Note to Charlie

Nice chatting with you, Charlie.  The exchange websites are www.workaway.info and www.helpx.net.

Omar, keep your hands off of my wife !!!  HAH !!!

Before we head off I wanted to get down a couple of observations.
We have really enjoyed the Club Regina.  It's one of the smaller properties and at the very beginning of the hotel zone.  All of the staff at the Club Regina have been very helpful, of course we really aren't high maintenance, but if we were I think they would have been able to accommodate us.  But they were friendly and attentive.  Also the smaller size engenders a little more intimacy with the other lucky vacationers.  As I mentioned yesterday we like riding the bus, which we did again today, and stopping along the way.  Each time we see something new.  Being at the beginning we get to see the entire hotel zone each time.

The second observation is the golfing, or lack thereof.  Not that they don't have nice courses, they do.  It's that, to me, they are way over priced.  I am accustomed to $20 - $35 but would not pay $100 to golf and apparently most people agree with me.  In all of the trips I have never spotted over 12 people on any of the courses we pass on the bus.  Most of the time there are no golfers visible.  I really would have liked to, oh well.

Beautiful !!!

 

These captions didn't go where I wanted, but you get the picture.

Honeymooners, cute, huh ?

Gorgeous, aren't they ?

 

 Bike ride.  9 miles with Jorge.

Languishing

We know we can't languish forever, but for now we're making the most of it.

It's weird but we like to take the buses to the end of the line and back again.  You get a different perspective of the locale, talking to the bus driver, seeing the locals and trying to find your way around.

There is a big luxurious Marriott here, we wandered through it yesterday.  Very nice.  We also made another trip to Walmart.  Teresa got her juices to make slushes.  She's in heaven now.

We had lunch at...  Hooters, not bad but not on my "must do" list.

Teresa tripped and luckily we were holding hands.  She pirouetted and I laid her down on her back.  Embarrassing but no injuries.  She was wearing a dress.  Hope it doesn't show up on AFV !!!

Spotted the google map car.  They are also mapping underwater.  Pretty neat.

Find all of the errors on the sign.

More Cichen Itza Pics

 

Ball field where the Mayans played Juego de la Pelota.  They had to hit a rubber ball through the circle about 30 high.

 

The city was built in 900 AD.

 

 

Templ

Chichen Itza

Great, very long day today.  We didn't really know what to expect.  The little van picked us up at the hotel at 7 am this morning.  We drove to the mall where a bunch of other folks also began arriving.

Turns out Chichen Itza is about 130 miles from Cancun.  You can do the math on that.  After about   1 1/2 hours we stopped at the cenotes.  It's a really big underground sinkhole.   Then we stopped for an original Mexican Buffett lunch.  Very good, couple items really hot.  Got to Chichen Itza about 2:15.  Enjoyed walking around the park.  Got back to the hotel at 7:30.  Long day.

I'm glad we went, it was a good day, but I really wish I appreciated the history a little more.  Working on that.  Chichen Itza is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and very impressive.

Grand Mayan

Wanted to add a couple of pics from the tour of the Grand Mayan.  There is no question it is a far nicer property.  But at the same time we don't drive a Cadillac.  That doesn't mean I don't like Cadillacs, it just means I would not spend the extra dough for it.  Besides, "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy."  You know I don't have a tractor, it's a metaphor.

Anyways here are the pics.

Cancun, MX

Made it to Cancun by about 2:00 and got to the hotel at 3:30 after getting sucked into a tour vendor's presentation.  We bit.  Wasn't bad though.  We agree to sit through a 90 minute timeshare presentation at the Gran Mayan resort on Sunday.  We had a great Buffett breakfast, got our shuttle money back and got half off the Chichen Itza tour we wanted to take.  I wanted to add a thought on the timeshare presentation: If you have a weak stomach stay away from them, otherwise they can be quite entertaining and rewarding.

We're taking the Chichen Itza tour All Day tomorrow.  We've also enjoyed walking on the beach and taking the bus to Walmart.

,

Anxious

You know that feeling you have on Christmas morning waiting for the moment when it's ok to get up and open your presents ?  Well both Teresa and I have the same feeling this morning.  We think we're ready.  Made our lists, checked them more than twice.

We're mailing our phones back to Sprint as part of their buyback program.  Getting $60 for each of them.  Not too bad.  I figure they will be outdated by the time we return.

One thing I have not figured out is phone service while in Australia.  We figure to try FaceTime with Andrea, Tracie and Grandma.  I usually call my mom every morning, I hope she'll be happy with weekly.  I'm thinking maybe something like Pennytalk will work.  We'll see.

So how do you reach us ?  We made these personal cards with our email and blog addresses.

 

Drop us a line and watch our blog, should be interesting.

Home Again

Days: 17
Miles: 4,700
Memories: Priceless

We had a plan, covered it all and had wonderful time.  Saw lots of family and lots of the country.  No tickets, to boot.

As you have seen, 7 beautiful grand kids.  And they like us.  They were all enjoyable to the max.

Was a long trip and worth every memory.  Like I say; "Families are fun".

Now we're repacking for Cancun.  Did you wonder why Cancun when we're going to Oz ?  Well as I am want to do; I schedule way in advance.  Like last year at this time.  Made uncancelable reservations.  So we're going.  Sometimes you win.  I did notice that the airfares to both Cancun and Brisbane had gone up.  Some small consolation..

One more day of getting ready and we're off.  Teresa's brother, Joe, is going to drive us down to OKC Friday and our plane leaves at 9am Sat.

Not much else till Saturday.

Worn Out !!!

We had a great day with Adam and babies yesterday.  Long day but great non-the-less.  Andrew and Layla are getting so big.  Amazing, but they all do that.  And Adam looks good, too.

We made it Harrah's in Laughlin, NV about 9:30 last night and checked into our $16.99 room.
With 1200 miles to we were hoping to make it to Tucumcari before the end of the day.  We messed up and ate at a casino buffett about 20 miles west of Albuquerque and decided that we could stop here for the night and try to make it the rest of the way home tomorrow (640 miles).  We're at the Sheraton in Albuquerque.

Fat and worn out, we're going to make it though.

King City, CA

I previously mentioned that we stayed at the Eldorado in Reno for  $25.  That was using Priceline "name your price" option.  Then we stayed in Monterey at a Ramada Limited for $40 also with priceline.  We would have stayed there tonight but the Cherries Jubilee Motorsports is in town and with it a bunch of money.  The rate tonight would have been $130, not happening.  So we enjoyed Claire's spaghetti dinner and played with the boys then of course a few rounds of Train Dominos then headed south to King City.
This morning we took a road trip down to Big Sur (you would think we've had enough driving) beautiful.  Then a Subway sandwich on Ocean Beach in Carmel.  I've never seen so many Ferraris.

Monterey, CA

Now that I have my suitcase I can change clothes...
Yep, leaving the Eldorado someone was parked too close to the bug so I set my suitcase down and moved it over one spot.  We then reorganized everything and drove off.  About 100 miles later I realized it was gone.  Now that will put you into a panic pretty quickly.  Of course at that moment and the next 15 miles coming down I80 from Truckee there was no cell signal.  More panic.

Finally got hold of the hotel security folks and they already had it.  For 16 bucks they UPSed it and it arrived this afternoon.

Anyway we had a great stay in Reno, won 85 dollars and had a great buffet.

After checking in we took a walk on the beach and a ride around the point.  Then stopped by Claire's to see her, Ledo and the boys.  Today we took the boys golfing and had pizza for dinner.  Family fun is good.  Tomorrow Claire is making spaghetti and we're playing, you guessed it, Train Dominos.

Ran over to Salinas and met my old buddy and racquetball partner Steve Gulick.  And I mean old.  We were playing racquetball about 20 years ago.  Pretty good at it, too.

That's  Paul Allen's little boat in the harbor.

San Rafael Swell

I wanted to add a couple of pictures of the San Rafael Swells.  We saw it first about 4 years ago driving cross country for Schneider and wanted to see it better up close.

Really amazing.