Trips

Because of my "itchy feet" and reluctance to stay in the city for more than 3 months at a time, we've done some traveling this year. Of course, we went to Vegas. Once for New Year's (which I strongly advise against, especially if you plan on bringing your kids) and in June for Bridget's birthday and a celebration of sorts for Kathy's graduation. I don't have many good pictures of those trips, but I swear we had fun!

Oddly enough, we only went south of the border once this year and that was in February. We went to Ensenada and there are many pics of that trip here.

We also ventured north (to Santa Barbara), but since it's like going to a citywide mall, there's no pics. Believe me. For the folks in KC, Santa Barbars is like the Plaza. Starbucks, Gap, and Pottery Barn. You really don't have to go anywhere to visit anything since it's all the same everywhere. (In case you're wondering about the Plaza, you can also see the same thing at Hollywood & Highland, The Promenade and Paseo Colorado, except the Plaza is prettier). ANYWAY....

I don't know if I told you or not, but we also went to Jamaica for our anniversary/honeymoon. Oh I did?!?!? Shocker there, right? So some of the pics that couldn't fit online are here.

This is the city from our hotel room. The burgundy car at the bottom of the picture is our rental. It was a Grand Marquis and we got seasick driving that thing!!! Just as well, we couldn't drive the Jetta down there, since it was in the shop. We couldn't have got the car insured anyway, since they don't insure Volkswagens in Mexico.

Do I need to tell you this is at night???

Here is pretty much the same shot, but during the day. Let me just say I feel really lucky to still be here today. I swear the balcony on our hotel was an afterthought, put up by someone with a sick sense of humour. I looked on the receipt to see if is said something like: "If you manage to stand on the balcony, without it falling and therfore killing you, for longer than 5 minutes, your therapy is on us! Enjoy your stay."

So here's Vlad, I mean Adrian, anxiously awaitng his breakfast of shrimp cocktail.

Your eyes do not deceive you...that is a McDonald's in the background. It was filled with tourist from the cruise.

Explain this one to me: I live in the US. Hey, let's take a cruise to Mexico. (And you know they have a "Mexican theme night" on board that is so not Mexican it's almost offensive). Oh look, we're landing in Ensenada. I'm hungry. Let's go to McDonalds. The end.

For that money (and food) I'd stay home. Granted if I go to a country that eats, say dog. I'm not gonna be hopping to try it, but really...McDonalds??? On second though, I'd take my chances on the dog any day.

La Bufadora!!! In English, the blowhole. Not as romantic, but still pretty impressive. This is la bufadora doing absolutely nothing. It was low, low tide.

What is supposed to happen is that the water gets sucked into these underground caverns (the rocks in the photo), then it starts making a lot of noise and then the water shoots like 100 feet into the air. It's awesome when it happens, but remember to know the tide.

So here is some more water. Apparently it's really warm, but since it was February, I wasn't trying to get in it.

See all those houses in the hills? Most of them belonged to Americans. The Mexican government decided that even though some of these people have paid for their homes outright, with their life savings in some cases, they had to leave them. It seems when you buy a house in Mexico, you own the house but not the land its on. I think that's what the government was after. Oh, and they said the bank only sold them the homes for like 10 years. Come to think of it, this is one of the reasons we haven't gone back. That and they tried to tax people entering the country for longer than a day or so.

As with all tourist traps, there is major shopping at la bufadora. It's more of the same stuff you see in Tijuana, Ensenda, and Rosarito. Basically, stuff you don't need that's not all that great of quality or taste. But you have to hand it to this booth...at least they tell you the truth.