We have spent the last week with our Minnesota friends, Jean and Ron and Lynn and Jim, at the Vidanta Resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It is a huge resort with at least eight residential towers, countless pools, a long lazy river, a golf course, and nonstop landscaping laced with boardwalk walking paths. It is the perfect place to relax.
This is a part of the view from our balcony. That is Puerto Vallarta in the background with the Pacific Ocean in front of it and a river below us. We can watch the cruise ships arrive in the morning and leave in the afternoon. There is a nice sunrise for the early risers (I have no sunrise pictures to offer). The weather has been similar to San Miguel except the nights are warmer and it is a little more humid. It has been near perfect beach weather!
We spent most of our time at this pool located adjacent to the ocean. The water was “walk in” warm. We had lunch most days in our pool lounge chairs with two for one frozen mango margaritas. Additional pool services were eyeglass cleaning and popsicles. I had a tamarind popsicle one day and that together with the tamarind chicken at Nirvana, has made me a real fan. I hope we can find tamarind somewhere in Wilmington!
We also had iguanas that like to hang out at the pool. They are quite adept at snatching food when you look away. They also caused some screaming as they moved about the pool. Thanks to Jean and Lynn for the iguana pictures.
We got off the grounds several days. On Sunday we went to a large craft fair in La Cruz which spread along the water front. We bought an art work made of tree bark. 
We went to Bucerías for dinner on the ocean one night. From left is Susan, Ron, Jim, Lynn, and Jean.
Wednesday we went into Puerto Vallarta for a walk along the Malecón, a mile long esplanade beside the ocean.
There were many people working for tips such as this man who had created an elaborate Mayan sand sculpture.
This person created columns of balanced rocks.
There was a performance by Mayan pole dancers who slowly rotate down from the top of the pole to the ground. One of the dancers is playing a flute and small drum as he turns. This purpose of this dance was to prevent or end droughts in ancient times. UNESCO has designated it an Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Numerous sculptures line the Malecón. From left to right are Lynn, Jim, Jean, Ron, Bruce and Susan.
We fly home to Wilmington on Friday. Our Minnesota friends are returning to a snow storm on Saturday. While Wilmington had some nearby flurries this week, we will be returning to temperatures near 70. While it won’t be as nice as the weather we have experienced in Mexico, we are hopeful that spring is near. Our upcoming trips are the Greek Islands in June and Sicily, Malta, and a transatlantic crossing in the fall. Thanks for following our experiences in Mexico and we hope you will join us on our future travels.
Sunset over one of the ponds on the resort with the ocean in the background.
We are going from there to see guitarist Gil Gutiérrez, who formerly played with Doc Severinsen. Tomorrow afternoon we are watching the world premier staging of Bikers in Camelot, which began what is hoped to be a pre Broadway run in San Miguel.
One of the most popular streets in the city to photograph is Aldama because it leads up to the Parroquia. You will notice several other things about this street. It is cobblestone like many of the streets in Centro which make walking and riding on the street quite uncomfortable. Second, the sidewalks are very narrow which means you usually have to step in the street or turn sideways to pass anyone. Third, there are no front yards so most houses and shops feature a courtyard and/or a rooftop garden to enjoy the outdoors.
This is the terrace overlooking the courtyard in our hotel. The door at the end is ours. The courtyard houses a restaurant and two orange trees that are growing oranges. The courtyard features a movable roof to block the sun when it is hot or to block the rain.
This is the courtyard in the Instituto Allende. It features a mural on the back wall and a fountain in the center. It is very popular for wedding receptions and you see flowers in the fountain from a recent reception.
This house on Aldama features an interesting door, windows, and roof top. The roof top gardens are usually lined with pots of flowers or plants..
Since dogs don’t have a front or back yard to play in, they are frequently up on the rooftop gardens,
It seems that interesting doors are everywhere. The top door is the main entrance to the house of the Canal family, one of the wealthiest families in early San Miguel. It is now owned by Banamex Bank. The bottom door is richly carved.
This window looks into a courtyard. It is always interesting to see what lies behind those walls!
The Rosewood Hotel is one of the most luxurious in San Miguel. A popular activity is to go to their rooftop for drinks at sunset. We went with our friends from Ottawa, Canada: from left, Keith, Norm, Nicole, Jane, Suzanne, Peter, and of course Susan.
The sun sets in the opposite direction of the Parroquia, but tonight some orange managed to make its way behind it.
The Rosewood has a beautiful courtyard by day or night.
After three days with some clouds and even a trace of rain at Nirvana, we are back to what we call a Carolina Blue Sky. Tomorrow we fly to Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican coast to visit our friends from Minnesota, Jean and Ron and Lynn and Jim. We plan to have a lot of pool time to make up for missing the La Gutta Hot Springs here.
We are guessing this is a local San Miguel couple getting married.
The bride and the flower girls were dressed up, but the father of the bride was dressed pretty casually.
The little boy in the white suit and the little girl in the blue and white dress were both very cute.
By contrast, the Parroquia hosts many destination weddings. The bride and groom had already left when we arrived. We are guessing that they are from Mexico City. Everyone in that wedding party was dressed to impress.
The area between the Parroquia and the Jardin usually has several balloon vendors which add to the festive atmosphere. The kids particularly like those crayon shaped balloons which bounce really high when they slam them into the ground.
Watching the weddings from the comfort of the Jardin is a popular spectator sport on Saturdays.
The clouds did make for a nice sunset at the Jardin tonight and we had no rain.
These windows and doors are not real, but are strictly for decoration.
The area was rich in street art. The bottom art work is made with mosaic tiles.
Like all of San Miguel, San Antonio is filled with interesting doors and windows.
They had done a lot to save the trees in this part of town. There were limbs poking through the walls, tree trunks with a wall on both sides, and this hollow tree in the middle of the road. Susan is modeling her new Mexican dress and her old San Miguel Sandals. We have spent some time in the shoe stores here and Susan will have two new models of Sandals to show off when she gets home. For those not familiar, the San Miguel Sandals are sold here for about $35 and in the USA as Charleston Shoe Company Sandals for about $135. Some of the shoe boxes in the stores here even say Charleston Shoe Company. It doesn’t quite pay for our trip, but it helps.
This was a very impressive gate.
San Miguel is a colorful town, both from the flowers and the color of the buildings. Most buildings also have a rooftop patio. It was a good day with the opportunity to see a wide variety of art and to meet the artists.
San Miguel is a great city to explore on foot. This is one of numerous attractive Spanish Colonial streets.
The rooftop terraces are lined with potted plants.
Street murals can be found around the city.
Many of the buildings also have interesting niches. One of the problems is that you have to look up to see many of the interesting things. Unfortunately, there is nothing more hazardous than looking up and walking due to the narrow sidewalks with numerous opportunities to trip. You have to learn to stop when you look up!
We had dinner tonight at a roof top restaurant overlooking the Parroquia. The young ladies at the table next to us were from Houston and were visiting one of their parents in Mexico City. The restaurant claims the title of Number One Rooftop Destination in the World. I don’t know about that, but the food was outstanding!
The first order of business on Friday is to go to the Jardin in the center of town to buy the local paper, Attención. You then grab one of the benches and study the events for the week and develop your plans. This is not easy! For instance, on Tuesday afternoon there were three things we really wanted to do and we could only choose one. After developing our plans, we set off to buy tickets. A couple events were already sold out which forced changes to our plans. Two weeks is just not enough time, so we are reconciled to the fact we are not going to be able to do some of the things we were looking forward to.
The museum has a collection of Tiffany lamps, windows, jewelry, paintings, blown glass, leaded glass, and mosaics.
A sample of the stained glass windows on exhibit.
Perhaps most amazing of all, the museum houses the chapel that Tiffany created for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After the exposition it was moved to Laurelton and ultimately recovered by the McKeans. The bottom picture is the chandler in the chapel.
One of his most famous works, Man Carving His Own Destiny, was also one of his first from 1907.
One of my favorites was this fountain where the water creates the strings of the harp.
The building was one of the first in the country to be made of pored concrete. The trim on the doors, towers, and windows is terra-cotta.
This picture shows four unique features in the former ballroom of the hotel: the clock was made by Edison (you can tell because he uses IIII as the Roman numeral four instead of the more traditional IV), it is a Tiffany chandelier, the stone in which the clock is mounted is one of the largest pieces of that stone type (Sorry, I forgot the stone type), and the ceiling color around the chandelier is the first use of Tiffany blue.
The dining room features Tiffany stained glass windows. These windows are some of the first he made so they don’t reflect the more colorful style for which he became famous. Still, how many college dining rooms feature Tiffany windows?
We also enjoyed the Lightner Museum, which is housed in the former Alcazar Hotel built by Flagler across the street from The Ponce. At the time it housed the world’s largest indoor swimming pool.
Since most people here have a motor home, one or two cars, and a golf cart, the garage designs are a major feature of the home.
This is the typical morning view out our back window. 
The late afternoon view is quite different with ominous black clouds, the rumble of thunder, and flashes of lightening. We have been in Florida for fourteen days and there have been heavy thunderstorms in the late afternoon on thirteen of those days. There was hail on two of those days. It makes it difficult to plan any early evening activities as the weather can make travel difficult. The area is also somewhat of a wildlife reserve. There have been deer in the back yard, alligators in the lake, and a bobcat running in the road. Herons, egrets, and other shore birds frequent the lake. We have seen an eagle on the roof of the largest house across the lake.
There must have been more than thirty manatees hanging out around the deck. It was the first time I had ever seen a manatee.
This is one of the active launch sites. The two tall metal towers are glorified lightening rods. Before launch, the rocket is moved within the center structure to prepare it. This one is unique in that at launch the structure moves out of the way. In most launch pads, the rocket moves away from the structure before launching. The odd shaped thing on the right was used to divert flames from the rocket at one of the abandoned launch pads. That launch pad where I am standing was the site of the Apollo One disaster where three astronauts were killed during a training exercise.
After our tour, we enjoyed lunch in Port Canaveral. We have one more week in Florida before we head to North Carolina.
This worked for about another hour until someone came and said it was her job to collect all the wheelchairs and put them back where we found them. With no place comfortable to sit, we then stood, sat, or lay on the floor at the entry to security until it opened at 3:30 AM. It was a rapid comedown from life on the Sun! You will not find many Vikings with many good words to say about either JFK or American Airlines. You certainly won’t hear any good words about either from me! To add insult to injury, one of my bags didn’t get on the plane to Myrtle Beach! This is very much the Readers Digest version of our problems on the flights home, but I will say that business class is much nicer than tourist! The remainder of the blog was written prior to arriving in London.
The dinner for the couples that are bridge partners.
Our trivia team. Marti, Julie, Karen, John, Steve, Mary Ann, and us.
A Cruise Critic meet and greet.
The Mahjong group.
Londoners love to give nicknames to buildings. The top building is The Shard and the bottom building tends to have changing names. Until recently when the name no longer made sense, it was named after Princess Kate.
We didn’t have time to ride it, but it would have been a perfect day for the London Eye. You don’t dare call it a Ferris wheel in front of a Londoner; and unlike most Ferris wheels, its only support is on one side.
Unlike the museums which are free, it costs almost 30 dollars and a long queue to go into Westminster Abbey. It was suggested that the smart people attend a Sunday morning service which is free and uncrowded.
Parliament Square has many statues of people who have made the world better. Abraham Lincoln is one of the statues. This tour group from India is having their picture taken in front of the Gandhi statue.
This is the view of Big Ben and Parliament House from near Parliament Square. The classic view is, of course, from the other side taken from across the Themes. In case you can’t recognize Big Ben, it is totally enclosed in scaffolding for renovation. They are also installing scaffolding for a renovation of the Parliament Building which is expected to take over forty years! I guess there is no hope I will ever see it without the scaffolding. The left side of the building is the House of Commons (or Kindergarten as our guide calls it) and the right side is the House of Lords (or adult day care).
A mounted member of the palace guards.
In the afternoon, we visited the Tower of London, the home of the Crown Jewels.
Ravens are a fixture in the Tower. Legend says that if the ravens ever leave the Tower, it will collapse and the monarchy will fall. The ravens have their wings clipped so they are unable to fly away. They have a guard assigned to feed them, let them out of their cages in the morning, and put them back in the evening.
Over a hundred people live in the Tower. To get back in after official closing hours, they have to know a password which changes every day. I think I might have to spend some nights in town.
The Scotch Guard outside the building with the Crown Jewels.
The Tower Bridge. The city is full of traffic and buses. We spent much of our tours sitting in traffic. Our transfer from the ship to Heathrow took over an hour and a quarter with no traffic on a Saturday morning, and only the last few minutes were on a road that would pass as an expressway.