Dear Everyone,
This is basically a trip diary of our winter vacation to
Longmont/Boulder, Colorado, and Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.
1 Wednesday December 24
We left for Colorado Wednesday December 24. We had an
uneventful flight (at least, I didn’t make any notes), and picked up a rental
car. Lucas now lives in Longmont, Co, a
suburb between Boulder and Fort Collins.
Looking at the wiki page, their government was taken over by the KKK in
1925, and voted out in 1927. The town
was very depressed in the 1980s, but has since revived. We drove through the downtown several times
over several days, and it seemed pleasant.
Lucas lives in an multibuilding complex north of the downtown. He has a one bedroom with garage privileges,
and the complex has a pool, a gym, a party room, and bocci and pickle courts.
Nicola and Wes had already been in Denver visiting a friend,
and they met us at Lucas’s apartment where we had take-out pizza from Pizza Urban Field (more or less
Detroit style) and canned cider from the St Vrain Cidery. We stayed at a Hampton Inn on the southern
edge of town.
2 Thursday December 25
We had brunch at Lucas’s.
Nikki had brought some middle eastern pastries up from the city, and
Lucas made shakshuka, and a hash brown bake.
There were also bagels and fixings. We went back to the cidery around 3,
and hung out playing some trivia games until it was time for our dinner theatre
reservation at the Jesters
Dinner Theatre, where we all had the chicken cordon blue, and watched an
amateur production of Scrooge. It was
cute. Cindy had found this event when searching for theaters near Longmont in
anticipation of trying to go to a movie. We were surprised that they were doing
a show on Christmas night. Many of the performers were in the same families, and had been involved with the theatre for years. A few had some professional experience.
3 Friday December 26
We drove to Boulder and went to the Dushanbe Teahouse. This was the highlight of our trip to Colorado. The teahouse was built in Dushanbe (a sister city of Boulder) in the early 80s, deconstructed, and rebuilt in Boulder. This happened before the fall of the USSR, so was looked at with suspicion by some locals. It’s a lovely, exotic building, with many, many kinds of tea (I really liked the white chocolate pepper tea!), and the food was excellent too.
The teahouse is just across
a small park from the Denver public library, which had an interesting art
exhibit, and good architecture. I bought
a used book there, A
Manual for Creating Atheists, by Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor
in Portland OR. This was basically a
primer on epistemology, or “how do
we know what we know?”
Afterwards we drove to Chautauqua
Park at the foothills of the Flatirons, where we did
the ‘easy’ bluebird trail (a half mile walk up a 10% grade, rambling through
boulders for a couple of blocks, and then a half mile back down). You can rent a house or cottage in the park,
and there is a dining hall (the food is supplied by the same restaurant group
that runs the teahouse!) I heard a pygmy
nuthatch on the trail, and we saw some magpies. After our hike we packed up and
headed to the Denver airport hotel to avoid any possible road delays for the hour
trip the following morning.
4 Saturday December 27
We checked out of the airport hotel and were informed by United that
we would be delayed just as we cleared security. Our flight ended up leaving over
two hours late because of air traffic control issues in Puerta Vallarta (this
is the busiest time of year, and the small airport was overwhelmed coming and
going). Customs took a long time. After
we arrived we had to go through the ‘shark
tank’ of people try to get you to come to a time share presentation. Do not stop. Do not look around. Walk immediately to the outside of the
airport! We were stopped by two separate
sales groups, both persistent, and both obnoxious. We did finally get to our cab service to the
resort (not so easy to find), and after a long check in process, finally found
our room. Jasper and Vivian had arrived
from the bay area about an hour prior and we met up with them. We had dinner
with Andy’s family, minus Joey and Alyssa, serenaded by a female mariachi band
(we were to find out that they performed [loudly!] at every dinner.).
5 Sunday December 28
The Velas Vallarta
resort reminded me of a smaller version of the Iberostar resort we stayed at in
Cancun, but with a much smaller footprint. There is a central pool area
(actually, two pools connected by a lazy river) surrounded by seven units of
mixed hotel and time share units. Sharing the large courtyard space is a large winding 'stream' full of large koi that are very hungry. Near
the lobby is a convention room (where we had a couple of meals, see below), a theater
sized projection tv next to a hidden bar, a creperie, and a restaurant. There are a couple of tennis courts and a basketball
court that doubles as a pickleball court at the side of the lobby complex. At the other end of the pool is a beach and
an open-air restaurant. Because of the
large number of guests, there are tables and chairs set up on beach mats on the
beach. The rooms are nice, with a kitchenette, a living room space, and big
balconies.
This evening, we have a ‘special’ Mexican dinner, held in
the convention room off the lobby. Joey
and Alyssa finally arrive (their flight was delayed for 4 hours), and Joey
entertains us all by singing with the Mariachi band.
When we get back to our room, our bathroom is graced by a
special guest.
6 Monday December 29
I did virtually nothing this day. Bluma got her hair braided. I walked up the beach with Andy where we saw a lone whimbrel and some vermillion flycatchers. I played more pickle in the afternoon, joined by Andy, Jasper, Vivian, Joey, Alyssa, and Lucas.
7 Tuesday December 30
I went in the ocean with Jasper, and was stung by a
jellyfish. It felt like a strand of hair
or tooth floss, studded with diamond grit, pulling across my arm. I left the ocean and before you ask, I did
not have anyone pee on the wound. I did go to the poolside bar where I rubbed
it with ice cubes. Apparently, this is
the wrong thing to do - - you should treat the stings with heat to help break
down the venom. Later, I played more pickleball
8 Wednesday December 31
Andy, Gail, Cindy, and I took the 30-minute cab ride to
Puerta Vallarta. We walked along the Malecon
and admired the unique sculptures. We
had lunch at a local restaurant, and then to an indigenous
art gallery, where Cindy found a pot that we purchased.
We ended up spending New Years’ Eve at the at an overpriced
dinner party on the beach because we weren’t able to get reservations for a
more modest meal at the other hotel restaurant.
There was a lot of protein served (prime rib, etc.) and, although better
than the typical buffet, it wasn’t worth the hype. I was asleep long before the
midnight firework show, which I was told was impressive.
9 Thursday January 1
There were high winds today that pushed the tent we had the
New Years party in (and took three days to erect) over the roof of the
beachfront restaurant, so we had to eat in the convention center room
again. The mariachi band was very loud. Afterwards, I watched Joey, Allysa, Wes, and
Jasper play Guandan, and
then we watched the beginning of an awful comedy? mime? magic? show.
10 Friday January 2
We returned to Chicago.
Andy and I bought some legal pharmaceuticals not available in the US in
the airport, as well as some local Mexican food. The airport was very crowed. Although we pushed
off from the gate on time, we waited on the tarmac for an hour before take-off.
On arrival to Chicago, there was only one
global entry kiosk open, so people who knew to download the mobile app went
right through avoiding our long line. It
was faster to go through regular customs!
However, Jasper and Vivian went through the ‘normal line, and Jasper was
stopped by immigration with some bogus question about his passport. We joked it was because he looked Venezuelan,
and were quite surprised to find out the next morning that our government had
illegally bombed them and kidnapped their President and First Lady.
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