Hola..we are back from Mexico

Yes, we are back from a great vacation. I feel a little tired, but we spent a good week making memories and even doing some vacation planning for the future. The weather in Puerto Vallarta this time of year is rainy, but we saw little in the way of precipitation. Any of you that were paying attention know that Hurricane John was making a nuisance of himself in Alcapulco and did threaten the coast of PV, but turned out to sea and was never a factor in our weather. We saw some cloudiness, but the promised 70 mile an hour winds never materialized and we saw only some high clouds and some drizzle out of the hurricane warning. The locals took the warning to heart and boarded up windows and put tape across the windows in a big "X" pattern. I actually played golf that morning and the hurricane was supposed to hit around 2 PM. There were a total of 13 golfers on the course and it was eerily calm and quiet.

Darla and I decided to take a trip up to Nuevo Vallarta on Monday. Nuevo Vallarta is about thirty minutes from the downtown of Puerto Vallarta and is a resort area with expensive condos, timeshares and homes set on a strip of beach and cove area. We signed up for a tour of the Grand Mayan resort, which consists of two timeshare resorts, a hotel and two permanent condo towers for full time residents. The resort is first class and the Grand Mayan is the crown jewel of the resort. Darla and I bought two weeks at the Grand Mayan (We actually bought one week and they threw in the second week). I had no intention of buying another timeshare as we have every other year in Kauai and Puerto Vallarta, but several factors made our decision for us. The first is that the resort corporation owns 11 resorts, eight in Mexico and three in the US (Orlando, Las Vegas and Mauai, HI). Each of the resorts have a guaranteed week for us any time we want to travel as owners of the Grand Mayan. All of the resorts are five years old or newer and each has the exact same layout of the rooms. We bought a two-bedroom with separate bedrooms and a central living area. The patio area has a small pool at each unit. The piece de resistance for me is that each resort has it's own golf course and I also have ownership in the golf facilities and will pay $50 for golf at any of the resorts. The facility in Cabo has three golf courses designed by Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus and the public pays $280 to golf at each of the courses. Darla and I will likely sell the Puerto Vallarta time share and may well hang on to our Kauai property.

We ended up moving from the Sheraton facility to the Grand Mayan on Monday. The funny thing is that the salesman who sold us the timeshare gave us his Hummer H2 to make the move. Debbie and Bob, who traveled with us also bought a week at the Grand Mayan and I think the salesman hit a bonanza. Bob drove the Hummer through the streets of PV with all of the crazy Mexican drivers and we loaded up our belongings from the Sheraton and returned back to the Grand Mayan for the balance of the week. The resort itself has ten restaurants and 11 bars and you literally don't need to leave the resort. We bought a meal plan that provided 6 breakfasts and six dinners for $235. It sounds pricey, but the restaurants had lobster and steaks that went for $50, so it was a great deal. The dinners included appetizers, the main course and dessert. Breakfasts included the main course and drinks. The resort also has eight interconnecting pools, a lazy river ride that takes you around the perimeter of the Grand Mayan, a water slide, two wave pools, three swim up bars, boat taxis, a train and a mile long stretch of beach with white sand.

The golf was great and we cancelled our reservations at Marina Vallarta in order to play the course at the Grand Mayan. They paid for one round and Bob and I paid $50 each for the other two. It is resort golf with alot of water and sand and I hoped to break 90 the first day and gradually get better as I learned the course. As it turned out, I shot 40+39=79 on the first day and a pair of 83s the next two. On Friday I struggled with a 45 on the front, but came roaring back with a 38 on the back side for my 83. That was probably my favorite round as I was so out of sorts on the front side and made up my mind to play well on the backside and did.

The trip was not without its problems as we lost Darla's new Canon Rebel digital camera to a taxi driver. It was my fault as I had taken charge of the camera when we left the Vista Grill in PV for the ride back to Nuevo Vallarta. I set it down on the floor of the cab in the front seat and left it when we got back to the Grand Mayan. Darla realized it immediately and we should have been able to stop the taxi at the front gate of the resort, but the bellmen all speak "Spanglish" and we couldn't seem to communicate to them to have the cab stopped at the gate. By the time they reached the cabby, he claimed there was no camera in his cab. Yeah right. That camera was probably two months salary for that guy. The sad thing is the camera is $900 and he will probably pawn it for $50. Bastardo. Obviously, I won't be adding any pictures from the vacation any time soon. The hard part was losing our pictures.

Darla and I had a chance to meet Jennifer's boyfriend, John, and we are both very impressed with his manner and especially with how Jennifer is with him. She seems much more settled and focused with John. She has always enjoyed partying and being at the bars late. Now, she gets tired and calls it a night early. Nice to see. We took John and Jennifer to Folsom Lake yesterday, but the ski wouldn't start. Daniel wasn't able to install the spark plug wires that I bought and we are taking the ski into the shop today to have it looked at and tuned up. Hopefully they can have it ready this week and we can get John out on the water sometime this week.

I had 139 e-mails waiting for me when I got in this morning. I only had two voice mails as my voice mail was very specific that I was on vacation and would NOT be returning calls and to contact my assistant, Connie.

Writing this has been difficult as my staff each stops in my office to talk to me as they arrive. I will leave this for now and attend to them. I hope all are well and I'll write more soon. Ciao.