Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"Think I'll go to Boston..."

Today I’m off early visit my buddy Ilsa in Boston. I stayed up all nights with plans on sleeping the whole way to Logan and I imagine it will work nicely. It usually does.

Imagine that I saw nearly next to no sky from EUG-SFO or SFO-BOS. Ilsa had promised me our first stop post arrival could be a restaurant called B Good. I love that place. It has good burgers and baked fries. I can taste it already and hope she gets here soon to get me. Ilsa’s here!

So the last time two times I have seen Ilsa on the east coast, once in Boston and once on LBI, she has had fresh dents in her car. As I was preparing for this trip and waiting for her outside Logan I was laughing in my head thinking... “I wonder if she’ll having a new dent”, knowing there was no way she would. Well low and behold when she pulled up, post hug, I did a quick lap around the car and said, “few, no new dents!” She said, “Katy, look.” And her whole back right bumper was caved in. I don’t know how I missed it on my lap but I was laughing hysterically when she pointed it out. Clearly she didn’t think it was so funny.

After B. Good we just hung out at the apartment, laughed, caught up, and then called it a night. To that end I am calling it a night too.

Katy

Monday, March 8, 2010

Spring Break 2010

We have to leave for the airport today at 1 pm. However, we have to leave our condo by 10 am. The MCE offered us its “hospitality” suite to use until our flight departure. We were told it was exactly the same as our unit and we could use it the same way. We planned to pack up, move, hang out at the new place’s pool for two hours or so and then head to the airport.

A hotel employee helped us move all our stuff and get settled in the new unit. As soon as i jumped in the pool I heard the doorbell ring. It turns out the hotel double booked the suite and we were about to be invaded by spring break 2010 which consisted of a group of seven girls. They actually turned out to be really nice. They stayed primarily upstairs while we were predominately downstairs. One o’clock rolled around quickly and we were headed back to the airport. It’s hard to believe that our time in Cabo is already over. It must have been a good trip because it only feels like we were there for five minutes.

Until my Boston adventures in three weeks,
Katy

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Final Day of Relaxing

Today was a very lazy but nice and relaxing final vacation day. There really isn’t much of note to write about but for completeness I’ll provide a run down of the day. Fishing wore me out yesterday, so while the boys went back out there again, I decided to sleep in. After a walk around the neighborhood I did some more reading and hung out at our pool with the ladies. Evidently reading in a pool is exhausting because that led to a nap. For dinner tonight we just ate whatever was in the kitchen. It was our last night, so we wanted to do our best to eat all of remaining groceries and left overs.

Later in the evening R2, Joyce and I decided to take one final walk down to the main resort below to grab a final vacation dessert. The desserts were ok but we had a great time as always just laughing and being together.

Another great trip is nearing it’s end. I’ll write about our final few hours in Cabo tomorrow.

Katy

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Here Fishie Fishies

Four forty-five am is really early. I’m not sure how Jason does this everyday. Ryan, Joyce, Jason and I are up this early today to go offshore fishing. Our cab was right on time and delivered us to the marina by 6:05 am. Our captain wasn’t meeting us until 6:30 am. I was then curious why were there at 6:05. Jason said it was because I wanted to be sure to be on time. This confused me greatly since timeliness is NOT one of Jason’s strong suits. I guess this just proved that if Jason really wants to be on time for something, he can.

Our captain Arturo and his helper Jacob showed up promptly at 6:30 and we were on our way. The boat was nice. Probably in the 25 foot range and fast. It was a fairly little boat, without much cover but it did have a tiny bathroom in the event that we needed to go during our eight hours on the water. This made both Joyce and me happy.

Our first stop on the water was to pick up some live bait. Jason was fly fishing but the rest of us wanted to actually catch stuff and the easiest way for us to do that was with live bait. The first bait guy didn’t have all the stuff we wanted, so we had to take another 30 minuteish ride to find smaller minnows. I didn’t mind because I like riding on fast moving boats. On our way we also spotted a super cute momma and baby whale playing in the water. I took a little flip video of this and will attempt to post it at some point.

Evidently on average it rains 10 days a year in Cabo. It turns out that today was one of those days. This wasn’t great for the fishing but it was even worse for poor Joycie who had on khakis and a t-shirt that acted as a mops for the water. Thankfully it didn’t poor the whole time but it was still less than ideal.

We ended up catching a fair amount of fish, although none of them were as big as I was hoping. The biggest was probably in the ten pound range. That fish, along with the majority of the ones we caught, was a sierra mackerel. We also caught two kind of needle fish. The coolest looking fish of the day by far was caught by Joycie. It was an African Pompano shown below.

At the end of the day on the water Arturo took us by the famed Arch of Cabo. It was neat to get to see that from the water. Overall I had a very nice time fishing. Although, like everyone else who has ever gone fishing, I just wish we would have caught a few that were bigger.

Upon arriving home and ditching our sopping wet clothes we decided to get in the hot tub. I’m not going to lie. It felt really good. After that I took a shower and nap. When I woke up I was greeted by an awesome dinner mom made. Jason kept and cleaned (he was too cheap to pay a kid $10 bucks to do it) a few of our sierra mackerel and mom used them as the fish to make us fish tacos for dinner. Mom really did a remarkable job creating really good meals with fairly limited supplies. Not that any of us were really surprised, she’s super mommy!

It’s late, I’m tired and calling it a night. Time to sleep with the fishies.

Night,
Katy

Friday, March 5, 2010

More Relaxing

Today was another hang out at the resort kind of day. We all eventually made it down and then up to the sky pool. I spent most of the day reading magazines by the pool. For dinner we tag teamed (read mom made) fajitas. The highlight of kitchen time today was when Robin was proving to us that she speaks Spanish. Her example was classic. She grabbed a box of cookies on the counter and said, watch, “protienas is protein”. Mom, Joyce, Ryan and I started dying from laughter. We love you Robin but I hate to tell you, none of us our convinced you are bilingual.

Another day in Cabo is in the books. These days of doing nothing are killing me. I’m calling it an early night because tomorrow I have to get up at 4:45 am to go fishing... Here fishy, fishies...

Katy

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Surfing in Cerrittos

Surprise, surprise, Jason’s not ready to go on time. He is, you guessed it, “working”!!! Ryan and dad did a fine securing our one day car rental at 9:30 am but we didn’t manage to leave the house until well after 11 am. Today’s plan is to head to Cerrittos. Ryan, Jason, dad and I all want to play in the surf where there are not dangerous rip tides. Everyone we talked to has recommended Cerrittos, so that’s where we are headed.

Mom has decided to stay behind because she is worried about getting car sick. In retrospect that may have been a decent idea. The roads were small, a little curvey and had all kinds of random animals roaming on them.

The trip was supposed to take an hour plus. It ended up being much closer to two and half. We had a little difficulty locating the correct location and had one false stop. I think if we were to go again today, it would probably take us an hour and forty five minutes from our condo.

The beach was nice. It was certainly more rustic than I am used to but I kind of enjoyed that. There was one little beach bar and a trailer selling surf supplies. This was a blessing because one of the boogie boards Jason packed was missing its leash. Anyone who has ever attempted to boogie on four to six foot waves knows that is next to impossible without a leash. Robin and Joyce never made it in the water, which is not at all surprising. They did, however, make it to the bar.

We made it back to the condo shortly after dark. Mom, the bestest mommy in the whole wide world, made us a nice Italian dinner. I wanted to go downtown and peek in some of the stores after dinner since we had a rental car for the night. I talked R2 and mom and dad into going.

After returning home from our outing I was called into tech support duty. I tried to claim tech support was on vacation but it didn’t work. I helped both mom and dad with a few of their questions. Now it’s 11:30 pm and rapidly approaching bedtime.

Talk to you tomorrow,
Katy

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Choco Zucaritas con Malvaviscos

Today all of us slept in except for Jason, who was of course, working. I actually had a bit of work I need to get done as well today. I busted out some FishBark stuff and then went on a nice long walk. My ankle is still trashed but thankfully not very painful. I think moving it helps to flush some of the swelling, so I’m continuing to just pretend I didn’t sprain it. That works well all except for the fact that I can barely fit my shoe on. I now have a better appreciate for how Big Tim must feel EVERY day when he puts on his shoes.

For dinner tonight we decided to go out. We took the concierge’s advice and went to a Mexican place called Mi Casa. The restaurant has a crazy decor filled with all this Dia de Los Muertos stuff. It’s not so much my thing but fun to see nonetheless. The restaurant also had a few circulating mariachi bands and balloon men. Dad had the band sing a song or two and the balloon guy made mom (a flower), Robin (a hat) and me (a different hat) some pretty sweet stuff. Most of us had carnitas that were good. The portions were generous and we had no room for dessert. Ryan was super sly and somehow managed to pay for dinner before any of us could notice. Well done, sir and thanks to you and Robin for a nice dinner.

After dinner mom, dad and I took a cab to Wal-mart to gather additional food and supplies for our planned surfing road trip for tomorrow. Mexican Wal-mart was fun to see. It was sort of in a mix of a strip-mall and regular-mall and offered different products than ours in the states (for instance they sold boats and ATV’s). My favorite purchase of the night was Choco Zucaritas con Malvaviscos. These are basically chocolate Frosted Flakes with marshmallows. Bottom line, best cereal I’ve ever had!

When we arrived home we realized everyone else was sleeping. I’m taking this as a sign that I should go to bed as well. I’m looking forward to finding some ocean water we can actually swim in tomorrow!

Until then,
Katy

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Relax

Today was a fairly lazy but relaxing and fun vacation day. Robin and I got up and trekked down to one of the resort pools to scout for a spot to hang out for the day. We got there in the neighborhood of 11:30a m and it was packed. We found two poorly placed lounge chairs which would be okay for just the two of us but J2 and Ryan were supposed to show up at some point too.

After getting completed settled Robin decided to go to the bar to get a drink. I settled in and started to read. Robin came rushing over to me to say that a group was leaving five chairs at the best cabana in the whole place. I sprung into action to try and claim it. As to not miss my chance I went up to ask and confirm if the group was leaving and if we could have their spot, at which point another man snarled at me and asked how many of the seats I thought I was getting. I told him, “all of them. I’m with four friends.” He mumbled some comment about not seeing me with anyone but eventually begrudgingly took off.

I was annoyed that it took J2 forever to get to the pool since I sent an old man packing. Jason had work stuff happening and Joyce had Joyce stuff happening. Eventually they joined us and we had a nice time hanging out at the pool all day.

In the interest of not spending a fortune on food we decided to cook in the condo most nights. Mom made us a very nice dinner that we devoured.

We are all exhausted from our hard day of lying by the pool and yet again are going to call it an early night.

Sleep well,
Katy

Monday, March 1, 2010

Baby Tigers!

Happy Birthday Joycie! Along with being our first full day in Cabo, today is Joyce’s birthday. Joyce is a fan of celebrating birthday days, birthday months and birthday weeks. It just so happens that since she is a first of the month birthday that all of things happen on the same day for her.

Jason had to work today and Joyce wanted to explore the resort, so I hiked around with her in the morning time. The MCE is way up in the hills. There are two resort below that we are allowed to frequent. So we trekked down to those to check out the pools and other facilities. Upon returning to our condo we found R2 in the pool and decided to join them. After a while a decision was made that the kids would head downtown to explore before returning to the hotel for a Mexican buffet fiesta birthday dinner for Joycie.


We hopped on our hotel’s shuttle to go downtown. The MCE also has a sister-hotel on the main beach in downtown and they will give you a free ride there. We wandered a bit through the hotel and ended up on the beach out front. Jason wanted to go to the marina to talk to the guys who were taking him fishing on the weekend. It was approximately a mile walk down the beach. We had a nice stroll and weren’t offered too many drugs.

The marina in Cabo is super nice. One of the bigger marinas I’ve seen actually. There were a couple super nice yachts from Portland docked, which we all thought was pretty cool. After waiting for Jason at the fishing store forever we decided to cruise toward an alley that looked it had some local shopping stalls. We walked by a sign with a baby tiger that looked super cute, at which point I realized the sign was advertising the opportunity to hold a baby tiger right there!

Joyce has often said, “I want a baby tiger,” so it seemed fortuitous for us to find one to hold on her 26 birthday. There was a family in front of us that took forever to take their turn. The 9 week old baby girl tiger whose name I never learned didn’t seemed thrilled about being held but she didn’t seem to hate it either. I’m not sure if the tiger was drugged/trained, if Mexicans’ don’t worry about liability like Americans or if Joyce and I were just a little crazy to hold a potentially viscous animal. Regardless I knew on the first day I had achieved my trip highlight. And now I want to have a baby tiger for a pet.

After taking a few minutes too long with both the fishing store and the tiger we really had to hustle to make the 5:30 pm shuttle so that we would be home to make it to our 6:30 pm dinner reservation. In the midst of our hustle and getting distracted by a soccer game, I managed to spain my ankle in a pothole. It was a classic Katy move and as soon as I did it (I almost fell to ground in the process) I knew it was going to be quite a good sprain. What I didn’t notice immediately was that I also apparently stubbed two of my toes on my left foot while catching myself. I was wearing flip flops and within a twenty or so steps my foot was covered in blood. It was sweet. My foot looked like it had been mauled by a tiger! I didn’t have anything on me to deal with this problem and we still had to hustle for the shuttle, so I just went with it. As we turned into the hotel parking lot the shuttle was pulling out. Thankfully, the bus driver stopped and let us hop on. Thankfully I think the rest of the passengers on the bus were too busy teasing us for cutting it close to notice that my foot was covered in blood.

Upon reentering the condo I had lots of fun telling mom and dad that I had been mauled by a tiger. They thought my foot was gross and asked what really happened. I was like, “no seriously” and I showed them the picture of Joyce and me holding the tiger. Then they got really got confused, at which point I explained that “we got to hold a baby tiger” and then in independent news I managed to trip and hurt myself while hurriedly walking and watching soccer.

We all then cleaned up and hopped in a shuttle to dinner. Dinner was a gynormous Mexican buffet. It was decently good. The best part was the opportunity to try a little bit of a lot of stuff. We took particular advantage of this at dessert. We had A LOT of dessert. The restaurant also brought Joycie a piece of cake with a candle in it. She thanked them, made a wish and blew the candle out. Mom and dad looked confused because they had purchased a special chocolate cake for Joyce earlier in the day and arranged for an after dinner delivery. Eventually the correct chocolate cake showed up to the table at which point we were all in dessert overload. We took the whole cake back to the condo for consumption throughout the week.

All of the food has also led to an outbreak of food comas throughout the condo. To that end we are calling it a relatively early night. Another very happy birthday to Joycie and congrats on getting to “hold a baby tiger!” I think I loved it at least as much, if not more than you did.

Goodnight from Cabo,

Katy