Saturday, June 28, 2008

Fun in the Sun in Nuevo Vallarta






We are back from Mexico and we had a grand old time. The group that joined us is (using the Pipi's picture with the guys wearing the hats: Bob and Vicki, us, Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly. It was a great group and we all got along famously. Often these trips are great on paper and then you get to your destination and find out someone is a PIA and complains about everything. We had our share of struggles and trying times on the trip, but the couples were all great and Darla and I were thrilled with the gang.

The trip started out with a 4 AM call from the airline telling us that our Sacramento flight to Phoenix was delayed three hours which would cause us to miss our connecting flight to Puerto Vallarta. Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly were on our flight. Bob and Vicki, who have never been to Mexico were on a flight out of San Jose and had no problems. We stood in line at the airport for an hour and a half at 5 AM trying to work out a solution to our problem. Neil and Lilly managed to get on a later flight to Puerto Vallarta, but Rick and Jan and Darla and I were stuck in Phoenix overnight. We tried hard to get on another flight and even worked with the corporate office in Phoenix, but we were screwed. Neil offered to give up his flight to us, but US Air was not accommodating and did not allow that. All of the reservations and rooms were in my name as the owner at the Grupo Mayan. I called them and they asked me to FAX a list of our guests along with a copy of my ID and they would check them in. US Air tried to FAX that information to them, but their FAX machine does not allow international faxes (they fly all over Mexico and Latin America). US Air originally told me that they didn't have any rooms available for Darla and I in Phoenix and we'd have to book and pay for our own rooms. I raised a bit of a loud stink and amazingly they got us into the same hotel as Rick and Jan at no charge. We checked into the hotel about 11:00 AM and spent the first day of our vacation in the 114 degrees of Phoenix, Arizona. The amazing part of the blast furnace of cactus and desert is that some people CHOOSE to live there. It is a great place about four months of the year and a hell hole the rest of the time. We read books and sat in the pool and waited for the cooling 104 degrees of sunset to go to dinner.

Rick and Jan had a 10:00 AM flight and Darla and I caught the 12:00 PM flight to PV. Funny that we were the hosts in Mexico and got there last. We finally arrived at the resort about 27 hours late and were ready to relax and enjoy our vacation. We went to dinner at Brasil, a restaurant in Nuevo Vallarta that serves food in a Brazilian fashion. We ate salads and some appetizers and then the show started. They brought us meat on swords about every ten minutes. They served rib eye, chicken, New York steak, pork loin, sirloin, filet mignon, potatoes, onions, peppers, and more. The funny thing was when they finally stopped and we said, "No mas!", the waiter came out and asked us what we wanted to order after all of the "samples". We had a good laugh and I ordered another serving of the filet, which was excellent. True to Mexico, the fare for the dinner was $22 a person. Amazing.

We played four rounds of golf while in Mexico and only ended up playing one away from the resort. The resort course Golf Vallarta, is so immaculately maintained that the fairways are like carpets. Every group has at least one caddy and the caddies work hard to repair ball marks and replace divots and fill in sand mix in lower divots. The course was amazing. We had planned to play three rounds in town, but cancelled those right away. We did play the Nicklaus course up at Vista Vallarta in the mountains east of Puerto Vallarta. It was about a thirty minute drive from the resort and as lush and green as you could imagine. It rained almost every night and Monday we awoke to 85 degrees and a constant drizzle. We decided to push on and drove up tot Vista Vallarta where the rain was supposed to be heavier and the rain stopped and it was partly cloudy and about 89 degrees the rest of the day. I shot 91 at the Nicklaus course and Bob shot 85. Our companions were both over 100 as the rough is as thick and impossible as Torrey Pines. It is Bermuda grass and the grass is about four inches long and too soft to support a golf ball so it buries in the rough and being Bermuda, has fingers of roots that tend to grab and hold the club as you swing through. It was a frustrating day of golf and as one who works for a living, the penal rough at Vista Vallarta was too much. I shot 84, 83 and 82 at Golf Vallarta and enjoyed the rounds much more.

Bob picked up a case of Montezuma's revenge on Tuesday night as we went into town and had large Edsel sized margaritas and chips and guacamole made table side. We then walked down to the beach side restaurants and shops, finally catch a taxi and having him take us up to the El Panorama restaurant, which sits in the hills above the city of Puerto Vallarta and provides a perfect view of the sunset. Our reservations were for 7:30 PM and we arrived shortly after 7:00 PM and were seated on a window table where the sun was blazing on us for an hour before sunset. The gang were nice enough to host our dinner that night in appreciation of our planning the trip. The small restaurants and bars in Puerto Vallarta have questionable water supplies and Bob had some ice for his soda and likely picked up the bug there.

He missed golf Wednesday morning after being up all night on the throne. We finished nine holes and saw Bob waiting for us. He was sitting on the steps next to the 9th green with his arms resting on his legs. Rick said, "that's probably the position he was in most of the night." He was still suffering the effects of the "curse", yet managed somehow to shoot a 36 on the back side and clean us out on bets.

Darla ran into a group leaving the resort on Wednesday morning and they had bought the "meal plan" that works out to about $22 per dinner or lunch and provides an appetizer, a main course and dessert at each meal. We had bought into the plan, but only had three dinners or lunches per couple. The group leaving gave Darla another 12 dinners/lunches and six breakfasts. We ended up staying at the resort the rest of the time for dinners. They have an Italian restaurant, Tramonto, that served Chateaubriand for two and rib eye steak, seafood and pasta dishes. We also ate at a beach side restaurant whose specialty was seafood and ate the rib eye and lobster tail surf and turf that was listed on the menu for $54. The half lobster was $72 and several of our party availed themselves of that. The meal plan is the best way to go as you can eat really well and not worry about the prices on the menu. The appetizers, salads and soups were excellent and the service absolutely top drawer.

The gang met every afternoon at 4:00 PM at the pool bar for happy hour. The couples would go off and do things alone or in groups of four, but meet every day for the two-for-one drink specials. The first picture above was taken by our bartender at the pool bar. The second picture was taken at one of the restaurants at the resort when we ate outside. The third and fourth pictures were taken at Pipis and the final picture was taken at the balcony of the El Panorama restaurant.

The only real problem with the vacation was the flight problem out of Sacramento. The rest of the story is that the flight crew had arrived late the night before on a flight from the Midwest and FAA regulations require the crew to have a minimum of eight hours of rest. Southwest Airlines would have brought in another crew, but US Air is not quite that savvy. The airline industry is hurting in a huge way and flights are being cancelled routinely now if they aren't full. Our way of traveling will have to change as people will miss weddings and meetings as the airlines dictate how and when they will fly routes. Most of the major airlines have already reduced service, put in baggage charges and cut routes deeply in some markets. American Airlines just pulled out of eight airports including Oakland. it is a sad state of affairs, but none of the airlines are making money and the cost to put fuel in an airliner is incredibly high.

We did have some bad news while we were gone. Andy Kuening, Darla's maternal grandfather was in a car accident on Tuesday. He was driving to the Waffle House as he does every day with his 88 year old wife, Liz (Andy is 89), He turned across traffic and did not see another truck that was doing 45 miles an hour in the 35 MPH zone and was tee-boned. His wife was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown under the dash and her right foot was severed. Andy was thrown into the steering wheel (his 1986 Accord did not have airbags) and broke multiple ribs and suffered a hairline crack in his neck. His kidneys were lacerated and his lung was bruised. He had been in a medically induced coma until today, but is now awake and in a great deal of pain. His wife is in a different hospital and had her foot reattached and is in a cast. She is doing surprisingly well and Darla visited them both today. I went with Darla yesterday to see her grandfather. Pray for God's mercy and God's will in this situation. It is very difficult.

Well, there will be more to follow and more to say as the weeks stretch on. It was a marvelous vacation and even so, it's good to be home. I hope you are all well and happy. Ciao.

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