and sold about 9 houses so far in our lives together, and lost some money on each one. I have no reason to believe this time will be any different. We are now in the process of packing up our house in Mazatlán, and putting it on the market as well. We expect to be in our new home in Ajijic on October 11th, 2009, a little more than a week from when I am writing this.

Downsizing and selling our properties (even at a loss) should allow us to live out the rest of our days comfortably, and will also mean we won't have to put our dear doggies through the ordeal of travelling every six months. Our email address remains nadine.and.henry -AT- pobox.com, so feel free to write if you feel so inclined. We apologize for not being able to say goodbye to all of our friends personally, but most of you aren't even back in town yet.

To those of you who know us through our maztravel.com site, I hope you have no regrets about deciding to live here based on our recommendations. I plan on keeping the site up to date by relying on the opinions of trusted friends rather than personal experience. By the way, I have a (mostly) working weather station that I am willing to give away, on the condition that whoever gets puts it into action and keeps feeding me the data it generates, so if you are interested, please let me know.

Finally, if you feel we have made a positive contribution to your lives, and would like to increase your karma quotient, we ask that you please make a donation to the Amigos de los Animales. They are going through some lean times right now, and we won't be in a position to write them chunky checks until at least one of our houses sells, and who knows when that will be.

One more thing. We are moving from a 600 square meter home to a 200 square meter home, so we will be leaving lots of goodies behind. Volunteers from the Amigos de los Animales will be holding a huge estate sale here sometime in the future, so please follow the forums for an announcement. All proceeds will of course be donated to them.

I'm sure we will be back to visit Mazatlán many times over the coming years (in the winters only) so until then, gracias adios.

Quote of the day:
Honk if you love peace and quiet
Alan Cundall

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