Japanese Cherry Trees

Do my eyes deceive me? I see a lady climbing stairs to join other people already in the tree. Do you think that this is real or photo shopped?

Blue Agave

The blue agave plant is used to make agave nectar which is a liquid sugar like honey.  I use it all the time since it is a low glycemic sugar.

They cut off the agave leaves and extract the agave in the which they make tequila.

There were four types of tequila there for tasting; one was Almond flavored tequila. I don't imbibe but my new friends from Australia said they'd drink my shots.

Million Dollar Homes

This home was for sale for 2 million.  Any takers?

The views were stunning.

Tapestry

This home had a cascading waterfall.

Vallarta Plaza

I put this on automatic timer and date so we shall see if it works. I tried it once before and it didn't work but one of my blog friends uses the auto schedule.

I love this - looking back at Puerto Vallarta.

Does anyone out there know how to make it work?

Rubber Tree

Merry Christmas  

Leaving

Leaving Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with such delightful memories.

By the time we got to Puerta Vallarta, our little group of foursome split up for the day. Sandy and Hank decided to go zip lining; I have no idea what Dennis did but I took a tour of Puerta Vallarta and met a really fun couple (Heather and Ian) from Australia.

We visited a very beautiful old Catholic church after pass through old town. 

May we all celebration His birth and what our Savior did for us this Christmas. I am off to Monterey again so this Friday's bliss list is going to be with my family.

Joining the Little Bliss List by Liv Lane.

The Night Before Christmas

I am just thrilled.  I have no copies of Christmas books because my daughter has them all. She even took my Harry Potter books and didn't return them.

I won a book contest "The Night before Christmas", copyrighted in 1949, from a dear blogger friend, Donna. Her blog An Enchanted Cottage is a delightful blog and like me, she likes cats, dogs and all sorts of cuddly animals. Just like my cat, as soon as you put up the Christmas tree, she adopts the tree - it belongs to her. I noticed that Donna's cat does the same thing. So a great big thank you, Donna for such a nice gift!

  

Butt

Four Wheels off the Ground

All of us were supposed to be going over this bump and getting a photo of four wheels off the ground.  Not me, I was stuck. That was the second incident. One wheel was up in the air about 4 feet and I was leaning on Hank but I had no choice.

Two husky guys had to push us to get us unstuck. I followed a cloud of dust and thought I was following the pack but I made a wrong turn and got lost. The path began to narrow and I knew I was going where I shouldn't have gone but there was no where to turn around. That was the first clue that something was wrong, I was lost. 

                      Dennis, Sandy, me and Hank

I made several turns and coming around the next corner were 10 four-wheelers following the leader coming right at me or rather I was coming right at them. I hit the brakes but it was too late - we had a head on collision.  It took another 15 minutes to get me moved over into the weeds so all the four wheelers could pass me and each gave us a love tap on the rear wheel.

Alberto said "follow me" so he brought us back to the others and we had a pit stop was in a river bed. Cold bottled water was there in a cooler and picture time.

Me and Alberto

Amazing tree roots had grow all over a large piece of granite rock.  It was fascinating.

Alberto had me change to a different dune buggy.  I could actually reach the gas peddle and the steering wheel moved easier.

Sand Dunes in Cabo

Sandy and Dennis

Dennis and Sandy were ready to go and get away from all the animals - the adult petting zoo!

There is a photo of me and Hank in a previous post. I kept thinking "I got this thing, it's like a little go cart".  Wrong!@!!!!  I ended up at the back of the pack. Even with an extra cushion, I just barely reached the gas peddle so Alberto kept stopping and asking me to go faster. 

I tried and we were following the dune buggies in front of us so I did my best when Hank yelled "STOP". I took my foot off the gas for a second and then saw it coming.  I gunned it. The guide was waving his hands for a stop signal which I did not see but I told Hank, "it's too late".  We drove over an 8 foot cliff and landed as smooth as a babies bottom. 

Baby Alligator

We were like puppets marching around doing whatever the guides told us to do so they could take more and more pictures.  you can guess why, they wanted us to buy CDs after our unusual experiences.

Dennis has a firm grip on that alligator

Whose the strong one here - it certainly wasn't Hank? I get the he-by jebies looking at those skull faces in the background.

Sandy absolutely refused to touch baby alligator.

We walked through this gorgeous trellis of flowers up and around to the ancient jaws of a creature.

It was a really pleasant 75 degrees F.

Critters in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

I am not sure why but the ship moved out into the Pacific overnight and then back into Cabo bay area the next morning.  A little jungle creature was hanging from the rafters when we got back on the ship.

My two favorite towel creations were the monkey and the elephant but then there was the frog which took me 15 minutes to figure out just what critter it was.

Hank and I

Today was our dune buggy ride and Hank decided to join me, Sandy and Dennis. We headed north driving through Cabo and out onto a four lane highway. About 30 minutes later, we came to the dunes.  I pictured a four seater with a professional driver.  What we got was a two seater and I had to drive because Hank had done a face plant off a bicycle in Florida before he joined our cruise in Mexico so he was unable to use his arms. 

Here's the contest - who looks the most scared of the parrot?
The parrot plucks a sunflower seed from your lips.

Frank was scared that the parrot would pluck out his eyes.

Sandy was scared spit less.

Dennis looks like he was kissing the parrot.

I was so scared I nearly had an accident.

Did you notice that the first thing the guys did was put their bandana on their heads? Why? Is that a guy thing?

Souvenirs at Cabo

I've never bargained over prices before - it was a whole new ballgame! I did not hassel over this gorgeous fan but they were the best price in Cabo compared to Puerta Vallarta.

I did, however, bargain for these beautiful Mexican opal earrings and if you know me at all, you know that I love earrings.  These are beyond my ability to make but perhaps in the future, I may learn how to do insets and how to work with metals.

Notice how they have the colors of the ocean - my camera cannot do them justice! These are not for sale - they are mine, all mine.

This area is where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean.

Closer view of the cave on the tip

This gigantic floating hotel was our home base for seven days. I walked from one end of the ship to the other at least a dozen times and Sandy and I noticed that you could never see the end of the hall - it went on and on just like in one of Dr. Who's episodes where he seemed to be climbing stairs and more stairs like when a computer goes into a macro repeating stint over and over with the same function.

Divorce Beach at Cabo

While at Lover's Beach, we traipsed across the sandy beach to the Pacific Ocean side through an opening of the rocks to Divorce Beach. 

Pacific Ocean - goodbye lost love

This lady was so anxious to have her photo taken in her bikini that she jumped right into my photo!

More photos taken on our glass bottom boat tour - caves and crevices were everywhere.

Do you remember that movie with Doris Day and the Glass Bottom Boat? I think that their boat had a better view of the ocean. The only fish we saw was when the operator threw bait into the water to entice the colorful fish (yellow, blue and red) to swim under and around the boat. Those little dots by the cave are people.

That tiny little guy in the orange must have gotten his divorce. He's all alone.

Lover's Beach at Cabo San Lucas

Our LDS single's group headed for the Splendor Lobby dance floor where Oscar played an electric guitar and sung magical classics - the kind where you can dance a jitterbug (now called the western swing) or hip swinging cha cha, a sexy samba, foxtrot, waltz, or a snuggly close two step. Sandy was captured by Dennis right away; he was besotted and kept all of us laughing. 

A six-foot-tall Wyoming cowboy called Mick whirled me around the dance floor to a jitterbug and I didn't get a migraine. I was ecstatic!  Hank with twinkling blue eyes meandered my way and danced with me off and on most of the evening. We danced until the music quit - about 1:30 AM.

The next morning the four of us (Sandy, blue-eyed Hank, funny Dennis and I sped ashore in a small craft. 

Cabo San Lucas at a first glance.

Senor Frog greeted us at Cabo. I bought a box of cough drops called Limon Vick from a drug store.  Not Vicks but Vick!  Later that evening Sandy and I got the giggles like two teenagers over Vick.

Sandy my roommate next to a plastic burro

Dennis and Sandy, Hank and I hired a glass bottom boat for a tour of the famous rocks at Cabo.  On the other side of these rocks lies the Pacific Ocean which has rip tides (extremely dangerous). On this side is the Sea of Cortez.

We were dropped off at Lover's beach for two hours while Dennis went to meet a friend at a hotel. (My first thought was, how the heck am I ever going to get back into the boat?) That made a three-some to our party - two of us held towels up next to an indent in the rock to change into our swimsuits.  Hank was a gentleman and held his while standing with his back to us. The Sea of Cortez was wonderful to swim through.  I swam with my head out of the water - it was my first ocean swim.

Hank went right out and swam off. I was knocked down on my rear by the 2nd wave. Waves kept coming in and spinning me around. It took 15 minutes to get up so the second time I walked right out into a deep drop off.  I thought I was doing my deep water aerobics because I was bobbing around like a cork with each wave coming at me.  I think that the ocean salt pickled me because a few days later, my ankels were so swollen that they disappeared.

Lover's beach

Famous photo shot at Cabo