Travels of Pete

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2010-06-25T11:52:00.001-05:00

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Park CIty New Years 2010

2010-03-17T11:33:00.003-05:00

The last four years for New Years we have booked a hotel room in downtown Minneapolis. This is kind of fun, we have dinner, have some drinks, usually end up at Brit's enjoying the band. We get up the next day and have breakfast at Hell's Kitchen. Not too terribly exciting but it works for us.

We have been going Salt Lake City the last three years to visit Karen's brother and his family and we usually try to ski one day while we are there. We decided to change up our new years routine this year and spend new years in Park City and visit Jerry and his family after skiing.

We flew into Salt Lake on New Years Eve day. I love Hotwire.com, I have gotten great deals on hotels over the years and I have also gotten great deals on rental cars. I booked the rental car through Hotwire, it was about $130 for four and a half days. We got a little Corolla, with the floor mats removed of course, because of the Toyota recall. We felt kind of bad because we tracked a lot of dirty snow and slush onto the new carpet but there was not much we could do about it.

We drove directly to Park City from the airport. We got a little lost finding our condo because of the crappy GPS software for my Palm but we eventually found it. Copper Bottom Condos are located in the same building as Chez Betty several blocks away from the ski area. The building looked a little dated from the street but our condo appeared to be recently renovated. It was nice; granite counter tops and two flas screen TVs. We did encounter two problems with the condo, the windows were extremely drafty, you could feel a cool breeze in the livingroom and it was nearly impossible to adjust the water temperature in the master bathroom, something was wrong with the faucet.

From Park City 2009

Copper Bottom Inn

We unpacked and drove to Old Park City for lunch and to locate Cafe Terigo, where we had reservations for that evening, we walked up Main Street until we found it. We had lunch at what appeared to be a nice little Mexican restaurant called Zona Rosa. I hate when I go to a real Mexican restaurant and the food cannot measure up to the fast food at Chipolte. This was the case with Zona Rosa, the food wasn't terrible but it wasn't spicey at all, I would have preferred Chipolte. After lunch we walked around town for a while until Karen complained that it was cold, so we went back to the room. I thought it was odd that Karen though it was cold, it wasn't that bad but it turned out to be a foreboding of things to come.

From Park City 2009

Cafe Terigo

We went back to the condo to rest before stuffing ourselves with New Years dinner. We changed and then returned to Main street in Old Park City for dinner. Cafe Terigo was packed but we were seated immediately. We chatted with a couple sitting next to us, the guy had just moved from LA to Salt Lake City. I couldn't help but wonder if he is prepared for the culture shock. The food and service was excellent. Towards the end of dinner Karen just stopped talking to me. I wondered if I said something wrong. What the heck was going on? I finally asked her and she said that she was feeling terrible, congestion, sore throat, sinus headache and it came on during dinner. Karen being chilled earlier in the day started to make sense, she was acutally starting to come down with a sinus infection earlier in the day but it did not hit her until dinner. Karen did a little research later on and found out that that altitude can cause a sinus infection to rapily worsen and that is exactly what happened.

We started out the new year at Snow Creek Medical Center. Karen had the worst sinus infection of her life, she barely felt well enough to get dressed and drag herself to the clinic. We arrived when the clinic opened. Most of the other patrons were parents with sick kids, ages from toddler to teen. They quickly got Karen admitted. I decided that as long as I was there I would get my H1N1 flue shot. I tried to get one when I went to Bolivia but the vaccine had not been released to the general public yet. I actually save $3.00 by getting the vaccine in Park City, it would have cost me $18 in Minneapolis but it was only $15 in Utah. That is the only upside to spending new years morning in the clinic.

We went back to the condo so Karen could rest and recouperate. I make a inadequate nurse but I did my best to make Karen comfortable. At noon she told me she would be fine and I should go skiing for the rest of the day, so I did. We had prepaid the lift tickets and ski rentals so it was nice to get half a days use for one of us.

From Park City 2009

I had skied here about twenty years ago so the trails were vaguely familiar. The front side of the mountain was busy so I headed the backside and skied the runs from the Motherlode and Silverlode lifts. It was nice, I did not have to wait for a lift all afternoon long. Of course I made the classic mistake of looking at a mogul run from the chairlift and thinking I can ski that. When when I did I skied two moguls and stopped and skied two moguls then fell etc... I am not a great mogul skier.

I remembered Home Run from twenty years ago. It runs under the Bonanza lift and it is a cruiser run that is perfect for the last run of the day, steep enought to gain some speed, no moguls and just enough turns and twists to keep things interesting.

I rerurned my equipment to Aloha Ski Rental at the end of the day. Past years we had rented with Utah Ski and Golf and the only problem we had was they gave me a pair of boots that smelled so bad that I had to exchange them for another pair and they reaked before my feet even touched them! The equipment that we got from Aloha seemed newer and in better condition. The Aloha Ski personel were more personable than Utah Ski and Golf, not that there is a problem with the people at Utah Ski, the people at Aloha are just a little friendlier. Just an FYI, if you are new to skiing in Utah, you can buy your lift tickets in Salt Lake City (Utah Ski and Golf) and save about 20% or more. We paid $118 each for a two day lift ticket.

I went back to the condo and I would have loved to soak in the hot tub to warm up but the condition of the hot tub was well out of my comfort zone and I am not a germaphobe. The tub looks like it might be from the '70s and the water was a little foamy and clear enough for me to get in.

Karen was wiped out from her sinus infection so I got takeout from a local Thai palce for dinner. Going out for drinks was not an option and the satellite TV was terrible. It was about thirty shopping channels and three local channels (not queit that bad but almost). Luckuly I always travel with my netbook (to the bane of my wife) so I went to the local drug store and bought a $35 HDMI cable to connect my Dell 11z to the flat screen Tv in the condo. I also travel with movies and a few episodes of Burn Notice for those late Friday night flights home when I don't feel like doing anything. I happened to have State of Play with me so we watched that. Good movie.

Karen's brother drove up from Salt Lake City to join us and go skiing. Karen was still under the weather so Jerry and I skied for the day and Karen stayed at the Condo. Aloha Rental was very accomidating, they allowed us to transfer Karen's ski rental to Jerry so he did not have to pay for rentals.

From Park City 2009

We skied the back side of the mountain in the morning and the front in the afternoon. It was crazy-busy and I was almost run over by snowboarders several times. I am sure there are some snowboarders that pay attention but my experience is that they have their IPod on and are screaming down the mountain in their own little world not paying attention to other people. Case in point, Karen was back out in Park City in February for a work ski trip and a snowboarder literally ran her over, broke her thumb and sprained her shoulder. The girl was not watching where she was going.

From Park City 2009

Karen was feeling a little better by noon so we met her for lunch at one of the restaurants at the base of the mountain. I had lasagna for lunch and they gave me a huge piece. Good marketing for them because I had four people ask me where I got my lunch and I pointed them to the pasta line.

At then end of the day we drove back to Salt Lake City, Jerry to get back to his family and we had reservations at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Salt Lake City. I love Hilton Garden Inns, I have stayed at them many times before. This was Karen's first time at HGI and she liked it as much as I did. We liked the store they have in the lobby area and the rooma are large.

Karen's anitbiotics had kicked in but she was still not 100% so I picke dup dinner at the PF Changs several blocks away from the hotel. The restaurant does not have a parking lot so I parked illegaly to run in and get out food.

We spent Saturday with Jerry's family, it is always nice to see the neices and nephews. We got up Sunday, had breakfast and went to the airport.

Final opinions:

The Copper Bottom Inn looked a littel dated on the outside but the condos were updated and very nice. We did have problems with leaky (cold air) windows and a tub faucet that did not want to adjust.

Park City is nice but I prefer Alta or Snowbird.

As always, the Hilton Garden Inn is a great place to stay.

Cafe Terigo was excellent. The waitpeople were professional and the food was very good.

La Paz Bolivia 2009

2010-03-11T21:40:00.000-06:00

It was a busy personal travel year for me; Salt Lake City in February, Puerto Aventuras in February, Puerto Morelos in July, Isla Mujeres in November and Park City over New Years. I am a very lucky person, three dive trips and two ski trips in a year. On the other hand work travel was minimal, until the end of the year. I went to Charleston South Carolina in April to install equipment and LA in August for a seminar. Then all hell broke loose; the beginning of November I was diving in Isla Mujeres, followed by a seminar in Dallas. In December I went to Hawaii for a seminar and maintenance on equipment. I ended the year with trips to Bolivia and Parks City UT.

The La Paz trip was offered to someone else but they declined so I was offered the trip and unfortunately I had very time to decide. I was a little unsure about going to Bolivia after I read the warnings on the state department website. The warnings about La Paz were mostly were about not taking gypsy cabs because you might get robbed. The only way I was going to go was if I had someone who spoke Spanish travelling with me. Our distributor was sending their representative who was born in Columbia so he was very fluent in Spanish. I discovered that La Paz is a very safe city but like any large city there are things you just do not do.

Since all of this happened at the last minute I had to rush to get my vaccinations and I had conflicting information about the visa requirements. Bolivia requires a yellow fever vaccination and it is recommended you get hepatites A and typhoid. I had called just about every clinic in the phone book. I finally found one that had a supply of the vaccines and was able to get me in. The nurse at clinic told me that I would need malaria medication for certain parts of Bolivia, but luckily not where I was going. She offered me altitude medication but told me that if I drank any soda while on the medication it would taste like dried blood or or a dead mouse. I have been at altitude in Colorado and Utah and not had a problems so I opted to forgo the medication, but later wished I would not have. The clinic where I got may vaccinations was called Airport Clinic located by MSP airport. I still have to go back for my second hep A vaccination sometime in June 2010.

The visa process was more irritating than trying to get my vaccines. On one hand I had our travel agent was telling me I needed a work visa to get in the country and on the other hand the distributor said I did not. Our company has a visa service that it uses in these situations and I was on the phone with the visa service ten minutes the last FedEx pickup. I was told that I had to send my paperwork and passport that night in order to get it back in time for my trip. I was not crazy about the idea of sending my passport via any delivery service, if they lose it I am in trouble. Since the distributor insisted that I did not need a work visa and someone at the visa service concurred, I decided the get a tourist visa in Bolivia, if the distributor was wrong he would have to figure out plan B.

One of the Marcor people in our office is married to an international sales rep and she travels extensively through Central and South America. While I was in Hawaii he emailed her (she was in Brazil) to get her take on my situation, she said she never gets work visas because her company is in the US, if she was traveling to a country to be employed by a company within that country, then she would get a work visa. So I feel a little better about my decision to go with the work visa.

I had to cut my Hawaii trip short by one day so I could spend a day at home before leaving for La Paz. Karen was suppose to be in Des Moines watching our nephew Charlie perform in the Nut Cracker. Luckily (for me) there was a snowstorm and she had to cancel her trip so we could spend a day together.

When I came home from Hawaii I flew overnight from Honolulu to LA and then arrived in Minneapolis at noon on Friday. I stopped at Minntech on the way home to pickup some tools for the install and to make sure that the machines had arrived in La Paz. I was told they were but I later found out there was no clear answer. Saturday was busy so I was up late packing and had a 6:00 AM flight out on Sunday, which meant that I had to get up at 3:30 am. More sleep deprivation.

Minntech booked a day-room for me at the Wyndham hotel at the Miami airport. I am glad they did, I was dead tired when I got up Sunday morning from not being able to sleep in Hawaii. I could not imagine wandering around the airport all day waiting for my plane to take off. I was able to get a little sleep but not much. The Wyndham is a very nice hotel, I would definitely stay there again.

I decided that I would eat dinner at the airport, big mistake, when I got to my gate the only restaurant that was open was a little sandwich shop. I had a chicken wrap that was exactly what you would expect from a pre wrapped airport sandwich, dry and tasteless.

From Bolivia 2009

Carlos and I met for the first time at the airport. He called me on his cell when he got to the gate and we both stood up and looked for each other. Carlos was the perfect travelling companion, goods sense of humor, and smart. He was indispensable, I could not have done it without him.

I was glad we flew business class to La Paz, it's a six and a half hour flight. I immediately got my blanket and pillow and crashed, I was asleep before we took off and slept through to landing, only waking up several times. Unfortunately for Carlos he was not able to sleep.

It was 6:00 AM when we landed. We deplaned and waited in line for customs and immigration. As I was talking to Carlos when I realized that I was breathing hard because there was no air! I was amazed, I though I would be fine at 12,000 feet, I've had no problem skiing at 10,000 feet in Colorado or Utah but the air at 12,000 feet is too thin for me.

The terminal reminded me more of the terminal in the British Virgin Islands; small and old. It was not what I expected for a city of over two million people, there were only four of five lines for immigration. Carlos had gotten his tourist visa in the US, I had not, so I had to stand in line to pay my $135 tourist visa fee, cash only, no credit cards. I actually had to break a twenty for the guy in line in front of me, they ran out of change in the visa booth.

I was the last one in the tourist visa line and immigration and customs. Since I had a tourist visa I was a little afraid of going through customs and having them find my tools in my suitcase but I was literally the last person in the airport so they just ushered me out the door and did not look through my bags.

The local distributor had arranged to have a cab pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hotel. The taxi drive was surreal, I was groggy from lack of sleep and lack of oxyegen. The cab flew down the hill into La Paz, we were passing taxi stands with twenty people lined up waiting for a cab, cars were ignoring stop lights and stop signs, pedestrians were walking in front of our cab and the cab driver was not slowing down, I honestly thought we were going to hit many of the pedestrians.

The Bolivian distributor booked us a room at Hotel Castillon. The hotel was on par with some low rent hotels I've stated at in Mexico. The hotel entrance and front desk area were fine, the rooms were about two steps below a Motel 6. The rooms did not have central heating but mine had an electric heater, which did not work. The room had a thirteen inch TV hanging from the ceiling and it actually had several English stations. The shower had a an exposed electrical outlet with wires sticking out of it, 220 volt none the less. The outlet was well out of the wet area of the shower and I was only suppose to be there a couple of days so I did not complain to the management. The hotel had a policy of turning off the hall lights after 10:00 PM, so the nights we worked late I had to find my way from the elevator to my room in the dark, can't imagine that in the US but I would guess the electricity is a lot cheaper in the US than in Bolivia.

We checked in, showered and went back to the distributor's office. They noticed we were breathing hard after climbing a flight of stairs so they sat us down, told us to walk slow during our time in La Paz and then they gave us coca tea, and it actually seemed to make the altitude more tolerable so we drank it daily for the rest of our time in La Paz.

Originally we were going to fly in Monday, also setup and train on Monday and fly back to the US on Tuesday. I felt that was not enough time to train, especially when taking into account the language difference so I decided to train also on Tuesday and return on Wednesday. That was the plan but it did not work out that way.
After our cocoa tea Carlos had a long conversation with Alfredo, the distributor. Carlos informed me the equipment was not in La Paz, I had taken the company's international cell phone with me so I contacted our international customer service person and she said she would track it again and let me know. She called me back and said her information shows the equipment is there.

We literally spent the next three and a half days trying to track the shipment. Our information showed it was in La Paz but the local people told us that it was in Santa Cruz Bolivia, then in La Paz, then it hadn't left Miami yet. We ultimately found that it had been in La Paz the entire time but was held up in customs. We also discovered that the reuse room was not even close to being finished but the clinic had arranged space for us to setup the equipment and perform the training on the clinic floor. We decided to extend our stay to Friday and told the distributor that if the equipment wasn't there by 4:30 PM Thursday afternoon we would have to schedule the training for another time. As luck would have it the equipment showed up at 3:30 PM on Thursday.

The distributor requested technical training so I spent Monday afternoon and evening training the technicians at the clinic on the operation and repair of the Renatron. I did not have a machine or manuals and english was not their first language so I did the best that I could. They were a bright group of people so I hope they were able to absorb enough information.

Tuesday we went to the distributors office, went to the reuse room at the hospital; it was still not close to being done, then back to the office etc..

Wednesday we were informed that the equipment was in La Paz and had been there since Monday but it would not be delivered until Thursday. Alfredo arranged to have Boris, take us to Lake Titicaca. I really never thought I would get a chance to see the Andes or Lake Titicaca in my lifetime so it was worth spending two extra days in La Paz. Just as any other time that we were in a moving vehicle in La Paz we came close to hitting several pedestrians, we ran red lights, drove on the wrong side of the street and almost got rear-ended.

We climbed out of the valley that La Paz is located in onto the high plains. The snow covered Andes were to our right. The road was mostly flat and straight until we got to the lake. We passed what appeared to be subsistence farms, along the road and saw people washing their close in streams and laying them out on rocks to dry.

From Bolivia 2009

We stopped at several overlooks and took pictures of Lake Tticaca. The lake is amazingly blue, it reminds me of Crater Lake in Oregon. We stopped at a souvenir shop that also makes reed boats, they bundle the reeds together and make a boat that is a cross between a Viking long boat, with dragons heads and a pontoon. They also had an alpaca and a llama.

From Bolivia 2009

The road ended at the narrowest part of the lake, it was about 1 km across. San Paulo was on one side and San Pedro on the other. We paid to take a boat ride across, it was an old wooden boat the had rotting floor boards. The captian was a grouchy old salt that made us wait while he tried to get more customers for the already full boat, there was a lot of yelling in Spanish between the captain and the other people on the boat before he finally gave in and took us across the lake. We explored the small town then returned to the other side and drove back to La Paz.

On the return trip to La Paz Boris's girlfriend told us a story about a parasite that exists in the more tropical parts of Bolivia. It is transfered by insect bites and when the parasite larve hatches in your body it stares feeding, where ever it hatched; brain, heart, lungs and there is no cure. I asked her if the bug exists in La Paz and does not, I hope.

Thursday was the final day for the equipment to arrive. Carlos and I had decided that if the equipment wasn't there by 4:30 PM we would have to come back to train. Even 4:30 PM was unrealistic, we wouldn't finish until after midnight and we had a 7:30 AM flight out.

As luck would have it the equipment arrived at 3:30 PM. At this point I would rather work late into the evening to finish than have to spend nine and a half hours in a plane to come back.

It was complete craziness once the equipment arrived, we threw the boxes I thought we needed into Alfredo's SUV and sped to the hospital. We unloaded and I realized that I did not bring the pressure regualtors so we had to go back to the office and get them.

Manuel, the clinic biomed, had plumbed the fittings we needed and provided the electrical outlets that we requested. It took us about one hour to set-up the computer and the rest of the equipment and then we started training. The training was done in Spanish so I would make a statement, Carlos would translate it, answer as many questions as he could and ask me for clarification if he needed it. This really slows things down but it was necessary. We stopped at 8:00 PM for dinner and finished training on the operation of the system about midnight. They had also requested training on the troubleshooting and maintenance so we continued on until 1:00PM, said our goodbyes and Alfredo took us back to our hotel. We arranged to have a cab pick us up at 3:30 AM. Carlos said that he was going to try to grab a couple of hours of sleep. I know myself, I will feel worse if I get two hours of sleep than if I get none at all, so I showered, packed and watched some bad Spanish TV. As it turned out Carlos could not sleep either.

The return flight went from La Paz to Santa Cruz to Miami. Carlos was in business class, since we had to change the flight back from Thursday to Friday, I ended up in a middle seat in cattle class. It was a long flight back, I managed to grab an hour or so of sleep but Carlos could not nod off at all, despite having the luxury of business class.

Carlos and I parted ways in Miami, he went home and I had hours to kill before my Minneapolis flight. I thanked him profusely for the wonderful job he did in La Paz. I hope I get a chance to travel with him again. I was lucky, Google was providing free wifi at airports across the US for the holidays and Miami was one of the airport so I checked my email while I was waiting. The flight back to Minneapolis was uneventful and I felt I could sleep for twenty-four hours straight by the time I got home.

Recap for Bolivia:

You will need a yellow fever card.
Bring plenty of cash for the tourist via or get the visa ahead of time if you can.
I definitely recommend getting the altitude medication. I can handle skiing in the mountains in Utah but I could not sleep in La Paz because of the altitude.
Prepare yourself for the cab ride. The traffic is crazy, cars do not slow down for pedestrians, stop lights are just a recommendation, most cars do not stop for them. They also drive on the wrong side of the street and go the wrong way on one ways.
You will need $25 cash for the airport departure fee.

Isla Mujeres 2009

2010-01-27T12:24:00.007-06:00

The no-Dive (almost) Dive Vacation

Another year and another of my wife's shopping weekend at our house. If you have read any previous posts you will see that most years Karen’s aunts, cousins, nieces and girlfriends come to our house to get together and do a little early Christmas shopping. It just so happens that I love to dive so I go diving for four or five days, usually Mexico but I did go to Key West one year. It works out well, they don’t have to worry about having one male in the house with twenty five or so women and I get to go diving.

I love Isla Mujeres, the diving is good, North Beach is beautiful and it is flat out cheap to stay, dive and eat on Isla. This has been one of the quietest hurricane seasons in recent history so I thought I was not going to have a problem with the weather. Oh well, there is always next year.

I used frequent flier miles to book my ticket and the only option I had was first class. Nice! We had thought about buying a timeshare at Avalon Reef so I decided to book my room there to check it out. I got a great deal at 1800hotels.com, $53 per night, cheap, even for Isla. It is a good thing that I stayed at Avalon before buying a timeshare, I would not want to stay there every year, at least not in the tower building. The tower room that I was was small, the furniture was old and the window leaked when it rained. The beach is small and there seemed to be a lot of seaweed floating in the water. All things considered I would rather pay a little more money and stay at Ixchel, Nautibeach, Aluxes or even in the new section of Posada del Mar.

Puerto Jaurez

From Isla 2009

When I arrived at the ferry terminal in Puerto Jaurez the sky was blue, it was warm and the wind was calm. The ferry ride to the island was beautiful, I sat on the top deck enjoying the weather, the sun was about to set, it was a perfect night. Once on the island I grabbed a cab to Avalon. The cab ride over the rickety wooden bridge is a little scary, the bridge is made of 4 x 4 beams and they are uneven so it is a rough, creaky ride over it.

View from the Ferry

From Isla 2009

I read in trip Advisor that Coral Divers was defunct and Carey Dive Center had taken its place. That was accurate, it seemed like the only thing that changed was the name on the building and the person at the desk. Most of the staff was the same, however David had returned to Belgium and Enrique had moved on to another dive company. They are still very friendly and have good equipment, I can definitely recommend them.

My first day on the island I woke up early and walked down to Carey dive shop to arrange diving. I like diving off-season in Mexico, you don't need a reservation, you just walk into the dive shop and say "I want to go diving today". Also, they will run a tab for you so you just settle up when you are done diving. When I arrived at the shop there was a Belgium couple getting their gear, they wanted to do a wreck dive which I had really hoped to do, but not the first dive. I was a little worried with a deep dive first. I usually wait twenty-four hours before diving after I fly (some people say 12 hours).

Wet Boat Ride

From Isla 2009

We gathered our gear and boarded the boat. The boat captain remembered me from out last dive trip, it is nice to dive with a company so many times that the recognize you. It rained on the way out (as you can see from the pictures) so we opted for a shallower div,; Aquarium, which I had dove many times before. When we finished the first dive the weather started to deteriorate so they canceled the second dive and brought us back to the marina. I checked back with the dive shop the next two mornings and they were not going out because of the weather.

I discovered that the bad weather was the fault of tropical storm Ida, which later turned into hurricane Ida. It rained the majority of my remaining vacation and the wind picked up so none of the dive shops were going out. I could not dive, I could not snorkel, or even hang out on the beach. I could not even rent a golf cart and explored the island because I would have gotten drenched. I was going stir crazy and I had to get off of the island.

Hyatt Regency Cancun

From Isla 2009

I booked a room at the Hyatt Regency Cancun for Friday and Fiesta Americana Coral Beach for Saturday . It is always culture shock going from a low budget hotel on Isla to the opulence of an expensive resort in Cancun. The Hyatt is very nice but I would not classify it as opulent, however, the Fiesta Americana falls into the opulent classification. They are located in the hotel zone across the street from each other. I wanted to stay in this area because of all of the shops and restaurants in the area.

I had a late lunch at Carlos and Charlie's, the enchiladas verde were the best meal that I had on vacation. The waiters are hilarious, I am sure they have the same pranks that they pull on everyone, they were definitely entertaining. Halfway through my meal I heard a woman screaming, I looked over and saw the waiter and her boyfriend laughing. I asked the waiter what happened and he showed me a realistic looking rubber cockroach with a piece of fishing line tied to it, he pulled it across the table using the fishing line and I was amazed at how real it looked. I might have screamed too! Not really.

I made the mistake of working out the first thing Saturday morning, The sun was shinning and the wind had died down, I should have known that the nice weather would not last for long. Once I finished my workout it started raining again. The health club at the Hyatt is one of the nicest ones that I have used in a hotel.

Hard Rock Cancun

From Isla 2009

I spent the rest of the day checking out the restaurants and shops in the area- I had to find a shop where I could buy an umbrella. There is a Carlos and Charlie's, as mentioned above, Bull Dogs (Night Club), CoCo Bongo (night club), Hard Rock, and more in the immediate area. Here is the link for the shopping center http://www.forumbythesea.com.mx/ (Spanish only) and a link for a map of Cancun www.advantagemexico.com/cancun/images/cancun_zone.pdf and here is a link to shopping in Cancun http://www.cancun.bz/shopping_tips.htm . The thing I noticed about this area is that it is predominantly 35 to 60 year olds during the day and once the sun goes down the average age drops dramatically to twenty-something.

Fiesta Americana

From Isla 2009

The following morning I packed my bags and hauled them across the street to the Fiesta Americana Coral Beach. Since I was only moving across the street I opted to walk and I had to explain to every cabbie that I saw, and there were a lot of them, that I was just going across the street. I was met at the hotel entrance by what I thought was a bellhop who offered to carry my bag. I declined because I had just dragged my bag all the way from the other hotel and I was not going to pay someone to drag it the last ten feet. He showed me to the front desk, while I was checking in he brought me a fruit punch and once I was checked in he showed me to my room giving me a tour of the resort and restaurants. He performed more duties than the usual doorman so I did end up giving him a well earned tip.

The Fiesta Americana was an incredible resort. The lobby was beautiful and the front desk people were extremely professional. The room was very nice suite, it had a large vanity area/bathroom, big bedroom area with a flat panel TV, the living room area was down three steps, it had a couch and another flat panel TV and there was an entrance to the balcony from the living room area.

They have a small cafe near the hotel entrance, I had pizza there for lunch and it was both reasonably priced and good. I went back to Carlos and Charlies for dinner.On the way back I passed CoCo Bongo and it was packed with twenty-somethings partying their butts off. When I got back to my room I opened the door and saw a light on and heard music playing. I was sure that I turned everything off when I had left. I double checked the room number; yup it was mine. My next thought was that someone was in my room. I opened the door and said, "Hello", no answer. I slowly walked in, leaving the door open for a fast exit, just in case. I saw what was going on, the maid had turned down my bed, turned the TV to a music station (the have XM on their cable) and left a light on. She had also placed slippers on each side of the bed and put chocolates on each pillow. Very nice!

By the following morning hurricane Ida was ninety miles off of the coast of Cancun but the weather was not as bad as I thought it would be, the rain was coming in waves and there was some wind but not close to hurricane force. I walked to Starbucks for breakfast and used their wifi to check my flight, it was still on time. I was slightly amazed, I thought for sure the weather would at least delay my flight if not cancel it. After breakfast I walked back to the resort, they had closed the huge storm shutters for the main entrance. I had the front desk call Delta and verify that my flight was actually on time. It was, so I checked out and grabbed a cab to the airport. I was early but there was no reason to stay at the hotel.

The flight back was nice, first class, no connections and uneventful. My lovely wife was nice enough to pick me up at the airport so I did not even have to get into a cold car.

This was a good news/bad news vacation. Every time I has something really nice happen it was offset by something not so nice happening.

For example:

Since I flew first class there were only eight people in front of me in the immigration line (a far cry from the hundreds that were ahead of us in February) but the computer were down so I had to wait. The funny thing is that the computers never came up they eventually they just started stamping passports and letting people through.
I was on a dive vacation but I only got to dive once.
I got to check out the Cancun hotel zone but it is not for me.

The Good

Flying first class is great.
Three trips to Mexico in one year.
Hyatt Regency Cancun.
Fiesta Americana Coral Beach.

The Not So Good

Hurricane Ida.
Being stuck on an island and not being able to dive, snorkel, or relax on the beach.
Avalon Reef.

Hawaii 2009

2010-01-21T20:53:00.000-06:00

I love my job, I got the Hawaii training again, I flew down a couple of days a head of time so I could squeeze in a dive. I had a direct flight on the way down, I opted to pay the extra $25 to get an exit row seat and it was worth it. I left Minneapolis at 11:30 AM and arrived in Honolulu at 4:10 PM. Once I collected my luggage I was off to find the rental cars. I was stumped for several minutes until I saw the wiki wiki buses, then I remembered from my last trip here that they will take me to the rental car location. I feel sorry for first timers to the Honolulu airport, they must wander around for hours trying to find the rental cars.

I fired up my GPS and headed to the Doubletree Waikiki, I had stayed here last time and it is definitely a nice hotel for the money. My room was $120 per night, of course I had to pay a parking fee for my rental car. I unpacked and headed out to explore Waikiki. I eventually ended up at Cheeseburger in Paradaise for dinner, just down the block from the Doubletree. It was 8:00 PM by the time I ate, 12:00AM Minneapolis time so I was ready to eat and go to bed. I don't know why I ate at "Cheeseburger" again, I didn't care for it much the last time I was here and I liked it even less this time. My burger was greasy and some weird spice, ginger I think, that I didn't like. They also up-sold me on everything; I ordered a beer and they gave me a 23 ounce beer, they asked me if I wanted fries and for some reason I assumed that they were included with the meal (I blame the jet lag), so my beer and cheeseburger cost $24 plus tip.

View Larger Map

I woke up early Saturday morning, 6:00 am, like I always do because of the four-hour time change. I ran and lifted weights at the Doubletree health club facilities, not bad facilities, decent weights and cardio equipment. After my workout I walked to a greasy spoon diner a couple of blocks from the Doubletree called Wailana Coffee House (see Google street view above). It is the perfect cafe, it looked like it hadn't been remodeled since the sixties, they have autographed pictures of celebrities, I assumed had eaten there, in the enterance and the place was packed. I was by my self so I was able to quickly get a spot at the counter. I am normally a pancake person but since I worked out I needed protein, I opted for the ham and cheese omelet- very good. I was seated by the cashier and I noticed something odd, the customers would bring their check to the cashier to pay and the cashier would ask if they wanted to leave a tip. Over sixty percent of the people would say no; what a bunch of cheap asses.

I spent the rest of the day researching dive shops and just hanging out. I went to the Ala Moana Mall looking for sandals. I spend the afternoon on the beach, patrons of the Doubletree can use the beach at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The Hilton is amazing, beautiful shops, nice restaurants and a beautiful stretch of beach. I swam and read a while enjoying the eighty degree temps knowing it was snowing in Minneapolis. I was craving Thai food for dinner and I though Honolulu would pe the perfect place to get good Thai food, I was wrong. I ate at Keo's Thai Restaurant and it was not good, our Thai restaurants in Minneapolis are much better.

I got up early on Sunday (again), had breakfast and waited for the dive shuttle. I called Dive Ohau on Saturday and booked a two tank dive. We had over twelve divers going out, they split us into groups of four so even though the boat was crowded we had only four divers per dive master. Our first dive was a wreck dive, it was nice, we saw a large turtle and the dive master coxed an eel out of a cranny on the boat.

The second dive was shallow, it was thirty to forty feet and it had an amazing start, our group entered the water, the dive master and I were in the lead and the rest of the group was not far behind. The divemaster and I saw it at the same time, in about thirty feet of water. Later I said it was twelve feet long the dive master said eight feet, I would guess he was right. It was tiger shark. I immediately knew it was a tiger; the square nose and barely discernable stripes on its side. It slowly swam past, within twenty feet of us, not paying much attention to the two divers gawlking at it. The divemaster had his Nikon DSLR and was shooting HD video of the shark. I had ruined my camera during my last dive in Isla Mujeres, so I got no pictures, no video. I've dove and snorkled with nurse sharks and Caribbean reef sharks but this was even more amazing! After the shark swam past the dive master (a college student), he looked at me wide-eyed and I could hear him yell "wow" into his regulator. The rest of the dive was just a blur after having seen the tiger at the beginning. The dive master promised to send the video to me or post it on YouTube but he did neither, even though I emailed him once I got back to Minnesota. Below is video from YouTube of a tiger, not the one I saw, but from the video you can see what an amazing animal they are.

I walked back to the hotel after the dive and showered. I headed out to find a sports bar to watch the Vikings game. I was in luck, the game was originally suppose to be a noon game televised locally but the Vikings and Cardinals were both at the top of their division so the game was moved to Sunday night back on the mainland, about 2:00 PM Hawaii time. I did a search on Google Maps and found Moose McGillycuddys, it fit the bill for the game, it had a lot of flat screen TV and served beer and burgers. Unfortunately the Vikings lost!!

Monday is always an easy day for seminars. All I have top do is set up the equipment and that usually doesn't take more that three hours (normally I am flying in). The seminar is being held at a Liberty dialysis clinic in Waipahu. It is about a twenty minute drive from my hotel to the clinic, however, my GPS let me down and it took about fifteen extra minutes to find the clinic. The set up went smoothly until I tried to connect my computer to my LCD projector. I had just upgraded my netbook to Windows 7. I heard that if your hardware works in Vista it will work in 7, wrong! My USB to VGA adapter did not work. I had to fix it so I could give my PowerPoint presentations. Luckily Mike, our salesperson, showed up. He had a 3G adapter for his computer so we were able to access the internet and go to the manufactures website and download a Windows 7 beta driver for the adapter.

Class went well, they have a bright group of people working for Liberty. We met Thursday morning to perform annual maintenance on the machines at the clinic and it went really well, we were done by 11:00 PM. I packed up my equipment we had lunch and I left for the airport.

I was suppose to stay one more day and go back into the clinic on Friday to make sure that the machines didn't have any issues but I had to cut my trip short to leave for Bolivia on Sunday. My flight was not until 9:00 PM so I went back to the Borders in Honolulu, I was going to use their free wifi and to check my email and check in for the flight but the coffee shop area was packed, not an emply seat in the place. I decided that I would go to the airport, I was about five hours early but I couldn't think of any other place to just hang out.

I grabbed dinner at Kona Brewing Company in the airport, it quite good. I connected in LA and arrived in Minneapolis shorltly after noon. I only had a short time at home to repack my suitcase and let ready for Bolivia.

Dallas November 2009

2009-11-14T23:57:00.000-06:00

I like teaching the service and maintenance seminars. Fly in on Monday and set up, first class Tuesday and Wednesday, second class Thursday and Friday. Pack-up and fly home on Friday. Easy and fun!

The hotel for this seminar was better than most, close to the airport. It appeared to be new, I believe it wasn't but it was recently renovated. The front desk people were great. The banquet people were extremely professional, and the food at the restaurant was good. The rooms were nice; big flat screen TVs. What I like most about the the hotel was the large foyer area (I am not sure what else to call it) outside the banquet rooms. It had free wifi and there were a dozen very comfortable computer stations with up to date computers. The area had couches and chairs strategically placed to allow a large group of people to sit together but still have privacy. The hotel was an unbelievable $120 per night, the cost of living in Texas is lower than most major metropolitan areas. The hotel health club was one of the nicer ones that I have used, all of the cardio equipment had flat panel TVs. I would definitely do another seminar here.

LA Seminar August 10th -15th

2009-09-28T11:13:00.000-05:00

I like flying to the west coast I had a 11:35 AM flight and I was in LA by 1:30 PM, as opposed to when I fly east, I will have a 7:30 AM flight and I won't land until almost noon. Unfortunately the return trip isn't as nice, the last flight out of LA is at 5:00 PM. Too early for me to finish class, pack up and make it to the airport. My only alternative is the red eye, leave at 12:30 AM and arrive in Minneapolis at 6:00 AM.

My company rented with Avis for years but several years ago they started renting with Hertz, for some reason I was booked with Avis again, which is fine with me. My only complaint with Avis was the last time that I rented form them (I am Preferred) they did not have my car ready and I had to go to the rental desk to get my car. It happened again in LA, I was dropped at the Preferred building, I checked the board for my name and once again there was not car space indicated on the board so I had to stand in line at the Preferred desk. I was doing a slow burn while I waited in line so I had to remind myself not to take it out on the girl behind the desk, it is not her fault. She gave me keys and the rental contract and told me that I would like the car. I walked out to the indicated space and saw a black Camero. She was right I did like the car until I tried to put my suitcase in the trunk, it didn't fit but I was able to wedge it into the back seat.

One thing about the new Cameros, people LOVE the car, I got comments every where I went. It started with a young couple several cars down from the Camero in the Avis lot when I was trying to get suitcase in the trunk, the wife looked over and gave her poor boyfriend/husband the line about "why didn't we get one of those?". Next, I was pulling into a Home Depot to get some seminar supplies and a man exiting the lot pointed and shouted "that's what I am talking about!". Then I had a woman in a convertible BMW look over and say "nice car". When I was gassing the car at the end of the trip, the woman the next pump over was telling me how much she liked my Camero and she was thinking of trading her convertible Mustang for one. My favorite comment was from a little kid in a parking lot in Malibu, he said, "I'm waiting for it to transform". I also had a family stop and look at the car in the same parking lot. Chevy, I think you have a hit with the Camero.

The Camero had a V6 so it was fairly fast and it got good gas mileage, my only complaint is it did not sound that nasty, it almost sounded like a four cylinder. I know Chevy could make it sound throatier because my wife's Infinity G35X sounds really nice when you jump on it. I do have one other complaint, the roof of the car is chopped so low it is hard to get in and out of the car, also I was constantly hitting my head on the roof of the car (and I am only 5'9") but the low roof is what helps give the car its good looks.

We have had several seminars at the Holiday Inn Airport in LA, it's not a bad hotel but I decided to try someplace different this time. Our travel agent found the Crowne Plaza Airport and it is literally next to the airport, it is so close that you will find a a sleep mask and ear plugs in your room when you check in. I did wake up several time due to jet noise but it is no worse than other airport hotels that I have stayed at.

Like other in town hotels, parking was extra, the regular price was $12 per day but they gave us the corporate rate of $8 per day. They even gave me a stamp that I used to validate the student's tickets ($50 dollar fine if I was to lose it). The parking ramp is not connected to the hotel, and the parking ramp is shared with other businesses so hotel patrons have to park on the forth level or higher, also the parking spots are really small and with the huge doors on the Camero it was fairly tough squeeze to get in and out of the car.

My hotel room was OK, nothing spectacular. The banquet rooms were on the second floor, nice rooms but again nothing fantastic. The banquet people and the front desk people were great. Melisa Balanon was the Banquet Manager and she good at her job, she found me when I was setting up to verify that I got all of my equipment and she checked with me every day to make sure that I did not have any problem. Sometimes I will see the banquet manager once during the week. The lunches were excellent, huge amount of food and it was well prepared.

Our travel agent actually asked me if I wanted a car when she booked this trip! Hell yea! Of all of the places I don't want to sit in my room after class, LA is at the top of the list. Besides I had to run to Home Depot and Office Depot for supplies and I am ashamed to admit that I forgot my dress shoes so I had to go buy a pair.

I went so Santa Monica for dinner one night, it is a nice city and Third Street Promenade is much larger than the last time I was there. I wondered around for several hours and finally ate dinner at a deli on the end of the promenade. Hanging around Santa Monica is a great way to waste an evening.

The hot yellow Ferrari was parked in Santa Monica.

I had gone to Venice Beach many years ago and I thought I checked it out again. I don't know if I have less tolerance for head shops or I was in a bad mood but I didn't like a lot of Venice Beach and see no need to go back again. The people watching is great, this is where the really odd people that want attention are. There are several medical marijuana store fronts mixed in with the head shops. The beach is beautiful and I would run on the path if the logistics worked out, other than the running path and beach Venice holds no attraction for me.

Since I took the red-eye back I had time to kill after class on Friday. I decided to see Malibu, unfortunately I got to experience the infamous LA traffic. It took me an hour and a half to go the twenty-six miles. I was a teen in the sixties so there was something a little surreal about cruising Malibu in my new Camero listening to The Beachboys. The beaches are beautiful, Pepperdine is an incredibly beautiful college, and the beach houses are amazing. I went to Starbucks and checked my email, then drove up the coast but returned to Mailbu to have dinner at Marmalade Cafe. Dinner was excellent, it was as nearly as good as my favorite Italian restaurant in Minneapolis (Broader's). After dinner I drove back to the airport, I was early but I had a Delta Sky club pass, so I went to the club, had a beer, and used their wifi to check email again. I got as much sleep as I could on the three and a half hour flight, but I still came home and crashed until 11:00 am. I was suppose to buy a car (Audi TT) and had arranged to meet the seller at a bank in Apple Valley. I was late but they understood when I explained I had taken the red-eye.

Recap

The hotel is a three out of five stars (not bad but not great).

Banquet rooms are a three out of five.

The hotel employees are great, five out of five.

The hotel parking ramp is a pain in the butt.

Banquet food is great.

Santa Monica is a great place to hang out for the day.

Venice Beach is a pass, don't waste your time unless you are looking for medical marijuana.

The Camero was great.

Malibu is great.

Marmalade in Malibu has excellent Italian food.

Puerto Morelos July 2009

2009-09-25T22:49:00.005-05:00

Mayan Adventure Week

Puerto Morelos July 3 to 10 2009

I decided to name this blog entry Mayan Adventure Week because our diving was more adventure than vacation. From riding out a rainstorm in the dive boat (pictured above), to taking a ten foot leap into Anjelita Cenote in full gear, to being swept two miles while underwater during a drift dive, and more. It was some of the most amazing diving we have done.

I have been trying to plan a trip to Puerto Morelos for a while. I read that it is a sleepy little fishing village with a reef just 500 yards off shore. We checked out Puerto Morelos on our drive from Puerto Aventuras to the Cancun airport last February. It definitely had an Isla Mujeres vibe to it. We had just finished a week of diving in Puerto Morelos and saw nothing bigger than a small sea turtle. We so when we talked to the owner of Dive in Puerto Morelos and he showed us photos of five large eagle rays they had seen the week before we knew we had to dive here. He gave is his card and information about a six unit hotel, Cabanas Puerto Morelos, that his wife managed.

I checked Trip Advisor and both Dive in Puerto Morelos and Cabanas Puerto Morelos were highly rated. All of the reviews for Cabanas were either a 4 or 5 star (highest rating) accept for one and that review seemed unrealistic because they were comparing the hotel to a Westin and for $70 per night you are not going to get a Westin. Trip Advisor had led us astray once before in Turks and Caicos and unfortunately it happened again with Cabanas. I don’t know how fourteen people can be wrong but they were.

Transportation

We flew Delta from Minneapolis with a connection in Atlanta. We were able to get the tickets for $300 each, however, if we would have waited a month to book we could have gotten them for $260.

I had booked a ride through Luxury Vans to get from Cancun to Puerto Morelos. The driver was several minutes late, but we eventually did find him. The driver had a little trouble finding Cabanas because the email that I printed out did not have the address on it, but we did eventually find it.

The driver was right on time for the return trip and it was a short twenty minute drive to the airport.

Cabanas Puerto Morelos

When we arrived Kris was waiting for us and showed us to our room. The room is large and there was a spiral staircase that goes from our balcony to a roof deck. There is a kitchen with a small refrigerator, hot plate, microwave, blender, toaster, dishes and silverware. The bedroom has a king size bed, the shower is large and the unit was clean.

There are several problems with Cabanas, we paid an extra $5 per day for air conditioning but Kris told us that we should only run the air at night, which we did, and it was darn warm in the room during the day. Also, the air conditioner only cools the bedroom, the living room was ten degrees warmer. Another problem was that it literally takes ten minutes to get hot water once you turn the spigot on and the shower head is so plugged with scale that water just trickles out. I guess that we could have asked Juan to fix it but we did not. Several of the Trip Advisor reviews stated problems with ants. We were very careful not to leave food out and we were ant free until we had the bad luck to have a gecko die on our balcony and the ants were all over the carcass. I tossed the dead gecko body into the garden (fertilizer) and hoped that the ants would leave. Most of them did but I pulled my netbook out of my backpack a few days later and it had about a dozen ants on it. I don’t know why they are in my backpack, I did not have any food in it. The only food would have been crumbs in the keyboard and I guess I should be happy if the ants cleaned my keyboard for me. I did not bother shooing the ants from the backpack, they were gone by the time we left for home.

The bottom line with Cabanas is that it is not a terrible place to stay but it lacked character, it could be a much nicer hotel if they paid a little attention to detail, had better air conditioning and more water pressure. We decided it was not worth giving Cabanas a bad review on Trip Advisor since there was nothing that was terrible about the hotel, but we will choose to stay elsewhere next time.

Now that I have trashed Cananas I'll list what we liked about it The gardens area of the property is nice, Juan does a good job of keeping it up. The pool is nice, it is very warm and Juan also does a good job of keeping up the pool. The location is great, it is four blocks from the town square on avenue Javier Rojo Gomez, so it is a short walk to everything, no rental car needed. It is near the beach, the photos at Trip Advisor show a path from Cabanas through some underbrush to the beach but that path is overgrown and not accessible. To get to the beach you have to walk to the end of the block, no big deal it is still a short stroll the beach. Finally, the maid does a great job keeping the rooms clean.

The Beach

The beach is beautiful white sand and it runs for miles. There is a tractor that grooms the Puerto Morelos beach every morning. Some would argue that a natural beach is better but it is nice not to have to deal with dead sea grass. We took several 45 minute (one way) walks on the beach and it looked like we could have kept going until we reached Cancun. The beach is mostly family oriented but there was the occasional topless sunbathers. On a more deserted area of the beach we ran into a couple, she was topless and he was nude sunbathing. I have just one thing to say to him, if you are going to sunbath in the nude face the other direction!

The most common question we were asked while in Puerto Morelos was "do you want to go snorkeling?". I snorkeled from the beach and the snorkeling was OK. I did see a small ray, parrot fish, a school of large angel fish and many other fish. Bret at the dive shop told us the best snorkeling was directly out from the crooked palm tree on Carmen beach, I never did snorkel there, but I did find the tree.

Cabanas provides two beach chairs in each room and Kris gave me a beach umbrella when I asked for one. We never used the chairs or umbrella, we either walked on the beach or we paid the $150 pesos at Ojo de Agua for chairs and an umbrella.

Diving

Our dive history consists of locations throughout the Caribbean with the exception of several dives in Hawaii. We have yet to dive in the south Pacific or more exotic Caribbean locations like Belize or Roatan. So keep that information in mind when I say this was the best diving that we have experienced.

We planned to dive with Dive in Puerto Morelos but they were booked on Saturday and closed Sunday we did not want to wait that long to dive. We discovered Aquanauts when we were at dinner Thursday night . They are located next to El Coyote in Carmen Hacienda. Cresent and William own the shop (they are not affiliated with Aquanauts that we dove with in Puerto Aventuras), and their toddler Geronimo is at the shop from time to time. I didn’t realize it but Aquanauts is listed as the number one attraction for Puerto Morelos on Trip Advisor. All of their BC looked fairly new (I have seen BCs at other shops that were faded, tattered and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to trust my life to them). The regs were also newer and did not leak once. William was getting over a cold when we arrived and their other dive master had just quit to go back to Europe, so we dove with George who was temporarily working at Aquanauts. By a strange coincidence we dove with George when he was working on Isla Mujueres.

Saturday

Our group consisted of George (dive master), Sam, Karen and I. Sam claimed to dive every weekend in Florida and had some very expensive equipment, but he flailed his arms like crazy while diving. This is a rookie thing to do, once you have been diving a while you learn to keep your arms folded in front of you to conserve energy and air. Also, Sam was never more than ten feet from the dive master. I am thinking Sam did not have as much experience as he claimed he had.

The first dive was called The Bridge, it is named that because of the swim through. It was a good dive to start the week, not too deep, very little current. We saw some nice coral formations, a ray and many fish.

The second dive was called Aquarium. We saw a brown spotted eel out and swimming through the coral, a large school of pork fish, a small flounder and many other fish.

Sunday

C56 Wreck. Our group consisted of Karen, myself and George for entire day. The C56 is an old navy ship that was sunk in 90 feet of water to create an artificial reef. George told us to enter the water, swim to the bow of the boat, and follow the buoy line down. Visibility near the surface was terrible but once we hit 35 feet it cleared up, the vis was excellent and there was no current, which can be an issue at the wreck.

We started at the bow of the boat, swam past the coral encrusted deck gun toward the stern. On the way we saw two large stingrays on the white sandy bottom. At the stern of the boat two large fish that I thought were sharks, swam directly over George's head. I was a little afraid for George but he later told us the fish were cobia.

As we swam over the bow of the boat we saw two large eagle rays flapping their wings and soaring around the wreck. They are such a beautiful pelagic with their upturned snout and white spotted backs. We saw three more sting rays in the sand on the port side of the boat. We also saw a large grouper, a medium sized barracuda, a large school of jacks and many other fish.

Watch the videos of the dive below.

Paridesio was the second dive. To be honest it would be hard to beat C56. We had current and medium visibility but it was still a good dive.

We were so amazed with the wreck dive that we did a night dive making it a three dive day. The night dive was at Aquarium again. We had perfect conditions, a full moon, calm and no current. We did not go deeper than 42 feet so we were able to stay down for 50 minutes. Unfortunately my camera malfunctioned so I did not get any photos.

The first denizen of the night that we encountered was a small translucent squid with large dark eyes. His arms and tentacles were contorted like kung fu master ready to strike. We saw a turtle rising to the surface for air and when he saw us he swam back down to the ocean floor, possibly thinking we were predators. William and George warned us not to point the flashlight directly into the turtles eyes, it could temporarily blind them. We saw several rays with their large green reflecting eyes. I saw a large crab, we also saw several lobsters making their nocturnal trek across the ocean floor. One of the really cool things to do on a night dive is to aim your light at a coral formation and see all of the pairs off red eyes reflecting back at you, I imagine the eyes belong to different types of crustaceans, but I did not get close enough to find out for sure.

During our three minute safety stop George had us turn our flashlights off and wave our hands in front of us, as we did it we saw a shower of tiny sparks in the water. Bioluminescense!

Monday

We had another couple (Jill and Temo) diving with us and William had recovered so he was assuming the dive master responsibilities. Jill had just completed her open water certification so these were her first two open water dives. The first dive was called Grouper. I knew it was going to be a tough dive because I had to kick hard to get down to the reef and it felt like I burned through half a tank by the time got there. We saw a large eel, drum fish, and a baracuda to mention some of what we saw. During the safey stop Jill was holding on to Temo and William noticed that Temo was checking Jill's gauges. William Swam over and and saw that Jill was almost out of air so he gave her his octopus. William had been checking our air throughout the dive so I think Jill was not being honest about how much air she had left.

The second dive was Manchones/Spots. It is named spots because the reef consists of many little coral heads. We saw a large barracuda, a hole in the reef that was pack with at least ten lobsters, a queen angel fish, a queen trigger fish and more. During the safety stop William once again checked Jill's air gauge and found that she was almost out of air, so he gave her his octopus and shared his air for the three minute safety stop. Since the rest of us had more experience than Jill we were better at conserving air and I think she did not want to admit that she was the first one to run low. It is kind of crazy when you consider what happens when you run out of air.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a rest day, we went to Playa del Carmen.

Wednesday

With us on the dives were Blago, an UN cameraman and Danny, a friend of William and Cresent's from Vancouver.

We went 45 minutes south of Puerto Morelos to a dive site called Marones Wall/Los Archos for our first dive. On the way we ran into a summer squall, we had to tie to a buoy and ride the storm out. We had our wet suits on, the rain was warm but the wind was so strong that the rain drops stung as they pelted us. Danny and Blogo did not look too bothered by the rain but Karen sat on the floor of the boat for protection.

The dive site is in between Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen meaning it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There was not another dive boat in site when we hit the water and it was obvious by the pristine coral formations that this site was not frequented by divers. We literally saw walls of black coral, huge tube coral and large barrel sponges. This was the deepest dive that Karen and I have ever dove, there was a swim through at the beginning of the dive (Los Archos) and we were at 101 feet when we came through the other side. We saw a large (over six feet long) green eel that was laying under a coral ledge. I also snapped several pictures of a large barracuda. I have dove and snorkeled with many barracuda and usually they swim parallel to you when they are checking you out, this guy came right out to me. So I backed off and kept going.

The second dive was called Mini Reef, it was shallower 35-40 feet and it was more of the same, many fish and beautiful coral formations. We were down for almost an hour and we traveled almost two miles underwater. There was another squall while we were under and the boat captain lost site of our bubbles, when we surfaced our boat was nowhere in site. We were only bobbing at the surface for several minutes before our captain found us.

Thursday

We were flying back on Friday so this is our last time to dive this vacation. We dove Anjelita cenote for the first dive and Grand cenote for the second. Cresent had shown us pictures of Anjelita and described it to us- it looks like the planet where Luke Skywalker met Yoda. The pictures and her description did not come close to describing Anjelita, I don't think there are words that can describe it, it is someting you have to experience. Anjelita was not a usual cenote, it was a sink hole that was two hundred feet deep. Grand cenote was part of a cave system with stalactites and stalagmites that had filled with water.

It was a fifty minute drive to get to Anjelita, it is located south of Tulum. We were suppose to meet Blogo in a shopping mall in Tulum but were were late and he must not have waited. It rained most of the day and it down poured when we go to Anjelita. The rain caused the dormant mosquitoes to hatch and they were hungry. We got out of the truck and immediately zipped up our wetsuits to protect as much skin as possible from the ravenous mosquitoes. We donned all of our gear,while we were slapping and swearing, accept for our fins and made the trek through the jungle swatting mosquitoes as we went.

When we arrived at the jump site (yes I did say jump site) we were told to walked up to the rocky overhang, don our fins while standing on slippery rocks overhanging the cenote and leap ten feet to the water below. William went first, I wanted to go before Karen in case she had problems when she jumped in, but Karen could not be last because she was afraid of heights and may not jump. Karen went third and Danny last, she did not need help jumping in, she valiantly braved the leap.

As we prepared to descend another group of divers surfaced. Danny asked them how they liked it and they said "great", "unbeleiveable" and "it's Yodatown down there". We released the air from our BCs and started our descent. It was still raining and overcast so there was little ambient light to be had and as we pointed the beam from our flashlights down the light was quickly absorbed by the dark waters. We descended ninety feet quicker than I thought possible, did we descend that fast or was the darkness playing tricks on me?

On a sunny day we would only need our flashlights when we went below the halocline, but the storm clouds blotting out the sun and the light was comparable to a night dive. It definitely did look like Dagobah, the planet where Luke Sky walker met Yoda. There were tree branches sticking out of what appeared to be an island and a murky greenish brown mist surrounded the island. I almost expected to see an X-wing fighter sticking up out of the mist.

The greenish brown layer was caused by trees and leaves that had fallen into the sink hole and decayed. The gas from the decaying matter is trapped by the halocline (area where salt waster and fresh water meet), and it creates a opaque layer of gas that is about four feet thick.

Once we reached Yodatown we examined the outer perimeter and swam to a branch located on the sudo island, where Karen and I and posed for photo. It is funny that after our drift dive on Wednesday I kidded Karen that every time I looked for her she was twenty yards away and swimming the other direction. She did not have a problem staying close to me at Anjelita, the darkness and general eeriness of the dive effected her equilibrium and she held on to me or William once we landed in Yodatown. We took turns sinking below the murky halocline and rising back up. Sinking into the misty layer is a surreal experience weather you are the one transversing the murk or just watching. When it was my turn I discovered that once again got the flashlight with the weak batteries, that happened on our last cenote drive also. As I sank through the pea soup liquid the inefectual beam from the flashlight emmited almost no light. I never made it completely through the halocline before I finned back to Karen, William and Danny but the water is suppose to be crystal clear but no light makes it through the halocline so it is pitch black. We all had the same experience as we rose back above the the halocline into Yodatown- it seamed like we were not underwater and we did not need a regulator. None of us went as far as taking the regulator out of our mouth but each of us did have the distinct feeling that we were not underwater.

Since we were so deep we did not get a lot of bottom time. We began our slow ascent circling up the walls of the sink hole, Danny and William went into an opening in the wall. I checked my air gauge and I was at 600 psi, I wasn't that far from the surface but I was not going to enter the opening in the wall. I looked at Karen and shook my head and she nodded in agreement. We saw William and Danny's lights dim and than extinguish as the went further into the opening, Karen and I hung in the water and then noticed lights from another opening in the in the sink hole wall. The opening was a swim through and Danny and William were coming out the other end. William noticed that Karen and I did not follow him through the channel and flashed a the dive signal for what is you air, I signaled six hundred psi and William signaled that we should do our three minute safety stop and surface.

Once we surfaced we still had to climb out of the sink hole. Opposite of where we entered the cenote is the exit point. It is a steep and the rocks are slippery but we managed to climb out with the aid of a rope. The mosquitos were still voracious so we almost ran to the truck in full gear, stopping to pick up our sandals on the way. We shed our gear as fast as we could, hopped into Williams pickup and sped away from the hungry swarms.

We stopped in Tulum for lunch, Crescent packed sandwiches and ice tea. While we were eating a large roach climbed on Williams shoulder and William freaked, he swatted the bug and it flew into our pile of dive gear in the back of the truck. William warned if we did not find the bug before our second dive to breath out before breathing in, in case the roach was in one of the regulators. I am not making fun of William for being freaked out by the bug, he has probably grown up with them his entire life and he had not gotten use to them, I think I would be the same.

Grand cenote was our second dive, it was a short giant stride into the cenote from a wooden platform, nothing like the ten foot leap at Anjelita. The cenote has really nice formations and it is deeper than Dos Ojos, which we dove in March. Dos Ojos is about twenty feet deep and we hit fourty- five in Grand cenote. Like Dos Ojos we surfaced in a cave with bats hanging from the ceiling, they appeared to be bothered by our presence but not enough to leave. On the return dive we entered several caverns that were totally dark and squeezed through one of the smaller openings that we have had to swim through in a cenote, not small enough to scrape our tanks but close. We surfaced in the same spot that we entered the cenote, there were snorkelers at the entrance when we surfaced and they were in awe that we were diving the caverns. The only thing I don't like about cenote diving is the ride back to the dive shop in the truck is not nearly as nice as the boat ride back if we were doing an open water dive. Grand cenote was a good way to finish our week of diving.

Resturants

We usually avoid all inclusive resorts (not that I am comparing Cabanas to an all inclusive resort) so we can explore the nearby restaurants. There are a good amount of places to eat in Puerto Morelos, they are all reasonably priced and most of them are good.

As soon as we checked in and unpacked we walked to Pelicanos for a late lunch. Pelicanos probably has the best location in Puerto Morelos, it is on the beach next to the town square. The food was good, not fantastic but good. Later that night we ate at El Coyote Apache, it is located in Hotel Carmen Hacienda. This was the most expensive meal that we had in PM, my wife loved her fish. I on the other hand learned a lesson, I don't like traditional Mexican grilled fish. It is not the way Coyote prepared the fish, I tried grilled fish at La Petita later in the week and did not like it any better than Coyote.

Most mornings we ate breakfast in our room, we did not have a lot of time to go out for breakfast before diving. We did eat breeakfast at El Pirata one morning. The restaurant is located on the town square across from the taxi stand. Breakfast was very good, I wish we would have made it back another day.

We also ate at the following restaurants during our week in PM:

Casa del Pescador- We ate there twice, we had fish the first time and lobster the second. This is our favorite restaurant in PM both meals were excellent and the waiter (I think he may have been the owner) was congenial, attentive and just an all around good waiter.

La Petita- William at Aquanauts recommended this restaurant, he said it was a favorite of the locals. The restaurant specializes in fish,caught fresh daily by the local fishermen. It has plastic table and chairs and a sand floor, like many of the restaurants in the caribbean. It is inexpensive, and Karen liked her fish, and I figured out that I do not like Mexican style grilled fish.

La Suegra- It is a small restaurant located across from La Petita, and on the beach. We stopped in for lunch one day after diving, not really having high expectations but the food was good and the beach view was nice.

Hola Asia- This restaurant it located on the square across the street from Pelicanos. It was highly recommended by several people but neither Karen of I cared for the food. Karen stepped out of comfort zone and ordered fish, but it was the entire fish head and all, that is a problem for her. I had sesame chicken which is a favorite of mine but this version was kind of bland.

Ojo de Agua- We had lunch here several days then rented chairs and an umbrella in front of the restaurant. The food and service were good.

Spaghettinio's- Good Italian food.

Playa del Carmen

We took a break from diving on Tuesday and went into Playa for the day. From Puerto Morelos we took a taxi to the bus stop on the highway, about a twenty peso ride and took the local bus (ADO) to Playa for 18 pesos each. It was about a half hour ride and the buses are clean and comfortable, I wish the local buses in the US were as nice. The buses are more like Greyhounds than city buses. They have large comfortable seats that recline and there is a monitor in front that plays movies during the trip. We watched the Rock in The Game Plan, it had been dubbed in Spanish, Karen and I were the only ones on the bus that were laughing. It is about a forty-five minute ride to Playa and the bus drops you at the bus station on 5th Avenue, the main shopping street for Playa.

Playa has many shops, bars and restaurants to enjoy. We got to Playa just in time for lunch, it was sweltering hot so we ate at one of the larger restaurants on the beach. The breeze kept us cool while we enjoyed margaritas and ate lunch. After lunch I wanted to check my email so I found a Internet cafe located across from a back packers hostel. I am a little to old to stay in a hostel but if that would have been there in my twenties I would have been all over that.

We shopped in the afternoon, we had to pick up several souvenirs for people back in Minnesota. We eventually made it to the far end of 5th and stopped for ice cream, enjoying the breeze from the ceiling fan. We eventually wandered down to one of the many beach bars and relaxed (vacation can be exhausting) with a couple of cervesas. The only isse we encountered while hanging at the beach was the bar we were at was playing jazz and the bar next to ours was playing classic rock so we listened to an irritating mashup of jazz and oldies. The bars should realize that this is really irritating and one of the bars should turn off their stereo.

Since it was July, Mexico had the swine flu scare, and the states were suffering from a recession the streets in Playa were almost deserted. That means you're fish food and it is feeding time for the sharks (the people trying to get you to buy something). The people working the shops in Playa have figured out that they get a better reaction with humor than high pressure sales so as walk down the streets you hear the usual "cheaper than Costco" which use to be cheaper than Kmart, and "hey honeymooners, want to check out my shop". My favorite line was from some guy trying to get us to eat at his restaurant, "You come to my restaurant and you get a home cooked meal, made by my grandmother but you better hurry because she may die soon". It was funnier when he said it.

For dinner we use the theory the restaurants off of the beaten path have to have better food to stay in business and it worked. We ducked into a side street off of 5th avenue and we found a little Italian restaurant that was great.I had my favorite, pasta putenesca. This is my favorite dish at out favorite Italian restaurant in Minneapolis, Broader's Pasta Bar. This is the standard that I measure other Italian restaurants by and this restaurant was nearly as good as Broader's. This is the only that has come close.

After dinner we picked up several souvenirs and caught the ADO bus back to Puerto Morelos. It was a simple and cheap way to get back to Puerto Morelos, much better than paying for a cab.

Last Day

We had to depart Puerto Morelos by 11:30 AM so we could catch our 2:30 flight. We had breakfast in the room and went for a final walk on the beach, then it was time to catch our shuttle. Luxury Van was right on time and there was no traffic so we were at the airport in twenty minutes. The Delta check in line was huge but we eventually made it through and then it was upstairs to clear security. Unfortunately, Karen had forgotten that Cancun security ahd taken her nail file when we were there last February, they did it again. She has flown all around the us with a nail file in her purse and had it confiscated, but Mexico seems to have an issue with it. They also took a bottle of Clear Care contact solution that was in a bag and less than three ounces, but we figured it they want it they can have it. I do like Cancun security because I don't have to take my laptop from my backpack. We bought some Toblerone at the Duty Free shop and had lunch at Margaritaville before we caught our flight.

Recap

Liked:

Diving- the best ever, both ocean and cenote diving.

Aquanauts- good equipment and great dive masters.

The beach- beautiful and you can literally walk for hours.

Food- Most of the food and restaurants in Puerto Morelos was good.

Puerto Morelos- It is not Isla Mujeres but it is a close second.

Disliked:

Mexican Grilled Fish- don't like the texture of the fish.

Helpful Links

Puertomorelos.com- Has a lot of information on restaurants and hotels

Locogringo.com - Lots of good information on P.M. and the Riviera Maya

Aquanauts- Aquanauts dive shop

Special note

There are some things about Cabanas Puerto Morelos that we really liked, the pool and gardens are nice, the price is nice, the rooms are large and they are very clean but I was annoyed that only the bedroom was air conditioned and we were not suppose to run the air conditioning during the day. I would not recommend against anyone staying at Cabanas but we will opt for a different hotel or condo when we go back to Puerto Morelos.

Missing Isla

2009-03-28T20:16:00.027-05:00

Missing Isla

You think it is a little odd to call my blog entry Missing Isla when it is about our vacation to Pureto Aventuras (or maybe not)? Read on to find out why I suffered several pangs of remorse while on our Puerto Aventuras vacation.

We had vacations that have started a lot worse than this one but were excellent vacations. For example, our first vacation to Turks and Caicos, we did not get our luggage until we had been there a day and a half and the stores (most all of them) were not open on Sunday so we sweltered in jeans and tennis shoes for over a day before we found an open T-shirt shop and we each bought a shirt and shorts. We also spent $13 dollars for a dusty (but not expired) bottle of of contact solution. Our hotel was a dump, the staff was rude and they claimed that someone had cancelled our reservations. So much for Trip Advisor! We chose the Sibonne because it was advertised as a small boutique hotel, which sounded much better than a large resort. Wrong! We discovered the Sands was just down the beach and we ended up moving there mid-week. After our short move to the Sands our vacation turned out to be one of our best.

We love Isla Mujeres, I have been there three times in the last two years and Karen twice. I think the reason that we love it so much is because it is such an easy stress free vacation. The hardest part of the vacation is getting past the onslaught of vendors hawking rides and trips at the exit of the airport. Last year we discovered a limo service that will pick us up at the airport (a gentleman in a suite holding a sign with our name on it), allowing us to bypass the the barrage of salespeople, and drop us at Puerto Jaurez for a decent price. Once on the island everything was within walking distance or a short cab ride away. Diving was easy to, just a short walk to the dive shop, we did not even need a reservation at Coral Divers.

After three trips in less than two years Isla Mujeres was starting to feel a little small and I had heard about Puerto Morelos, I tried to book a room there but I couldn't’t find a hotel in my price range. The hotels were either $70 per night or $400 per night, nothing in between. I was afraid that the $70 per night hotels might be a little the run-down and we don't spend $400 a night for a hotel!

Puerto Morelos is a sleepy little fishing village just south of Cancun, it is a good place to dive because the reef is only several hundred yards off shore and it is part of a national underwater park, as I discovered in Puerto Aventuras, it pays to dive where fishing is banned.

We first stayed in Puerto Aventuras about a dozen years ago, our first trip to Mexico together. We were not divers (we did our first resort dive) so we walked around the town, rented a car, drove to Tulum to see the ruins and went to Cozumel to do a resort dive. It was a nice vacation. When Puerto Morelos did not work out Puerto Adventuros came to mind. I was able to find a nice condo at Porto Bello Marina condos on VRBO.com. It was a nicely furnished one bedroom with a kitchen, granite counter tops and nice balcony with a Jacuzzi. I would recommend the condos to anyone (see pictures below). The condo does faces the marina, our neighbors told us that one night two of the charter boat captains got drunk and started to brawl, luckily our stay was quiet.

Since the condo overlooks the marina it does not have a beach but patrons of Porto Bello can use the beach at the Omni. You need to give the Omni a $200 deposit and you have a month to spend the $200 at the Omni bar or restaurant.

The March winds had started when we arrived, if you are not familiar with March winds, and were were not, they are the equivalent of a category one hurricane. Not really but that is what they felt like when we were were getting buffeted around on the dive boat. We later found out that March winds last three to four day at a time. It would have been nice to know this because we planned our first dive during the height of the winds.

We dove on Friday and this presented two problems, the waves were about four feet, not terrible but definitely a choppy ride out. Of course visibility was bad because of the chop. We dove with Aquanauts, and they do something unique, since the reef is so close to the marina they come back to the marina between dives and that gave us a chance to do a one tank dive, which because of four foot swells and low vis seemed like a good idea. You can get an idea of of what it was like from the picture below.

From Purto Aventures 2009

I get discouraged easily when it comes to diving. If I start out with a bad dive I am willing to call it quits for the rest of the vacation. The first dive made me want to hang it up, luckily we ran into a gentleman from Canada who was getting his cave diving certification and he raved about cenote dives. The week before we left, Karen was in a meeting with someone who had just gotten back from cenote diving north of Cancun and he tried to convince her that we should do it. I swore that I would never dive a cave, cenote or anything like it. If something goes wrong there may not be light or surface to swim toward. After talking to the cave diver from Canada and taking into consideration the ocean diving conditions, we decided to do the cenote dive.

Cenote diving is different from ocean diving for several reasons. One of the differences is cenotes are fresh water. This means that the visibility is incredible! You will never dive in salt water that is this clear. Normally the cenotes are cooler than the ocean but my dive computer showed 79 degrees for the ocean and the cenote. During parts of the dive you could be in total darkness if your flashlight went out, as I almost discovered.

The instructions before the dive are more complex than a normal dive because cenote dives are more dangerous. We met at Aquanauts for the briefing, Carlos was our dive master. He covered the rules for cenote diving, the main differences between cenote diving and ocean diving are:

There are a maximum of four divers per one dive master.
You will need about sixty percent less weight because of the fresh water.
You follow a line around the the cenote and are generally in single file.
If you want to get someone's attention during the dive you aim you flashlight in front of them and shake it to create kind of a muted strobe effect.
Air management for a cenote dive is more conservative than an ocean dive. On a cenote dive you start with the usual 3000 psi but your half way is 2000 psi and you want to have 1000 psi when you get out of the water (I thought this was a waste of air but after the second diveI understood the logic).

Karen and I have met some really nice people on dive trips, this trip was no exception. Unfortunately the people that we did the cenote dive with were some of the grouchiest that we have ever dove with. On a dive trip, if I rub someone the wrong way or they irritate me there is a simple solution, go to the other side of the boat and talk to someone else. On a cenote dive you are stuck in a Suburban loaded with equipment for a 45 minute drive each way. The people we did the cenote dive with were not bad people, they were just plain old grouchy.

Once at Dos Ojos, we suited up and walked about 100 yards (down steps!) in full gear, to the cenote. Unfortunately my camera battery had died before the first dive so I only have movies and photos that we purchased from the professional photographer at the cenote. We did a giant stride off of the wooden dock into the cenote. The cenote dive is not colorful, there are some small fish, silver in color. There are no plant or coral, most everything is monotone. The awestruck affect of a cenote dive is cause by going from almost complete darkness to dazzling shafts of light cutting through the water, it is something you have to experience.

The first dive was incredible. We followed the the rope around the cenote swimming through and around stalactites and stalagmites. The only problem I had on the first dive was my fault, I swam under the rope that we followed around the cenote and my tank become caught in the rope. I struggled slightly, I probably could have freed myself but I decided that I would wait for Gary and Lou to catch up and untangle me. They approached, saw my predicament and with one tug removed the rope from my tank.

We finished the dive and had lunch at the truck. During lunch Carlos mentioned that we would stop in the bat cave on the second dive. No one asked what he meant by "bat cave", was it something to do with Batman? Does bat mean something in Spanish? I guess we will find out.

After lunch we were back in the water for our second dive. We set out to explore another section of the cenote. We geared up at the truck and made the trek to the cenote entrance and giant strided into the water again. The dive started like the previous one, Carlos in front followed by Karen, myself, Gary and Lou brought up the rear. I noticed that the battery in my flashlight had become dim, I thought about asking Carlos for his spare but decided that my flashlight would probably make it through the dive, if not Karen had hers . Looking back I wish I would have traded flashlights.

We again followed the rope threw a different section of the cenote taking in the beauty of the cave. At one point Carlos decided to veer away from the rope and go around a column of calcium carbonate that was no more than 10 feet in diameter. This should not have been an issue, all of us were experienced divers and it was a short deviation from the normal path. I left the safety of the rope and followed Carlos and Karen around the column, when I came around the other side I saw Gary aiming the beam from his flashlight in front of Carlos and quickly moving it up and down, signaling a problem. I looked and I did not see Lou. The only place he could have gone was behind the column so I did an about face and backtracked around the column, I still did not see Lou so I swam back toward Carlos and saw that Gary was pointing in the direction that I had just came from. I took off in that direction, in the distance I saw light. There was an exit to the surface, I swam toward it just in time to see the flashing strobe on Lou's tank. Lou seemed to be heading away from the exit deeper into the cenote, then he was gone. I thought about chasing Lou but decided that one lost diver was enough and decided to return to the rest of the group. I realized that this part of the cave was pitch black and the meager beam of light was barely enough to light my way, and it the flashlight died I would be screwed. It was a short swim that seemed to take forever but I rejoined Karen, Carlos and Gary. Carlos saw that I had returned. I piecemealed several diver hand signals together to indicate that I saw where Lou had gone. Carlos signaled to me to stay and he swam off to find Lou.

As we waited for Carlos to return I got a chance to consider just how quickly everything could go to hell when diving. The closest we have come to having a challenge during a dive is our manta night dive in Kona, when Karen did not return to the boat with me. Luckily the dive master was watching her and accompanied her to the boat (that is the short story).

When Carlos returned a minute later he was alone. I was starting to worry, if Carlos could not find Lou he might really be lost in the labrith of underwater caves. Using my best made up hand signals I again indicated to Carlos that I knew the direction that Lou went. He signaled to Karen and Gary to remain and to me to come with him. I swam toward the small patch of light in the distance and through a passage to the left, where Lou has gone. I was relieved to see light. I swam past some stalactites, into an opening and I saw Lou and his red bandanna. I surfaced and Carlos went to get Karen and Gary. I am not sure what I saw in Lou's eyes; feel, anger embarrassment? I don't know but there was definitely something there. I took out my regulator and asked Lou what happened in a hey dude what's going on sort of way. He snapped back "what do you think happened?". I did not respond.

Carlos returned with Karen and Gary. I don't know if a similar situation has happened to Carlos before but he handled the the situation perfectly. He gathered us together and asked if we were ok and if we wanted to continue the dive, we all indicated that we did. He checked our remaining air and gave us a brief description of our new dive plan. We proceeded a little more carefully and a little more aware of each other.

We had to shorten the second dive but we still made it to the bat cave. As we approached the cave we saw a small shaft of light slicing through the water. The cave was dimly lit but I could see people swimming. When we surfaced I did not immediately see the cave entrance because it was above us. I eventually noticed a ladder going from the platform in the middle of the cave to a small hole in the ceiling, something you probably could not do in the US. The sparklers had climbed down the wooden ladder with their fins and mask to the wooden platform in the middle of the cave. Carlos pointed to the ceiling and we saw them, several dozen bats clinging to the cave ceiling. There may have been more in the darker corners of the cave but I only saw about several dozen. Some were yawning, others were moving around and most just hung there with their wings wrapped around them. We finished the dive, purchased some pictures from the professional photographer who snapped some underwater pics, and swore that we will do another cenote dive.

If you are interested in cenote diving there are two movies that were shot in cenotes around the Yucatan. The Cave was set in eastern Europe but according to Carlos, the cave scenes were filmed in the cenotes in the Yucatan. I can definitely understand why they would want to shoot in Mexico rather than a mountain cave in eastern Europe fill with water from melting snow.

The other movie is a Imax documentary. It covers caves throughout the world including cenotes that may never been explored by divers.

We dove one more day with Aquanauts. The conditions were much better so we opted for the two tank dive. Natalie was our dive master, she is just shy of five feet tall and I am not sure of her age. She was at the shop when we returned from the cenote dive and she helped unload the tanks. I honestly thought she was about fourteen or sixteen, when were getting set up on the dive boat she made a joke about how young she looks. She is probably at least ten years older than she looks, if you dive with Aquanauts you will see what I mean. She is a tough cookie, our friends Lou and Gary were on both of the dives, on the way back they appeared to be grumbling so Natalie asked Gary if he liked the dive, he looked at his feet and didn't answer. She joked "aren't you talking to me?", and he finally answered that he thought it was ok.

The dives were ok, nothing to write home about. The wind had died down so conditions were much better. We saw several turtles, some fish, eels, and the coral was very nice. My complaint about diving in Puerto Morelos is the lack of fish. We had seen large schools of fish and large fish in Isla Mujeres, the difference is that part of Isla are protected so there is no fishing.

From Purto Aventures 2009

We enjoyed just about every meal we had in Puerto Aventuras and dining was convenient, just a short stroll from the condo to "downtown" area of Puerto Aventuras. There is a good selection of restaurants in Puerto Aventuras. During our stay we ate at The Pub (burgers), Cafe Ole (rib night), Tiramisu (steak and seafood), and ordered Pizza from the Italian Bakery.

We also had breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Omni. The food is good, but was priced a little higher than the rest of the restaurants in Puerto Aventuras. It took us several days to use the beach at the Omni, we had been to the Omni beach 12 years ago when we last stayed in Puerto Aventuras. We were out for a run and jogged through the lobby to check out the beach, it was a beautiful white sand beach. It is still a beautiful white sand beach but much of it is gone, most likely washed away by a hurricane. It was still a good place to hang out, they have a swim up bar and chairs and paylapas on the beach.

From Purto Aventures 2009

We spent one day on the beach south of Tulum. The beach is beautiful and well worth the drive. It is a little tricky to get to, turn left at the first stop light in Tulum (if you are heading south) and continue until the road Ts, go left at the T. The road is not very wide and eventually dead ends on the south end of the Mayan ruins. If you want to get lunch and a drink you can go to Diamonte K. As you can see below we happened across a Mayan sand sculpture on the beach.

From Purto Aventures 2009

There is a dolphin encounter in Puerto Aventuras, I have mixed feeling about it. There are a lot of dolphins for the size of the ponds and there are cycling tourists through the entire day without a break for the dolphins so I am not sure this is a good thing. Of course one of the cool stunts that the dolphins do is rocket a person through the water. As shown in the picture below.

From Purto Aventures 2009

They also have a manatee encounter and a sea lion show. We were lucky because we happened to be passing by the sea lion pen on the way back to the condo and the trainer was applying some salve to the sea lion and gave us an impromptu show. It was very cool because we were within several feet of the sea lion.

We spent a day roaming around Playa amazed at what a sprawling beast it had become. Twelve years ago 5th Avenue went through on the south end of Playa, today is is block by a large shopping complex. We wondered around Playa all day, we had lunch and dinner there. We could have easily spent another day in Playa hanging out drinking caipirinhas and Dos Equis and enjoying the restaurants and people watching.

This was not a bad vacation, the condo was beautiful, the restaurants in Puerto Aventuras were good, the cenote dives were unbelievable but the ocean dives were mediocre at best. It was an average vacation and I would have preferred Isla.

Little America- Salt Lake CIty Utah

2009-01-21T15:24:00.018-06:00

This is the third year that Karen and I have gone to Salt Lake City to visit her brother. The first year we stayed
with them, last year, we stayed at Country Inn and Suites. It was an ok hotel, nothing fancy but the rooms were large.

This year we wanted to stay downtown or even out by the airport. As usual I used Hotwire to book the hotel. I found a three star by the airport for $57.00 and a four star downtown for $89. We opted for the four star downtown. Once we purchased we saw that the hotel was the Little America Hotel. I had never heard of that chain before and I was a little afraid that we had gotten stuck in some old rundown hotel. I immediately went to Trip Advisor and was pleasantly suprised, most of the reviews rated the hotel a four or five.

The flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake city was uneventful and that is good. The jet was a smaller regional version, I didn't check to see who the manufacturer was but it was a nice jet. All of the seats were leather, not just first class, and there was more legroom that a larger jet.

I booked the rental car through Hotwire, I do this because I save from $50 to $100 booking through Hotwire compared to booking directly with the rental car company, and I get a corporate discount. The downside to booking with Hotwire is you cannot use your your Preferred or Gold Club memberships so you have to stand in line to get your car. After completing the transaction with Hotwire I saw that I would be renting with Hertz. We got to the rental car center and Hertz was the only one that had a line and the line was moving slowly. Half of the people in line did not reserve ahead of time and had to fill out all of the paperwork at the desk. Are they crazy?? I would never travel without booking a rental car ahead of time. When I finally talked to a representative they said that they were slow because Hertz had just laid off 4000 employees. I felt sorry for him, they were working through breaks to help people. As it surned out, the wait for the car was longer than I would have liked but it was tolerable.

It was a short drive from the airport to Little America. Despite the positive reviews in Trip Advisor, I did not like what I saw when we pulled up. The hotel is split into a main building and four or five small two story buildings called lodges. The lodges resemble motel type structures. Check in is at the main building, the lobby is large, warm and welcoming.The staff is friendly and professional. The main building has clothing stores and several other stores. It also has several restaurants.

My fear of the hotel being run down was baseless. We were in lodge 5, our room was large and well decorated. The furnuture in the room was very nice and the room had a flat screen TV tucked into an armoir. The bathroom was the most interesting room, it had floor to ceiling pink tile, a marbel vanity and from shopping a Lowes I happen to know that the toilet was high end (not that it really matters). Don't let the pink tile scare you off, it wasn't that bad. The room was very quiet, we barely heard other people.

We snowshoed one day, we went north of town and pulled of the road and hiked/snowshoes up a revine. The scenery was beautiful and we discovered that it was easier to hike than it was to snowshoe. Unfortunately Karen's brother did not know the canyon as well as he claimed. We climbed up the side of the canyon because he claimed that there was a road out just over the next bluff, and the next bluff, and the next bluff... We finally backtracked and walked out the same way we came in. It was still a beautiful hike and the view from the top of the bluff was incredible.

We went skiing on Monday, we opted for Alta this year. It was a wise choice, Alta has a few things going for it over Snowbird, no snowboarders for one. It isn't that I don't like snowboarders but it can be hard to ski around them. I like the runs at Alta especially the Ballroom bowl to the right when you get off of the Sugar Loaf lift or Collins lift. The weather was beautiful, it was spring skiing weather, 50s in the afternoon, at the top of the hill and at the bottom. It was warm enough that we saw many younger skiers wearing shorts, even one in 'T' shirt and cape.

We did split up once in the afternoon and according to Murphy's law, all hell broke loose. Jerry and I were going to ski the bowl and Karen wanted to take a slightly easier way down. We were going to meet at the chalet mid mountain for lunch and a beer.

We traversed to the bowl and I discovered on my fist cut that my legs were already at lunch, I missed the cut and picked up speed ans I flew down the hill with my arms waving in the air. I eventually gained control and almost finished the run without wiping out. I caught an edge when I hit the flats and did a less than spectacular wipeout. Jerry and I met up at the aptly named Mid Mountain Meeting Place. Jerry decided that he was going to do one more run while I waited for Karen. So I waited for Karen, and waited, and waited... I started to worry because she should have beat us to Mid Mountain. As I stood waiting at the lift I listened to the skiers going past to see if any of them were talking about a blonde in a black and white Spyder jacket being carried off of the mountian, luckily they were not. I waited about ten minutes and decided that I would get a beer and wait from the deck of Collins Grill. I walked throught the door and swore because Karen had all of our money, that's the last time that will happen! I waited patiently on the deck with a beer or food. I had my cell phone to call Karen but no reception.

Karen showed up about five minutes later. She seemed to be fine, no broken bones. I walked down to help her stow her skis. She told me that she had done a spectacular wipe out and had to climb back up the hill to get her skis and poles. When we got to the chalet she discovered that she had lost her sunglasses. Jerry showed up about ten minutes later and we took a short lunch and finished out the day.
Summary

Likes:

Alta was great, don't get me wrong I like Snowbird but Alta fits my style of skiing better. The ultimate would be buying the lift ticket for both areas.

I was pleasantly suprised by Little America, I would stay there anytime.

Probems/Dislikes:

Do not plan on eating breakfast in downtown Salt Lake City on a sunday morning, there were only a few restaurants that were open. We finally went back to Little America for breakfast.

Orlando Doubletree Castle November 2008

2008-11-12T20:17:00.010-06:00

When ever I come to Orlando I like to stay on International drive. Our travel agent use to book me at the hotels near the airport entrance on Semoran, the problem with staying there is there is nothing to do within miles of the hotel. On the other hand there is tons of things to do on International drive.

The flight from Minneapolis was full but on time. Our travel agent booked my rental car with Hertz, which unfortunately is not located at the airport, so I had to take a shuttle ride from the airport to the Hertz location, Not a big deal but on Friday I will be cutting it close to catch my flight and I will not be able to drop my car at the airport. Our travel agent gave me "free day" coupons to pay for the car and I thought I would have to give them to the agent when renting the car, I was wrong. I waited in line for about fifteen minutes and gave the agent my coupons and she told me that I give them an agent when I return the car.

I stayed at a hotel across from the Doubletree Castle about seven years ago and I don't think the hotel looked like a castle back then. The address is on International drive but the hotel is not, it is located behind Cafe Tu Tu Tango and Vito's Chop House. Even though the hotel is not directly on International Drive it is nine stories high and looks like a castle so you can easily see it when you approach. Being here on work, it is kind of odd to stay at a castle that has a suit of armor in the lobby and the mirror in the room looks like something from a Disney cartoon.

The hotel lobby is nice, the rooms are not bad but most of the Doubletree's that I have stayed at have had nicer rooms. The workout room is nice but limited, it has newer cardio equipment with built in TVs but they only have dumbbells, no barbells or Universal gym.

The banquet room is kind of hidden in the back of the a small dining room. I was worried that the students would not be able to find it but it was not a problem. The banquet people were very helpful and got my equipment moved into the room while I went to lunch.

The lunches were just OK, nothing to write home about. Afternoon breaks were good, they gave us a couple of dozen of the famous Doubletree cookies. The gave me a tin of six cookies, two waters and a thank you card for having the seminar at the hotel. I ordered room service on Monday for dinner, it's kind of weird you can only order appetizers, so I ordered three appetizers.

On Tuesday I went to a shopping mall just down the street from the hotel. I had eaten at a restaurant in the mall previously so I thought I would check out the mall again.I ended up at B.B. King s, I love blues and ribs and B.B.'s had both. The ribs were good and the house band was also pretty darn good. The nice thing is the band started playing at 7:30 PM, which is nice for old people like me. I am usually back in my room by 9:00 PM.

On Wednesday I ate at Ming Court, also located just down from the hotel on International drive. It was a little disappointing. My wife and I have a scale for Asian food with LeeAnn Chins being at the bottom and P.F. Chang's being at the top. LeeAnn Chin's isn't bad, for fast food but Ming was a little worse than LeeAnn Chin's and Ming is not fast food. The portions are large though . I did like the koi pond at the entrance.

Thursday was my last dinner in Orlando, I had passed Vito's Chop House many times during the week and decided to have dinner there on Thursday. I was by myself so I ate at the bar. Vito's reminds me of an old dinner club, very classy, decorated with a lot of dark wood work. It is a little spendy but the steak was good.

I have to mention Cafe Tu Tu Tango, it is located behind the Doubletree. I did not eat there but several of the students did and normally students do not talk about where they eat but they thought it was a cool place to hang out and have dinner.

Recap:

The castle design of the hotel would probably work well with children but the hotel was just Ok from me.

The banquet room and staff were good but the lunches were so-so.

The workout room was nice, the cardio equipment was new with built in TVs. The workout room lacked barbells or an Universal type gym.

The location is ideal. Even though many of the students did not have a car they could walk to the many attractions on International drive.

Chicago August 2008

2008-08-19T21:37:00.014-05:00

Chicago August 2008

Seminar at Holiday Inn Express O'Hare.

It is kind of nice to have a seminar so close to to home. My flight from Minneapolis left at 10:00 am so I did not have to be at the airport at 5:30 am like I would have to if it was an east coast seminar.

I was at the hotel before noon, checked in and ate lunch before 1:00 pm and finished setting up before 4:30 pm. I could have set up sooner but I had to create some new water and drain lines.

Check in was not painless, the hotel showed that my reservation was canceled. Not a problem though they immediately rebooked me.

They had moved my equipment into the meeting room before I arrived, which is always nice. The banquet person had introduced herself while I was rechecking in, which is nice.

I never saw the banquet person again that day. I needed a screen, banquet table, and AV cart. I went to the banquet office and left a message with the secretary. She said that the room would be set up by 8:00 am the next morning, it was not. I had to scramble to get everything and finish setting up and I was delayed starting class.

The banquet room was large but it smelled musty. They left the wood parquet dance floor down over the carpeting. This is not a problem but it is just odd. The banquet people were nice and good at their job.

Our travel agent did not tell me that she did not order breakfast for the class, I am use to having pastries and other assorted breakfast food in the conference room. The hotel serves a free breakfast so our travel agent figured we did not need donuts but did not tell me.

The hotel charges for parking, $14 per day, our students that drove in had to pay $14 to attend class.

The other issue that I have with the hotel is there is almost nothing nearby. The hotel does not have a restaurant, there is a sports bar just behind the restaurant, I never made it there but some of the students said it was good. Other than Shoeless Joe's the sports bar and McDonalds, there is nothing within walking distance. If you drive about five or six blocks down Mannheim there is a strip mall with Target, Panda Express, Chipotle and Chilli's.

I drove to Schamburg one night and went to Game Works. Game Works is much better than the Dave and Buster's I had gone to in Maple Grove Minnesota. I had dinner there, ribs and they were good.

The rooms at the hotel were nice. They were well kept up, they had a fancy alarm clock that you can plug your MP3 player into, the beds are comfortable and my room looked like it had been remodeled recently.

Good

Close to the airport
Rooms are nice
Friendly banquet staff

Bad

$14 a day for parking
Musty banquet room
Nothing to do in the immediate area
No restaurant on the premises

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Isla Mujeres- Whale Sharks- June 2008

2008-07-01T18:36:00.014-05:00

We were in Isla last September and it was sweltering hot. I was worried that Karen would not like Isla because of the heat but she loved Isla and we had made plans to return before our vacation was over.

We purchased tickets this time rather than trying to use frequent flier miles, if you look at the post from our last trip to Isla, we had problems getting here because we were using frequent flier miles. We stayed at Ixchel condos last time and liked them but we had rented a single room and that turned out to be a little small for our needs. We had eaten at The Sunset Grill which is at Nautibeach resort and thought the resort look nice so we decided to stay there this time.

The only negative (which isn't really a negative) about Nautibeach had nothing to do with the resort, there was a disproportionated amount of old men with young good looking women staying at the resort. I don't know how many times I did a double take and thought, she's with him??? I eventually did start calling the resort Naughtybeach, which I thought was hilarious, but Karen did wasn't that amused with my nickname for the resort.

The reason that we opted for Nautibeach this time is because it is slightly cheaper, and at Nautibeach you get a full two bedroom condo with a full kitchen. They have a weird pricing scheme, all of their condos are two bedroom units but they charge by the number of people that are staying in the condo. This is a great deal for two people, we got a two bedroom condo with a full kitchen (stove top range, oven, microwave, refrigerator, and granite counter tops), a dining area (with a table and four chairs), a living room (couch, love seat, end table, two lamps, and small TV), two bedrooms with king size bed, a patio with a table and four chairs, and of course, a bathroom. Nautibeach is definitely older than Ixchel, so I was a little worried about it being run down. I checked Trip Advisor (as I do whenever I travel) and nearly all of the reviews were positive.

When using Trip Advisor I have learned to ignore negative reviews if there are only several of them. We went to the Turks and Caicos three years ago and we stayed at the Sibonne hotel because The Sands had several negative reviews and the Sibonne had none. The Sibonne was terrible- worn sheets, ripped towels, noisy air conditioner, rude staff and they had accidentally canceled our reservation. We moved to The Sands midweek and loved it. Since then I have learned to take negative review with a grain of salt.

The flight down was delayed for an hour and a half because of mechanical problems, but once we took off it was about three hours and forty five minutes to Cancun. Nautibeach had recommended Luxury Van Transportation as a service that would pick us up at the airport and drop us at Puerto Jaurez, but I dragged my feet getting something booked with them so we ended up taking a shuttle. The options to get from the airport to Puerto Jaurez are a cab at $56, Luxury Transport for $40 or one of the many shuttle service for about $36(all prices are for two people).

We opted for regular airport shuttle, we took a similar shuttle last year and it was an OK experience, the driver was friendly and we got a short tour of Cancun including a stop at a beach to see a ship that had run aground. This year the shuttle was newer and the company was more professional than last year, unfortunately that meant no guided tours and the driver was extremely aggressive, meaning he weaves in and out of traffic and the gas pedal stays all of the way to the floor until we hit a red light or we have to slow up for traffic. The big problem with taking shuttle is the Puerto Jaurez customers are always the last ones to be dropped off, that turns a twenty minute ride into a forty five minute ride.

Once at Puerto Jaurez it is a twenty minute ferry ride to Isla(I am always amazed that the ferry never feels like it is going that fast when you riding it, but when you see it cut through the waves as it speeds from port to port it looks like it looks like it is going at breakneck speeds), and a three minute taxi ride to the hotel. During the taxi ride to the hotel we discovered the one downside to Nautibeach and that is the street to the complex is bordered on one side by North Beach and there is construction on the other side of the road so it feels very deserted at night. It is a little spooky walking down the road to the resort in the dark but I would not expect any trouble on the island and the guard shack for the resort is a short holler away.

The taxi dropped us at the guard shack and we hauled our luggage to the office and checked in. Check in was painless and the desk staff is helpful and friendly. We were in number 17 and as I stated above it is a nice condo, not fancy, but is has a lot of room and everything in the condo works. The grounds are well maintained, the lawn and bushes are well cared for. The pool is nice, there are lounge chairs around three sides of the pool and the corner of the pool has a swim up bar that did not get much use that I saw, I kind of like that, I have been resorts where I see the same people at the same spot at the swim up bar every day.

The Sunset Grill is physically attached to Nautibeach but it is not owned by Nautibeach, which is kind of weird. You can setup a tab at the restaurant, which we did, and it was nice not have have to carry cash or a credit card at the beach. If you eat at The Sunset Grill you can use their beach chairs and umbrellas. This is important because beach chairs can cost 150 pesos ($15) for two hours.

We ate at the usual places, pizza at Rolandi's (twice). Karen had excellent tempura grouper, and I had mediocre grilled grouper at Bamboo's. Our favorite restaurant on Isla is Casa O's (pictured above), you can see the Cancun strip across the channel. Make sure that you arrive before sundown, you can watch the sunset from your table. If you arrive after sunset you will have to use the provided flashlight to read the menu. Olivia is new since we were here last and it is very good. They have some inside tables but everyone was waiting for a table in their open air courtyard. The food was good and so was the ambiance.

As I stated above,we vacationed in Turks and Caicos several years ago and we stayed on Grace Bay Beach. It is seven miles of beautiful white sand beach. I jogged barefoot on the beach (I wouldn't recommend it) and we could hike to Coral Gardens to go snorkeling (many turtles and fish just a short swim from shore). As beautiful as Grace Bay Beach is we like North Beach more. You can run on North Beach but you would have to do a couple of laps to get a good workout. I have snorkeled North Beach, the water is crystal clear, but there is not much to see (I did find a watch). The best thing about North Beach is the water, it is bathwater warm and during low tide you can wade out about 100 yards and the water is only chest deep. People play, wade, and float in the water all day long.

This is a professional whale shark video

This is our experience

We were in Isla Mujeres last September, one of the reasons that we went was to snorkel with the whale sharks. Unfortunately it was the end of the season and there was no guarantee that we would see a whale shark. After freezing our butts off in Kona and not seeing one manta we opted to come back in July which is peak whale shark season.

We arranged the whale shark trip with our dive shop (Coral Divers), this was the best option. There were four customers in our boat, us and a very nice British couple that we had dove with all week. Most other boats had from six to sixteen people in them, of course, the more people in your boat the less chances you get to swim with the whale sharks.

It is about an hour boat ride to the whale sharks. On the way out we saw a baby manta splashing on the surface and a pod of dolphins. Once we arrived at the location it only took about fifteen minutes to find the sharks. We were told that it generally take longer. None of us had done this before so we were not sure what we were looking for, but as you can see from the above video you see the top of the shale sharks mouth, dorsal fin and tail and it is amazing when you see your first one, they are huge.

There are rules to swimming with the whale sharks, there can only be three boats per whale shark, you have to wear a life jacket or a wet suit. You can only have three people from your boat in the water at a time, the guide and two customers. It is a little freaky to jump in the ocean so far away from shore. The water is anything but clear, visibility is terrible because of the plankton, but that is why the sharks are there. You can actually see the ocean change colors as you swim through the plankton blooms.

The boat pulls in front of the whale shark as you, your wife and the guide perch on the side of the boat holding you fins out of the water. The captain tells you when to hurl yourself into the water. The whale shark looks like he is barely moving through the water, but as you try to keep pace with them you realize you have to swim at full speed and the sharks is still leaving you in his wake. As you can see from my video the shark was seining plankton and his mouth was open, I was able to pace the shark for a while but I accidentally got in front of the shark and he closed his mouth, I am too large for him to swallow. As the shark pulled away from me he bumped me with his tail, it was an incredibly gentle bump for such a big animal. I cannot put into words what an unbelievable experience it is to be that close to a 15 yard long whale shark in the wild. If you are in Isla Mujeres in the summer you have to swim with the whale sharks.

We also came to Isla to scuba dive. Last year the diving was comparatively mediocre because a hurricane had gone just to the south of Isla, it missed Isla but it stirred everything up, the water had just started clearing but the fish were still hiding in the reefs when we dove.

We didn't have luck with dive shops last September either, we initially dove with Aqua but their equipment was not great and we did not click with the dive masters. We tried the dive shop on the beach by Ixchel for our last dive, it was a mistake, the dive master seem pissed that he had to do an afternoon drive. He swam very fast for both of out dives, something a dive master just does not do. I was an obvious ploy to get us to use all of our air quickly.

Two years ago I dove with Coral Divers, their equipment was good and I liked the dive masters, they were a lot of fun to dive with. After last years problems we decided to go back to Corel Divers. We dove with them three days this year and it was some of the best diving that we ever experienced.

The thing I really like about Coral Divers is they are so easy going, we walked into the dive shop on Matamoros avenue (the have two locations) Saturday afternoon and said that we wanted to dive the next morning, they told us to be at the shop by 8:30 am, they did have us fill out paperwork and put down a 50% down payment like most dive shops would have. We had no preconceived notions bout how much diving we were going to do, but we ended up diving three days. Every day after diving we just told the dive master we want to dive tomorrow, again they did not ask for a down payment they just told us to be at the shop in the morning. We did three dives, one whale shark trip and we snorkeled one day, again, it was probably the best diving that we have ever experienced and the whale shark trip is an experience of a lifetime.

We saw large eels, nurse sharks and large schools of fish. It was mating season for turtles so we many large turtles in the act. You literally could not go anywhere without seeing turtles mating. My favorite dive was south point, we dove it twice, the surge and current were very strong, As you can see from the above video, we were being swept along without kicking at all. At the exact south tip of the island where the water from the east side and the west side of the island collide the surface water looks like a washing machine.

The dive masters for Coral Divers are great, we dove with Enrique, he is a very finny guy. We also dove with David, he is quick to point out that just because he has a French accent does not mean he is French, he is from Belgium. We immediately had something in common, Stella Artois is mine and Karen's favorite beer. You cannot get Stella on the island so David is quick to point out that he misses Stella Artois and his family, in that order. If you are going to dive with Coral Divers make sure you bring some Stella for David.

We had the good luck to dive all three days and go on the whale shark trip with Sara and Andres. They are from London and they were just finishing their honeymoon. It is always nice to share a cervesa with nice people after a dive.

On our final day of vacation we had breakfast at The Sunset Grill and closed out our tab. We were able to enjoy North Beach for several hours before we had to shower and take the ferry to Cancun. We had Fidel shuttle our luggage from the hotel to the ferry terminal, he came to the room to get the luggage. I felt a little guilty because he was older than I am and he was hauling our suitcases down two flights of stairs. Obviously, even though he does not look like it, he is in shape and can handle the work. Since he brought our luggage to the ferry terminal we were able to take one last leisurely walk through town. Fidel works for tips only, we gave him sixty pesos and he seemed very happy with that amount.

We did book through Luxury Van Transportation for the return and when the ferry landed at the dock there was a well dressed young man holding a sign with my name, he brought us and our luggage to an air conditioned conversion van with leather captain's seats, and we were at the airport within twenty minutes, he was also an extremely careful driver, which was appreciated (I must be getting old). We will probably never use the airport shuttles again.

On the flight home Karen and I actually had an entire row to our selves so we could relax and not feel like a sardine in a flying can.

Check out the Isla Mujeres and Cancun travel guides below

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San Jose June 2008

2008-07-01T16:51:00.011-05:00

Another seminar, this time in San Jose California. I had never been to San Jose and being kind of a computer geek I was excited to visit Silicone Valley. I was amazed that Northwest had a direct flight into San Jose, I had thought I would have to fly into San Francisco and drive to San Jose. I like flying west a lot more than flying east. my departure flight was at 10:00 am and I landed in San Jose about 11:45 am. If I head east on a departure flight I have to catch a 7:00 am flight to get to my destination by noon. Of course you pay on the return flight because I have to take the red eye home.

The seminar was at the Holiday Inn San Jose. The hotel is older but well kept up. My room was a little small by Holiday Inn standards but nicely decorated. The banquet rooms were far nicer that any of the banquet rooms that I have stayed at lately. I was in Woodside 1. All of the Woodside meeting rooms were located by the pool, the outside walls were glass to from floor to ceiling. Setup on Monday went mostly without a problem, the only issue that I encountered was a machine problem that I was aware of and I came prepared, I thought, to fix it. We have a machine that had a bad K2 relay on the power board, so I thought. As it turned out the problem was actually the expansion board, luckily I had a spare.

The classes were ok, I could have been better but that is the way it goes sometimes. The food at the hotel was great, usually we have pizza or sandwiches or lunch but we had stuffed turkey breast, fillet mignon, salmon and prime rib, and it was all very good. I am not sure what Kelly had to pay for lunches but the food was much better than what I am use to. The banquet staff was great, I believe Rose was the name of the person that served us our lunches and she was like a doting grandmother. We requested to have lunch by the pool so she set up tables for us by the pool, she had a great personality and she made sure that all if my students were happy. The only problem that we had was the air conditioning broke the end of the third day. It appeared that it was fixed for the last day of class but by noon it was heating up in the room again. they opened the sliding wall to Woodside 2 so we could get cool air from Woodside 2 into our room.

Usually I do not do much when class finishes for the day, generally I have room service and watch a little TV, I hate eating alone at a restaurant, I'll either call my wife and talk through dinner or I will bring a book or magazine and read. Every now and then I will buy drinks for the students at the end of the day and occasionally take them to dinner but we are not suppose to buy dinner for the students on a regular basis.

The nice thing about a seminar in northern California is you know the weather is going to be nice and there is a lot you can do when class is over for the day. We do not have Fry's in Minnesota and I needed a meter for class so I HAD to go to geek heaver- Fry's after class. I drove to Santa Cruse one evening. There is not a lot to see there. They have an amusement park which I drove past and a pier that you can drive onto with shops and restaurants. The drive to Santa Cruz is beautiful, it is a winding road thought the hills.

I went into San Jose one night, I was going to have dinner but I could not find any place that was interesting to eat at. I was a little disappointed, maybe I was in the wrong part of downtown, but it was a little seedy, drunks on the streets etc...

Los Gatos was my favorite town. It is a walking town, there are many good shops and restaurants within several blocks.I opted for Gardino's, it is a small Italian restaurant on the main drag of Los Gatos. It is small but the food is good, not great Italian food but good food. After dinner I went to a coffee shop just down the street and had a latte and checked my email.

I took the red eye home from San Francisco, it beat taking a 6:00 am flight on Saturday morning and wasting half of my Saturday. I actually did waste half of the day because I took a three hour nap when I got home. The temperature hit 101 F on my last day. My plan was to walk around Fisherman's Wharf and then go to North Beach to have dinner. It was hot in San Francisco, it had to be 90 F. I parked at the main ramp on the Embarcadero, I knew it was expensive but I was surprised to have to pay $28 for a three hour stay in the ramp. Since it was so hot I decided to drive to North Beach, a big mistake, there was no parking to be found so I just kept going and went to SFO and had dinner in the airport.

Check out the San Jose travel guides.

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San Jose June 2008

2008-06-30T21:51:00.005-05:00

Another seminar, this time in San Jose California. I had never been to San Jose and being kind of a computer geek I was excited to visit Silicone Valley. I was amazed that Northwest had a direct flight into San Jose, I had thought I would have to fly into San Francisco and drive to San Jose. I like flying west a lot more than flying east. My departure flight was at 10:00 am and I landed in San Jose about 11:45 am. If I head east on a departure flight I have to catch a 7:00 am flight to get to my destination by noon. Of course you pay on the return flight because you have to take the red eye home.

The seminar was at the Holiday Inn San Jose. The hotel is older but well kept up. My room was a little small by Holiday Inn standards but nicely decorated. The banquet rooms were far nicer that any of the banquet rooms that I have stayed at lately. I was in Woodside 1. All of the Woodside meeting rooms were located by the pool, the outside walls were glass to from floor to ceiling.

The food at the hotel was great, usually we have pizza or sandwiches or lunch but we had stuffed turkey breast, fillet mignon, salmon and prime rib, and it was all very good. I am not sure what Kelly had to pay for lunches but the food was much better than what I am use to. The banquet staff was great, I believe Rose was the name of the person that served us our lunches and she was like a doting grandmother. We requested to have lunch by the pool so she set up tables for us by the pool, she had a great personality and she made sure that all if my students were happy. The only problem that we had was the air conditioning broke the end of the third day. It appeared that it was fixed for the last day of class but by noon it was heating up in the room again. They opened the sliding wall to Woodside 2 so we could get cool air into our room.

Usually I do not do much when class finishes for the day, generally I have room service and watch a little TV, every now and then I will by drinks for the class. The nice thing about a seminar in northern California is you know the weather is going to be nice and there is many places worth seeing when class is done. We do not have Fry's in Minnesota and I needed a meter for class so I drove over to geek heaver- after class, Fry's is incredible and I wish we had one on Minnesota.

I drove to Santa Cruz one evening. There's not a lot to see there. They have an amusement park which I drive past and a pier that you can drive onto. The drive to Santa Cruz is beautiful, it is winding road thought the hills.

I went into San Jose one night, I was going to have dinner but I could not find anything that looked good. I was a little disappointed, maybe I was in the wrong part of downtown, but it was a little seedy, drunks on the streets etc...

Los Gatos was my favorite town near San Jose. It is a walking town, there are many good shops and restaurants within several blocks. I ate at a great little Italian place.

I was scheduled on the red eye back to Minneapolis so I had hours to kill after class ended and I finished packing up. I decided that I would go into San Francisco to have dinner in North Beach. It almost never happens but it was hot, in the 90s in San Francisco. I hung out at the book store (Barnes and Noble?) by Fisherman's wharf and then drove to North Beach. Bad idea, it was Friday night and there was no parking to be had. I finally gave up, returned my rental car and had a delicious (not) dinner at the airport.

I did the usual, caught a couple of hours of sleep on the flight, grabbed breakfast, and slept until noon.

Portland Maine

2008-05-30T22:39:00.006-05:00

It all began when I was watching a few minutes of the Today Show before I went to work. They were discussing cheap vacations in the USA, they mentioned Portland Maine, they said hotels were reasonable and the food was as good as Boston. I mentioned Portland to my wife and she was interested. Her sister and their family live in Salem Massachusetts and we could fly into Boston and meet them in Portland.

We did just that, we flew into Boston on Wednesday and drove to Salem to have lunch with Tony, Lori, Kai and Robbie. We visited for a while and left for Portland about 5:00 PM. It was about an hour and a half to a two hour drive.

We checked into the Eastland Park Hotel. We actually tried to get closer to the the waterfront but it was Memorial Day weekend and as it turned out there was a Jehovah Wittiness convention in town. We always check Trip Advisor for reviews when booking hotels and we were a little worried because there were more negative views that I would have preferred but we got a good deal on the hotel we paid $129 for room, parking, breakfast and drinks. We read in the reviews that the top two floors had been remodeled so we requested a room on the twelveth floor. My wife booked the room and saw that the hotel had a sale ($129 per night), but it did not cover all of the nights that we stayed. She asked when we booked the room if the sale price could be applied to all of the nights and the agent said yes- ask and you shall receive I guess.

The Eastland is an older hotel but I am sure at one time it was the nicest hotel in town. The entry to the hotel is similar to the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis, a lot of wood and a large entry area. Parking for the hotel is in the ramp located just past the main entrance. We checked in, unpacked and walked down to the water front to find a restaurant. We stumbled upon a Flatbread Pizza, Karen had eaten at a Flatbread Pizza in Massachusetts and liked it. Dinner was really good, we ordered a coevolution and I had a pepperoni and calamata olive. The pepperoni was the best and spiciest I ahve ever had. I am a pizza fanatic and this was once of the best pizzas that I have ever had. We also had the brownie and icecream for desert, again very good. The weather was cool when we were there otherwise I am sure that their patio on the water would have been packed.

The following morning we used our breakfast coupon at the 157 Cafe located on the main floor of the hotel. The coupon covered the first $25 and since this is a hotel restaurant pancakes cost $9.00 but withe the first $25 free breakfast cost less than $10 for both of us including tip. I am a pancake fanatic, my wife wonders how I can order pancakes almost every time we go out for breakfast, amd I give the pancakes two thumbs up.

We were told by several people that the L.L. Bean stores in Freeport are a must see, actually Freeport is a must see if you want to do a little shopping. There are several L.L. Bean stores in Freeport, they have a bike and kayak store, an outlet, and a huge L.L. bean retail store. The rest of Freeport is all shops and outlets, my favorite is the North Face store, we could have gotten a terrific deal on a six person North Face tent for about $170, unbelievable! Unfortunately we did not want to carry it back on the plane. The clothing is also unbelievably cheap, I did stock up on some shirts. We could have spent the rest of the day in Freeport but we decided to head back to Portland for lunch.

We ate at Gilbert's Chowder House, it is a Portland pick and the food is very good, it is not fancy and it appeared to be a local hangout. We were told that we had to try the lobster rolls when we went to Portland so I gave one a try at Gilbert's. I had no idea what a lobster roll was, it is lobster meat in a toasted u-shaped piece of bread, very tasty.

Part of our hotel deal was free drinks so we went back to the hotel and went to the Top of the East Lounge. The walls are mostly glass to you get a spectacular view of the harbor. They happened to be shooting a commercial for the hotel while we were there so were are in the background sipping cocktails.

For dinner we ate at a local wine bar that we had walked by earlier in the day, it was listed as the best of Portland. The wine bar decor was interesting, it looked like the interior was designed by HGTV, it had black and white painted floors, one of the chairs was a giant shoe, you get the picture. We were a little disappointed in the food, we ordered what we thought were entrees, but I think they were appetizers. The food was good but the portions were small.

we were awakened the following morning at 6:00 am by a fire alarm. This was a little disconcerting because we were on the 12th floor. We got dressed and I actually remembered to hold my hand to the door to make sure it was not hot, which it was not. We went down twelve floors of stairs. When we exited at street level we saw multiple firetrucks. We later found out that some vandal had pulled fire alarm.

We took the harbor tour in the afternoon. It was well worth the money. The captain was very funny and informative. We got a close up look at several lighthouses and the fort that is located in the middle of the harbor. I highly recommend the trip if you are in Portland.

Once Karen's family arrived we had to go back to Flatbread, also one of their favorite pizza places. We also had dinner at Di Millo's, seafood is their specialty, of course. We spent the last day at the beach, it was on the chilly side but bearable and the beach was beautiful, the kids really enjoyed it.

We headed back to Salem on Monday in the late morning, thinking that we would miss the traffic if we did not wait until the afternoon and we were wrong. It was bumper to bumper as soon as we got in the freeway in Portland. We had to fight intermittent stop and go traffic for about an hour.

Atlanta April 2008

2008-04-19T22:50:00.005-05:00

The seminar was at the Holiday Inn Select Atlanta Airport. We have been going to this hotel for years and for good reason, the banquet facilities and personnel are great.

I flew Delta into Atlanta and I guess I should get use to it, Northwest and Delta got the ok to merge while I was in Atlanta. The jet was the oldest airplane I have been on in a long time but me made is so I am not going to complain. I actually had a 10:00 am flight so I slept in compared to the normal 4:30 am wake up time for a 7:00 am wake up call.

Karen gave me a GPS for Christmas and it has been worth its weight in gold. It proved its self again. In the past the hotel has been hard to find, even though I have been there before. This year I left the Hertz lot and the GPS had me at the hotel in about five minutes. In the past I think I went via the highway to the hotel. If you take the road out of the rental lot and go to Riverdale Road it will bring you right to Airport Boulevard. I was amazed when I picked up my rental car that it was a bright yellow Mustang. I liked it but I am sure Mike or Tony would have gotten another car.

They usually had me in the Intercontinental room but this year I was in Express 1. After grabbing lunch at Burger King on Old National Highway, I came back and started setting up. I immediately saw that the room was not going to be large enough. Luckily the banquet saw all of the equipment when it arrived and saw there was going to be a problem. Their plan was to remove the dividing wall, which they did, and the room was more that large enough. The banquet people are really on the ball, both Michelle and Angel stopped in to see if everything was ok while I was setting up, the banquet people that took care of lunch did a good job of communicating and when I was tearing down the maintenance person came in to see when the equipment was going to be picked up and we had a conversation for about fifteen minutes, nice people.

Food at the Holiday Inn is the only week point. The food is not bad but it is just average at best, that applies to lunch and dinner. I had room service twice, ribs and chicken one night and steak the other, again not bad, it was the usual hotel food. My other two dinners were at the Ruby Tuesdays that is behind the Hyatt just across the parking lot. I am not a Ruby Tuesday's fan but the food was better than at the Holiday Inn. The really nice thing about the restaurant is it services the five or six hotels that are in the immediate area so there are a lot of singles (people eating by themselves). I hate being the only single person in a restaurant.

Since this is a Holiday Inn Select it is more the equivalent of a Hilton than a Holiday Inn. The room was not unusually large but it was nicer than your usual Holiday Inn. It had both wifi and cat5e highspeed internet. Not that it matters but the bathroom was much nicer than most. It had a huge walk in shower and the toilet was in a separate room.

The only downside was the hotel is located so close to the airport that you get airport noise.

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Orlando March 2008

2008-03-18T20:41:00.002-05:00

I went to Orlando for a single training class, usually we do back to back classes but a clinic but we had a request to do a single class at an Orlando clinic. Usually I am happy to do a single training class, I get the frequent flier points and I am not gone all week.

The trip started out rough. I started feeling bad on Sunday and as the day went on it just got worse. I didn't get much sleep Sunday night, I decided that I would wait until the alarm went off a 5:00 am and if I could get up and shower I would go, if not I would have to call Mike so we could decide what plan B was- if he wanted to go or if we would reschedule. Luckily I felt well enough to shower and go.

Since it was spring break the plane was loaded with vacationers, this is actually nice because there was plenty of overhead room.

Class was good,at least the first day, I am wiring this at the end of the first day. The class is full of comedians, which is good, but is slows class down.

I am staying at the Courtyard Marriott on Magnolia. Not a bad hotel, my only complaint is the TV is way small, it is probably a 19 inch. I hoped to go to Church street since it is so close to the hotel. I was to tired on Monday to go but I did go tonight. I couldn't find a good place to park, there are plenty of one way streets so it is confusing. I also did not see any restaurant that looked that special, so I went back to the room to order room service. Even though my quest for food was not successful, it was nice to get out in the warm weather, it snowed in Minneapolis yesterday.

The second day of class went well, it was a bright group of techs. I had to go back to Minneapolis to soon, it has been a cool spring and I did not get a chance to enjoy the weather.

Cleveland February 2008

2008-02-29T16:21:00.002-06:00

I am in Cleveland for another seminar. When I woke up on Monday the radio said we had pea soup fog and roads were baked up and flights were delayed. I had visions of not being able to get into Cleveland on Monday. However, the fog was not that bad so it took me twenty minutes to get to the Park and Fly and my flight left on time. They had the trainees working the desk when arrived. I tried to check in an hour ahead of the official check in time and I was told that he may not be able to give me a room. I said that I had one of the banquet rooms and I got a right away. I had lunch and went to set up, I had to have the front desk let me into the room but all of the people with the key had left. The girl at the front desk turned to me and said "management has the key" and then just stood there looking at me. Luckily the skilled desk person showed up and let me in. I had organized all of the tools so it did not take long to set up, compared to what it use to.

I had stayed at this Holiday Inn the last time I was in Cleveland. It is not a bad hotel so I decided to return this time. The hotel is about five miles from the airport, my GPS had me take back roads. The hotel is positioned the wrong way so the lobby is on the side of the building and there isn't any parking for the lobby and there is not enough room to park at the entrance. The hotel is not in a bad part of town but it is not in the best part of town. Those are my only complains about the hotel. We are going to come back later this this year for another seminar and I think I will recommend finding another hotel closer to the airport.

I actually got complaints about the hotel today during the final class. I am not sure how realistic the complaints are, the students were comparing the hotel the the Marriott in Denver that they stayed at for Gambro school. I am sure Gambro has a corporate deal with Marriott because the room were only $80.00. I doubt that there are any Marriott's with a walk-in price of $80, so the comparison is unfair.

The banquet people here are really friendly and helpful. I asked that the move second break (they bring soda and snacks) ahead about an hour for the second day of class. They not only remembered to do it they actually did move it ahead an hour. At some hotels this is harder than you think. Sheryl was the banquet person that I was working with and she was excellent.

Both of the classes have gone well.

Salt Lake City 2008

2008-02-09T15:13:00.002-06:00

We traveled to Salt Lake City to visit Karen's brother's family. They just had their fourth child, Holly. When we visited last year we stayed at their house. We decided it would be best to stay at a hotel this year because of the new born. It would be too crazy for Jerry and Marianne to have two more people in their house. It was a wise decision because three of the four children had colds or coughs and Karen came down with a cold on the flight out.

It was nice to see them again, the kids had grown. Last year Aaron was a toddler, this year he spent much of his time running full speed directly into the couch, bouncing off, turning around and then running full speed into a chair, bouncing off, etc...

Eric was doing well, he built a model boat for Boy Scouts and he took second in the boat race. Julieann was her usual fun self.

Jerry's oldest daughter drove down from Challis Idaho with her boyfriend, Gary. It was nice to see Amanda again, Karen tries to keep in touch as much as possible. This was the first time we met her boyfriend Gary and he seems to be a pretty decent guy. They drove Gary's Land Rover down from Idaho. He let me drive it back from Snowbird. Nice SUV but my Audi had more room, sorry Gary.

We stayed at the County Inns and Suited on 990 North 500 West. The AAA rate was $89 per night. The room was a suite, which was nice because Karen could not sleep so she moved to the couch in the middle of the night and she could shut the door between the bedroom and the living room area. The room and property were just ok, nothing wrong with them, but nothing about the property stood out. I guess $89 for a suite was not a bad price, but I guess I was spoiled the previous week when I stayed at Cambria suites in Boise for the same price. The hotel was brand new and the suite had LCD TVs . The Country Inn and suites was clean and everything worked in our room so I shouldn't complain.

Karen gave me a Garmin GPS for Christmas and it was indispensable. The roads in Salt Lake City are crazy, for example we stayed on 500 West which changed to 89 and Orchard (I think it was Orchard). Going to Jerry's house went something like this- go two blocks take a left, go two blocks take a right, go two blocks take a left and so on. The Garmin was flawless. I gave Karen a Spider ski jacket and ski pants for Christmas she was stylingl when we went to Snowbird.

We took the kids sledding on Friday morning. It snowed the previous night so the foot of fresh powder prevented us from reaching maximum downhill speed, it also made it much harder to get up the hill.

Later in the day we went snow shoeing at a little park on the edge of town. Luckily, someone had broken the trail through all of the fresh snow. The trail was a switchback up the side of the mountain and it was steep and narrow. The scenery was beautiful and we got a distant look at some very expensive homes on the other side of the valley.

We went skiing at Snowbird on Saturday. We stopped at Utah Ski and Golf in downtown Salt Lake to get our equipment and lift tickets. The drive to the mountians was slow. The road was backed up into Salt Lake with skiers heading up the canyon. Luckily it did not take long to arrive at Snowbird. It was a scramble to get us and all of our equipment on the shuttle bus for the ride to that chalet. We split up at the chalet. Amanda and Gary went to the bunny hill to try snowboarding for the first time. Jerry, Karen and I took the Peruvian lift to the top of the mountain and took the people mover through the mountain and spent our morning skiing on the back side of Snowbird. Growing up in Minnesota I did not get a chance to ski deep powder, Snowbird got dumped on on Friday and there was still plenty of untracked snow to ski on. Unfortunately, skiing knee deep powder is hard and we did were not at our best because of the powder. We still had a great time. We met Gary and Amanda for lunch, they were discouraged at first but were getting the hang of snowboarding by lunch time. We decided to stay on the front side of the mountain in the afternoon. We skied hard the rest of the day and headed back to the Peruvian lift to take one last run. Kaern and I would have been happy to call it quits, but I think Jerry was looking forward to the last run. We got to the Peruvian lift at 4:05 pm but it closed at 4:00 pm. Jerry wanted to hike down the canyon a short ways to catch another chairlift but Karen and I talked him out of it. It seem like people get hurt on that last run of the day.

Jerry went home and we went back to the hotel to soak in the whirlpool. Gary and I went to the liquor store so I could get beer and he could get a bottle of Jim Beam. It was the strangest liquor store I had ever been in. They had all sorts of booze but no cold beer, so I had to go to the local gas station to buy a six pack. Not much to choose from, I ended up with Blue Moon, but I was hoping for Stella or Fat Tire.

As usual we were wiped after a day of skiing followed by a quick beer and relaxing in the hot tub. We met Jerry for dinner and went back to the room to crash.

We stopped at Jerry's house the next day on the way to the airport. Our flight home was packed but on time.

Boise Idaho January 2008

2008-01-24T23:01:00.004-06:00

Another seminar in Boise Idaho. I was here about a year and a half ago, Boise is a nice little town. Last time I stayed at the Doubletree on Chinden so I opted to stay here again. The banquet room is nice and that staff was helpful.

It is a two and a half hour flight from Minneapolis to Boise, another full flight, we were late leaving Minneapolis because the flight crew was late arriving into Minneapolis and we needed to deice before takeoff, so we left about half an hour late but arrived only fifteen minutes late.

The rental car lot is small, you pickup your keys at the Avis desk (I am Preferred), and the rental car lot is a short walk out of the side of the building. This is the first time that I got a chance to use the GPS that Karen gave me for Christmas and it was flawless. It brought me directly to the hotel without any problems. It was about a twenty minute drive.

I checked in to the hotel about 1:00 pm, had lunch and went to set up for the seminar. the banquet person was just bringing the equipment into the room. When I saw the room I had him stop and went to the banquet office. The room (Emerald room) was too small, I might have been able to make it work but we would have been cramped. I check with the banquet manager and he was nice enough to move me into a larger room. the Clearwater room was more than big enough. The only problem with the room was the lighting was really dim, and this seems to be the case thought most of the hotel atrium area.

Setup was not a snap. Two machine had shipping damage, one had a bent chassis and the other one had broken fittings on the manifold. The machine with broken fittings also had a load cell that was mounted upside down. When I mounted it correctly I found that the load cell was broken and I needed to take the load cell from the machine with the bent chassis and install it in the machine with the broken load cell. I also had problems getting Renalog to communicate, I eventually finished setting up about 9:00 pm.

The food at the hotel is not bad but it is nothing to brag about. I usually order room service when I travel because I hate sitting in a restaurant in by myself. My only complaint about the menu is there was not enough variety.

Last night I fired up my GPS and headed to the local shopping mall to get dinner. I could not find anything that looked good so I had takeout from the Olive Garden- lasagna. Tonight I went to Joe's Crab Shack, it is next to the hotel and I could have walked there, but I did not. I am not a big Joe's fan so I was not impressed with the meal but is was a nice change from the hotel food.

I just had to add that the banquet staff at the hotel was extremely professional, they moved me into a larger room at the last minute, the staff made sure I knew their name, and they were able to move up my breaks on the second day of each class. This sounds simple but at most hotels is is not easily accomplished.

I booked a hotel close to the airport because I have a 8:00 am flight out Saturday morning. I did a google map for the area and even though I have never heard of Cambria Suites I decided to book my room there. I did not know but it was a wise choice. It is a brand new hotel and it is beautiful. It is art deco, not what you would expect to find in Boise. I am assuming that all of the rooms are suites because I had a suite and the AAA price was $89. My room had a living room area with a flat screen TV and the bedroom area also had a flat screen TV. It is the best $89 room I ever stayed in.

Key West November 2007

2007-11-16T16:28:00.006-06:00

Key West on the cheap

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November 16 2007

I wasn't as psyched about my dive trip to get out of the house this year. Maybe I was not as excited because I have been to Key West many times, and it is getting a little old. I don't think I believe that but I don't know what else it might be. Anyway I was able to use frequent flier miles to get here, it cost me 37,500 and I have three connecting flights each way, but the ticket was free. When Karen's friends and relatives came up for the shopping weekend last year I was excited about going to Isla Mujeres and it turned out to be a very nice vacation. Karen and I went there September of this year and she likes Isla as much as I do, enough that we are going back this summer to try to see the whale sharks. The first and last days will consist mostly of travel. I had a 7:30 am flight out of Minneapolis going to Cleveland. After a short layover in Cleveland, I flew to Miami, then on to Key West. The only flight that was delayed was the one into Key West, I think we were only about an hour late getting into Key West. I had never flown into Key West before, I had always driven. We were in cloud cover most of the way and when the clouds broke you could see that we were following the over seas highway. You could see the big white weather/spy blimp in the air to our east. It is either a weather blimp or a spy blimp depending on who you talk to. After landing, I got my luggage, mine was the first one on the carousel. I grabbed a cab to the Budget Key West. There isn't anything wrong with the hotel, and I did not dislike it but I would stay there again. I think is I just did not feel that I got enough bang for the buck.

I decided that since Karen was not with me I would try to get by as cheap as I could. I did not rent a car until Friday, but the real reason behind that was I am staying in old town so I didn't need a car and also parking sucks here. It took me twenty minutes to find a parking spot tonight (Friday) and it is two blocks away. It does not give you a good feeling to know that you rental car is parked on a city street and you cannot keep an eye on it.

Budget Key West

I walked down to Duval to grab dinner, I ate at an open air bar/restaurant called Caroline's Cafe, I had a beer and a grouper sandwich, it wasn't bad and the bill came to $13.62 plus tip. I roamed Duval for a while and came back to the room. For some reason I woke at 6:30 am the next morning and would not get back to sleep. The Budget Key West is not a bed and breakfast, at least as far as I could tell so I walked into town to get something to eat. Again, since this is going to be a cheap trip (I am not broke, I just decided that I would not spend a lot of money) and I was not very hungry, I am not a breakfast person, so I hit a the marina deli and convenience store and grabbed a water and a blueberry muffin. My plan was to be at Lost Reef Divers when the doors opened. I ate my muffin and waited. The store did not open until about 8:20 am. I was met at the door by a huge doberman, luckily he was friendly. I asked about the diving and he said that they were not going out that day and maybe not the next. Something did not seem right.

My plan was to dive Friday morning and do a wave runner tour the following day and a dolphin encounter the day after that. I wanted to dive on Friday because I would have liked to wait 24 hours from when I last flew. That was not going to be possible, I saw on the Weather Channel that a clod front was screaming down from the north and winds were going to gust 30-40 miles per hour by Thursday evening so the best dive conditions would be Thursday morning and Thursday afternoon would probably be my last chance to dive. It would take several days for the winds to die down so a Friday dive would not be possible and I would not dive Saturday because I have to fly first thing Sunday morning. The "concierge" recommended another dive shop so I walked to the dive shop to see about diving. They booked me on the afternoon dive. I walked back to the Budget Key West and checked out. I picked the Budget Key West because it was only about three blocks from The Popular House, the B and B where I am staying the rest for the trip. I took the three block trek with my bags, I didn't call a cab not because I wanted to be cheap, but I didn't think the cab would appreciate taking a fare only three blocks.

The Popular House or Key West Bed and Breakfast

I met Jody, I am not sure but I think she may own B and B. I dropped my bags off and decided to take a stroll around the island. The walk was a good decision but my choice of sandals was a bad decision. I wore my crappy Columbia sandals. The problem with the sandals is there is a groove that makes an outline in the sandal and while walking the sandal flexes and the groove compresses and pinches your foot. I got the sandals just in time to wear to T and C, we did not do much walking in T and C so they were a minor annoyance. I got the sandals when I went to Vegas for work. I did a lot of walking in Vegas and my feet hurt the entire time. All of the walking I did broke them in, they had formed to my feet and the grooves had quit pinching my feet. I had tried to find a similar pair of sandals that would not hurt my feet before I left, but I did not have any luck. I also brought a pair of Sketchers that resemble Keen sandals. I walked from one end of Duval to the other and when I got top the beach on the north end of the island I realized that the wind was blowing at about 20 mph. I made up my mind that I was going to cancel the dive. I walked over to the dive shop to cancel and the girl at the shop insisted that the conditions were still good. I had 45 minutes to walk back to The Popular House and get my dive equipment and I barely made it there and back, but my feet were killing me.

Once on the boat out of the harbor, the dive master I discovered that one couple on the boat was just snorkeling, a girl on the boat was taking her open water, and the other couple was spear fishing. The dive master told me that I would have to dive with them or he did not know what he was going to do. I was a little apprehensive about going with two spear fishermen but I had no choice. They were a very nice couple, Tim and Brittany. They both worked for the University of Florida, he was maintenance and she worked in a lab. It was interesting to see them work as a team to try and spear fish, all of the signals were non verbal and they were pretty good at it. I just followed behind them and tried to stay out of their way. The visibility was not all that good. I don't know, sometimes I think I remember the water being clearer than it actually is. I saw a lot of fish, that is the nice thing about the Keys, there are always a lot of fish. Other than that I saw one large eel, several lobsters (in traps) and towards the end of the second dive I saw a huge (7 foot) nurse shark that had some nasty bite marks on its head. I was able to get close to snap some pictures and I took to many because the shark turned and left. I was a little afraid because he headed right for me at first but turned and left. We dove marker one and nine inch spike. We were down for an hour the first dive with a maximum depth of thirty feet and the second dive was fifty-five minutes at 25 feet. The water temperature was cold, 76 degrees and vis was about 45 feet.

We went past Mallory Square just as the sun was about to set, we got to see the throngs of people on the dock to see the sunset. It was dusk by the time we docked and I traded emails with the couple I dove with, Tim and Brittany. I shot some video of them diving and I am going to email it to them. I hiked back to The Popular House, I stopped to get a six pack along the way. I took one of the beers and hit the hot tub, the water was about two degrees below scalding so it felt so good did not take long to warm me up.

I walked into town and grabbed a burger and a beer at Margaritaville, it came to $14.79 plus tip. I went back to my room and since there is no TV at the B and B I had downloaded some programs from Itunes and watched one of them and went to bed.

It was cool and windy when but I got up and ran anyway. It was actually a good thing that it was cool otherwise the humidity probably would have killed me. It was a good run, it actually seemed that the air was thicker because I was at sea level. I decided that Friday was a good day to get a car so I went to Hotwire and booked one at the airport. I got a midsized car for about eighty-four dollars for two days. I did get cheap and walked to the airport, about three or four miles. Time wise it worked out perfectly, I could not pick up the car before noon and arrived at the airport about five minutes after. For some reason my quads were killing me, it could have been all of the walking the previous day along with the run that morning. Since I was wearing my Sketchers my feet were sore but they survived. I came back to the B and B to get lunch and a my snorkel stuff. I ate at the Conch Republic, it is in the marina area. I had a bowl of conch chowder and a Stella. The conch chowder was just OK, it would have used a little more spice and there was something missing, I am not sure what it was though. I would give the chowder a five on a scale of ten. It came to $12.26, probably my most expensive lunch but the ambiance at the restaurant is great, it is so nice to sit at a restaurant at the marina and just take it all in.

I headed for Bahia Honda state park, it is about twenty six miles north of Key West. It cost $3.50 admission, all I wanted to do was hangout at the beach and I did for a while. I did not go snorkeling, it was windy and the water seemed much colder than when we dove. Since the cold front had hit the keys the temperatures were only in the low seventies with a strong wind, not ideal beach weather so I was only there about an hour. I am writing this before dinner on Friday night so I am not sure what I will have, I was thinking about a slice of pizza.

(The next evening) I did get a salad, beer and a slice of pizza for dinner. I found a hopping little pizza by the slice joint called Angelina's Pizza on Duval street. The guy behind the counter had to ask the manager if they could make a salad, apparently they do not get many requests for salad. I have been eating so crappy all trip that I decided I would try to offset all of the cholesterol and fat by eating a salad. I am a little afraid the of the quality and healthiness of the salad dressing since they apparently do not make salad that often, but I am still alive.

I decided to hit the big tourist bar, Sloppy Joe's. I had been there many years ago, but it was in the afternoon and it was pretty dead, not so last night. The place was packed and it was hopping. It was an interesting crowd. One guy was leaning up against the bar with his eyes closed. From time to time he would start to slip to one side or the other and he would open his eyes, stand up straight and the close his eyes again. A girl and her boyfriend got into a fight directly in front of me, I was afraid that I would have to step in if things turned violent, she walked away thank goodness. She had some pipes on her so I would guess that she lifted weights. The bar remained a very interesting place until I had to tear my self away at about midnight.

The next morning I woke up at 8:00 am, showered and took advantage of the free breakfast. Not bad, I had a bagel, kirsches, and two cups of coffee. I was going to find a gym and work out but I decided that I would do a little shopping first. I also wanted to check out renting a wave runner. The person working at the B and B recommended a place in town. I walked down and talked to them and found out that they had a tour leaving at noon. I went back to the B and B, stopping along the way to pick up some Key West Aloe lotion for Karen and my mother. I had just enough time to get the gifts, change and go back to the rental site. I actually did a tour around the island of Key West and it was great. It was just the guide and myself so we went several places that he normally would not go. The tour lasted half an hour longer than it was suppose to and it was worth it. The wave runners had 150 horse engines in them so they flew and I had a hard time keeping up with Eric the guide at times. I was going over 50 mph and getting air time when I hit the big waves, it was great.

After the tour finished I hopped into the car and went to Fort Zachary State Park. I paid the $3.50 to enter the beach and deposited myself on the sand to do some serious reading. I talked to Karen for a while, feeling guilty because she is working her but off organizing and shuttling people around back in Minnesota and I was driving wave runners, diving and laying on the beach. At about 5:00 pm I came back to the B and B and discovered that I am a lucky guy. The previous day I had parked in what I thought was a legal parking spot, however upon returning from the beach I discovered that it was actually the driveway to someones house. Fortunately the house is for sale and no one was living there so I did not get a ticket. I am parked two blocks away and not looking forward to dragging my luggage two blocks in the morning.

I decided that I would eat at the Conch Republic on my last night, but as I approached I noticed that everyone was dressed nicer than I was, I had on a t-shirt and cargo shorts, so I decided that I would continue on my way. I went passed a Thai place and kept going, they did not have any of my favorites on the menu. As I got closer to Duval street I passed Guy Harvey, it was a seafood restaurant- fresh fish in Key West, how could I go wrong? Well let me tell you,I should have known that it was not that good of a restaurant, it is almost on Duval street and it was never busy when I walked past. I decided that I would splurge on my last Key West meal so I ordered Mahai Mahai. The fish looked great when they brought it out accept for the sauce that they artistically dispensed on top of the fish fillet and I promptly scraped off. There is nothing better than a well seasoned piece of grilled fish and I am not sure why they insist on putting special sauce on fish in the Keys. Unfortunately. the fish was just tasteless without any sauce on it.

After dinner I walked across the street to Sloppy Joe's, it is the only bar on Duval that I found that had an actual full band, every other bar had a one man band. I don't know the name of the band but lead singer was a Jimmy Buffet clone, they were reasonably good but the band that I heard the previous night was much better. I thought I had time warped back to weeks to fantasy fest, the two female bartenders at the main bar were wearing- the best way I could describe it would be, playboy bunny costumes. I had my usual one Stella, and left at 9:30 pm. People watching wasn't nearly as entertaining as the night before, but it was still early and I am sure that things picked up.

I was in bed by 10:00 pm and woke up at 4:30 am and could not get back to sleep, so I read for a while and showered at 6:00 am. I had packed as much as I could the night before so all I had to do was shower and haul my bags down stairs. I was at the airport by 7:00 am and had breakfast at the airport cafe. I had pancakes and coffee, both were good, especially for airport food.

My flight from Key West to Tampa Bay was on another nineteen seater like on the flight from Miami. I did make it with out injury or a crash and as I write this I am sitting in the Tampa Bay airport waiting for my Cleveland flight.

I just couldn't write this without talking about the ghost. Yup it sounds crazy but I think I had a ghost in my room at the Popular House. My bed linens consisted of a sheet and a blanket. I woke up in the middle of the night to discover that the sheet that I had pulled up to my neck was still in place but the blanket was pushed into a heap at the foot of the bed. I don't move when I sleep, usually I lay on my back, close my eyes and go to sleep and when I wake up I am still in the same position. I woke up in the middle of the night and I immediately knew that I had not in any way, shape or form managed push the blanket to the foot of the bed and still keep the sheets around my neck. I had a strange feeling when I was awoken and found the blanket in disarray, but I managed to roll ever and go back to sleep. In the morning once I was fully awake, I noted the position of the blanket, it was like it had been pushed straight down to the end of the bed. The only way I could have moved the blanket to the end of the bed would be for me to sit up, push the blanket to the foot of the bed, lay back down and pull the sheets up around my neck. It just did not make sense.

I was undisturbed the second night but last night when I went to bed I had two blankets over me. When I woke up at 4:00 am one blanket was on the floor at the foot of the bed, the other had been pushed all of the way to the foot of the bed and the sheets were still around my neck. To make this sound even crazier the blankets were arranged in a way like someone had been sitting at the foot of the bed.

When I sleep I hardly move, I may roll from one side to the other once or twice during the night but that is it. When Karen and I stayed at the B and B three years ago I vaguely remember them telling us about a ghost on the premises. It was three years ago and maybe I am wrong but I do believe there was some talk of ghosts when they gave us a tour of the property. I am going to email them when I get home.

I did call and talk to someone at the B and B and they said that they were not aware of a ghost, but they were not working there when my wife and I had stayed three years earlier. I don't know what happened, but I do know that I did not move the blankets to the end of the bed.

It was a good vacation, I was a little apprehensive in the beginning, I am not sure why, possibly because I could not make up my mind about where to stay, how many days to get a rental car for or many other things that I could not make up my mind about. I wish Karen had been with me, and I think she does also, I talked to her yesterday and she was pretty stress from playing host to over twenty people. My only complaint was that Friday was cool (low 70's), that and I found a jet boat that I could have rented if I would have know about it sooner.

Key West can be expensive, but if you are a single traveler, you can get for about $80 including breakfast. If you don't care about eating healthy there are plenty of cheap places to eat. I cannot recommend strongly enough that if you stay in old town do not get a rental car, parking is terrible and you can walk to old town. There is plenty to do from the butterfly museum, to diving, snorkeling, renting boats and waverunners.

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Isla Mujeres September 2007

2007-09-01T21:28:00.000-05:00

I came to Isla Mujeres last November by my self to go diving. I really liked the place so much that Karen and I went decided to sojour to the island. The main reason that we went to Isla was to snorkel with the whale sharks.

We used frequent fliers to get to Isla, unfortunately we had a long lay over time in Houston both there and back. We thought we would out smart Northwest but checking our luggage only to Houston, then getting our luggage and going standby on our Continental (you cannot go standby is you do not have your luggage). They outsmarted us, they checked our luggage through anyway. It was an arduous ordeal but we did meet some nice people and we did get an earlier flight, but our luggage did not make it. Fortunately Continental did deliver it to our hotel on Isla Mujeres.

The shuttle ride from the airport to Isla Mujeres was pretty good. I think it was about $25 for both of us compared to $60 if we would have taken a taxi. There were two other couples in the shuttle with us, none of them very talkative, but that was OK the taxi driver made up for them, he was very talkative. He stopped and had everyone get out of the van and look at a boat that had run aground on a coral reef. He also told us a story about a girl that he dated when he lived in Toronto that turned out to be a lesbian. Eventually we made it to Puerto Jaurez and the ferry.

It was a nice ferry ride, it was hot out so we sat on the upper deck and once we were moving the breeze felt good. The ferries are deceptively fast, when you see the ferry approaching you can see spray and waves breaking around the floats, The boat looks like it is flying across the water. The catamaran style ferries are very stable, the ride was extremely smooth. When I was in Isla Mujeres last November it poured on the ferry ride to Isla and also on the return trip so I did not get a chance to enjoy the ride from the non enclosed top deck.

Once on Isla Mujeres we grabbed a cab to the hotel. Ixcel Condos were are less than two years old and are in pretty good condition. Workers were manually pouring the concrete road to the hotel entrance. It appeared to be very arduous work because it was sweltering and they were mixing the concrete in a wheel barrel. There were about six to eight men and they could do a thirteen by thirty foot section in a day.

The atrium of the hotel/condos was basic, none of the hotels on the island have the huge or fancy atrium's like the hotels in Cancun or Cozumel. We were on the fourth floor, and the elevator was tiny, it fit two people comfortable but three would have been a crowd, and it was not air-conditioned, so even the short ride to the fourth floor was almost unbearable.

Our room was acceptable, the person that I rented the room from was the owner and he said that he had decorated the room much nicer than most of the other units. maybe that got my expectations too high, but I would not say the room was decorated particularly nice. They had hung a net on the wall over the beds and put some starfish in cutouts over the bed, that was about it. When I was booking the rooms I forgot to ask about the beds. I wasn't that concerned because usually if the room does not have a king bed it will have two queen beds. Not so with this room and I am a little mad that the owner did not mention that the beds were twin or full, he knew that my wife and myself were going to be in the room, doesn't he think we would like to share the same bed? For the first time ever, at least on vacation, Karen and I slept in separate beds. The beds were on concrete pedestals so we could not even push the beds together. I should have asked. It probably sounds like I hated the room, I didn't, it was new, clean and the location was great, but it was just not as nice as I had been led to believe.

Sleep was somewhat of an issue, we slept fine the first night. The second night was a little rougher for me. The owner's daughter and her boyfriend arrived and they were in the condo next to ours, the condos were connected by a locked door and it was not very sound proof. I woke up about two in the morning to the neighbors coming home and they were loud. Somehow Karen slept through the noise, but I did not. There was a bar on the beach right next to Ixchel and the following two nights they blasted music from 11:00 pm to 4:00 am, luckily we had a fan in out room and it drown out enough of the noise that we were able to sleep. We discovered that the mayor of the town's son owned the bar so efforts to quiet down the bar had supposedly been blocked by the mayor.

The front desk help at the condo was spectacular. They were friendly, and bent over backwards to help us. When we lost our luggage in Turks and Caicos the front desk person was absolutely no help at all. When the front desk person at Ixchel found out that we did not have our luggage he called his contacts at the airport, and even called the Continental office in Mexico City to try to locate our luggage. All of the front desk people were very helpful.

After we checked into our room we grabbed beer and appetizers at Penguino's, it was a good way to start to decompress and slow down to island time. I don't remember where we ate the first night (I am writing this two and a half months later), but the food was cheap and also good. It was good the entire trip. The following morning we got up and discovered that our luggage had arrived late the previous night and they had not wanted to wake us. After unpacking, we grabbed breakfast in town. Again, not sure of the name of the restaurant but the breakfast was good.

Sunset's was our favorite place for breakfast, it is next to our hotel so it is a short walk, it is on the beach and the food is good, also cheap. It was so nice to walk across the beach to the restaurant, we could sit at a table on the beach or under the palaypa. We had breakfast here the rest of the vacation. We never had dinner at the same restaurant the entire vacation. We ate in the downtown area every evening accept for one. The food was always good and need I say it again, cheap. We ate at a Cuban restaurant one evening, The restaurant was recommended by the woman at the dive shop. Another evening we at at a restaurant where they cooked the food on a hibachi type grill on the sidewalk on the sidewalk. The best ambiance was at Casa O's, it is an open air restaurant located on the ocean facing west. We arrived to late, you need to get there before sunset for two reasons, first, watching the sunset from your table must be beautiful. Second, there is almost no electrical light when the sun goes down. We had to use a flash light to read our menus. When the cab driver dropped us off we had to walk down a winding path that is bordered with heavy vegetation on either side. I was a little afraid that we were never going to find the restaurant. Since this is the end of November when I am writing this I don't remember exactly where we ate the other night, much less the names of the restaurants.

Diving was so-so, the first dive we booked through a dive shop that was recommended by someone Karen worked with. It was not bad, but the equipment was not as nice as the shop that I dove with the previous November, my regulator leaked and Karen's BCD did not fit. The conditions were not good, a hurricane had gone by Isla several weeks before and the water was still stirred up. I had told Karen about all of the fish I had seen diving here before, they were still there but they were hiding in the coral. Also, the people that we dove with were not very friendly. I was really disgusted after the first dive and did not want to dive again. Karen kind of wanted to go out again, but she was fine with only diving once. I changed my mind later and we did end up going out one more time. Unfortunately we made the mistake of using the dive shop on the beach by the hotel. This is not usually a good practice because they are usually dealing with a captive audience so they do not have to have good equipment or be a good dive shop and they were not. We decided to do an afternoon dive and even though the dive master agreed to take us out he whined that if we could have come earlier he would have just had to do a morning dive. We had to stop and get gas on the way out and you could tell he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible because he swam really fast during both dives. I have never seen a dive master that moved at more than a turtles pace when in the water. This guy was more like a dolphin. We still had a good dive, Karen and I swam at our own pace and he had to wait for us. I am glad we went out, we saw a lot of fish and both dives were very nice. One of the things that we had wanted to do was go on a whale shark trip, we talked to the woman at the dive shop and she was honest, she said that it was the end of the season and chances were not good that we would see a whale shark so we opted to pass and decided that we would come back next summer.

When I was here the previous November I never got a chance to spend much time on North Beach, it rained afternoon after I got back from diving. We enjoyed the beach this trip. It is not as large as seven mile beach in T and C, but it is beautiful. The beach wraps around the north end of the island, hence the name. It is beautiful white sand and the really unique thing about the beach is you can wade out fifty years and it is still only chest deep, so you can just hang out in the water, and the water is as warm as bath water.

The only problem with the beach was the hurricane had blown a lot of seaweed on to parts of the beach and just down from our hotel was one of the spots where the seaweed had accumulated, but it never really affected us, the only unpleasant side effect was was the odor, it smelled rotted. They had people picking up the seaweed when we arrived.

We spent a fair amount of time on the beach reading and hanging out. Unfortunately, the beach umbrellas that the hotel provided were a thin nylon material so they had a SPF of about 5, it looked like both Karen and I had burned but luckily neither of us pealed.

We rented a golf cart and spent a day cruising the island. We went to Garafon de Castillo, this is park that only cost about $5 to get in. The snorkeling is great. You can buy food to feed the fish and they know it, when they see you the make a bee line directly for you. I fed them several times and it was like a swarm of piranhas eating the food out of your hand. The park had a small restaurant and the food was good, we had fish tacos for $5 and they were pretty good.

We spent our last day in Cancun. This is a practical thing to do because we had a 6:30 am flight out the next morning. It is also kind of nice to get spoiled at the posh Cancun hotels. We grabbed a morning ferry to Cancun and checked into our hotel. It was not as nice of the Fiesta Americana but it was still very nice, I believe it was the Ritz Carlton. We checked in and grabbed lunch. We spent the rest of the day walking the beaches and hanging out at the pool, of course we had to go to bed early to get our flight out the next morning.

Hawaii 2007

2007-05-20T00:21:00.004-05:00

Hawaii April 11^th to 23^rd 2007

This trip is a combination of work and vacation. It is very rare for Karen and I to add a vacation to one of my business trips. Either the trip is not somewhere we would not want to vacation, or for various reasons she cannot take time off of work. We had our vacations planned to the Turks and Caicos islands, for a little later in the month, but the problem with that was Karen was going to miss a business trip, so when this trip came up on the radar we cashed the frequent flier miles back in and booked tickets to Hawaii. Shortly after we get back from vacation Karen will go to San Francisco and I will join her- two vacations for the price of one so to speak. Luckily I was able to use frequent flier miles for that ticket.

I was a little worried about getting out of Minneapolis this morning, despite the fact it is April 11^th it snowed last night. My flight was at 9:20 am, but I decided to err on the side of safety and get up at 6:00 AM. The roads where not that b ad this morning, I probably could have slept in a little later, but I would rather be early than miss my flight. We had gotten about ¼ inch of snow and the roads were wet but not sloppy.

I used off site parking because I am going to pick up the second week of parking. For a change no one on the bus needed to go to Humphrey terminal so we went directly to Lindberg. The airport was amazing quiet. It was semi busy but nothing like a Monday morning, the day I normally fly out. Even though the airport was quiet, it still took me 15 minutes to make it past security. My flight departed on time, I was afraid the snow would cause backups at the airport, but I guess it was just another unsubstantiated fear.

There was a young man on the flight I had noticed him going through security, he looked like he just did not fit. He had a baseball cap with the name of a heavy metal band on the front of it, he was probably nineteen or twenty. Later when we were taxing our to get deiced he got up sprinted to the bathroom. If you have flown you know this is not acceptable behavior. The flight attendant was doing a sudoku puzzle and she just missed him as he entered the bathroom. You get that feeling in the pit of you stomach, is this some deranged nut? What could he possible be doing in the bathroom now that could not wait until after we took off? He did look a little scraggly, could he be another shoe bomber that lost his nerve could not wait for the plane to take off? He was puking in the bathroom. The flight attendant was waiting at the door to tell him to sit down immediately. He actually seemed very nice and little sheepish about the situation. As he went back to his seat he explained that he gotten nervous at take off. The flight attendant was insistent that he had an air sick bag. Unfortunately he was in the row directly behind me, luckily not the seat directly behind me. I am reasonable sure he was fine for the rest of the flight.

Flight 217 flies from Minneapolis to Portland and then on to Honolulu. We had to deplane in Portland. We had an hour on the ground, just enough time to grab lunch- an unsavory bowl or chicken noodle soup and a bland roast beef sandwich, then back on the plane. The Minneapolis to Portland portion of the flight was packed, I don't think there was an empty seat. The Portland to Honolulu flight was wide open. I had paid an extra $15 to get exit row seating, normally this is something I would not do because I can stand being jambed in a full plane for two or two and a half hours, but nine hours without leg room is a little much for me. On the Honolulu leg I not only had exit row seating I had the whole row to myself. I used the tray table next to me to put the one free soda on, it is the only thing that Northwest give you on the flight. I put my magazines and Oreo cookies in the seat next to me, my back pack on the floor in front of the vacant seat along side of me. This is flying, it should always be this good! The one down side of getting exit row seating on this model plane (I am nor sure what it was) is that the exit rows are right next to the bathroom. I never realized it but during take off the doors to the rest rooms slide open, I was a little worried that some of the wintergreen fresh water was going to splash out of the open door. Every time the restroom door was opened during the flight I either go a blast of wintergreen fresh air or some barn yard like odors. I will have to be a little more careful when picking seats on the way back. Actually it was probably worth the diverse pallet of fragrances just to get the extra leg room.

The drive from the airport to the hotel took forever, H1 was backed up, if my GPS had me take Nimitz rather than H1 I would have been at the hotel much sooner. Unfortunately my GPS could not take traffic into account. Even though my GPS failed me at the trip to the hotel, I really did appreciate having my in Honolulu. I used it as a last resort and had to use it several times. We were short books so I had to go to Kinko's to make copies of handouts and the service manual. I needed to find the nearest Kinko's so I pulled into McDonalds and fired up the laptop hoping to log onto their wireless network. I was able to log on but McDonalds charges for wireless and I wasn't in the paying mood. I was able to log on to an unsecured network from the McDonalds parking lot. I browsed to Kinkos.com punched in the zip code for the hospital, which I happened to have in my backpack, got the address to Kinko's, put it into Streets and Trips, and made it to the store without a problem. I then selected the hotel address in Streets and Trips and made it back to the hotel without getting lost. From my experience in Honolulu, there are not many streets that run parallel.

I was staying at the Doubletree Honolulu, nice hotel for the money. I was able to get a room for $150per night plus $20 per night for parking.

I setup and did one PM on Wednesday, the PM did not go smooth. I started later than I wanted, and I had to pull the manifold to replace the manifold plugs and the conductivity sensor block, something that Mike, Tony and I did not think of. I knew it would take me a while to round op the parts and tools that I had shipped and I was right. I am glad that I did do the PM on Wednesday morning, we were there until 9:00 PM on Sunday doing the rest of the PMs and one more would have been just to many. Class on Friday and Saturday were OK, but things were a little disorganized because the training room was upstairs and the Renatrons were downstairs. Also, we were missing manuals. I realized when teaching the second class that I had missed a few things or skimmed over them a little faster than I would have liked. The first day was good, they were a good group of guys. The only problem on the second day was one of the students did not show up. This has never happened before so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with his certificate. I talked to his boss and told him was not going to give the person their certificate and he was fine with that. It just did not seem fair to give him a certificate because everyone else showed up on Saturday and he did not. He did come up to me on Tuesday and I thought he was going to ask for his certificate but he never did.

Sunday was a long day, we were at the clinic by 8:30 AM. It took a while to round up all of the tools, parts etc... I was able to bang out two PM before anyone else finished despite having to answer questions find tools and miscellaneous parts. The experience was not a good one for Ron and Jeff, it was disorganized because we had four people in the room, and we were under a fair amount of pressure to get the machines done as fast as we could. We finally completed the PMs about 6:00 PM, I decided to run the machines several more time, this is something I usually try to do, you never know if everything went well unless you can get some consistency from the machines. One of the machine that Jeff worked on was giving us erratic volumes and intermittent add chems and pressure fails. I had Jeff inspect the new jet pump and the machine worked fine for a while. I decided to check all of the valves after Jeff left and I did not find a problem. We also had two other machines that gave us erratic volumes. I did not inspect all of the valves but I could not find any problems that would cause the erratic volumes. While I was troubleshooting the machines Mike set up the computer, I was hoping to help him, but I was not satisfied with how the machines were running, so he ended setting up the entire system himself. About 9:00 PM we finally called it a day and went to get something to eat. We finally made it back to the hotel about 10:30 PM. I mistakenly called Karen about 9:30 PM to see if she wanted to go to dinner, I should have known, she was sleeping and I woke her up. The following day Mike was in the reuse room when Jibosh started reprocessing dialyzers and he was getting erratic volumes. I was going into the reuse room as much as I could and Jibosh also told me about the volume problems. The only thing I noticed was that the reprocessing connectors were leaking, they were brand new so they should not leak. I asked Jibosh to change the connectors and that took care of the problem. The machine that was giving intermittent add chems and pressure fails worked fine all day.

One of the people in the second class told me that Ron and Jeff did not think that they would have been able to do the PMs if Mike and I were not there. I feel bad, the PMs are relatively easy, but because we were doing the Renalin 100 upgrades, PMs, and were under a deadline I and sure this did not make fore ideal learning conditions.

The first class was younger people, they did not ask many questions, they just took notes. The second class was mostly older technicians, they talked and asked a lot more questions. The second class went well. The first day went as expected, but for some reason I felt like a truck hit me the second day of class. I woke up with a headache and could not shake it all day, I was the walking dead by the end of the day. Karen felt as bad as I did. I suspect a combination of jet lag and just being tired from all of the work caught up with me. Despite myself, I got compliments at the end of the class. As I thought, Mike stayed around and helped me pack up. Not all of the salespeople would have done that.

Karen and I went to diner with Mike on Monday, we had a drink at one of the local hotels, on the lanai, with a beautiful view of the ocean and sunset. After we walked the streets or Honolulu and finally decided on a seafood restaurant for dinner. It was mediocre at best. We were deep in the tourist zone so the possibility of good food was not on our side. We walked back to the hotel, Honolulu is a wonderful city for walking.

Karen and Yvonne met for lunch on Monday at Neimen Marcus, Karen got to see the two murals that Yvonne did for the store. Afterward they went to Yvonne's apartment then to her studio. Karen had a nice afternoon with her. On Tuesday Karen had wanted to decompress and just hag our, it has been a brutal three to four months at work for Karen. I finished about 4:00 PM on Tuesday and picked Karen up at the hotel. It was a long drive to the airport because of rush hour traffic, plus I had to stop and get gas. We had dinner at the airport, it was literally the worst Mahi sandwich I have ever had, I could not finish it. We ran into Owen from class, I was so tired we just spoke briefly then I had to go sit down.

Vacation begins.

The flight from Honolulu to Kona was brief, about forty minutes. Both of us remembered the Kona airport from when we were here in 1999 for Tony and Lori's wedding. We got our luggage and caught the Dollar rental car shuttle to get our car. Our car was part of the pack age with the Royal Kona Hotel so I was a little afraid we were going to get a Kia or some sub-sub compact. We got a Dodge Caliber, kind of ugly from the outside, it slightly resembles a WWII halftrack, but it is actually a pretty decent car, it's roomy and comfortable inside. It must be a popular rental in Kona the streets were dotted with white Calibers just like ours.

The woman at the rental counter of Dollar was delighted when I asked for directions to the hotel (seriously). She gave us perfect directions to the Royal Kona. That time of night it was a short drive from the airport, about fifteen minutes. Did not even feel the need to fire up my laptop and us my GPS.

I was grouchy when we checked in, the girl at the desk said something that rubbed me the wrong way, so I brought up the fact that we had to pay an extra thirty dollar fee to Dollar. And as I was hoping she upgraded us to a “partial ocean view” room. Unfortunately it had two double beds, and we wanted a king. We went back to the front desk and got another concierge who booked us into a garden view room (unfortunately) with a king.

When we had gone back and forth when we booked the hotel, do we stay at the Royal Kona, or do we book a condo. We had wanted to stay close to downtown so we could walk to dinner and explore the town. The Royal Kona was a know, we had stayed there in 1999 and though it was OK. I also noticed a package that they advertised on their web site, you got a room for $175 per night. It seemed like a good deal, but we had also looked at the Hale Kona Kai that is located right next to the Royal Kona. The Hale Kona Kai is a condominium so we would have gotten a 1 bedroom apartment rather than a hotel room. We finally just tossed a coin and decided to stay at the Royal Kona, our room was in the renovated part of the hotel so I was hoping that the room was going to be really nice. As it turned out it was just OK. Everything was freshly painted and redecorated, but the room was average sized and the bathroom was a little on the small side, for a one week stay. Of course it is not setup for the business traveler- no desk to setup my laptop on. The small (very small) refrigerator held several beers, some yogurt, soda and water, but that was about it. Our lanai was large enough for two chairs and a small table, and it overlooked the parking lot, which was OK, we sat on it for breakfast and if we were reading during the middle of the day. Since the lanai faced the parking lot we also got the parking lot noise, most nights it was mostly quiet except for Saturday night people were arguing in the middle of the night. Also on Sunday there was an older couple arguing in the middle of the day and a homeless person was arguing with someone just under our lanai. If we had gone with the Hale Kona Kai we would have had an ocean facing lanai, which when we were booking the room did not seem like that big of a deal, but once we were there we definitely wished we had done that. I believe Kona Reef was next to Hale Kona Kai and Kona Alii was downtown. Both of those hotels looked nice.

The main reason we came to Kona was to dive with the mantas. We dove Friday as a warm up for the night dive on Saturday night. The Friday dive was good, the water temperature was a little cooler that we are use to in the Caribbean, seventy six versus about eighty degrees. The dive shop had been recommended to Karen from someone she works with. They were great, possibly the best shop we ever dove with. Keller was one of the dive masters, he was hilarious, he was constantly telling jokes but he was also extremely knowledgeable. Roger (a retired navy man) was one of the dive masters on the first day of diving and the captain on the second day of diving. Mary was our captain on our first day of diving (did not look old enough to captain a boat, but a good captain), and Eli was the other dive master on the second day of diving. Apparently he had a PHD in philosophy. Both of the dives on the first day were good, we did an average of about sixty feet, so not to deep. The coral in Hawaii was amazing, it is not dieing like in the Caribbean. We saw turtles, spotted eagle rays and many eels.

The second dive on the second day of diving was suppose to be our manta dive, they had seen mantas every night for the last six days. The first dive is done at the manta site (which is just out side of the airport) during daylight, so we could become familiar with the dive site. It was a good dive, we saw all of the usual sea creatures. In between dives they fed us sandwiches and we waited for the sun to set. The water was cold, I was a little shilled after the first dive and did not warm up for the second dive. Karen had froze on the first day of diving so she had rented a six mill wet suit for the second dive and had purchased a hood. The was still cold during the second dive but it could have been much worse. At the end of the first dive they set up four lights on the sea floor, the lights will attract the plankton and the plankton will attract the mantas, each of us also had a flashlight. We were briefed on our dive and we entered the water at dusk. It was dark when on the bottom. We all sat in a circle around the four lights that were shining upwards from the ocean bottom and waited. Keller was to my left and Karen was on my right. Both Karen and I had problems sitting on the ocean floor, your air tank extends about a foot below your butt so it makes it hard to sit We both finally figured out that we just had to grab on to one of the rocks at the bottom and hang on. We pointed our flashlights towards the surface and waited. After several minutes Kenner shot to the other side of the circle and sat there. When we surfaced we found out that Kenned felt something touch his ear, he swatted it and it turned out to be an eel. He told us that this is common and has plenty of footage of people sitting waiting for the mantas and there is an eel floating next to their head. One of the people that we dove with had done the manta dive the previous night and he had an eel swim around his neck.

We waited and waited and no mantas showed, there just were not enough plankton in the water. After about ten minutes Kenner lead us out to do some exploring. We saw slipper lobsters, they were easy to find, you could see their little red eyes glowing from inside a crevice in the coral when the light hit them. We also saw eels and other fishes, but no octopus as I had hoped.

The system they had worked out when we started the night dive was everyone in Kenner's group had yellow glow lights on the top of their tanks and Kenner had two so we would know who the dive master was. Other groups had different colors. Once we left the manta site it was pitch black and no one in our group was far from Kenner! I have been sucking air on the dives for the last year, I am not sure why but it is probably related to the fact that I am so slow at running. Anyway, when I had 500 psi left I swam up to Karen and motioned that I was going to the boat. I was a little amazed, usually she come up with me, but she indicated that she was going to stay in the water. I surfaced and boarded the boat. Several other divers came up and still no Karen. I was getting a little worried. If I had another tank I would have went back down. I had a feeling that something was not right, like when you hear that people wonder off in the mountains and are never seen again. Finally Karen surfaced followed by Kenner. She had decided to wait on the bottom for a last chance to see the mantas. Luckily, Kenner and Eli were near her, Karen for some reason had decided to follow another group of divers (different color light), Eli signaled to Kenner when he saw her take off and Kenner chased he down and brought her back to the boat! Karen does not know why she decided to follow the other divers, other than she was alone and did not see Kenner and Eli.

The following day we decided to go to the volcano. There is a difference of opinion as to whether we decided or Karen decided and I just went along with it. The reason this is a point of contention sos because it took the whole day and we froze our butts off at the volcano. We had gotten some bad advice from a lady from Canada. She told us that if we went the northern route it would only take us an hour and a half to reach the volcano. She was wrong, it took us three hours. When we reached the volcano it was cold and raining and it was nearly sunset. Despite all of the issues it was worth the drive. We could see the crater with steam coming out, we stopped to look at steam vents and I nearly burned my toe. We also saw a lava tube which was very cool.

The drive home was a little crazy, highway 11 is a two lane road that winds through the hills and along the ocean cliffs, I was doing sixty mph most of the time and I was getting passed by the locals in their little twenty year old Honda Civics. It turned out to be a very long day that despite being awed by the volcano we would have rather spent at the beach.

The next day we decided to explore two of the big islands other beaches. This did not turn out well for us. Both beaches were south of town, so if we did not like the first beach we would go to the second one. We also wanted to visit one of the coffee plantations that was along the way. The first beach was basically just a harbor, no sand to lay on and there were two seedy looking gentlemen that were hanging around the car lot pretending to pick up trash, and as we left they started to work their way toward our car. We decided to leave post haste. We found a couple of Coffee plantations on the way down but they were closed because it was Sunday. We went to the second beach, which was all lava no sand, not very inviting. There was a state park next to the beach, logic would have it that the park would have a beach, not so, it was a historical park depicting the life of the early Hawaiians, which normally would have been very interesting to tour, but we had spent the previous day in the car, so all we wanted to do was find a beach, read and snorkel.

We decided to just head back to the hotel and read by the pool. This turned out to be a less than stellar idea, because ti rained the rest of the afternoon. We eventually went to boarders so I could get a Linux magazine for the plane. We also picked up some munchies for the plane since Northwest does not give us any food on the flight home.

The restaurants were hit and miss, mostly miss. We ate at Rios one night and we both had fish. It was a little spendy for what we got and the food was not that good. Our best meals were the fish tacos we had at the snack shop on Hapuna beach, dinner and lunch we had at Lava Java, and we ate at the Hard Rock after our night dive and the food was actually pretty good. Lava Java was a great location, on the main drag facing the ocean. Our morning coffee shop was Java on the Rocks, great coffee. They had a band that played almost every night so we stopped in and had a beer, or desert and coffee and listened. We also had dinner there one night, salad and chicken pizza, the pizza was so-so. The band was phenomenal. J.T., he was a big New Zealander, he had different people playing with him every time we saw him. He was amazing, he had a great voice and was a great guitar player.

Kona has changed a lot since 1999, the traffic is horrendous. There are a lot of new houses built on Alii drive. Many of the shops have changed hands, the terrible Italian restaurant that we ate at in 1999 was now a hooters. They also had an Outback Steakhouse. Up the hill from Alii they built a Lowes (we noticed the patio furniture we got at Lowes was also in Lava Java), Boarders, Supermarket, and an organic food store.

Our last day was exactly as we had planned to spend it. We got late check out. I bet Karen we would have to pay for late check out since they had dinged us on everything else. I lost. They gave us a 1:00 pm checkout which was perfect. We woke up, and I went for a run and Karen went for a walk. We went to Java on the Rocks to get our last cup of Kona coffee, then came back and packed, grabbed our books and went to the pool to read and relax. We showered and went to the airport. A near perfect day.

Orlando Seminar 2007

2007-05-20T00:09:00.002-05:00

February 23, 2007

Things had quieted down on the travel front for a while, but they are picking up now. I am sitting in the Orlando airport as I write this. I just finished a week of training. I was suppose to leave next week for Hawaii to do two classes, PM machines and upgrade machines. That has been pushed off until April. There is a possibility of two one day training classes in early April, Mike will be just getting back from vacation so I am assuming that I will do them. This weekend we have Karen's aunts staying at our house Sunday night. The following weekend we have to go to Des Moines to babysit the niece and nephews for the weekend, so we will be busy. There is also a seminar in Pittsburgh coming up soon.
Since I am going to Hawaii in April we are planning to change our vacation from Turks and Caicos to Hawaii. I will tack on an extra week after the seminar is done and Karen will fly down and meet me. We (mostly me) wants to dive with the mantas. They come to Hawaii in early spring. You dive at night with a flashlight which attracts plankton and the mantas swim in big loops in front of you scooping up the plankton. Since this is a night dive I am not sure if Karen will do this. I would rather vacation in Provo, but the diving in Hawaii should be good.

I stayed at the Crown Plaza just north of the airport. It is a nice building, it is L shaped and the inside area of the L is enclosed in glass. Kelly booked my rental car with Thrifty because it was $200 cheaper than Avis. The thrifty rental lot is next to Crown Plaza so that worked out well. The people at the front desk were a little stand offish. When I checked in I was told I could not get a non smoking room until 3:00 PM (I checked in at noon). When I told her I was with Minntech and I had a banquet room there she found a room for me. The front desk people were never rude but they always seemed put out when I asked for something.
The banquet room was small, dark and hot. It was smaller than usual, and we were packed in almost like sardines, compared to the rooms I have had lately. The air conditioning was almost nonexistent. I tried shutting the doors and the room did not cool, I tried opening the doors and it was still hot. The lighting in the room was so bad that I had to buy flashlights.
Even though the room was small dark and hot the banquet staff was great. When I was setting up they checked to see if I needed anything, I asked for another large table and for them to remove one of the small tables from the room and they did. They did forget to get me a small round table that I had requested, but I left a message that night and the table was in the room the following morning. The food was pretty good for hotel food and the servers were very professional. They were polite and very attentive when the food was being served. They would collect the dishes when the people finished eating. this is not the norm, usually they just put a tray in the back for the room for people to set their plates on.
My hotel room was nice, no complaints, well maybe one, the high speed Internet was $8.95 per day so I had to use my dial-up. The bathroom had a marble vanity. The workout room was nice, it had two treadmills, a universal type gym and dumbbells. It is located in the middle of the atrium/glass enclosed area, which I usually hate because I don't like to walk through the lobby in my workout clothes, but this worked out well. I was just a short jaunt from the elevator to the workout room.
All in all, the front desk staff was a little stand offish, the banquet people and servers were great, and the room was unacceptable.
The classes went well for the most part. I got a late start the first day of the first class because, I had gotten locked out of the room Monday night when I was setting up. I went to get some duct tape and when I came back the room was locked. I decided that I would tape the water hoses down the following day. This would have worked, but my computer was not cooperating when I started it the next morning. Somehow the serial port for Renalog had changed and the Zebra printer would not communicate. Also, I got the blue screen of death twice when I booted my computer and it looked like was computer was not going to work. I was finally able to run Norton and seemed to have fixed the problem. Combined with the late start, the first class asked a ton of questions so we went to 3:30 on the second day.
I am always torn about what to do after class, I know Orlando fairly well and I thought about going to City Walk or International Boulevard, but it comes down to the reality that I will have to drive 20 minutes to get there and then look for a place to eat BY MYSELF, then just hang out, go to video arcade, or bar. It just does not seem worth the effort. I actually spent part of Monday evening and Wednesday evening working a project for work. I did drive to The Florida Mall on Tuesday. I needed flashlights for the room and I considered buying a pair of Dockers, most of mine are khaki and I was hoping to get another color, but no luck. I thought about eating at a restaurant near the mall but I don't like eating by myself. So I only made two trips out of the hotel all week.