Trip To San Antonio And Boise

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

The weather here sucks for the most part.  After returning from SMA the temperatures range from 100F to 103F.  Yesterday and today we have had heavy rains so the humidity is 250%.  I've been told I need to be positive so here goes.  Yippie!!!

Tomorrow we take off for San Antonio.  We had planned to stay at an Airbnb but our friend and ex-neighbor has a suite attached to his house.  It needs a bit of TLC but we will do that when we arrive.  It's on the opposite side of the house and has it's own bathroom, entrance and patio access. 

We'll take off tomorrow morning early and hope to arrive in San Antonio before 4 p.m.  The suite doesn't have A/C, or it did but it isn't working.  I found a 5000 btu air conditioner in the shed which will work perfectly in the bedroom.  We used that on our old Funfinder travel trailer.  I'll never forget that.  It sat in the window of the rv just right and ran off the Honda 2000 generator without ever revving up and would run for up to 15 hours on a single tank of gas.   You can't beat that.

Friday is my visit to the social security office to see if I should start my pension or wait until January.  Why wait?  I earned quite a bit this year from the U.S. embassy and want to see if I should wait until 2020 and file my 2019 tax return.  If so, I'll wait.  If not, pension here we come.

My Mexican pension is 12 months into the payments I have to make.  28 more monthly payments and I will collect from that too.  For those that may find that strange, let me explain.  In Mexico, at age 60 you can take retirement.  Or, you can choose an amount (not to exceed $2500 U.S. per month) that you would like to receive.  Based on the number of weeks worked, your contributions and that of your employer, you can make additional payments to increase your pension.  I decided I can use some of my U.S. pension to make those payments and then have a juicier check when I'm 64.  

Saturday evening we take off for Boise.   We will spend five days with my family and on Sunday celebrate my brother Steve's life.   Steve passed away in October of last year.  We waited so that all of the kids and grandkids can be there to participate.   Melancholy is the best way to describe my feelings.   Bringing closure to this is what we all need.  It's as if my brother is still with us.  

We got a pretty good deal on tickets.  Flying inside the U.S. is very expensive and from Mexico even more so.  We paid $349 each for a round trip from San Antonio.  It only takes a tank of gas each way from Monterrey.  The hotel of choice was $150 a night.  We chose an Airbnb for $45 a night.  The rental car, a Mercedes Smart car, is $12 a day with taxes and insurance.  We are using Turo which is a car-share website.  People let out their vehicles similar to Airbnb.   We'll see how it goes.