Mexico

Welcome to Cozumel Palace Resorts. As promised I have posted several pictures here of our vacation in paradise as well as relate a few of the stories of the trip. Let me begin by saying that it was wonderful, marvelous and awesome, and I would do it again tomorrow if I could. I would add that traveling with Gracie (who is 4) and my wife, blink... blink,,, Angie, is something like being eaten by ducks. Each little nibble is noticeable but millions of little nibbles becomes some sort of Dante's novel. Anyway, let us begin with error number one, our travel papers say we "MUST" arrive at the airport no less than 2 hours before boarding, or boring as Gracie was calling it. We arrive at the Continental check in counter at 3:30 AM or so only to find nobody and I mean nobody around. We wait and wait and wait, a few more travelers arrive and we all continue to wait. It turns out that the Continental counter workers don't start work until 5AM so it was not useful for us to be there before then. Waste of time number one. I comment as they arrive to their posts at around 5:10 in the morning that ,"hey, look, somebody does work here" the lady approaching me shoots me one of those "die you ignorant fool" looks. Apparently she is not a morning person and didn't see the humor in my statement. She then takes two large groups of travelers ahead of us and tells us to "check yourselves in on that automated terminal over there" After several minutes of futile fiddling Angie, who is well past done with things at this point, hollers over to her that it doesn't seen to be working. The lady replies, "oh, that one is broke, you'll need to wait a few minutes" Now Angie has gone past done into that mode that females possess that scares mere mortal men. She is now at that "PMS and a handgun" phase of irritated. The airport employee in question, also being female, senses the fact that she is about to be gutted like a fish and comes over to retrieve our passports and process us in. We are now off to phase two. Airport security. Lets just make this brief, Gracie doesn't do well with security. She doesn't like strangers looking at her stuff, her shoes or her daddy. Now, I mention her Daddy because I have never had an entire trip where somebody in security doesn't haul me aside for something. I have a slightly Mediterranean appearance and minimal facial expressions most of the time, so I guess this translates to security risk in airports, who knows. While the nice gentlemen is checking my every orifice, my daughter is screaming she wants daddy, and so our trip begins.

I wont elaborate too much on the second leg of our journey except to say that it takes a lot of oxygen and energy to run from terminal B to terminal E at the Houston airport. I now know why its called a terminal, it nearly was for me as I realize just how out of shape I am. Yes, Super Plumber Ninja Dad can traverse the length of the airport while hauling a backpack, my wife's carry one, my daughters carry on and my daughter who was tired of walking and bored. But, now I cant breath and I am not sure I want to because Angie is now trying to convince herself not to kill somebody else. Now in Angie's defense, she needed killin, and Angie did avoid confrontation, but only after strong willed prayer intervened. (we are in Texas so I borrowed a line from our friend Ruth with the 'needed killin' line) I will leave this story for Angie to tell as I was late to the party and suffering lack of oxygen to the brain.

We arrive in Cozumel and are tired, hungry and eager to get to our Palace. This place is stunning and welcoming to say the least. Its perfect weather, perfect water, and the staff is awesome. For the next several days and nights we spend the days at the pool and eat and drink to our hearts content. Gracie spends all day playing her little self tired and making lots of new admirers. She is so happy and bouncy and loud that she is the center of attention every place she goes. She has the whole staff catering to her, she places her own order with the bar and the cooks, everything. The senoritas call her princesseta and sweetheart. She made a few special friends who got hugs before we left. This place is paradise. Well, I could ramble on for days about shopping stories, how Gracie would announce the presents of any new boats, the weather, the lack of a beach and the talents of the taxi drivers, but I will stop talking and just let the pictures speak for themselves. You can click on any picture above to view it in full size.