I called a place to look for somewhere to get an oil change for the bus and the conversation went like this... "Hi there, do you guys do oil changes for motorhomes?" "Yes." "Great. Can you get me in today?" "Yes." "Okay good... How long are you open today?" "Yes." "Um... I mean, are you open until noon or 5 or...?" "Yes." So I realized we were having a language issue. I've been thinking for quite a while now that I should learn Spanish. I mean, I know the lyrics to "La Cucaracha" but I don't think they'll be that useful for most day-to-day interactions unless I need an exterminator. Clearly, our country has two languages now and I'd like to at least have a better grasp of the other one. There are a lot of adults who are here now who don't speak English very well, but I think that was the case with a lot of the immigrants who came here back in the Ellis Island days, and though many of them tended to still use their home languages (when I was growing up, my parents and grandparents and their friends would often talk German to each other... maybe they just didn't want me to understand what they were saying), their children assimilated just fine in all respects. Having just performed at several highly ESL elementary schools, I know that virtually all of the kids there speak perfect English. (Well, as perfect as you'd expect for kids that age... they're not reciting Shakespeare in a Sir Laurence Olivier accent or anything like that...) Anyway, I really wish I had learned German better back when I traveled to Germany years ago, and now I feel a little out of sorts being around so many people who I can't understand, so that's something we're going to look into. Becca already has a big head start on speaking Spanish, and I'm sure that will be required for her and Evee as they grow up, but this will be more of an old dog/new trick thing for me.
We went somewhere and got the oil change and had to leave the bus for a while as they worked on it. We took a walk around the area and ended up stopping somewhere to eat. I was still feeling very iffy but decided to chance it and though I was a little uncertain after eating, I actually felt much better an hour or two later. I think the eating actually helped.
We drove from El Paso to Fort Stockton where we're staying through Sunday night. We were able to see Mexico on part of the drive and Becca was excited to see a different country, if only from a distance. We had some dinner and put the girls to bed, then went to bed ourselves after watching some TV.
Teetering and tottering...
There's Mexico...
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