One Last Adventure to Close the Summer Out
With the fiestas in honor of Santo Santiago already a thing of the past, Juchipila and la Mezquitera Sur began to slowly crawl back into its routine serene ambience. By August 4th all the stands had been cleared off the streets, allowing us to park our vehicles outside our houses instead of having to park a few blocks away. The small streets once buzzing with energy, curiosity and excitement were now empty and ghost-like. It still felt like my home away from home.
I found myself turning my attention to my parents’ backyard. It was surprising to see how big the space is and I remembered how at one point during my youth, my goal was to build a few bedrooms in that yard where my sisters and I would use during our vacation with our respected families. The house itself is already a 3 bedroom and 2 bath structure with a nice sized living room, kitchen and dining room. I stared at the possibilities and asked myself what would happen to this place in 20 years, would we still come and visit? My parents are in their late 60s, and I know that one day they won’t be as agile to travel and visit their hometown like they do now. I felt like I wasted my youth chasing the wrong dreams instead of focusing on what I could have accomplished.
As I scoured the back of the house I noticed the different flowers which had been planted for my parents – if anyone has visited my Instagram page they can attest to photos I’ve taken using both my Canon 80D and the Canon R100. Feeling inspired, took both cameras out and captured their beauty on two separate days. I ended using the Google Lens app to find out the name of each differing flower – a few which I’ll share below.
During our last full day in la Mezquitera Sur, my dad and I drove through the back streets of this region. I hadn’t visited this back part since I was a teenager and I heard that, over time, it had expanded towards the hills. I found it interesting that one those roads led up to the area’s cemetery, and so I got curious. With the sun beginning to set and a storm beginning to brew above us, we quickly made it to the cemetery area and I finally found a great view of the mountains and la Mezquitera Sur sprawled in the foreground. I knew I had to come here at sunrise and capture this view in the morning, as long as it wasn’t storming.
Man, did it storm that final night. The pouring rain, the thunder and the lightning acted like it was a new sensation – a little too dramatic for my taste! I did wake up around 5am and was the door by 5:30am and happily drove through the dark streets towards the hill where the cemetery overlooked la Mezquitera Sur. During the drive up, morning slowly broke illuminating the area around the hill. The cemetery gates were closed but that didn’t matter, because it wasn’t walled up , with the exception of the entrance.
As walked around the property I slowly noticed how muddy the entrance and the great majority of the cemetery were after last night’s storm. While some areas were slippery on other sections my shoes continuously sunk in a few inches leaving them caked up in mud. I finally reached an agreeable point just as the sun began to illuminate the morning sky bringing up a beautiful view of la Mezquitera Sur which lay before me and the beautiful mountains which stood high and green in the background…in between I was able to view how the morning fog floated over the region’s river. It was such a beautiful which I captured with both the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and the Canon 80D – my only regret was that I had not taken a tripod on the trip. Note to self to make sure and buy a tripod in Aguascalientes during my next trip and to keep in Mexico because it’s a useful tool to have around.
Speaking of Aguascalientes, by 2pm we left Juchipila and my fantastic six day stay in la Mezquitera Sur came to an end. As we drove towards Aguascalientes I began to imagine how great it would to either take a few months off of chasing the “American dream” and return to Juchipila to simply just exist and to simply just let creativity flow with either my photography or writing. A form of mental reset which we could all use from time to time. I even figured that first thing’s first when returning would be to definitely buy an office desk and chair and to connect internet service to the house because resetting doesn’t mean hermitizing one’s self from technology.
We arrived to City Express Junior by Marriott which is located a few miles from the city’s center, where the heart of the hustling and bustling takes place. Don’t be fooled by the term “city center” as it’s not a representation of a typical downtown which one pictures in traditional cities – this “city center” is pretty much the middle of the city which holds a heavy amount of shops and restaurants in Aguascalientes, including and abundance of traffic which was a bit overwhelming to drive along with, especially when you’re new to the area and still have to rely on Google Maps while simultaneously ensuring not to hit the cars around you or pedestrians who attempted to dash across the streets. It was an experience.
Our second day in Aguascalientes was better as I decided to take my parents to see an approximate 80 foot statue of Christ in the municipality of San Jose de Gracia, located within the state of Aguascalientes. Cristo Roto, or Torn Christ, is a statue created by an artist named Miguel Romo Santini, which commemorates the struggles the community has gone through and represents hope, faith and sanctuary. Because it is located in a man made island, one must take a short motor boat ride to visit this statue. Naturally I took photos of this iconic site.
Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to see other sites within the city of Aguascalientes I had hoped to visit, at least this left the door wide open for future visits, hopefully those trips will also include my daughter travelling with me – I just need her to get her passport! Nothing else of interest occurred during that day, but I did see an Office Depot which gave my idea of buying an office desk and chair for the house in la Mezquitera Sur more validity – so I took it as a “sign”. LMAO!
The final day in Aguascalientes was our travel day back to Houston, so during our drive to the airport we made a pit stop at Starbucks and relaxed for a bit. Like I mentioned before, the international airport in Aguascalientes is small, so we don’t have rush and worry about being there hours before the flight takes off. They have a small staggered number of flights with destinations within Mexico and barely a handful of international flights throughout the day.
As you can tell, the flight was successful. As you have read throughout the last two posts, the trip was successful too. As quarter two for 2025 comes to a close I realized how much I missed writing but I do need to make sure to remain as consistent as possible, both in the blog aspect and in the other page which deals with whatever crazy dream or story pops in my head, even if those pieces of writing serve as a sort of outline to a bigger story which might need to be told. Thank you for following along as I’m posting these blogs, or if you’re someone from the future who somehow happened to come across my odd tales. I’ll continue my storytelling during quarter four because life keeps happening and there’s always something to do.
End of Quarter 3.
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In case you missed it, here are the links to the first three part of the 2025 Q3 posts:
Wandering Mind Written Down 
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