Will finish my Mexico blog later.... But for now, I'm snowboarding at Snow Summit. Much more fun than studying for the bar exam.... Good company makes it even better!! :)

Dec 20 - Dec 26

Quick rundown of the past week...

Dec 20 was the festival in Santa Cruz, and we watched the lunar eclipse. 

Gringos watching the rodeo at the fiesta:

The next day was winter solstice, so we had the big bonfire at Bill's house, and lit off firecrackers.  Before the bonfire, we had an excellent dinner at Lucy's in Aticama.  I had the flautas de pollo, as usual.


The remnants of our yummy dinner:

Dec 22 we went searching for some pyramids nearby.  I think we climbed up a small one, but they're all overgrown, so it's hard to really tell.  If someone ever excavated them, it would be pretty cool, and probably become a major tourist attraction.  The coolest things we found were a seashell, a scorpion, and some weird little pumpkin-type gords.

The gringos climbing the pyramid:

The pretty seashell that I found:

Pretty sunset that night too:

The next day, I went on the river boat ride with the Baileys.  It was pretty cool, saw lots of crocs and birds.  The cocodrilario was pretty neat too - they have a bunch of other animals too, other than just crocs.  The last part of the trip is to the swimming hole, but I didn't get in, it was a little too chilly.  After that, we had lunch at the San Blas Social Club - and had one of the best cheeseburgers in Mexico.  (The best one is at Elvis's in Santa Cruz, which we had on the lunar eclipse/fiesta night).  Pictures of this trip to come - I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet.

Christmas Eve, not much happened during the day, but had a really good dinner at the Baileys - turkey, stuffing, potatoes, the whole shabang.  For Christmas dinner, we cooked at home, and Dad made tenderloin roast, crab, shrimp, veg's, salad, and bread.  Very yummy.

The day after Christmas, I went with Dad, Shell, and Bill, to watch them cut down bamboo for our new palapa. After we got home, I went to Casa to watch the rest of the Packers game, and had a really strong margarita thanks to Eduardo.

That's all for now!!

Feliz Dia de Nieve!

One year ago today was the day that I found Nieve! So, it's sort of her "birthday" today! And go figure, we're in Mexico, and we're going to go to the festival in Santa Cruz again tonight, where we found her! To read Nieve's story, go to my January 2010 archive link to the right.

In other exciting news, tonight is a full lunar eclipse! There's also a meteor shower going on, and tomorrow is winter solstice! Craziness. If you want to read a pretty good article that talks about all of these astrological events, check this one out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/lunar-eclipse-tonight-201_n_798912.html

Stay tuned for pics from tonight's exciting adventures!

Fluffy the croc is still alive!

Sled for rent in Mexico

Days 7 & 8

Day  7 - We walked to Phil & Suzanne's - so we could appreciate our surroundings a bit more than the usual drive-by!  Got the stupid ring on the hook again.  Only took me about 45 tries this time.  Ate dinner at Lucy's in Aticama - I love their chicken flautas!  Michelle argued with the bartender at Casa about our bill again... I think we need to start tallying our drinks from now on!

Day 8 - Went SUP'ing with Dad.  (Stand-Up Paddle-Boarding).  We went all the way to Aticama, so it was about 3 miles roundtrip.  Saw some fish jumping, some needle nose fish, and some rays.  Pretty cool, and great upper body workout!  After we got back, we explored the beach past Casa Manana, and let the dogs run around.  We found a little needle-nose fish stuck in one of the tidepools, so Dad caught it and set it free in the ocean.  Dogs made friends with a friendly neighborhood dog.  Later, went to San Blas, to run errands.  Went to see Fluffy the croc, who is still alive!  On the way back, we finally stopped at bought some pan de platano (banana bread) near Matanchen.  Then we stopped at Playa Amor to admire the sunset and check out the big Mexican wedding going on.  There were some girls getting their pics taken on the beach, dressed in white, but probably not the bride... it was funny though, because they were totally doing cheesy poses and jumping around, being all supermodelish.  After we got home, we had spaghetti for dinner with the leftover rib meat from last week, then we played a couple of games of pool and used the internet at Casa.

The needle-nose fish before Dad set it free...

Day 6 Dinner - Hot Dogs from Street Vendor

Day 6 - Bonfire Night

Sunset Day 6

Days 5 & 6

Nothing too interesting these past 2 days, other than using the internet and downloading Skype so I could make phone calls to the U.S. on my computer.  Ate good pizza, laid in the sun, drank too much, and got a massage.

The Most Difficult Game In the World

Pretty Flower I Found While Running

Spike Enjoying a Margarita at the San Blas Social Club

Sunset Day 4

Days 3 & 4

Day 3 – Woke up with a cold L Hoping it will go away after the vitamin-packed drink I just made. We'll see. I'm due for a bad cold though, so I have a funny feeling this one is gonna stick around for a few days.

I went for a quick run today, up the dirt road across the street. It doesn't go very far though, and ends at a stream. I found some pretty plants back there though, and it was prettier than running on the street! Layed out on the beach for awhile after I got back, played with the dogs, and swam in the ocean before I finally took a nice afternoon nap. I'm feeling a bit better after my nap, and think I might be able to kick this cold pretty fast!
Later in the afternoon, we went to San Blas, so Dad could go to the ATM & get his picture taken for some license or something. Michelle and I went into the Social Club while we waited for him, and I ate a pretty good burrito from the place next door. They had the veal scallopini from the social club, which I tried a bite of, but I didn't really like it. I'm not a veal person. After we got back to Los Cocos, we stopped by Casa Manana to see if Phil had come back from the airport with Suzanne yet, so we could say hi. We suffered through a couple of the margaritas while we were there, and returned home pretty early.

Day 4 – Woke up in the middle of the night with my mosquito net on top of me. I guess it fell down in the middle of the night, or Spike pulled it down when he jumped off of the bed. So, at about 2am, I had to get up and find some string so I could hang it back up. I can't sleep knowing that bugs could be crawling in my bed, so I had to fix it before I could fall asleep! Finally woke up at about 9 this morning, still feeling sick. But, I drank a bottle of water and went running anyway. Ran 3 miles today – 1.5 miles to the Aticama bridge and back. After I got back, I took a quick dip in the ocean, chatted with Tino on the beach, then laid out in the sun for a little while. Later in the afternoon, we drove over to Santa Cruz, where we found Nieve last year, and where we got the truck stuck on the beach. Dad and I walked on the beach with the dogs while Michelle socialized with the people who do "Tropical Tuesdays." We walked all the way down the beach, and visited with El Llano Dave at his "treehouse." We did some shopping in Santa Cruz, then came home and made dinner. Bill and Paul brought pork chops & potatoes over, and we made salad, bread, and vegetables.

Just Enjoying the View

Adventures in Mexico - Part Deux!

Day 0 – Today I tried to sleep in as long as possible, since I knew I was going to have a long day ahead of me. After I finally got up, I went through my morning routine of going to the gym, drinking my protein shake, and getting ready for the day. I went through all the last minute stuff that I needed to do before I left, like putting a mail hold in, turning down my water heater, and making sure everything I was going to need was packed and ready to go. After I buttoned down the house and packed up my car, I had a nice dinner out at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It's too bad that their service is so slow, because I absolutely love their crab ravioli dish. The place is always packed though, so everyone else must love their food too! Anyway, I finally made my way to the airport around 11pm, and proceeded to spend an hour checking in, because the idiots who work for Aeromexico had issues with every single person checking in. I had checked in online, thinking it would speed up the process, but they just got confused and took forever trying to figure out how to print out luggage tags for my bags. After they finally figured it out, I went to pay the $40 for my extra bag, only to find out they don't take credit cards… WTF???!! I didn't have any cash, and didn't see any ATM machines around, so after I made a bit of a fuss, the girl finally just let me go, and didn't make me pay. Score 1, yay! Another Aeromexico complaint though, once I got to the gate, all of the boarding announcements were in Spanish. Ok, I understand that most of the passengers speak Spanish, and we were flying to Mexico, but seriously? we were still in the U.S., and there are people who fly to Mexico who would appreciate an English translation… but, whatever. At least I understand Spanish, so I knew what was going on, I just thought it was pretty rude and ignorant. At least the flight was pretty good, nice and short, and I managed to get an hour of sleep before we landed in Guadalajara.

Day 1 – Landed in Guadalajara around 6am, and made it through immigration no problem. Waited almost 30 minutes before I got both of my bags, and then made it through customs no problem. Dad met me at the arrivals area, and holy crap it was cold out! Like 40 degrees… burr! The dogs were excited to see me, and Spike spent almost the whole 4-hour trip home on my lap. The drive home was pretty interesting, except for the parts when I was napping! We drove through Tequila, which I'm hoping to go back and see more of on the way back to the airport in a few weeks. The only really sucky part was the horrible smoke-filled air in and around Guadalajara. I don't know if there was a big fire somewhere or what, but it was really gross breathing in all that smoke and my lungs felt like crap for a good 2 hours. After we finally made it home, I unpacked and settled into my beautifully clean room (thanks Michelle!) The weather was much warmer here by the beach, thank goodness. Of course, I had to go dip my toes in the water, and I played with the dogs on the beach for a bit. Around 2 in the afternoon, I finally decided it was time for my first celebratory drink and sat by the beach to start my blog. We didn't do much else today, we were all pretty exhausted. We had a few drinks with Bill, Paul, and Don the realtor, had dinner, and I took a little nap. By 8:30, I was almost hallucinating I was so tired, so I turned in for a very early night.

Day 2 – After replenishing my sleep levels, I finally woke up after 12 beautiful hours. I felt a bit groggy, but after my morning fruit/veggie drink, I felt a lot better, so I decided to take Nieve for a quick jog. We went for about 2 miles, but she was getting too hot, and there were too many stray dogs that kept trying to fight with her, so I had to cut our run shorter than I would have liked. We jogged a little on the beach after we got back, so at least I got in about 30 minutes of running today! Dad went SUP'ing with Bill while I was running, and right now he's filling up his kites with air, I'm guessing so he can go kite surfing today. I'm just enjoying the view with my protein shake, that tastes like crap since we don't have any milk yet. That's about the only thing on my to-do list today – find milk! We'll see what kind of adventure that turns out to be…
Later in the day… tried to fly kites on the beach (windsurfing kites), not much luck, but almost decapitated some kids on a 4-wheeler driving by. Had beers at the Bahia 63 restaurant/bar/camping place by Jeff's house. Went grocery shopping in San Blas, everything was closed for siesta &/or because it was Sunday. Had a drink at the social club. Went shopping in Aticama, found Lactose-free milk! Bought ribs & oysters for dinner. Had margaritas at Casa Manana. Cooked dinner – salad, corn, garlic bread, oysters, and ribs. Yum!!

Day 3 – Woke up with a cold :( Hoping it will go away after the vitamin-packed drink I just made. We'll see. I'm due for a bad cold though, so I have a funny feeling this one is gonna stick around for a few days.