Maui, Hawaii – 25th wedding anniversary trip

On June 14th, Dee Dee and I will have been married 25 years. We decided that we wanted to do a special anniversary trip to celebrate. We threw around a few different ideas and it came down to either Italy or Maui. We ended up going with Maui. We decide to go when we could get decent rates on airfare and a condo rather than on our actual anniversary. That turned out to be a great decision as the spring weather in Minnesota has kind of sucked this year and the week we were in Hawaii was no exception.

Our trip started out on April 26th. That first day was a killer… We flew from Minneapolis to Dallas and then on to Kahului Maui. That second flight was a tad over 8 hours. I get really bored on flights like that. The flights were all good and we made it to Maui safely and on time. We caught the Hertz shuttle over to their nearby car rental place. DeeDee had got us a great deal on a convertible on priceline. It ended up being a white Mustang. White isn’t my favorite car color, but hey it’s a convertible and we are in Hawaii. Honestly, before we went, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to get a convertible. That was one of Dee Dee’s things that she really wanted. Man was she ever spot on with that one. Having a convertible in Hawaii was awesome!!!!! Good call hon .

Here’s a pic of the Mustang later in the trip

We made a stop for some supplies for the condo and then were on our way to the condo. We rented a ground floor studio condo unit at Kaanapali Villas on VRBO. When we got there we checked in at the front desk just like we would have if we had booked through the resort. The condo was exactly as described and we were very happy with it. Kaanapali Villas was a great place for us to stay. It was so peaceful and quiet there. The grounds were extremely well taken care of.

Here are some pictures of the condo:

Where we enjoyed breakfast and lunch many times during the week

We unpacked a bit and then headed out to find a place for supper. We drove down to Lahaina and walked around Whalers Village awhile.

We decided on the Hula Grill. That ended up being a great choice. We first ordered up a Mai Tai and some Hawaiian Ceviche to start with. The ceviche was fresh fish in lime, coconut milk, mango and Maui onion.

For dinner we really weren’t that hungry so just got an order of mahi mahi tacos. I forgot to take a picture of that. While we were eating I noticed a couple others tables had awesome looking ice cream sandwich type desserts. We had to try one of those and were glad, as it was really good.

Everything was really good, including the service. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and live Hawaiian music as we ate too. A perfect way to start the trip.

Here are a couple sunset pics from the first night:

After supper we were really tired as it was almost 1:00am Minnesota time, so we just went back to the condo and crashed. Another reason for going to bed early was that we were getting up early the next day to drive up to the top of Haleakala to see the sunrise.

Day 2

The alarm went off at 2:15am. That might sound kind of early for getting up when on vacation, but I was wide awake as in my mind it was really 7:15am (Minnesota time). We got ready and were on the road to Haleakala by 3:00am. When we first talked about going to Maui we had planned on doing the bike ride down Haleakala. However, when we looked into it we decided against it. The main reason was that a few years a go they changed it so that the companies that do the bike rides now cannot operate in the park. That means instead of starting out up at the top of near 10,300 feet, they now have to start down at 6500 feet. We just didn’t think it was worth it.

We made it up to the top at 4:50am, which is about an hour before sunrise….perfect.
When I read about watching the sunrise from Haleakala I knew that some days are better than others. I would say that we got to see an OK sunrise. It really wasn’t anything overly special other than where it was. I guess the coolest sunrise I have seen was one year when I was elk hunting in Idaho. That time the clouds were just below my feet and the sun seemed to inch up through the beautiful blanket. OK, I didn’t describe that very well, but believe me it was really cool…
Back to Haleakala, we parked in the parking lot and walked up a short distance to the summit. Up there we found a glass enclosed observatory. We went in there for a while to keep warm. It was really cold up there. Well, at least it seemed cold with the wind blowing. I think it was really about 40 degrees. When it got close to the actual sunrise we went outside and watched it come up. I guess it was pretty cool.

Here’s what it looked like shortly after we got there

after a little while it looked like this

I really liked this view of the big Island from here too

Here a pic of us that didn’t turn out very well, but I still like it

After the sunrise we walked around a bit checking out the area.

We saw these really cool Silversword plants up there.

We then drove down to the main visitor center and looked around a bit and then did a short hike on part of the Sliding Sands trail. The trail goes a long ways, but we just weren’t really in the mood to go that far.

We saw a couple Chuckers along the trail

We then drove down just a little further and stopped at the Leleiwi overlook. To get there we hiked in a quarter mile or so. If I had it to do over again, I would go to Leleiwi overlook to see the sunrise. We were the only ones there and it was really beautiful. You would need a flashlight to walk into that one in the dark though as it’s a real trail in the rocks, not a concrete path like there is at the summit.

We then drove down the mountain to Makawoa. I wanted to stop at the Komoda Bakery for some banana bread. I liked Makawoa, it had an interesting small town vibe. Unfortunately for us, the bakery was closed as the owners were on vacation. We decide to drive on to Pa’ia for breakfast then. We ended up at Milagro’s. I had the hippy hash and Dee Dee had the macadamia nut banana pancakes. The food and service was excellent.

The hippy hash (fried potatoes, sausage, eggs, peppers, tomatoes and more

Dee Dee with her macadamia nut banana pancakes

I really liked Pa’ia too. Again, the vibe just seemed to be more my style than the fancier parts of Maui. We planned to come back here again and maybe hit up the Pa’ia Fish Market for lunch or supper.

After the great breakfast we headed back toward the condo. When we got to Lahina we made a stop at the Safeway store to stock up on food and drink stuff for the week. We don’t have a Safeway in Minnesota so we were able to fill out a form and get a Safeway card on the spot. That saved us over $20 on this one visit alone. I think the bill was over $60 before the Safeway member discount.

Back at the condo/resort we walked around a bit to check things out and get a better feel of the place. It’s a little different here that what we are use to in Mexico. Apparently the resorts/hotels can’t put their chairs on the beach. They did offer some wooden loungers that we could have rented that were on the back end of the beach. We decided to just spend a couple hours hanging out on some lounge chairs near the beach this afternoon. We were the only ones in the area we were. It was so quiet and peaceful.

The beach with Moloka’i in the background

Here’s where we spent the afternoon.

Here’s a picture of a gecko that hung out with us

These cool Red Capped Cardinals visited us almost every time we sat on the Lanai. Me feeding them little pieces of bread or crackers might have helped.

Birds of Paradise flowers that were by the small pool near the condo

Later on we drove to Lahaina. I read that parking can be a pain there and expensive. They do have one small free parking lot, but the book says that it is usually full. There is another one that I guess is free for 3 hours of parking. I had put the address of the free one in our GPS and it took us right to it. I am glad that I had done that ahead of time as it was in a kind of hard to find out of the way place. We pulled in and found an empty spot. Cool that was easy.

We walked around town a bit to see what was there. We ended up at Kimo’s restaurant for supper. We wanted to just eat in the deck/bar area instead of the fancier area. We were able to get a table right next to the railing of the deck next to the ocean. I think I had a Longboard Lager beer and Dee Dee had a Mango Colada.

Some gal at one of the shops said that Kimos was a good place to eat and my book said they had good burgers. Anyway, since we were in the bar/deck area our choices were limited so I ordered a cheeseburger and DeeDee got a Ceasars Salad. I guess her salad was good, but my burger was way too done to be very good.

For dessert we ordered a Hula Pie. Now that was awesome!!!! It is made with macadamia nut ice cream and lots of chocolate on the top and bottom.

The service was pretty good and the view was awesome.

We walked around town some more after supper and I took a few sunset pics. Here is my favorite

After that we headed back to the condo as we were planning to get up fairly early and do the road to Hana trip tomorrow.

A few thoughts after being here for a couple days now.

Why do I keep wanting to put the toilet paper in the garbage?

Why do I want to say “hola” instead of “aloha”? and “gracias” instead of “thank you” or “mahalo”?

I wonder if Dee Dee will see that mouse that I saw in the condo this morning or if the first time she learns of it will be when she reads this?

On the TP thing and Hola vs Aloha…. I guess we really have spent a lot of time in Playa del Carmen over the last several years and this must kind of feel like that. But it is also so different. Only one time did I actually say Hola to someone that said Aloha to me. I hope they didn’t notice….

Day 3

Today is the day were are doing the Road to Hana trip. We have read up on it as much as we can and have a plan. We weren’t sure how many things on the trip we could actually get in though in just one day.

We got up at 4:05am. Made some sandwiches, packed a cooler and were on the road at 5:00am.

The timing was pretty good. By the time we got to the first waterfall that we wanted to see the sun was well up.

Our first stop was a place were we took a short walk to and saw Lower Puohokamoa Falls (at least I think that is the first one we saw)

Then we drove a little ways and took another short hike to see Haipua’ena Falls. This was a cute little falls.

We drove on and then stopped where we hiked in on some boulders to see Punalau Falls. Well…. At least where the falls would have been if there had been any water flowing. This is where we realized for sure that things were kind of dry and we weren’t going to be treated to the best possible waterfall views today. Oh well, it was a beautiful day and we were still going to see some incredible sites that we don’t get to see every day at home.

We did find our first geocache of the day here though.

A view of the coast along the way

Our next stop was Ching’s Pond. This was kind of a cool spot right along the road.

After that we stopped at a place called Halfway to Hana and picked up a loaf of banana bread. It was pretty good.

Next stop was the Wailua Valley State wayside. There really wasn’t much to see there other than a pretty cool valley.

along the way

Then we drove on to the Upper Waikani Falls, also know as Three Bears Falls. That one was right along the road and pretty cool.

The next stop was Pua’a Ka’a State Park. There is a very small water fall there that was obvious to people passing through.

The book said that we should walk past it and up the hill to find a better waterfall. The trail wasn’t the best and after taking a wrong turn once we found it. We were pleasantly surprise to have it all to ourselves. We took a couple pics from up top and then climbed down to the waters edge. I think this was my favorite waterfall of the day.

Back on the road we soon found Hanawi Falls that was next to the road.

We then took a little detour 2 ½ miles down Nahiku Road. At the end of the road we found a really cool spot that had great views of the shoreline. There was suppose to be an artesian waterfall and pool near there too, but it was dry. We had our lunch here on the point. Most of the time we were there, there was one other guy nearby with his dog. Other than that we had it all to ourselves.

After we got back on the main road we came across a place called “The Big Dumb Coconut Stand”. Dee Dee wanted to get some coconut ice cream so we stopped. I think what she got was some mango coconut ice cream that the gal served her in a coconut bowl with a coconut spoon.

At this point we wanted to try to go to a place called Blue Pool, but everything we have heard and read lately says that the locals won’t let you go there anymore. Looking at the time and not wanting any hassle we decided to keep moving and not check it out.

Our next stop was Wai’anapana Park to see a black sand beach. It was a very nice park and a cool spot. I liked the lave tube that you could go in that went down to the beach. The only bad thing here was that it was kind of busy, at least compared to all the other stops we had made.

Now, ready for another hike, we are off to find a red sand beach. If it weren’t for the Maui Revealed book I’m not sure how we would find places like this next one. You have to park along a dead end street and then walk across an opening that the book says is public land to a trail in the trees along the coast. Since it was dry the hike wasn’t too bad. If it had been wet it could have been treacherous. It was a really cool spot and I’m very glad that we found it.

Our next stop was supposed to be at a place called Venus Pool. However here is one of those places that it appears the locals do not want tourists to go. Where the book said to park there were no parking signs all over the place. I don’t really think they are legal signs , but we didn’t want to get into it with anyone and we still had a lot we wanted to do so we moved on……

As we kept moving around the island we came to another waterfall along the road. Sorry, but I just don’t remember the name of this one.

The we saw a cool thing along the road that I guess is called a Blessed Mother Shrine that is in the remnant of an old lava tube.

Finally we arrived at the Ohe’O Gulch, better know as the Seven Sacred Pools. They are in part of Haleakala National Park. We were able to get in free since we still had our receipt from the day before when we drove up to the summit of Haleakala. I guess it’s good for three days.

I had wanted to hike around here quite a bit, but it was getting later in the day so we just did the shorter loop to the lower pools. It was really cool and we were even able to take a swim here. I guess they close this off to swimming quite a bit for fear of flash floods, but today since it was dry we were able to swim. There were quite a people here, but it was still very much worth it.

After the hike back to the car we changed into dry clothes. I had forgot to pack a pair of dry underwear. I had my worn my only pair under my swim suit as I had the swim suit on all day under my shorts. When I came out of the bathroom and told Dee Dee about it she pulled out a nice pair of purple underwear as she had accidentally packed two pair….. I thought about it for a second and quickly decided that I would rather go commando than have my friends hear about me wearing purple panties…..

We had already made up our minds to drive all the way around the island. Back at the airport at the Hertz counter I had heard the lady telling the person in front of me that he couldn’t take a rental car there. I ended up just getting on the shuttle and going to where the cars are since we had already paid for the car. The gal there never mentioned it and I didn’t ask…. We had also heard from other people not to go all the way around. Oh well, I wanted to keep going and not have to back track so onward we went. Yep, the road is even more narrow and rougher than it had been up to that point. It was gravel for a few miles too. No big deal though for us and our Mustang. I am very glad though that we didn’t meet very much traffic and what we did meet seemed to always be in a good spot. I guess it was our lucky day.

Maybe it’s not really that big of a deal though as we caught up to a couple tour buses along the way and they were also doing just fine.

Here are some pics from our drive along the south side of Maui.

We decide to head for Pa’ia to have supper at the Fish market. The Fish Market is a cool busy place . You order from the counter and then find a place at one of the long tables to sit and eat. Since they are long table you are more than likely going to be sitting next to someone you don’t know. We ended up sitting my a nice young local guy that was there with his two son’s and one of their friends. I had the Mahi fish and chips, which is Mahi Mahi fish with French Fries and cole slaw. Dee Dee just had the deep fried shrimp appetizer as she wasn’t feeling the best. It was hot all day and we had done quite a bit of hiking and we think she was dehydrated. Our food was very good.

After supper we drove back to the condo. The whole day trip took just a few minutes under 14 hours. I really enjoyed the long day. If you ever go to Maui, you have to do the road to Hana. That being said I’m not sure if I would do it again. That road winds and turns so much and all those one lane bridges, unreal….. We would kind of laugh at all the “road narrows” or “one lane bridge ahead” signs. OK, yeah, we get it, the road is very narrow and there are lots of sharp turns….

Day 4

We finally slept in a little bit, getting up around 6:00am. I know that is still early, but my body just never really got use to the 5 hour time difference.

When we were eating a little breakfast on the Lanai, I looked up and saw a beautiful rainbow over the ocean. This is such a cool place.

After breakfast we decided to drive around the NW part of the island.

Our first stop was a place called the Dragon’s teeth. This was a neat spot where the lava is more gray colored. I guess it is that way because of the lava mixing with the sand when it was flowing out.

We then drove north to a place where we hiked in to see the Nakalele Blowhole. We first came to a smaller blowhole that was near a light beacon.

We then hiked on and came to the Nakalele Blowhole. I had read that it was best to check the tides as it really blows best when the tide is high. This morning must have been low tide as there really wasn’t much to it. Oh well, it was still a pretty cool hike along the coast.

We then drove on to where we hiked in to find something called the Olivine pools. We were a little confused at the directions we had, but eventually found the correct spot. The pools didn’t really look like they did in the pictures we had seen, but again it was a really cool hike on a really neat part of the island.

Dee Dee reading the book to see if we were is the right spot

Yep, this is the spot as the book said to look for the heart shaped pool

Our next stop was Julia’s. The Maui Revealed book said they have the best banana bread on the planet there, so we had to stop and get some. As we were driving on the narrow road, we had to drive just past Julia’s on a corner to find a place to park. As we drove by, Julia said “hello, stop here for some banana bread”. Since we were in a convertible and driving really slow by her it was easy to hear her. She had samples of everything there for us to try. We got a loaf of banana bread and a bag of fresh homemade taro chips. We had tried a sample, but it wasn’t until later when we cut into the banana bread that we realized that we should have bought at least two loaves. It really is the best banana bread on the planet!!!!!

After that we drove on to Wailuku to get some gas for the car. We stopped at a Shell station. As I gassed up the car, Dee Dee went in to use the restroom. The attendant there said that they didn’t have a bathroom and that there was a public one just down the street. Dee Dee walked to where the gal said to go and found a bathroom with a sign on it that said it was NOT a public restroom. I have never been to a gas station in the United States before that didn’t have a restroom to use.

Since we still needed to find a bathroom we decided to stop at the McDonalds we had just passed by. So we went to McDonalds and got some ice cream and used their restrooms. That was all normal, but then Dee Dee noticed that they had a sign up that said “No Loitering, please eat your food and leave within 20 minutes” What the heck is going on here???? This all of a sudden didn’t seem like the friendliest place we have been.

We then went to the Iao Needle State Park. This was a really beautiful peaceful lush deep valley.
The Iao Needle is a natural rock pinnacle presiding over the Iao stream and surrounded by the walls of the Pu’u Kukui Crater.

Iao Valley is the site of one of the most famous battles that occurred in 1790 and changed Hawaii history forever when King Kamehameha I destroyed the Maui army in an effort to unite the Hawaiian Islands.

Here’s the view down to the coast

Iao Needle

We also found a geocache very close to where we parked. I was able to exchange a travel bug there. If you aren’t familiar with geocaching you can read up on it here: http://www.geocaching.com if you are interested. This really wasn’t a geocaching vacation, but we did manage to find eight of them to add Hawaii to the states we have found geocaches in.

We then drove back to the condo with a quick stop at the Safeway store for a couple things.

Back at the condo we had a light lunch and a margaritas on the lanai. This is when I found out how good the banana bread was. The margaritas turned out pretty good too.

After lunch we went out to get some sun by the pool, but that was cut short as it started raining and rained pretty hard for an hour or so.

We cleaned up and drove to Lahaina to go see Warren and Annabelle’s magic and comedy show. http://www.warrenandannabelles.com
I had read how good this was so we decided since we were here, to give it a try. We were very glad that we went. The drinks, food and show were all excellent. We really had a great time.

Annabelle’s magic piano

Warren

After the show we walked around Lahaina a bit and then called it a night.

Day 5

We had no real plans for today. It was time to move the vacation a little more into relax mode.

We got up and went for a walk down to Whalers Village on the beach boardwalk and then back on the beach. One really nice thing they have here is a boardwalk that runs along the beach in front of and through the hotels and resorts. There were lots of walkers and runners using it everyday.

looking toward Black Rock

almost back to the condo

This is the condo building we were in. Our unit was on the ground level, the second one from the right.

We ate a simple breakfast on the lanai. After that, we went down to the beach. I did some snorkeling. I had read that there was good snorkeling right from shore here. What I didn’t know was that the good snorkeling was a 150 yards or so to the north of where we entered the beach. So it took me a while to figure that out. Once I did, the snorkeling was great. There were tons of fish there and all over the place, even many very close to shore. I loved seeing all the different kinds of fish. One that I really liked was the Hawaiian state fish called humuhumunukunukuapuaa. Or often called a humuhumu or even just humu for short. I didn’t have a waterproof camera case with me so here is a photo that I got off of the internet of one.

Here’s a picture of me snorkeling nowhere near the coral and fish

Here’s a picture of a Monk seal that was sleeping on the beach. After a few hours he waddled down into the water and swam away.

One thing that Dee Dee really wanted to do when we were there was to try stand up paddle boarding. I have a cousin that is really into it and she even sells stand up paddle boards in Minnesota.

We were able to get her a lesson and board rental at the Westin Hotel just to the north of where we were staying.

Here are some pics of Dee Dee doing the stand up paddleboard thing.

After Dee Dee was done, I got back in the water and did some more snorkeling.

For lunch, we just went back to the condo and had a nice simple lunch on the lanai with margaritas. It was so peaceful there, we just loved it.

After lunch, we hung out at the small pool that was just outside our door. We got some sun, some shade and enjoyed a little swimming. It was a really nice afternoon.

In the evening, we drove down to Lahaina again. We wanted to get some souvenirs and see the big banyan tree. We got lucky and found a spot in the free parking lot again. First, we walked to Banyan Tree Park and saw the huge banyan tree. It was pretty cool. The only downfall was that they were having a flee market of some sort there that day, so there were a lot of people around the park when we were there.

We then went to the Cool Cat Cafe for supper. It was kind of a 50′s diner type of place. We split a Bogy burger, a Mahi Mahi burger and a basket of onion rings and french fries. It was all excellent. I’d say the burger was one of the best that I have had in a long time. I had a Wailea wheat beer and it was also very good. Dee Dee had a lava flow. We really enjoyed the Cool Cat Cafe as the food, drinks and service was all excellent.

our awesome supper

After supper, we walked around a while and bought some tee shirts and souvenirs.

We drove back to the condo with the top down on the convertible. Have I mentioned that I love having a convertible in Hawaii?????

Day 6

We are finally into full relax mode now, so this probably won’t be as interesting from here on out. This was our last full day in Maui. We got up and went for a walk on the beach boardwalk. This time we followed it to the north all the way to the end of it. It was another beautiful morning .

A picture I took on our walk this that morning

Back at the condo I put in a new Hawaiian CD. The condo owner has a great selection of Hawaiian CDs. We really enjoyed listening to them when we were there, so much that I never even got out my ipod.

We had another nice breakfast on the lanai.

After breakfast we walked down to the beach and did some snorkeling. Dee Dee even did a little snorkeling this time. I really enjoyed the snorkeling again and seeing all the cool fish, including many Humus.

After that we went to the main pool and hung out for a couple hours. It was a very nice pool, but we kind of liked the small pool that was near the building we were in a little more.

Back at the condo we had lunch and margaritas again.

In the afternoon we hung out around the small pool for a few hours. I think that was the afternoon that we had it all to ourselves. Pretty cool to have our own private pool.

Later on, we had the last two margaritas of the trip as we were now out of mix. We also had a little snack.

In the evening we drove down to Whaler’s village. We decided to have dinner at Leilani’s as we had read and heard good things about it. That turned out to be a great choice, as we had an excellent meal and service with a great view.

A whale skeleton at Whaler’s Village

One of the things that the waiter recommended was Monchong fish. Apparently Monchong are a native fish in the area. I decided to go with that and was very happy that I did, as it was delicious.

Dee Dee with a lava flow.

Dee Dee ordered shrimp pasta.

The Monchong fish

We shared a hula pie for dessert.

After supper we walked around for a while on the beach boardwalk and enjoyed the sunset.

Day 7

Today we had to leave for home. We got up and went for a walk on the beach boardwalk again today. The weather this morning was a little gloomy and it was sprinkling on and off.

Here a picture I took from on top of Black Rock looking north.

Today we decided to have breakfast at the resort restaurant. The breakfast was quite good. Dee Dee’s banana macadamia nut pancakes were excellent.

We packed up and hung out at the pool for a while before we had to change and checkout.

Here are some cool flowers that were on the grounds there.

We had some time to kill before our flight, so we drove to the SW part of the island as that was really the only area that we hadn’t had a chance to check out yet.

We drove down and explored the Kihei and Wailea area. I think that also would have been a good area to have stayed in. The beaches seemed nice to me and it had a little different vibe than the Kaanapali-Lahaina area.

Here’s a pic of one of the beaches near Kihei.

Since we both really liked the Paia area, we drove over there for lunch. We ended up back at Milagro’s. Dee Dee ordered a margarita and some chips and guacamole. We shared their special of the day, which was an Ono fish sandwich and fries. Everything was very good, especially the fish sandwich.

After lunch, we walked around Paia a bit and I had some chocolate gelato. We then drove down and checked out Baldwin beach.

Wow, what a beautiful beach. The color of the water here was more of what we are use to seeing in Playa del Carmen.

After hanging out there for a while, we decided that it was time to return the rental car and get to the airport.

For the most part, the flights home were fine. I just hated that it took so long to get home. First we had an 8 hour flight to Dallas, then a 3 hour layover and finally a 2 hour flight to Minneapolis.

Second weekend of 2011 fishing

My buddy John couldn’t make it up north for the opener this year. Let’s just say he twisted my arm a little bit and we off we went for the second trip to Kabetogama of the year. Barry was free and joined us, so there were three.

Saturday was a decent day for me fishing. We first tried the spot where we had caught the keepers on Monday. But all we caught there was one little sauger that I got on a jig and a minnow. John wanted to go to a nearby spot where I had caught a 27 1/2 inch walleye two years earlier. I had wanted to try that spot too, but the wind had kept us out of there the weekend before. We trolled along there for a while before I caught the first keeper of the day, a nice 16 1/2 inch walleye. We kept fishing and a little while later and I caught a dandy 23 1/4 inch walleye. Things were slow, but an hour later I caught a 16 3/4 inch keeper walleye. That was it for that spot.

We move down the lake to a place that we had caught some big ones the week before. I caught two walleyes there too. A keeper 16 incher and a second 23 1/4 inch walleye.

At this point I was starting to feel a little guilty as Barry and John still hadn’t caught a fish. We tried a couple other spots and ended up where we had caught some nice fish on opening day. Finally Barry and John each caught a keeper. By that time we were getting cold and called it a day. It had rained pretty much most of the day and after a while it gets to you.

Here I am with the five nice keepers

Sunday started out good as I caught a nice 15 inch keeper and Barry a 19 incher. Then the temperature dropped drastically and it started to rain. The rain lasted for 5 or 6 hours and during that whole time we didn’t catch a fish.

Finally, in the afternoon the rain stopped and the sun even came out. We moved around and tried several spots. Late in the day we each caught another walleye or two and manged to end up with three keepers.

Here is John grilling steaks for supper. We decided to save the fish to eat at home with our families.

We had planned to fish Monday morning too, but a cold front was moving in and that is always bad for fishing so we left for home to save vacation.

Minnesota Opening Fishing 2011

It’s finally fishing season again here in Minnesota

I went up to Lake Kabetogama again and stayed at my Dad’s cabin. This year my friend John couldn’t go, so it was just Barry and me heading up. Once we were there, my Dad fished with us, so there were three of us in the boat. Three works out really good in the boat I have. We could do it with four people, but three or two works best.

We got up there Friday around 4:00 PM, unpacked and got everything ready to go for the next morning. After that Barry and I drove down and visited with Lee at Tomahawk Resort for a while. Tomahawk is the resort where Dee Dee and I kept a travel trailer for about 10 years.

After visiting with Lee, we went up to the Rocky Ledge for a couple beers and to get something to eat. After a while we ordered a pizza. They have awesome pizza’s there. Julie, one of the owners, makes them herself. After and hour or so Barry asked the bartender if she could check on our pizza. She came back and told us that she had some bad news…. the pizza was a little burnt. How burnt, we asked? Pretty burnt, she said. OK, well, can we get another one? Sure…. and in a little over half an hour out came our perfect garbage (everything on it) pizza. The funny thing is that this is the third time we have had a problem here getting a pizza. One time, one got stuck in the oven and another, someone dropped it on the floor. I think it’s a ploy just to get us to drink more. But then again, they always give us a couple free beers and apple pie shots when they do this, so I’m not so sure it’s working out to their advantage

Saturday we woke up to a stiff 20 mph northeast wind. We put the boat in and headed across the lake. We weren’t sure where to go with the wind we had. Strong NE winds are rare up there. We decided to try a spot out of the wind where we had heard of some people catching fish last year. I pulled up into a nice sand bay and dropped the electric trolling motor. I put on a nice fathead minnow on my already rigged up line and threw it out. I sat down and tightened up my line. That’s weird… it feels like my line is caught on something. Oh wait, that’s a bite…. OK, set the hook and reel it in. Opening morning and right off the bat I caught a dandy 23 1/2 inch walleye. Whoo hoo, guess that means I get a dollar from Barry and my Dad for the first fish. This one might even hold up as the big fish of the day for a couple more dollars

Here’s the first walleye of the year for me

I trolled around for a half an hour or so before we caught the next walleye and that was Barry with a nice 19 incher. After another hour or so with no more bites I slowly trolled the boat down along the shoreline. Soon I got a bite and hooked a nice 21 1/2 inch walleye, before I even had it in the boat my Dad had his first fish on and caught one that was close to 20 inches. Barry had a bite too, but missed his. We got a rare Kabby double, but almost had a triple.

Here’s a picture of my Dad and me with the double.

We had to let all of those walleyes go, as on Kabetogama you can only keep walleyes that are under 17 inches long. Except that you could keep one over 28 inches if you wanted to.

Things seemed to be going pretty good, but those ended up being the last walleyes of the day. We did manage to catch a half a dozen or so small northern pike, but none big enough to eat by our standards. With only two walleyes, I got the money for first, biggest and most. Whoo hoo $6 dollars

We again found a NE wind on Sunday, but it was more like a 10 to 15 mph wind so not as bad as Saturday. We headed down to Lost bay and fished several spots for a few hours in the morning, but couldn’t catch a single walleye. We moved up the lake a bit and stopped at a spot by an island where there were a few other boats fishing. We fished here for a few hours and managed to catch three nice walleyes. The best one was a dandy 24 1/2 incher that Barry caught.

Here’s Barry with the big fish of the weekend

After things slowed down, not that they were ever very fast, we moved up the lake more to try some more spots. We only managed to catch one more walleye and that was a nice 22 incher that I caught. Again we caught a few small northerns, but none big enough to keep.

Today my Dad took the first fish honors and Barry took the most and the biggest.

I’m not sure why, since the fishing had been so slow, but we decided to fish Monday morning before going home. For me that ended up being a great decision. We set the alarm and headed out a little earlier on Monday. This was the first time I can remember scrapping frost off of the boat windshield. The good news was that it was calm and sunny out. A beautiful morning. We went to a spot to try to fish for some keepers today in deeper water. We jigged fished in 35 to 50 foot of water. I think we ended up catching 7 walleyes, 4 saugers and 2 northern pike. We kept 6 of the walleyes, 3 of the saugers and one nice pike. I really had the hot hand that day as I caught 6 walleyes and 3 saugers. My Dad caught a 28 1/2 inch northern and he was very happy about it, as he had been talking all weekend about wanting to get one big enough to eat.

Here’s my Dad with the nice Northern Pike

I had to have my picture taken with my limit of walleyes and saugers. You can keep 6, but not more than 4 of them can be walleyes.

Playa del Carmen (Feb/March 2011)

Playa del Carmen Feb/ March 2011

Our favorite time of the year to go to Playa is the end of February. Usually by then we have more than had enough with the Minnesota winter and when our Playa trip is over spring is almost here. (OK , this year it seems like spring will never get here)

On this trip, as most trips this time of the year, we traveled with our good friends John and Kari.

The Fusion was the place we stayed for the first two nights. We even had a welcoming committee that met us for lunch, that was Lori and Don & Deb. They are Playa friends from Winnipeg. It was great to be back

One really nice thing that the Fusion did for us was give the four us each a drink coupon for welcome drinks. Whoo hoo, we put them to good use right off the bat as we ordered some margaritas on the rocks. We also ordered some lunch. DeeDee and I shared some shrimp tacos. I was surprised when they came as they were grilled. I was really looking forward to the deep fried ones another person we know had when he was there in January. It was no problem though as the grilled shrimp tacos were also very good. We ordered the margaritas made with el Jimador tequila and they were very good. We also had a few cervesas and before we knew it, it was 3:00 o’clock so we decided we should check in and get our rooms.

The shrimp tacos we had at Fusion

DeeDee and I got a nice garden room that had been mostly updated. It had a king size bed in it, a new LCD TV and new bathroom fixtures. We liked our room and it worked out great for us for the two nights. John and Kari got a similar room, but theirs hadn’t been updated yet. They had a couple minor issues, but I’d say that it worked out good for them for two nights too.

One new thing to me on this trip was that I had scheduled some dental work. It was kind of fun telling people back home that I was getting some new crowns done in Mexico. Most people thought I was crazy, but there were a few people that seemed OK with it. I won’t go into all the details, but I ended up going to Dr Jorge Armenta. I had heard from another Playa friend (Susie Q) and read really good things on playa.info about him, so he seemed like the obvious choice to me. I exchanged emails with him and talked with him on the phone prior to coming down. I had appointments with him for the first and second days to get some teeth ground down and to put the temporary crowns on. I then went back the next week and got the permanent crowns put in. I would say that the whole experience was very good. He was very gentle and explained everything to me better than what I am used to back here in the US. Even though going to the dentist on vacation doesn’t sound very fun, I saved enough money to more than pay for another 11 day vacation to Playa so it was very much worth it to me.

After my dentist appointment I walked to Bad Boys to meet up with the others. I was so ready to relax at Bad Boys for a while but most everyone else was ready to go get something to eat. We ended up going back to El Fogon for supper. I had just come from there (the dentist office is near there). There was a little miscommunication between DeeDee and I as she was willing to stay at Bad Boys, but I thought she wanted to go eat. Hard to believe after almost 25 years of marriage that I still don’t always understand what she is thinking I had wanted to talk with Chris and Josh about Maui as they had went there on their honeymoon and DeeDee and I are going there for a 25th anniversary trip soon. Chris and Josh and their friend Julia showed up just after I did. I knew they were leaving the day after the next. We got to say “hi” and I hoped we would get to see them again. Anyway, we went to El Fogon and had a great supper. El Fogon is still one of my favorite places to eat in Playa.

After supper we stopped at a little ice cream shop that is on the corner of calle 4 and 30th avenue. I think this is my new favorite ice cream place. The gals there don’t speak any English at all and that is perfect to me as I enjoy trying to speak Spanish. The ice cream is very good and quite cheap too.

The next day after my dentist appointment DeeDee and I walked up the beach in search of Chris and Josh. We did find Josh and talked with him quite a bit about Maui. Soon Chris and Julia showed up and we talked some more. I was glad that we got to see them a bit more and get some more Maui info out of them. Talking with them about Playa got me wishing we had overlapped more with them so we could have bar crawled with them some. I doubt we could keep up with them, but it would be fun trying.

Later in the afternoon John and Kari, and DeeDee and I walked up to Carboncitos for happy hour. DeeDee had some medical supply donations to drop off for Angel Notion there too. We ordered a round of 25 pesos margaritas and some tacos al pastor. Everything was excellent. John and I had another round of margaritas

For supper we went to our favorite Playa restaurant… Util Pasta Factory. It was excellent again. I had the gnocchi with carbonara sauce. They were kind of busy that night and Papa Charlie apologized to us and said it was like hells kitchen there that night. We laughed. Everything was great for us!!!!!!

a blurry pic of us with Papa Charlie at Util Pasta factory

After supper we went to the Luna Blue bar to listen to Mike Grabow and hopefully find some friends/peeps. It was a very successful stop as Mike Grabow sounded great and we got to hear Bob sing a couple songs with him, Bob has an awesome voice. We got to catch up some with fellow Minnesota friends Erik and Jan that were there. We also got to see and visit with some Arkansas friends that we had met last year, Phillip and Shannon as well as Dan and Mickey from British Columbia.

We might have had gelato at the little place on calle Corazon that is owned by a nice German guy. I know we stopped there a couple times. It’s pretty good and is fairly reasonable.

Saturday we checked out of the Fusion and went to Fisherman’s Village in Playacar for a week. A couple notes about the Fusion. I really like the vibe there. The people there that we dealt with like Kim and the other gal, sorry I can’t remember her name, were excellent. They have a nice continental breakfast that is included. Very good food and drinks. The prices are a little higher there though than some of the other places, but still worth the stop.

The four of us took cabs to Fisherman’s and got checked in. This time we got a nice two bedroom lockout that worked out really good for us.

the view from our bedroom

pictures at Fisherman’s

We spent some time on the beach and then headed into town to get something to eat before Bad Boys. Jan had told us about a new taco place called Gamberi. It is on 10th avenue, just north of calle 8. The cool thing there is there are several food shops in a row there so we could all get whatever we wanted and still all be together. I got 3 shrimp tacos at Gamberi. They hand make the tortillas when you place your order and then dip the shrimp and deep fry it. They had some very nice salsas and sauces there too. I liked the tamarindo sauce and the chipotle sauce. The tacos there are 13 pesos each.
DeeDee got a chicken con queso quesadilla at the place right next to Gamberi. They are 15 pesos.
John and Kari got pizza at the Pizza Pazza shop just a couple doors to the north. We were all set and then went to Bad Boys to enjoy the band.

Gamberi shrimp tacos, quesadilla con queso and pizza pazza pizza

When we got there we found Dan and Mickey. They had a table to themselves and invited the four us to join them. After a bit, Lori joined us and then Don and Deb. After a while I noticed Rob (a friend from Novi Scotia that we have seen in Playa many times) and Al sitting at a table down below. I had to say hi to Rob and wanted to meet Al. It was good to see Rob again and very nice to meet Al.

Lori, DeeDee and Kari at Bad Boys

After Bad Boys the four of us and Lori went to Babes for supper. I think DeeDee and I have eaten over 10 times at Babes and we have always had good meals. For the first time, I tried the Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. It was very good. DeeDee had her usual garlic and black pepper shrimp with rice and veggies. I have heard now that Babes is for sale, so depending on what happens with it, that might have been our last meal there .

half order of Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes at Babes

Sunday, let’s see…. What did we do? We went to our favorite breakfast place. La Cueva del Chango. It was very good as usual. After breakfast we picked up some supplies at Mega and then hung out on the beach for the rest of the day. Lori joined us. In the evening the five of us did some bar crawl research…..someone has to do it Our first stop was the roof bar. Love the bean bag chairs.

Then to La Azotea, great place, had 2 for 1 margaritas, excellent bacon wrapped, chicken, jalapeño and cheese appetizers and some japonese nuts.

John looking down on 5th letting people know that he can see them

Then we swung through Reino Roja. About this time we were getting hungry so we went to Pummarola for some excellent pizza. Great service too. It’s interesting reading about everyone’s favorite pizza in Playa. On this trip we only had pizza at Pummarola and Piola, not counting pizza pazza. Between those two, I really like Pummarola better. To me the Piola pizza tasted good, there just wasn’t much to it. I like a little more crust, sauce and toppings like what we got at Pummarola.

Here’s a pic of one of the Pummarola pizzas after we had already started in on it. Guess we were really hungry after our bar stops>

After supper we then made a stop at Kixten for a round. They had a pretty good band playing there that night so that was a bonus..

Monday. Nice beach day. Cockteleria Veracruz for a very good supper. Including mixed ceviche and deep fried shrimp tacos. The service was excellent too.

Then to Manne’s Biergarten for the start of a Bar Crawl that was organized by Phillip on play.info. Then to The Roof bar, then La Azotea, then Reino Roja, then Luna blue, then Kixten. It was about midnight and that was as far as we got. The rest of the gang headed to The Dirty Martini bar. It was a very fun night. We were able to meet lots of new peeps and visit with several old ones.
Phillip and Shannon, Don and Deb and Lori for 3 bars, Dan and Micky for 2 or 3 bars. Rob, Malcom, Byron and Roberta, Sher and Casey, Stan and Cindy, Barbara, Sheri and 2 friends, one was Lexie.

Here is a link to a slideshow of pics from the Barcrawl

Tuesday… Take it easy day. Beach. Evening first stop the Fusion for margaritas, mango coladas and chicken nachos – very good band.

We then walked up to La Herradurra for supper… not great. I had read some very good reviews on this place, but it was just barely OK for us. Maybe an off night.

Wednesday…. Mostly a beach day, although I did get my permanent crowns put in later in the afternoon. That all went very well. In the evening we went to Manne’s Biergarten for Ribs and Suds 5. They had great food and drinks and we again had a great time. This was the 5th year in a row that Don and Deb organized a “Ribs and Suds” event at Manne’s. We are happy to say that have been at every one. Manne, Susie and their staff do a great job of making it a wonderful night for everyone.

Here is a slideshow of pics from that night

Thursday….I suppose we spent most of the day on the beach again. Did I mention yet that weather this year was very nice and warm, especially compared to last year. In the evening we went to Caboncitos for 2 for 1 margaritas and tacos al pastor. After that we went to Bad Boys for another fun evening. After Bad Boys we went up to Piola. Piola is another place that I have read great reviews on. This is where I think a bad waiter can really leave a sour taste in your mouth. Realistically the food was pretty good, however the service was terrible. We then went to a French Bakery called Chez Celine for dessert. Everything we had there was excellent.

tacos al pastor

mi amigo from Nova Scotia

Friday…. We walked into town and went for breakfast at Byblos, we ran into Al, Phillip and Shannon there so joined them. The breakfast was quite good and very cheap. Gotta love a good cheap breakfast, especially when it includes bacon. We spent the rest of the day on the beach at Fisherman’s. Then is rained hard from 4:30 or so until about 7:30pm. Since it was raining we took a cab into town to El Bistro at la Tortuga. We had very good meal and excellent service. John and I had the rib eye steaks and the girls had ceasar salads.

The rain had stopped so we walked around a bit and found Lori. We then walked up to Coffee Café for dessert. Everything we had there was excellent. Thanks Lori!!!!

Saturday…. We checked out of Fisherman’s said our goodbyes to John and Kari and other friends at Fisherman’s. We took a cab to Aventura Mexicana and checked in. This was out first time at Aventura Mexicana. We thought that it was a very nice place. We walked down to Kool beach club, but there were no chairs so we went back to Aventura Mexicana and hung out on the roof top chairs for a while. It was really nice and peaceful.

Later in the afternoon we went to beach to get something for lunch. We found Don and Deb and Lori at Playa Maya. We told them that we were going to La Tarraya for lunch and they decided to join us. La Tarraya isn’t fancy, but it’s on the beach and we thought our food and drinks were quite good. I especially liked the fish empanadas, three of them for only 15 pesos.

We met up with Don, Deb and Lori again for supper and ended up at Baremar. It was an excellent experience with excellent food and service. DeeDee and I shared some mango shrimp and shrimp tacos.

Sunday. We decide to hang out in the sun at the hotel again for a while. That ended up being a very good choice as it started raining after a couple hours of sun.

We had some shrimp and fish tacos for lunch at Gamberi, then more shrimp tacos at la Floresta, I like the sauces and fixings on the tacos better at Gamberi, but the shrimp itself are bigger and better at la Floresta.

Later in the day we had some very good 2 for 1 margaritas at the hotel. We then went to Util Pasta with Lori for supper. Since it was our last night we decided to go to Util one more time since is our favorite place. It didn’t disappoint. Papa Charlie helped us make our meal choices and we all were very happy .

We walked to Piola to see if they had the dessert (Profiteroles) that DeeDee wanted when we were there the other night. This time they had the dessert and we got a good waiter. DeeDee was happy to get the dessert, but she thought it was only OK and overrated. Looking around we didn’t see the lame waiter that we had the other night and it looked like the staff that they had on that night was doing a good job.

Monday…. Breakfast at the hotel and then off to the airport, lunch at Johnny Rockets, then a good flight home….

Until we went to land.

As we were making our approach to land the plane suddenly increased power and went back up. DeeDee looked at me with a what’s up with that look. Pretty soon the pilot came on the PA and said “sorry about that folks, we had a problem with the flaps and weren’t able to get them fully up. We are going to take the plane back up and see if we can get them working properly”. I suppose 5 to 10 minutes later the pilot got back on and said ”OK, folks we can’t get the flaps fully up so we are going to take you around to a longer runway and land the plane….don’t worry folks, we do this all the time on the sim” Then he came on again and said “ on a side note this is my last day flying a 767, tomorrow I am to start on a different plane, kind of a funny way to go out”. WOW!!! This is interesting…. Well, there isn’t much we can do anyway. I’m glad I have flown a lot as I’m sure I would have been quite nervous if this was one of my first flights. As the plane slowly swung around DeeDee poked me and nodded for me to look at the gal next to her. The lady had the emergency exit brochure out and was reading it. I’m not sure those things would ever actually help us if we crash… oh well. As the plane was coming in for a landing I said to DeeDee “I wish I could see ahead to see if there were any fire trucks waiting for us, then I would know if this was serious or not”. OK, the plane comes in and other than maybe going a little faster than normal it seemed like a good landing to me. As soon as we hit the ground I noticed one fire truck on the left side. No biggie, maybe one is always there…. Then as we continued down the runway, on the left side of the plane I saw about 5 more fire trucks all lined up with the flashing lights on. I later heard that there were 5 or so fire trucks on the right side of the plane too. I don’t know how serious that landing was, but it was at least serious enough to call out the fire trucks. Let’s just say that I was very glad to be safe and on the ground….

December family trip to Playa del Carmen

It has been almost two months since our trip to Playa so hopefully I will be able to remember things the way they really were

Dee Dee decided that we needed to go on a family vacation when Ryan was on Christmas break as it would be the last time we could all get together before he graduates from college. After doing some research she found that we could go to Playa del Carmen Mexico as cheap as anywhere we could fly to in the US. Since early December is low season there we got a great deal on our airfare and a condo. Believe me, Dee Dee didn’t have to twist my arm much at all to get me to agree to go to Playa.

On this trip was myself (Tim), Dee Dee, our sons, Ryan and Zach, Dee Dee’s sister Dawn and their niece Meaghan.

12/10/2010
We flew out on a cold day, but at least it wasn’t snowing. After a real nice flight to Cancun I was glad to feel the heat hit me as we left the airplane. It wasn’t as warm as it sometimes is, but it still felt good. We quickly got through immigrations and had no wait at all getting our luggage. Whoo hoo as sometimes this takes over an hour. There was a line getting through customs, but it went fast. We easily found the guy with USA transfers and in no time were on our way. We have used USA transfers several times now and they have always been really good and reliable. After a quick stop at the nearby 7/11 for some cervesas and water we were headed south to Playa. The driver took us right to the Xaman Ha condo building where we had a condo rented for the next 5 nights.

We soon were in the condo and were very happy with it. DeeDee had got us a great deal on a three bedroom unit on the second floor. It worked out perfect for us. We unpacked some and settled in a bit. We then headed into town planning to go to Wal-mart for supplies. However, our plans changed and we ended up just making it our night out. First stop was the ATM. I think Meaghan had to go to a Internet cafe for something. We noticed that Carboncitos had a 25 peso margaritas so we stopped in there for drinks. We also ordered their famous salsa tray and chips. I think that was the point where we realized that we might as well just keep going on with our night instead of going to Wal-mart. DeeDee and Dawn went back to the condo to get some Christmas donations that they had brought for a great charity group called Angel Notion while I kept an eye on the kids OK, they really didn’t need to be watched, but I hung out with them until the girls met up with us again. First off Zach and Meaghan decided that they needed new vacation cowboy hats.

The kids trying on cowboy hats

Zach and Meaghan with the cowboy hats they bought

After the hat shopping we went to Manne’s Biergarten. This is one of my favorite stops as I like the atmosphere and they have really good cheap tequila

me and the kids at Manne’s

DeeDee and Meaghan at Manne’s

After some tequila shots and beer we decided it was time to move on for supper. We headed way north to another place I love called Util Pasta Factory. DeeDee and I were eager to check out their new garden area that we had read just opened up a couple days before we arrived. This place has the best pasta I have ever had anywhere. The owner, Papa Charlie, is a very friendly, funny guy that makes our visits even more enjoyable. It did not disappoint as we were all very happy with our meals.

our group at Util Pasta

I think Ryan liked his meal

The girls with Papa Charlie

After supper we went to the Luna Blue bar. This was where DeeDee was meeting with Gail to drop off the gifts for Angel Notion. We had a good time hanging out there as we got to see many people that we had met before and some new ones. I was glad to see Rob from Nova Scotia again as I had met him last year. We also got to see Anne and Brian, Jim and Donna, Rick and Sue, Ranger and Cheryl and probably some others that I can’t think of right now.

I can’t remember much after that so I am thinking that we just headed back to the condo after our stop at the Luna Blue.

12/11/2010
I think DeeDee and I got up and went for a morning walk. After the walk and once everyone was up for the day we headed to our favorite breakfast spot, La Cueva del Chango. It was a great breakfast as usual.

After breakfast we went to Wal-mart to stock up on supplies for the rest of the trip. We then took a cab back to the condo and hung out there around the pool and on the beach for the rest of the day.

view from the condo

the kids at the pool

Meaghan in the pool

After some time by the pool we cleaned up and headed for Bad Boys. We first stopped at a Pizza Renzo for some slices of pizza to hold us over until supper time. It was the worst pizza I have ever had in Playa. I wish the Pizza Pazza wasn’t closed that was near that place last year.

Ryan and Zach at Bad Boys

Meaghan and Dawn at Bad Boys

Me and DeeDee at Bad Boys

After listening to the band at Bad Boys we walked up to El Fogon for supper. Zach couldn’t wait so he had some ribs at Bad Boys that Cowboy John had made. I guess Cowboy John is the official barbecue cook at Bad Boys. I tried one and they were pretty good, but not great. Dinner at El Fogon was excellent, I think I had a taco loco and a couple tacos el pastor. After El Fogon we made an ice cream stop on the corner of calle 4 and 30th avenue. The ice cream was really good and cheap too. That’s all I can remember from that night.

12/12/2011
This day was pretty much a beach day. We packed our cooler and hung out at the beach pretty much all day.

Zach on the beach

In the afternoon we walked into town and had lunch at Wickey’s. Meaghan was craving hamburgers already and this is the best place that I know of for a good burger here.

Meaghan and her burger at Wickey’s

Later in the afternoon we met up with a friend of Meaghan’s that was a good friend of Meaghan’s Dad. Her name is Tiffany and I can’t believe that I didn’t take any pictures of her. Tiffany is a wedding planner and lives on Isla Mujeres. Meaghan met her in town and they walked back to the condo. I made up some margaritas to go and we walked into town with them looking for place for supper. The kids wanted Pizza so we headed up to calle 24 and ate at La Pummarola. I think we ordered three pizzas and they were quite good.

After supper we walked around a bit and ended up at Manne’s for some after dinner drinks.

After Manne’s we walked Tiffany to her car and then headed back to the condo.

12/13/2011
This day we had a trip planned to an adventure park called Xplor. We took a colectivo there. We had a blast!!!! I had booked on line in advance for a discount. That worked out really good as there were quite a few people in line already when we got there, but no one in the line for people that pre-paid on the internet. We checked in and they gave us helmets to wear for the day.

The first thing we did was the zip lines. They had 14 different lines in two circuits. They were really high and fun. At least I thought they were. I think Dawn wasn’t too sure at first. She looked pretty scared as she climbed up the towers to get to the lines. I was very impressed with everything there and it all seemed really safe to me.

Here are a bunch of pics from the day

After the zip lines we did the ATV part. They had John Deere ATVs and we got to drive around two different routes. It was actually way more fun than what I had expected.

After the ATV’s I think we went for some smoothies. They had some nice areas set up where you could get some nice refreshing non-alcoholic drinks.

I can’t remember if we ate lunch after that or went on the rafts. For lunch they had a really nice buffet set up. I thought it was quite good.

After the river raft thing we went to another underground river where we swam / walked though it. This actually was really cool. At the end we came out underneath a huge waterfall. I thought that was the best part.

We also did a couple smaller zip lines that they had set up where you went in hammocks and ended up in the water. Those were OK, but not as fun as the higher faster zip lines.

We caught a couple taxis back to the condo. After a little lounging around we made up some drinks and walked into Playa for supper. We went to another of DeeDee and my favorites, Babes. It is mostly Thai food and it did not disappoint. I think I had the chicken pad Thai and it was excellent. We go to Babes every time we go to Playa and we have never had a bad meal there.

Meaghan with her strawberry margarita at Babes.

Dawn, Zach and Meaghan walking on 5th

us boys

12/14/2010
The last full day we pretty much hung out on the beach. It was a little colder than what we are use to in Playa, but still a really nice day.

Walking into town that night we took this opportunity to take a family Christmas photo here

We then ran into Davey Jones and Meaghan got her picture with him

The kids wanted to try a taco place that we had walked by that had a big statue of a cow there, I think that it is called Aca Los Tacos. The food was pretty good, but not great.

Here is Ryan with his burrito

After supper we walked up to the Luna Blue for drinks

We then walked down to the Dirty Martini Bar – they have 2 for 1 Martini’s on Tuesdays.

The kids with their drinks

Dawn with her Martini

me and DeeDee with our Chocolate Martinis – they were pretty good

After that we wandered back to the condo and called it a night. Well, most of us did. Ryan and Meaghan went back out to one of the clubs that we had walked by. I guess they met a brother and sister from Vancouver and had a great time dancing and drinking that night. I think that kind of changed the way Ryan looked at Playa. I know he liked it before, but really likes it now after he got a chance to see what kind of night life is there. I guess hanging out with us old people doesn’t always cut it

12/15/2010
The next day we we had a very good breakfast at Carboncitos. They have excellent breakfast burritos there and very good mixed juices. After breakfast we did a little last day shopping and then went back to the condo to pack up. Our transportation was right on time and we had a nice uneventful trip back home to Minnesota.

All in All, it was another great trip to Playa

2010 Minnesota deer hunt

As always I very much was looking forward to our annual northern Minnesota deer hunt. We only made it up once this year to get our stands ready and put out a few trail cameras. The sign that we saw left me cautiously optimistic for the upcoming hunt.

This year our group consisted of myself (Tim), my oldest son (Ryan), my Dad (Don), my friend John, my friend Barry and his son Mike. Ryan and Mike are still in college, so due to their busy schedules their plan was to hunt 1 1/2 days on the first weekend and then come back and hunt 2 days later in the week if they weren’t successful their first time up. We stayed at my Dad’s cabin and that worked out great.

Opening weekend was unusually warm again this year and that wasn’t good for the deer hunting. For the first time since our group expanded to at least 6 hunters we did not get a deer on opening weekend. I didn’t even see a deer. If I remember correctly, Ryan and John and my Dad passed on spike bucks or really small bucks.

Monday was a better day. My Dad finally broke the ice with a nice six point buck. It would have been an eight pointer, but it had no brow tines.

My Dad with his buck

On Tuesday Barry decided to try a new spot that we had cleared out on our scouting trip. We saw quite a bit of fresh sign there and had high hopes. Sure enough, Barry had been there less than a 1/2 and hour and along came a buck. Barry made a good shot and got a decent six pointer.

Here’s Barry with his buck

Let just say that John and I each had a chance at good bucks the next couple of days, but things didn’t work out.

On Thursday night the boys came back up and with that came new enthusiasm. Friday was a great day for me. You might think that would mean I got a buck on Friday, but nope that wasn’t it. Friday was a great day because Ryan got a nice 8 pointer. Believe me, as a Dad it made me more happy to have Ryan get that buck, than it would have if I had shot it. Ryan is a very patient hunter and an excellent shot. My Dad (Ryan’s Grampa) was hunting much closer to Ryan so he went over and helped Ryan with the deer. I did finally have an opportunity at a big doe late in the afternoon. I held the only antlerless tag, but I decided that I wanted a buck or nothing so passed. I had told the boys that they could shoot a doe if they saw one and hopefully Mike would get a chance.

Ryan and his buck

The last day was uneventful for me as I didn’t see any deer that day. The weather finally started to turn and we got a little snow that day. In the afternoon Mike did have a nice doe come by and he was able to make a good shot on it. That was it for the 2010 rifle deer season. We ended up with four deer for our group. That was about the right amount of meat that we wanted anyway so it worked out good.

Mike and his doe

For the first time in many years I didn’t get a whitetail deer. Oh well, I guess I was overdue for a dry year. It really didn’t bother me much as I still had a great hunt and really enjoyed my time in the woods and at the cabin with my good friends and family.

Until next year……..

Wyoming 2010 mule deer hunt

Two years ago I had a great mule deer hunt in Wyoming. It was so good that I just had to do it again. On the trip this time again was my buddy John who went with me two years ago and friend Barry. This was Barry’s first mule deer hunt.

We left SE Minnesota September 23rd early in the morning. We left as the rain was really coming down. Parts of the area got over 10 inches of rain. There ended up being flooding all over with lots of closed roads. We drove across southern Minnesota with the windshield wipers on high most of the way. The rain kept coming down pretty much all the way until we crossed into Wyoming. Finally in Wyoming we were able to shut the wipers off and found beautiful sunny dry conditions for the remainder of our trip. This time we took a more northern route and drove through the Bighorn mountains. I hadn’t been through the Bighorns in over 24 years. I’m glad we went this way for something different, but the route south of the Black Hills is a little faster and easier drive.

We did a little geocaching along the way and made it to Riverton, where we spent the night. The next day we drove the rest of the way to Grey River Trophies camp. We made a few stops along the way to check out the Tetons and Jackson. We did some more geocaching and still made it to camp around 1:00 PM.

At camp we were greated by Carol. Carol is the camp cook and a real good one at that. Carol is also the wife of Ken. Ken is one of the guides and the owner of the horses that the hunters use. Carol showed us which tent we would have. We unpacked and settled into the camp. After that we had a light lunch and then shot the rifles to make sure that they were still on.

The cook/dining shack/tent

sleeping tents

Barry stocking the tent with wood

Barry relaxed and glad to be at camp

Toward the evening we went for a little drive to check out the area again. When we got back Gary was there. Gary is the outfitter/owner. It was good to see Gary again and catch up on a few things. We settled up with Gary and he went through the basics of the hunt. The plan was for me and John to hunt with Gary and Barry would hunt with Ken to start. After a good meal for supper we got everything ready for the hunt and went to bed early.

Day one of the hunt. Gary took John and I to a familiar trail-head. The reason it was familiar was that John and I had hunted here several times last fall on our own when archery elk hunting. We saddled up and rode the horses about three and a half miles in before we got off and glassed for deer. On the way we ran into a bull elk and his herd of cows and calves. It was too dark to see how big the bull was. We glassed for a while only spotting one small buck. Gary then explained to us what the hunting plan for the day was. We then rode the horses up the mountain to a saddle toward the top. We then tied up the horses for the day and proceeded to hike and hunt up along the rim to the top. We saw several does and fawns along the way….but no bucks. Once on top we glassed around, but didn’t see any deer from there. After a lunch break, Gary and I walked back part of the way down and tried to make a drive to John. The mountain side that I had to walk along was probably one of the worst I have ever went across. The shale rocks kept slipping away from under my feet as I seemed to slide down more than I moved forward. As I walked I noticed two small tents set up down the mountain. I guess there were some other hunters that thought this was a good place too. I finally made it to the end by John, but no deer came through.

Gary taking a break

We took a break and then hunted our way back to the horses. We had stopped and glassed for a while when Gary spotted a decent buck about 650 yards below us. After some discussion John decided that he wanted to try for it. We hiked down to get closer and then had John go ahead on his own for the final part of the stalk that should have put him within 200 yards of the deer. We watched as John shouldered his rifle and tried to steady it on the buck. When John looked over the top he saw two bucks walked about 100 yards to his left. He wasn’t able to get a steady shot off before they walked into the trees. We all followed the deer to try to get him a shot. Soon the deer must have heard us as they bolted away. We followed then as that was the way to the horses anyway. One of us looked back and saw another buck on the mountain side behind us. I pulled up my binoculars and noticed that it was a bigger buck that the one John was after. John set up for the shot. I ranged the deer and told him when it came out of a small ravine that it would be 503 yards away and that he was to use the 4th ring in his scope. We had practiced shooting our to 500 yards so this was doable. When the buck stopped, John shot…. but just missed. The deer took off and was soon in the trees. Gary said that he thought the buck was about 26 inches wide and heavy horned.

That was it for day one for me and John , except for the ride out where we saw another bull elk and some cows.

Shilo, the horse I rode on days 1,3 and 5 – great horse…although he does trip quite a bit

On day one Barry saw over 20 bucks and almost pulled the trigger. Apparently he had a nice buck in the scope at 150 yards about 8:30 AM. They could see that it was a decent buck but it was facing them and they couldn’t see what it had for points. When the buck turned to leave then they saw that is was a 4 X 4 and about 150 inches. Barry tried to get it in the scope, but just then the sun came over the mountain top making it very hard for him to see it. Before he could get everything settled in the buck walked into the timber….

Day two. Gary asked us where we wanted to go. I mentioned the only place that we had gone two years ago that I really wanted to try again. We had seen a lot of nice bucks there that should be dandys by now if they were still alive. But I also told Gary to take us wherever he wanted and felt we had the best chance of getting a buck. Gary did take us to the spot I had mentioned. The only problem here was that apparently there had been a lot of pressure from other hunters in this spot this year. We still had a good day. Before I get to that I need to mention how the day got started. As always Gary got the horses out and tied them up to the side of the trailer. We put our guns in the scabbards and water in the saddle bags, then wait until Gary is ready before we mount up. Gary came around with his horse ready to go so I got on my horse. As soon as I was up, I looked over and saw John on his horse going backwards fast. Gary tried to go over and help John get his horse under control, but soon John was thrown off and Gary’s horse went nuts too. I guess Gary lost a stirrup right away and he was also thrown. My horse acted up a bit too, but I got lucky and was able to turn his head away and got him under control. John fell straight on his backpack and was fine. I’m not sure exactly how Gary landed, but I think he tore a pectoral muscle or something in that area. He was hurting quite a bit, but didn’t mention it unless we asked him about it.

What happened? Gary said that when John got on, he kicked his horse in the side as he was bringing his leg up. It makes sense, as a when a horse is kicked he knows to go. However, the horse couldn’t go forward as the trailer was there, so he went backwards hard and fast. Too fast for John….. I was very impressed that Gary wasn’t mad about it. It had to bother him, but he acted like it was all part of the business…….great guy.

Both horses walked off into the darkness. I wasn’t sure what to do as Gary and John went after them. Soon they were coming back on the horses. I was impressed that John got right back on. John and I had no further horse problems that day. John actually ended up liking that horse quite a bit. Gary wasn’t as happy with his horse that day. A couple times that day when he tried to get on, his horse would walk away. Once he had to go after it again.

Back to the hunting….
We spotted a few bucks as we neared the top. One that we had to check out pretty close before passing on. That one was a 4 X 4 and close to 150 inches. We stopped at a couple places to glass and finally got to the spot where we had seen most of the bucks two years earlier. Nothing in sight today…. Oh well… Gary came up with a plan for him and John to make a drive to me and then when they were done, I would make a drive to John.

Gary told me to make sure I could cover this one spot as that was where 99% of the deer on this drive go through. I walked out on the rim and set up. Soon four does ran through and stopped about 300 yards out. After a long wait I heard something in the rocks behind me. I turned and looked and there was a nice buck. I put the scope on him and to me it looked like a 24 inch wide 150 class 3 X 4 buck. I put the rifle down and then saw a doe cut through below me. Then I heard Gary yell from a cross the valley “kill him”…. I thought, oh crap!!!! that buck must be bigger than I thought. Now in a rush I picked up the rifle and tried to get the crosshairs on him. I shot, but due to my hastiness I missed as he went over the top. I saw John coming through so walked over to verify that I had indeed missed the 110 yard shot. When John got up to his spot he waved his hat at me to signal that I was suppose to now make my part of the drive. I made the drive, but all that was in there was a couple does that cut out the bottom. They might have been the same does that I had seen before.

I walked up to Gary and John and asked Gary how big that buck was. Gary said that it was a 200 incher. I said no way and described what I thought I had seen. Gary said…. Oh, you shot at the smaller one. Apparently there were two bucks and the bigger one must have went up through a little cut a little further away from me and I didn’t see him. Grrrrrrr…….. so close.

We walked up to the horses and had lunch. After a little nap, we moved along to the south and set up for another drive. This time Gary drove to both of us. Two small bucks came out by John and I saw a 130 class 4 X 4 at 350 yards, that didn’t come through. Back at the horses we again spotted the 4 X 4 bedded about 250 yards from us. When we were getting ready to leave a dandy 330 class bull elk came toward us. That was really cool as he got as close as 118 yards. It seemed odd that a nice bull like that wouldn’t have had cows with him this time of the year. Maybe there was a bigger bull that ran him off….

me on Mo, the horse I rode on days 2 and 4 – great, sure footed horse

John with Steel. A really good horse except he will buck you off if you kick him in the side when you get on, just ask John

We then lead our horses down the really dusty trail to the bottom of the mountain and then rode the rest of the way out in the dark. It was another good day (well, except for the little horse incident)

Barry had a pretty good day too. He did see one monster buck, but just couldn’t quite get a shot. They figured that one was 31 to 32 inches wide. Again so close……

Day three. The plan for the third day was for all of us to go together to an area that they had seen a huge buck earlier this year. If we couldn’t find a decent buck to go after, the three of us would then hunt our way down the mountain to where Gary and Ken would be with the horses. They warned us that is was a really really steep mountain side and that we wouldn’t be very happy doing it…. However, they do kill a buck 9 out of 10 times when they do this. We all agreed to give it a try. We tried a few things, but came up empty for the first half of the day. After lunch we got our directions and began the climbing and sliding down the mountain. It sucked… really sucked. It was steep with lots of loose rocks. I took the furthest route and was on high alert for a long time thinking for sure I would see a buck at any moment. Finally I saw a doe. I was very surprised at that point as I was making so much noise. Then after the doe walked by I saw a chocolate colored black bear. The bear was a small one and appeared to be just out looking for some food. After he went the other way I continued on down the mountain.

I was at a point where I was sure I was too far down to see any bucks, when out of no where, jumped up a buck. I could see that it was a 4 X 4. By this point I had been trying to figure out how all three of us could get a buck on this trip. The only way it could happen was if one of us shot something soon. Also, at this point I was frustrated with the hike down and was in kind of an ornery mood. Basically, I was ready shoot just about anything. Then I could see a deer’s body clear and standing at 40 yards or so. I couldn’t see the head. I knew that it had to be the same buck, but wasn’t 100 percent sure so I didn’t shoot. It then took off to the right. I ran to the right too and soon saw the buck stop again about 100 yards downhill. Now I could see the rack, so put the crosshairs on him and shot. I thought that I had hit him, but the deer ran up and to the right some more so I did the same. I saw him again walking, so I shot…. missing this time as he went out of sight. I ran to that spot I had last saw him and then spotted him again. This time I was able to finish off the buck. The buck slid down the steep mountain side and got hung up in a big dead tree branch.

I went to the buck and decided to slide him down to a flatter spot to take pictures and work on him. I got it free from the tree branch and hung on to the antlers as he slid down…. soon I could tell I was in trouble and wouldn’t be able to hold on to the deer. I had to let go or be pulled down the mountain out of control. The buck tumbled and rolled until he smacked hard against a big pine tree. I heard a snap and sure enough he had broke off the back fork time on his left side (the G2).

I made my way down to the deer again and got him to a decent flat spot above a huge old dead tree. I looked for the broken tine, but couldn’t find it. I guess John heard me shoot and looked for me to help, but he couldn’t find me. I set up my camera on my mini tripod and took a few photos. Then I started working on the deer and soon had the buck all boned out and in my backpack. It only took about an hour and I was on my way with the head and antlers also strapped on.

I didn’t think that I could get out of the draw I was in by going straight down so I went up and back into the draw that I was in when I first spotted the buck. I had looked that draw over from above with my binoculars and was pretty sure I could get out through that one without hitting a cliff. It all worked out as I walked and slid on my butt down to the bottom. Before I knew it I had hit the horse trail. I noticed that all the tracks were headed down and out so I headed that way too. Soon I spotted the horses and John coming up toward me. Barry had just got to the horses before me and soon we were on our way out with my buck. Barry did see two bucks on his way down, but wasn’t able to get a shot off.

The far mountain side up and just left of center is where I shot my buck

Day four. On the fourth day we all started out together again. We headed up to where Barry and Ken hunted the first day since they had seen a lot of bucks that day. Wow!!!! That was a really steep climb. I felt bad for the horses. We hunted up together and then split up at mid day. Barry and Ken went north and would end up back at the truck, while John, Gary and I went south and ended up back at camp. Barry did have a couple shots at a buck on the way down, but didn’t get him. Gary and I tried to make a couple drives to John, but the deer didn’t cooperate. The end of this day was a really steep run/walk down the mountain leading the horses. In a way it sucked, but then again it was kind of fun too. Guess I am getting in pretty good mountain shape now

John with his favorite horse of the trip, Lil

Day five. Gary took John and me back to where we were on the first day. We got up to the saddle where we tied up the horses for the day and started glassing. Gary spotted a good buck right away. We think it was the same buck John had missed on the first day. The buck headed into some timber and probably bedded down for the day. The plan was to hunt up and around to see if we could find that buck. We worked our way up the rim and I made a drive though a patch of trees to try to push a deer to John. Well…. it worked… mostly…. I gave John and Gary 15 minutes to get into position before I started. I had just got into the trees when I heard a deer jump up and take off. I slowly zig zagged my way up through the trees to where I was to stop and wait for Gary and John. From there I could see John aiming his rifle up the hill in front of me. I figured that he had to be getting ready to shoot at a buck. I waited a few minutes and John just kept aiming. I decide to keep walking up hill and hopefully push the buck to where John could see it. Soon I spotted the monster about 150 to 175 yards above me. The buck was tip toeing through the rocks…. Man, I sure wish at that point that I had a rifle and open tag on me. But I didn’t, so I took off running up and to the left in hope of moving the buck toward John. However, the buck apparently already knew that John was there and he busted out over the top. John did take a couple long running shots, but he had his scope set wrong and wasn’t even close. Gary did tell me that the buck had walked through a 30 yard opening at 260 yards, but John couldn’t find him in the scope. Then the buck stopped in some jack pines, but was hid very well. Finally, Gary spotted the back end of the deer, but again John couldn’t locate it in his scope. Again so close…. Gary figured that buck was 28 to 30 inches wide and would score about 200 inches.

We then found a spot to glass and have lunch. After lunch we hunted our way over to where we had spotted the good buck earlier. However, we never did see that buck again. We did see one other 140 class buck at 600 yards, but John decide to pass on the long shot and that ended our trip. We saw another nice bull elk and some cows on our way out.

John with Big un’ (not John’s favorite horse)

Barry did get his last day buck. It ended up being basically a big fork horn buck with brow tines. He made a real good 100 yard shot. The buck was a real nice one, just didn’t have the tines. Barry was really happy with it.

Striker loaded up with Barry’s mule deer ready for the pack out

Barry and his last day buck

That’s pretty much it. The next day we got up and had another good breakfast, finished packing and headed for home. We drove to central South Dakota and spent the night there. Got up early the next day and finished the drive home.

All in all another great trip. The weather was really warm and sunny the whole hunt. That is not a good thing for mule deer hunting like this. We wanted colder weather. When it’s cold, the deer are out feeding more and even bed in the sun sometimes. When it’s warm like it was the deer bed down for the day very early in the mornings and do so in the darker shady more heavily timbered spots. This make it very hard to find them. That is the reason that we had to do a lot of walking and made drives to each other to try to get the deer out where we could see them. That’s OK, we just had to adjust and work a little harder. We didn’t get one of the big ones on this trip….. guess that’s a good reason to go back

As before, everyone at Grey River Trophies was great to us. All of the meals were very good thanks to Carol. The equipment and horses all top notch.

Great trip

2010 Fishing

2010 has been an interesting year of fishing for me. I have fished quite a bit this year and had some good days mixed in with quite a few not so good fishing days. But then again….. any day I get to go fishing is a good day

To start out the year, DeeDee and I took a trip to Tampa to visit her sister and family. While there, we booked a 6 hour fishing charter for Tarpon. I had never fished for Tarpon before. The guide told me that we were a little early, but that we still would have a good chance to hook into one and that we could also fish for Grouper. We didn’t hook any Tarpon, but did have a good day and managed to catch a few Gag Groupers.

Here’s DeeDee with a keeper that she caught.

The best one of the day for me.

After Tampa, my next time fishing was on Lake Kabetogama in northern Minnesota. This was probably the slowest we have seen it in May for quite a few years. We did have a good time though and managed to catch a few fish.

Here’s my first walleye of the year

and another

Barry with the best walleye of the weekend

Michael and Ryan were able to make the trip this year. We rented a boat for them and I think they had a good time.

Here’s my Dad with a nice walleye

John and I made it back up to Kabby in June and after some very windy weather we were able to get on some fish and even managed to get our limit of 4 walleyes each one day

My best fish of the weekend.

John wanted a 26 incher on the last day, but had to settle for this nice 23 inch walleye

DeeDee and I traded in the old boat for a new one in June

Over the 4th of July, DeeDee and I made a trip up to Kabby.
Here is DeeDee with the best walleye of the trip.

On our 3rd day we worked hard and were able to catch our 8 keeper walleyes

In the middle of July I made it back up there, this time with John and Barry again.

The best fish of that weekend. A dandy 25 incher that I caught.

John and Barry

Barry with a nice 23 inch walleye

DeeDee’s sister Missy and her family were here for a couple of weeks in the end of July. It’s hard to call what we did fishing, but we did spent some fun time on the water.

Here’s a pic of Missy and DeeDee while we were pontooning

In August, DeeDee and I made a trip to NE Wisconsin to visit some friends and do some fishing.

Here I am with my all time best Smallmouth Bass.

Jeff with a nice Smallmouth Bass that he caught

Jeff with a nice Largemouth Bass

George with a sunfish

Joey and a little sunfish that he caught

Henry getting instructions on where to cast

DeeDee and Shannon with a rock bass that DeeDee caught

That’s about it for the summer so far. That might be it for the year or maybe we’ll get out some more….

Playa del Carmen Feb / March 2010

DeeDee and I made our annual trip to Playa del Carmen Mexico again this February.  We are probably back to only going once a year for now, unless we get a deal that is just too good to pass up or some friends twist our arms into going more……

Day 1

I won’t bore you with the travel details as they were pretty much the same as they were on other trips.

For the first three nights we stayed at what I would call a small economy hotel called Hotel Fiesta Banana.  It was on 5th avenue and calle 32.  Our room had a king size bed, a dorm size fridge,  A/C, a ceiling fan, a very small safe, a small balcony that looked over calle 32 and a bathroom that included a shower.  The room was very small….. barely enough room to walk around the bed.  It was very clean though and worked just fine for us for 3 nights.  The gal at the front desk was always helpful and friendly.  The room included a continental breakfast that included, juice, coffee, yogurt and toast. 

As soon as we got settled we headed down to see the new and improved beach…WOW!!!!  We walked down 5th until we got to Constituentes, then we cut down to the beach.  Once on the beach we walked south to the Playa Maya.  We wanted to see if Don and Deb were there.  We found Don on his laptop.  He went up and got Deb and they joined us for drinks and shrimp tacos.  It was good to be back in Playa.  We made plans to meet them at Manne’s for drinks later and then we would decide on a place for dinner.

DeeDee and I then walked to a bank near the bus station so I could get some pesos out of the ATM.  I only had about $40 worth left over from the last trip to get us started. 

Later we met Don and Deb at Manne’s as planned.  We also met Sara and Jeremy there.  They are a nice couple that live on Martha’s Vineyard.  We decide to try a restaurant that was new to us called Kalaka.  It was a good choice as we all enjoyed our meals.  I had some kind of fettuccine pasta with mushroom sauce on it.  DeeDee had a chicken Caesars salad.  The prices there were kind of middle of the road. We were kind of tired since it was a travel day so I think we called it a night after that.

Day 2

We got up and went for a walk.  We ended up at a place called “The Garden of Eating”.  This ended up being my new favorite breakfast place.  A gal named Karen, that is from Toronto owns the place.  I had the breakfast burrito and a mixed fruit drink.  I think DeeDee had scrambled eggs with cheese.  The food was good and cheap too.

After breakfast we walked over to Mega to get some supplies like water, beer and snacks. We then took a cab back to the hotel. 

We cleaned up and headed to the beach.  We ended up finding David and Tammy on the beach in front of the condo building that they were staying at.    David and Tammy are from Michigan and we had hung out with them before.  We were glad that we were going to get the chance to spend some more time with them again this year.  With them was Anna Lynn , who was sharing the condo with them for a week.  Anna Lynn is a Jersey girl that we had met her a few times before.  Also there were Sara and Jeremy that we had met the night before.  We ended up hanging with them for a few hours there.  While there, we got to meet Chris and Josh from Indiana when they stopped by.  We then headed back to the hotel as we figured that John and Kari should be getting there soon.  Sure enough, they had just arrived a few minutes earlier.  Since it was Thursday, we all cleaned up and headed out to Bad Boys.  Bad Boys is a beach bar / club that has live music on Thursdays and Saturdays and we love it.  We drank, danced and had a good time.  After that we went to Pumarulo for pizza and margaritas.  Both were excellent.  I think we were suppose to meet up with some of the others at the Dirty Martini bar, but after the margaritas and pizza we had had enough for the night so walked back to the hotel.  I think we heard later that most of the group never made it to the Dirty Martini bar anyway.

John, Kari, DeeDee and me by the flag at Bad Boys

John and Kari dancing at Bad Boys

me and DeeDee at Pumarulo

Day 3

We met David and Tammy at La Cueva del Chango for breakfast.  Jimmy called me to see if we could meet as he needed to pick up a rear tail light from us that we had muled down.  Jimmy walked down and joined us for breakfast.  Jimmy had some trouble getting what he wanted for breakfast.  It was no big deal for him and he took it all in stride.  I guess it was the waitress’s first day there.  Jimmy even tipped her quite well (it might have had something to do with the fact that she was a cutie).

The six of us were planning on heading to Tulum for the day.  However, Tammy got a phone call that her Mom was in the hospital and they were doing some tests so they stayed back to make sure they could be reached by phone.  So John, Kari, DeeDee and I walked down to catch a colectivo headed south.  We ended up negotiating a price with a taxi driver for the day.  The morning was beautiful…. however, as soon as we got to Tulum it startted clouding up.  John and Kari had never been to the ruins so we went there with them.  DeeDee and I had been there back in 2003.  Ruins are pretty boring the second time around…..  After that we were thirsty so stopped by a little shop outside of the ruins and got 3 Coronas for $3 and  a couple pina coladas for the girls.  We then found our driver and he took us to Anna y Jose’s beach club.  The girls had a couple of very good Miami Vice’s, but the beer was served in a can and the food was average at best.  We wandered down the beach some and hit a couple of beach bars, but by now the weather was windy, cloudy and not very warm.  It wasn’t a bad day, but the weather sure put a damper on it.  We walked back and had our driver take us back to Playa.

some Tulum ruins pics

DeeDee and Kari at Anna y Jose’s

me and DeeDee on the beach near Tulum

The best part of the day for me was Util Pasta Factory for dinner.  It was excellent!!!!!  We found this, way out of the way, place last year and loved the food.  It is a very small Italian place that only has four small tables and mostly does take out.  The owner, Papa Charlie, was there and treated us like good friends.   John and I had the meat and mushroom cannelloni.  DeeDee had the three cheese ravioli and Kari had the chicken and cheese cannelloni.  We also had dessert and were stuffed….  I think this was the best meal of the trip for me 

Me and DeeDee with Papa Charlie at Util Pasta Factory

We walked around some after dinner.  We ran into Vanessa and Dave from Ohio near the Beer Bucket and talked with them a bit.  I think we had just one beer after dinner as we were too full to drink.

Day 4 (Saturday)

We got up and went to the Garden of Eating again for breakfast.  We wanted to take John and Kari there since DeeDee and I liked it so much.   Breakfast was again good and reasonable.  After breakfast we went to Mega so John and Kari could get some supplies for the week.  We then walked back to the hotel to pack up and check out.  We got a taxi van and moved the four of us with all of our stuff to Fisherman’s Village for the week.  Fisherman’s was very organized this year.  Check in was a breeze this time.  They told us that our rooms weren’t ready and to check back later.  No problem, we got beach towels and headed to the beach.  We spent some time there enjoying the day.  When it was time we went up to see if the rooms were ready.  Sure enough, they were and much to our surprise, we even got the room we requested.  John and Kari got the adjoining room right next to us.     Sometimes things do work out perfectly

After we got settled in our rooms we took in some more beach time and then back to the room to clean up for the evening.  Tonight was another Bad Boys night.  I made up margaritas “to go” for our walk into town.  This was new this year and worked out great.  Once in town we stopped at a Pizza Pazza for a snack.  This is another thing that we found worked out great, was to eat a little something before drinking and dancing at Bad Boys.   

DeeDee and Kari at Bad Boys

the four of us at Bad Boys

Don and Deb at Bad Boys

Erik and Andy jammin at Bad Boys

After Bad Boys I think we went to El Fogon for dinner.  I had the archerra national, it was good, but a little more done than I like it.

Day 5 (Sunday)

I think today was a veg on the beach at Fisherman’s day.  We did walk to the south down to the last AI resort.  We could easily do that his year now that the beach has been restored.  I’d guess the walk there and back took close to an hour. 

We walked  into town around 6:00 PM and went to the Luna Blue.  They were having an auction for the Peanut Pet Shelter and we wanted to help out.  I ended up getting DeeDee an anklet and Kari bought a Tulum print that Barry had painted.  We got to meet Chewy there.  Chewy is a really cute little pet shelter dog that our friends Jan and Erik took back home to Minnesota.

DeeDee with Chewy

After the auction we walked up to La Bamba Jarocha on 30th for supper.  This was recommended to us from some friends.  I’d say that it was OK, not great.  I guess I expected it to be cheaper and better.  We did have excellent service though from a gal that spoke zero English. 

That’s all I remember from that day…

Day 6 (Monday)

Today we walked into town and took the 8:00 AM ferry over to Cozumel.  Once there, the four of us met our friends Barb and Terry.  We rented a taxi van and driver for the day.  We had him take us to the east side of the island so we could do some beach bar hopping.  It was a very fun day.  We started on the north end at a place called Senior Iguana’s and made stops on the way south at; Playa Morena, Coconuts, Chen Rio, Playa Bointa, Bob Marleys and Playa Planacar. We had a great seafood lunch platter at Chen Rio.  We had a round of tequila shots at Playa Bonita, other than that it was just beer and margaritas at the other spots.  After that we went into San Miguel and had a light dinner at a place called La Mission.  We all had a mixed sampler type plate and it was very good.  We did find 4 geocaches along the way.  We took the 7:00 PM ferry back to Playa.  We were tired after a long day, so once in Playa we got some ice cream and headed back to Fisherman’s for our earliest night in of the trip.

DeeDee on the naked beach at Senior Iguana’s

This guy was helping Barb and us find a geocache at senior Iguana’s

at Playa Morena

John with Spiderman (Terry found Spidey washed up on the beach there)

DeeDee at Coconuts

Barb and Terry at Coconuts

DeeDee, Barb and Kari at Coconuts

our seafood platter that we had for lunch at Chen Rio

DeeDee and me at Bob Marley’s

The rest of the trip……..  Since it has taken me so long to get around to finishing this I am having a hard time remembering what we did when.  I usually take some notes everyday to help me with this kind of stuff……. but not this time. Anyway, here is a summary of some of the other things we did.

Two days we walked into Wickey’s for lunch.  Wickey’s still has excellent burgers.  They did raise there prices 20 pesos on their burgers though.  They are now 90, 100 and 110 pesos depending on which one you get.  That includes french fries or BBQ chips.  The frys we got this time were basically just the thin McDonalds type frys, nothing special.  When we were there in December they were the nice thick steak frys.  Both days when we were there, Mike Grabow was playing his guitar and singing.  He does a great job with beach type music and I enjoyed listening to him here and at The Luna Blue a night or two.

Other eats….

We ate at the south Babes one night and it was again excellent.  I think we have eaten at Babes at least 6 or 7 times over the past several years and have always had good food.  With the way things are so inconsistent in Playa this says a lot for Babes.

I finally made it to El Jurado one night.  DeeDee had ate at this place a couple years ago when she was in Playa with her sister Dawn.  I thought the food was pretty good and the prices there are very cheap.  I definitely plan to go back.

We tried Taco Tango again this year after having an excellent meal here last year.  This time we were dissapointed….  It wasn’t bad, just not very good.  The meats were mostly kind of tough and they also had the thin frys this time instead of the steak frys like before. Maybe that’s all they could get down there this year……

One afternoon on the way to Bad Boys, DeeDee and I tried Don Ceviche Mariscos and were very happy.  We had some deep fried shrimp tacos and seafood chimichungas, both were excellent.  They didn’t sell alcohol there though.

A couple nights we stopped for Pizza Pazza on the way to Bad boys.  Both times the pizza was fresh hot and greasy. Perfect for a before night of drinking and dancing place to eat 

We ate at the El Fogon on 30th and 6 bis twice on this trip.  The first time, my arrcherra was OK, would have been better if it hadn’t been over cooked.  The bean soup there is excellent.  The second time I tried a couple new things and they were great.  El fogon has great cheap food as far as I’m concerned. We had excellent service both times.

Manne’s Biergarten – What can I say about Manne’s?  We had a peep meet / get together again this year at Manne’s.  Don and Deb set it up and Manne and Susie (the owner’s) are awesome hosts.  They set out an all you can eat rib buffet for us.  Great food and they only charge us 120 pesos per person.  They also bring out the gas tank of home brew tequila after supper for us to basically have as many shots as we want.  A very good time was had again.  This was the 4th time Don and Deb have done this and DeeDee and I are the only one’s other than Don and Deb to have made it to all 4.  I think there were about 50 people there this year. 

Tammy, Kari, DeeDee and Susie

me and John getting tequila shots ready

Don, Manne’s Susie, DeeDee and me

me, David, John and Kim

DeeDee and Kari

Tammy, Deb, DeeDee and Kari

Bad Boys…  We made it to Bad Boys all 4 nights that they had the band playing when we were there.  We have always had fun there.  This time I think we figured out that we need to get there early and sit inside.  Inside you can hear the band better and get a better feel for it.  We danced and drank and had a great time.  It does get pretty crowded though.  I really enjoyed watching and listening to the Playa Dogs play again this year.  This year the Playa Dogs consisted of Erik from Minnesota and Andy from the Peanut Pet Shelter.  Their drummer wasn’t there so they used the one from the regular house band (The Nasty bastards).  They also had a couple gals (Bob and Gemma) join then for a few songs.  Let me tell you Erik just loves to play the guitar and it really shows. 

Susie and DeeDee

Davide getting down

David and Tammy

Here are a couple youtube clips of them playing at Bad Boys.  If you know what we are wearing  and look close you can see DeeDee and me dancing in the Mony Mony clip a few times 

Here’s one of Erik doing La Grange.  We have seen him do La Grange, but this video is from a different night that we weren’t acttually there.

Final thoughts……  It was another great trip to Playa.  Some highlites to me were:

Getting to spend time in Playa with my awesome wife DeeDee.  Spending time with  John and Kari.  A fun beach bar hopping day trip on the back side of Cozumel and spending that day with friends Terry and Barb as well as John and Kari.  Getting to spend more time this trip with David and Tammy as well as Donny and Randa.  Getting to spend time again with Don and Deb.  Getting to see Lori at least one afternoon and night.  Bad Boys…. I miss that place as much as anything.  Manne’s Rib night… loved it again.  Others that I can think of that I either got to meet for the first time or meet and see again that helped to make the trip great:  Rob, Susie, Anna Lynne, Jimmy, Rita and Slim, Chris and Josh, Sarah and Jeremy, Michael and Monica, Philip and Shannon, Vanessa and Dave, Linda and Rick, Erik and Jan, Boz and Kacey, Luis, Maurice, David and Susan, Steve, Vicky, Kim, Jami and I’m sure that I am missing several other names.

David, Donny and me at el Fogon

DeeDee and me at Babes

Tammy, DeeDee, Randa and Kari at the Dirty Martini Bar

the side window view from our room at Fisherman’s village

the front view from our balcony at Fisherman’s village

the four of us on the beach at Fishermans

me and DeeDee on the beach at Fishermans

shrimp tacos at Don Mariscos

chimichangas at Don Mariscos

Pool at Club Yebo

DeeDee and Lori at HC de Monterrey

at Playa Plams looking out

a quick trip to Playa

Last spring some friends of ours (Mike and Becky) were planning a trip to Playa del Carmen for December.  DeeDee and I have always gone to Playa later in the winter, but let’s just say they twisted our arms…..  that and the combination of the fact that we were able to get really cheap airfare and a great rate on a room at Playa Palms for what is considered off season.  Playa Palms is right on the beach.  We booked a studio unit for five nights and didn’t look back…..  Summer came and went, the fall came…  I was busy hunting and doing my usual fall stuff.  I finished deer hunting with a hunt in Wisconsin with my good friend Scott.  We had a great time, but  didn’t see any deer that we wanted so came home empty handed.  Then came Thanksgiving and then OMG!!!!  we are going to Playa in less than two weeks.  I was so not ready for a trip to Playa.  The time flew by and before you know it we were on our way to Playa.  Well, OK it wasn’t quite that easy.  A winter storm just happened to come through the day before we were leaving.  We ended up driving up to the cities the night before and staying at Mike and Becky’s.  That worked out great  (thanks Mike and Becky).

I won’t bore you with too many details.  I’ll just say that we made it down there just fine and had a really good trip.  Playa was quieter than usual.  The weather was really good with the daytime highs in the mid 80′s.  We loved the room that we had and loved staying at Playa Palms.  We tried a couple new places for lunch and dinner and were happy with all of the places we ate at.

Here’s a pic of what it looks like from the center area of Playa Palms looking out towards the ocean.

Here is what it looks like from the beach

Here’s the patio of the room we had

and our view

For our first night out we went to Manne’s Biergarten. The have great home brew tequila there.
Here is DeeDee and me with our tequila shots to start the trip

Here we are with our complimentary after dinner tequila shots

The next day for lunch we went to a new place called “Wicky’s”.  We went there twice during the trip and were very happy with the food and the service.
Here’s a pic of me and DeeDee at Wicky’s

and a pic of Mike and Becky at Wicky’s

That evening we went to Bad Boys on the beach for drinks and to listen to some great live music. We had a good time there, but it was so much slower than what we are use to down there. After Bad Boys we went to El Fogon for dinner.

Here’s a pic of Mike and Becky with our meal at El Fogon

Friday was a veg day at the beach. We had lunch right there delivered from Coco Maya next door.

For dinner we ended up going for an Italian meal at Pummarola.

Here’s a pic of the four of us at Pummarola

The one other cool place we went to on this trip was called Las Cazuelas.  It is a place that serves Spanish food.  The owner, Miguel, was our host and waiter.  He treated us like good friends and was a real treat to be around.

Here is the shrimp dinner that DeeDee had

and the mixed paella that I had

Here’s a pic of DeeDee and Becky with margaritas at PG’s

We also found that Pummarola has excellent pizza. We had a couple of their personal sized ones for $25 pesos (about $2 US dollars)

That’s about it for our quick and short trip.  We came home to below zero temps that night and quickly were forced to adjust to a Minnesota winter

Oh well, it won’t be long before we get to go to Playa again