Happy Mother’s Day!

Yes, I know it’s only Friday, but it IS Mother’s Day. In Mexico it is always on May 10th. Today is May 10th. Glad we could have this little talk.

But wait…there’s more.

What would Mother’s Day be without something special for the mother in our house? How about…breakfast out? Sounds good.

What time is it? Almost 10:30 a.m. In Mexico, breakfast goes to about noon at restaurants. We could do that. Where shall we go? Galerias or Calabria? We could drive by Galerias and if that doesn’t look good, we’ll go to Calabria. They’re both very close. We’ll drive just to make it quick.

So, we drove by Galerias. It was busy, but there was seating available. But…it’s Mother’s Day…they’re doing “live music”…and it’s LOUD. Never mind. How can anyone enjoy a special breakfast and have their ears ringing with live music blaring through a pair of speakers that look and sound like they’ve barely survived a war?

On to Calabria. This is where it started to get uninteresting. Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. What in the world? Are we still in San Juan del Rio? Yes…but it’s MOTHER’S DAY. Oh.

Every school in town had a special Mother’s Day program for all the mothers. And THEN, they closed down for the day and everyone and their mothers walked and drove home. At about 10:30 a.m. Just as we were deciding to amble out for a late breakfast.

That’s not quite true. They didn’t go home. They went to their restaurant of choice for breakfast with MOM. So, by the time we finally made it around the block to Calabria and noted that in our favorite breakfast restaurant where we have NEVER waited for a table, MOMS were waiting out onto the sidewalk for breakfast!

We decided to wait in traffic and just go home and make our own breakfast.

By early evening, Dayton was gone for the night for a sleep-over birthday party with another MK, and so it was just the three of us “big” people.

Hey, it’s early for dinner here in Mexico. Let’s go to the fancy restaurant! Yeah! It IS Mother’s Day, but it’s early for dinner. That place is empty before 7 p.m. Great idea!

So, we hop in the van and drive to El Corral de la Vaca. Great restaurant. A little spendy, but the three of us can probably eat there for under $30 if we’re selective in what we order from the menu. We know this place. We know how to do it. Sounds great.

We drive up and the parking lot wasn’t quite full but it’s a little cramped and the vehicles are mostly BIG. Look at all the cars parked in the field across the street. Hmmm…might be busier than we thought. But we can do this.

I think I’ll not try to park in that lot. So, go up to the light, turn left, go down the road a couple hundred yards, do a U-Turn, then turn right into the dirt field and find a place near the road. Ooops…after the U-Turn I notice that the entrance to that field looks a little rough. You know, I could find a spot back there in the parking lot. I’ll just go ahead and deal with the parking lot.

So, back to the light, turn right, and notice that three cars just pulled into the cramped lot and one Suburban was trying to leave but sure was having a hard time working his way in just about every direction possible in order to wiggle his way through the parking lot to get out.

Hmmmm…you know…the field is looking better all the time. U-Turn. Back to the light. Take a left. Go 200 yards, do another U-Turn, CAREFULLY enter the field and make our way through the dirt to park near the road.

Look at all those people! Are they going in or coming out? I think they’re coming out. Yes, they’re definitely leaving. OK…well that’s a good sign.

We go in…it’s busy. We can’t see all the seating but it looks like they’ll have a table. The lead waitress welcomes us. She has a rose ready. Wow…Beth is going to get a rose out of this! Nice.

What’s that? In honor of Mother’s Day there is no menu…just a spectacular buffet. Ooooh…sounds wonderful. You can see on the 8 foot tall display behind you all that is on this buffet. Wow. How much does it cost? I see it says $140 pesos (about $12 USD), right? We could do that. That’s $140 pesos For children. OH…so for we 3 adults it’s how much? $275 pesos (about $23 USD) per person. Ummmmm…NO.

Sorry MOM, but we came for a light dinner and it’s going to cost us nearly $100 (USD) to get through the meal, drinks and tip. I think we’ll wait to another day until they don’t have the buffet. No rose for you.

So, we ended up making our way toward home trying to think of some place else to eat that doesn’t cost $23 plus drinks plus tip per person. How about Galerias? Yes, we could do that. And we did. The three of us ended up full, Beth didn’t have to cook dinner (that was the point), and it cost us, with tip and more than we could drink, a little less than Corral would have cost just for one of us. That’ll do.

Happy Mother’s Day!

We don’t need to do this for Father’s Day, right?

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