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Ready for some Sun! |
While the late January
daytime's are gradually getting longer, they are still filled with endless grey
skies and enough rain to make one want to build an ark. It is time to seek the sun.
Abby the cat is off to
Vancouver to spend time with cousin Charlie the dog. Brother Perry is taking care of the house and all hometown
commitments have been put on hold.
Once again Mexico is our first choice for a winter get away.
Our travel partners
will change along the way. Cousin
Randy and Doreen will join us for the first five weeks in Mexico City, San
Miguel de Allende and Puerto Escondido.
Brother Russ and Viv will also join us in Puerto for the first two weeks
of February. At the end of February,
Randy and Doreen will continue their stay in Mexico but up the coast in Rincon
de Guyabitos while we will fly to Phoenix, Arizona.
In Phoenix we will
meet friends Kathy and Mike.
They will kindly drive our vehicle down to the desert and bring our golf
clubs, bicycles, and hiking boots for reprise of last year’s “hike, bike, golf
and repeat”. Also, thanks to
son Spencer and Veronica, we have tickets to see a Vancouver Canucks hockey
game in the desert. It is much
cheaper to travel to Arizona to watch the Canucks than attend a game in
Vancouver.
After a few weeks of
desert fun we will travel to Palm Springs to meet yet more friends, Barry & Jan for more golf, drinks, hiking and great company.
After a week in Palm Springs
we will be sufficiently dried out to venture across the mountains to San Francisco. We will attend a three-day
wedding extravaganza for friends, Jim and Debbie’s daughter Caitlin. After the wedding weekend we will drive
to Napa to sip some wine and chill out amongst the vineyards. We will end our trip with the final chapter
encompassing a slow moseys up the California and Oregon coasts. We plan to be
home by April 1.
I know, I know … this
trip sounds way to planned compared to our past adventures. We do enjoy the spontaneous aspect of
unplanned travel but when one wants to spend time with others sharing these
experiences, one has to be prepared to be more coordinated in our travel plans.
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Sunset Somewhere Over Arizona @ 25,000 Feet! |
After a good flight from Vancouver to Phoenix and then on to Mexico City, we arrived at the Gran
Hotel Ciudad de Mexico at around 1 am. (lost two hours in time zone
changes). Just before we got to
the hotel we were witness to some inner city taxi driver problem solving. Our driver was stopped by the police a
few blocks from the hotel. The road
was closed without explanation.
Our only option was to take a different route. The problem was we were facing two lanes of oncoming traffic
travelling one-way in the opposite direction we wanted to go. In a split second the driver had the
problem sorted. He simply turned
the taxi around facing the legal direction of traffic and then proceeds to back
up in reverse until we arrived where we needed to go.
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A Little Tired But Smooth Travel. |
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Champagne Upon Arrival! |
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Each Room Had Personalized Dessert Waiting. |
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Courtesy Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico! |
That’s it for
now. We have a four hour bicycle
tour planned for Mexico City in the morning so one more flute of champagne, courtesy of the hotel and then off to bed.
