I am taking advantage of cell phone broadband and typing from the car. We just passed Chicago where there were signs that I-80 is closed from Iowa City to Des Moines so we are going to have to detour around the flood zone. Should be interesting. We did hit some rain yesterday in Ohio, but nothing severe.
We’ve left the wooded hills and mountains of northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania behind. Instead we have more open farm land. So far the trip has been easy. The cats are resigned to their kitty crates today, unlike yesterday when Sam would meow mournfully every time we stopped. The dogs have also settled into the rhythm of travel and are asleep cozy in their crates. As for me, I guess I am resigned to my passenger seat. Even though Rick is driving I am driving too. You know how that goes?
There seems to be less traffic. Maybe it’s due to the higher gas prices. We certainly are seeing very few motor homes on the road. We hope to make it to mid-Nebraska today. We’ll see how much the detour slows us down.
That’s it for now. Have to return to my job as co-pilot. Maybe more later if I get bored ...
My sister left yesterday and I accompanied her into NYC on the train. We parted there: she to make her connection to the train that would take her home to North Carolina; while I went on to meet fellow blogger Lettuce, who was visiting from across the pond—London. This was my second trip into the city this week as my sister and I came in to shop on Monday. Now that I am proficient at taking the train I wonder why I haven’t done it by myself before? (Kim, if you are reading I see a day in the city headed our way this summer!)
I’m sure you’ve seen Lettuce’s comments on this blog. I love her photography and her writing style. While she lives in a gorgeous brick mid-late Victorian terrace house in London, I live in a center hall Colonial house on 4 acres in rural, small-town New Jersey. She takes scads of photos of buildings and other other city related subjects, while I focus on nature and countryside. A perfect yin and yang. Plus, we share the mutual grief of us both losing our mothers last year. Tough stuff, that. She had many wonderful words of wisdom to share with me after the death of my mom.
It’s a bit strange meeting a fellow blogger. Strange in a good way, that is. You already “know” them from sharing your separate lives through blogging, so it’s not like meeting a stranger, yet you’ve never met them face-to-face before. I am not a very out-going sort of person. I probably talk more and share more information about myself through my blog than I do on a daily basis with people I know. I am actually kind of shy. So it was a pretty big leap for me, but I did not want to miss meeting her. Who knew if the opportunity would ever present itself again?
We had arranged to meet at the Penn Station entrance at Madison Square Garden. She actually found me first even though I was looking all around. We decided to walk up to Central Park and chat along the way since she had not been there yet and might not get the opportunity to before she left. I was amazed at what she had seen and done over the two days that she’d been in the city. A food and cultural tour of Greenwich Village, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and viewing the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Empire State Building (that very morning before she met me.) After our brief visit she was meeting her friend at MOMA and taking the Circle line boat tour of the harbor in the evening. Today she met up with more fellow bloggers and more sights. All of these things I have yet to do!
The weather this week has been absolutely glorious with sunny, warm days. Not a cloud marred the skyline. Just beautiful. A perfect day for walking.
Central Park was lovely. The trees are just coming into leaf with that new “spring green” color. People were out enjoying the above-normal-temperature day. We grabbed a hot dog from a Sabrett vendor and then sat down on some rock outcroppings for a bit.
Funny, I had always thought by her blog name (Lettuce-Eating) that she was vegetarian. Not so at all! If I had read her blog entries from the beginning I would have known where the title came from (sorry, Letty!). Not because she was a vegetarian at all, but because when she started the blog she was having difficulties sleeping and therefore ate LETTUCE for the sleep promoting qualities found in tryptophan. Note: (I have always called her Letty which, of course, is not her real name. I won’t reveal her real name here, but suffice it to say I had a hard time calling her by her “real” name. How silly!)
All too soon it was time for me to head back to catch my off-peak train. We parted with a kiss and a hug. I am so glad we had the chance to meet. Now reading her blog will have so much more meaning having met her in person. I hope she has a wonderful time with the rest of her trip, meeting up with old friends and other fellow bloggers. I can’t wait to read her blog on her return and see all the fab photos she took of everything she saw. I love seeing things through other people’s eyes. It’s fascinating; as is this land of blogdom. How very wonderful.
I’ve been struggling with the letter “F” and finally decided to go back to Mexico again. These photos were taken at a roadside stand in Tulum, Mexico.
You don’t mind if we go back and visit Mexico again, do you? I still have things to share with you.
After we left our all-inclusive luxury resort we headed down the Mayan Riviera to Tulum. Our destination was an eco-friendly cabana-style hotel: La Zebra. We were supposed to leave early afternoon and arrive before dark, but it didn’t work out that way. We found ourselves driving in very unfamiliar territory in the dark. After a harrowing drive down a pothole-filled road, passing hotel after hotel without any lighted signs, the brightly-lit neon sign of La Zebra was a welcome sight. It wasn’t obvious where to check in, but we followed a sandy path illuminated only by candle sconces and eventually figured it out. We were soon settled in our little cabana: Number 6.
A short while after settling in our stomachs told us it was time to eat, so we walked the sand path to the cantina-style restaurant on the hotel grounds. The open-air room was already bustling with people. We soon realized that they drew many people from nearby hotels that did not have eateries on their grounds. And after we had finished a delicious meal we knew why! What could be more relaxing that enjoying an authentic Mexican repast with the music of the waves crashing against the beach in the background? Here is what it looked like in daylight.
Since we arrived in the dark we really had no idea what our cabana looked like on the outside. We couldn’t tell much from the dim light emitted by the sconces that lit the pathways, and our room key with a small flashlight attached didn’t help overly much either. Ours was one of nine little cabanas tucked into the palms in a row (the bright blue one). I liked how ours had a palm tree growing through the thatch on the porch.
Inside it was a work of art; from paintings on the walls to the beautiful stone work in the bathroom. Take a look.
There were other works of art scattered all around the grounds. Lovely carved ladies held lanterns and posed by menu boards.
Carved wooden heads rested in the soft sand.
Sand was everywhere. On our porch there was a foot bath for rinsing off our feet before entering the cabana, allowing us to track in as little sand as possible. We quickly “went native” and abandoned any thoughts of wearing shoes again while on the hotel grounds and simply went barefoot—everywhere. Even in the cantina. Everyone else did. When we left my feet rebelled against putting on shoes again after being so liberated.
Paradise did have a few downfalls. Being “eco-friendly” meant our hotel had a limited supply of electricity. No hair dryers were allowed. We did have 24-hour electric which is rare on this stretch of beach since they have to generate what they use. Sitting in the cantina you could hook up with wireless internet service. The big downfall was the toilet paper. You were not allowed to put any paper whatsoever in the toilets because of their septic tank system. This is not fun! Each cabana had their own hot water system fueled by a small propane tank. Wouldn’t you know that when we got up on Monday to take our showers before leaving for the airport our propane bottle was empty. No hot water = no shower. In such a sand-filled environment we had to leave feeling gritty and sticky. No one was up at that hour of the morning to help us.
Unfortunately our time at La Zebra was very short. Arriving on Saturday evening, we only had Sunday for enjoying and exploring before we had to head back early in the morning on Monday to catch our flight. Originally we were to spend several days there, but due to conflicting business meetings for Rick it just didn’t work out. So, with such a short amount of time we had to choose between just relaxing on the beach or exploring the Mayan ruins at Tulum, which are the only ruins situated on the Caribbean Sea.
Since the weather was iffy and overcast, we chose to see the ruins in the morning and come back and relax around La Zebra in the afternoon. In my next post I will share photos of the ruins, but for now I will include some beach shots taken that afternoon around the hotel.
I wish we could have spent an entire day relaxing around the beach and the hotel. The food was absolutely wonderful. One dish, a fish soup, was prepared table-side by tossing a very hot rock into a large bowl and letting the heat from the rock cook the soup.
We agreed that next time we would do the hotels the other way around. First the rather primitive environment of a hotel like La Zebra, followed by the pampering luxury of a hotel like Dreams Cancun. All in all, Cancun and the Mayan Riviera are places I could return to over and over again.
Some of you may be bored by these photos, but I really want to capture them in my blog. And who knows, you might be inspired to stay there on your vacation after seeing them!
Here is the hotel proper, both inside walkways and outside views.
The dolphin pool side.
The ocean side where our room was.
Walkways and hallways.
The grounds. The salt water “pool” and the fresh water pool with the swim-up bar.
The bar next to the beach had swings for seats.
One of the beaches.
The lighthouse.
The pier.
Views on the ocean side.
Flowers.
The photo below is actually of one of the sand ashtrays throughout the hotel. It was someone’s job to empty them, rake the sand flat and clean, then stamp them with the hotel’s logo—a shell. A bit of local trivia here: a shell symbol was used in Mayan mathematics as the glyph for 0.
