Our first 2 weeks here in Mesa, AZ we did Pickle Ball classes, country line dancing instruction, various exercise classes, the hiking club hikes, happy hours, the onsite gym, Bunco, Poker and Teri learned how to do Stained glass as well as crafted a couple of jewelry watches. Teri is planning on making a stained glass table while here.....stay tuned.
We also had dear friends of ours, Karen and Geoff, join us for a few days before we headed off to Cabo San Lucas, MX for a week and they headed off to Florida for the winter. We so love Karen and Geoff and Teri's buddy Bentley too (their beautiful Schnauzer human). It was special to get to visit and share a few dinners with them.
On our way to Cabo, we did a one day layover in Los Angeles. We took this time to drive up to Santa Barbara, CA where we had a wonderful lunch and visit with Teri's Mom and a beautifully cooked diner prepared by Paul (Teri's son) and Casey Paul's girlfriend. It was a wonderful way to start our trip.
We headed to Cabo in hopes of diving with the Hammer Head Sharks. While we missed seeing the Hammerheads, we did experience several other unexpected treats, making for a wonderful trip. While in Cabo the weather was perfect. We enjoyed our daily walks along the marina, we enjoyed the local food, went scuba diving 3 different days, and went on a special road trip to La Paz, Mexico.
While much repair is yet to be done, Cabo is doing a good job at rebuilding after the Category 4 hurricane Odile that hit just 3 months prior to our trip. Hurricane_Odile While here we walked the marina daily. The marina was well decorated for the holidays with Christmas trees and Santas. Along the marina are many restaurants, stores and locals trying to push their tours and wares. The common sounds on our evening walks included, hey amigo, want to go fishing. Or hey amigo want to buy a cigar. When we say common, you could not walk the marina without hearing those particular questions multiple times in the same evening. In fact, so much so that Bob started to stop Americans and ask them, hey Amigo, want to go fishing and it always got a huge laugh. As the week went on we made friends with these locals and they would joke with us (after asking their question once again if we wanted to go fishing or wanted a cigar) about if we were still going scuba diving. Of particular fun, was Teri's Green Man (picture below). Every night when we passed him, while he was supposed to be a frozen statue, Teri would salute him and he would salute back. It became our nightly ritual to search him out (he was always in a different location) while we were there. On our last night, Teri went up and told him how much fun he had brought to our week and thanked him and explained we were leaving. He smiled a huge smile, said thanks and shook Teri's hand. We said goodbye and will always smile when we see our picture of our special green man. Each day we would also stop to see the dance of the fliers. It is an ancient cultural dance that was done to end a severe drought that involved men flying to the ground from the top of a 30 meter pole. More details on the dance and tradition can be found at Danza_de_los_Voladores
Our various scuba diving outings were good and warm enough that we only used skins and a vest. We were treated to many fish as well as swimming with the sea lions. On one dive day, on our way out to the dive site we spotted a whale. The boated was stopped and the engine turned off. We were all asked if we wanted to snorkel out to where the whale was. Well yes we all said!!! Wow what a treat! While the whale and her baby were fairly deep down, we could still see them and even got a short video with Teri's new Go Pro camera. Check out the video Humped Back Whale Video On another dive day we saw whales in the distance while on the boat. And, on an evening dinner cruise that we took, we spotted whales once again. Wow, all unexpected and a special treat for sure.
On our last day, we took a 2 hour road trip to La Paz, Mexico. We stopped for a wonderful breakfast on the way to La Paz in a town named Todos Santos. Breakfast here was at the Hotel California. As our tour van arrived, imagine that, on the CD player of our van played the Eagles hit, Hotel California. Our Van tour guide tried to pass our stop off as the 'real' hotel California, made famous by the Eagles. The real story, however, can be found here: Hotel California, Todos Santos, Mexico The breakfast was excellent, including beautiful homemade breads, and the hotel was charming.
The city of La Paz is a beautiful coastal city, on the Sea of Cortez. It is located almost due North of Cabo San Lucas. We were so impressed by the city's beauty and charm. The highlight for this road trip, however, was going out to snorkel with the whale sharks. Wow, averaging 20 tons each, they are beautiful yet gentle giants. The day we went out, the water was very rough, causing some on our tour to decline on getting into the water. But we jumped right in and wow how neat it was. The captain counted 16 of these wonderful giants out there with us. We would swim to one, until it left our view and then look for the next one. It was a very incredible thing to get to experience. Of biggest note are their HUGE mouths, that approaches 5 feet in diameter. They open it wide to take in huge amounts of plankton and while they have no interest in swimmers/divers, one could not help but realize that a person's body would easily fit within that huge mouth. Check out the video that Teri shot of these beautiful creatures:
Swimming with the Whale Sharks Video
There is no question, our day trip to La Paz will always be treasured. We finished this day tour with lunch at the El Bismarksito, a wonderful seafood restaurant in La Paz. It was the best food we had on our entire trip.
We got back to our Arizona home in time for Christmas. We shared a wonderful Christmas dinner at the RV park with 10 new friends. The next day we celebrated Bob's birthday when we went out to see the movie Interstellar (very good) and also enjoyed a great lunch at Joe's Farm grill, which serves up some great food much originating from their own working farm. Worth the short read. JoesFarmGrill
To all our followers, we hope the New Year brings good things your way!
 Some of the Damage Remaining from Hurricane Odile  Marina decorated for the holidays  Bob's great catch... ....Not... just a great and fun photo opportunity.  Teri's Friend, the man in green  Dance of the Flyers (Danza De Los Voladores)  Lover's Beach on the Sea of Cortez Side Divorce Beach on the Pacific Side (where the riptides and undertows can be very dangerous) Both are seen in this picture.  taken on our dinner cruise  Cute barstool at the local cantina  Octopus, watch how their colors change  Octopus with new colors for us to view  Yes this is a fish....Can you find him? Stone Scorpion Fish  Diving with the Sea Lions was fun   Moray Eel  Moorish Idol Fish  Starry Puffer Fish  Chocolate Chip Sea Star  Glass Eye Fish  Guinea Fowl Puffer  Cortez Rainbow Wrasse  Schooling Fish  Surgeon Fish  Diamond Stingray  Pompano Fish  Bob feeding corn tortillas to a Yellowtailed Surgeon Fish  Yellowtailed Surgeon Fish  Yellowtailed Surgeon Fish  A mother Humpedback Whale and her baby lying on the ocean floor  Whale Spotted from the dive boat  Whale Spotted from the dive boat  Whale Shark  Whale Shark  Whale Shark  Whale Shark |
