Jeff Billimek’s Journal

Being that it was a Friday today, Jen had off from work. I’m pretty jealous that she gets a three-day weekend.

During work today we did some more DB2 table reorg work. It was a long-running task so it went a long longer than normal and indeed was not supposed to be complete until around 6pm this evening.

This afternoon I attended an extremely painful meeting about interfaces between systems. It boiled down to a difference of opinion and as a result, things are going to be very hard on many levels. The main source of my frustration is rooted in the fact that we can’t get anyone to make a hard decision, so instead we seem to flounder. But that aside, it is definitely a learning process to deal with a solution that doesn’t seem ‘right’ but the one we have to do anyway. That is a hard thing to accept.

On my way out of the office I dropped Sameer off at the airport. He’s going to be in India for the next three weeks.

When I got home Jen and I made plans to go out to the grocery store for some supplies. However, I got paged by Brian to join a conference call at 6pm so I had to skip out on going to the store. Jen left without me.

I logged into work and joined the conference call. It lasted about an hour until everything was taken care of.

Jen accidentally left her wallet at home so she came by to get it so she can pay for the groceries. I went with her this time and we paid for the groceries and came home. Before we left I bought a lottery ticket.

After we got home, Jen made salad and a wonderful tofu curry with garbonzo beans for dinner. It was quite tasty!

Before bed we watched two episodes of Alias.

Our flight today wasn’t until 10:45am so we didn’t have to get up super-early this morning. After I woke up and got ready, I had an ‘eggie’ for breakfast.

Jen packed up the night before so we were pretty ready to go. I grabbed my backpack (with camera and laptop inside) and we drove down to the airport.

We parked, and checked in. The airport was mostly empty which was nice. We also ended up getting first class seats (1A and 1B) on our short flight to Milwaukee. The extra room of first class and the added bonus of the seats being bulkhead meant that it was a delight to work on my laptop during the flight. I used my laptop the entire flight and loved it!

After we landed and deplaned, we picked up our rental car - a Toyota with a sticky accelerator. Jen called up her Mom who was already here with Scott. They were at a mall about fifteen minutes north of the airport. Scott flew directly from Hawaii (via Japan) and needed to buy some clothes.

We met them at the mall and headed out for some lunch at a nearby noodle restaurant. It was pretty good. Scott told us about his brief time in Honolulu. He didn’t care for it much because it seemed way too commercialized. I don’t blame him. What I’ve seen of Honolulu I wasn’t too impressed with.

After lunch we drove to the B&B. It was very nice. The actual cottage that we had to ourselves was originally built in the 1860’s and used to be a gardener’s house but it had been expanded and modernized to an extent. The rate was more expensive then we thought it would be but we didn’t change our plans.

The weather outside today was absolutely wonderful. It was sunny and mostly clear outside and the cottage has a nice garden and covered patio that we could use at our leisure - if we weren’t going to the wedding that is.

It was a bit odd that this B&B didn’t include breakfast. Instead there was some milk and cereal in the kitchen and that was it. We didn’t stick around too long. Scott took a shower and we all got dressed for the wedding. I wore dressy khaki shorts that Jen recently bought me, a light long-sleeved button-up shirt, and sandals.

We drove to the wedding location, which was at Theresa’s parents’ house. We parked in a converted field as a parking lot. After a short walk down the long driveway, we visited with people and waited for the wedding to start.

Eventually it was time for us all to be seated. The ceremony for Dan & Theresa’s wedding was being held outside on the large farm-like field. Chairs were set up with a pond in the background behind the altar/podium. A lot of people were in attendance (about 150-200 people).

It was sunny and hot outside so the ceremony wasn’t as pleasant as I would normally have expected. I also had some trouble hearing the vows since we were so far away in the back.

The ceremony was a bit long since there was a reading and two songs, but it seemed quite nice since it was outdoors and the weather was cooperative.

(Dan and Theresa)

After the ceremony we all walked through the receiving line and had some appetizers over the next hour. I took some photos since a lot of Jen’s family was there including her cousins Brian and Kevin, and her aunt Sandy.

(Scott got this photo of Jen and I)

Eventually we made our way to a gigantic tent outside and found a table. This is where we spent the rest of the day and evening during the reception. We had some wine and food. Instead of bringing gifts, people brought food and wine. I loved the potato salad.

Out of everyone at the wedding, I personally knew Jen, Scott, Jen’s Mom, Kevin, Lara, Kevin & Lara’s two kids (Matthew and Jessica), Brian, and his friend. It was a pretty large gathering actually.

(Jen by the pond)

Poor Scott was pretty jetlagged from flying in from Hawaii and went to go take a nap in the car. Eventually it started getting dark and the dancing began. I had a nice time, although with the darkness came colder temperatures so my knees and feet were pretty cold since they were exposed.

Eventually it was time for us to leave. Jen, who had more wine that I did, was pretty fixated on the pinwheel decorations on all of the tables and wanted to take some home. We ended up collecting a lot pinwheels to take back to Atlanta with us.

As we were leaving, we stayed to watch some fireworks that Kevin was beginning to set off. It was pretty fun.

We drove back to the B&B and went to bed. We were all pretty tired.

For dinner this evening Jen and I had home-made pizza (with the boboli crust). I actually made it while Jen supervised. The pizza was great. On Jen’s side we had spinach leaves, tomatoes, and cheese. On my side we had bacon, sun-dried tomatoes, pepperoni, and cheese.

We ate dinner while we watched the movie, ‘Closer‘. Jen liked it a lot. I didn’t care as much for it because it wasn’t a particularly ‘happy’ movie. Although life isn’t always happy and I think the movie was trying to show this. Some really bad thunderstorms came through this evening while we watched the movie.

Scott recently went on a business trip out of town (to Minnesota) and is scheduled to come back tonight. Jen’s Dad offered to pick him up at the airport as his flight was supposed to arrive around 7pm.

Unfortunately the severe weather caused his flight to be delayed. Jen and I were checking the status of his flight and passing along updates to her Dad who was near the airport.

When checking the flight status page, I saw an update go by that showed the flight being diverted. The page said to ‘look below for more info’. The next item down was showing Scott’s flight destination now somewhere in Brazil! This didn’t make any sense and we were thoroughly confused.

It turns out that the flight was diverted to Nashville but that was listed further-down the page. The same plane goes on to Brazil after it gets to Atlanta but the flight info display page showed thing out of order which made it confusing.

As it turns out, Scott eventually made it into Atlanta around midnight.

I had to work late today despite it being a Friday (things are pretty busy at work). Jen, who had the day off today, was a bit miffed because she had to go into work for a little while today.

However, when she was out, she stopped at Costco and bought some things including a few lamps (two table lamps, one floor lamp) that match our décor. They look great and I’m glad she got them. She also watched a ton of ‘Alias‘ while she was home. That show is addicting.

Scott was also home when I arrived. He’s staying with us for a while in the guest room until he gets his own place.

We all had plans to go out tonight to Loca Luna in Midtown. When we got there it was super crowded and very loud. Lynne and some of her friends arrived as did Katie, Chris, and Brad.

I spent a great deal of time catching up with Brad and chatting with World of Warcraft. He told me that he goes on Molten Core runs about 2-3 times a week. He also told me that each run (a raid group of 40 players) takes about 9-10 hours. Wow that’s a lot of time! I could never do that - which makes me ponder what content there is for someone like me in the end-game of World of Warcraft.

Jen and I didn’t care for Loca Luna. Not only was it incredibly loud, the food was overpriced and the Mojitos tasted like crap.

Afterwards a few of us went to a Starbucks on 14th street. It was much nicer and most importantly it was quiet enough that one could have a conversation.

Last night the remnants of hurricane Dennis came through our area. It was extremely windy and rainy all night long. I was actually pretty worried about the flagpole I recently mounted out front.

The last flagpole I had mounted to the side of the house was wooden with a hard plastic base. While Jen and I were in Canada, a similar hurricane came through and snapped the flagpole at the base. The plastic didn’t hold up. This new one has a base made out of metal but I was still worried. It turns out that it was fine and the metal base held up.

Along with the strong storm came a power outage. I don’t know exactly when it went out but I suspect sometime around 3am or so. I think I remember seeing a bright flash from the window out of the corner of my eye as it happened, but I’m not so sure. Whenever the power goes out we get woke up because the security alarm beeps really loud to let us know.

Jen woke me up at 6:30am. The power was still out. I had to check my pager to see what time it was. I couldn’t fall back asleep after that point because of the constant beeping from all of the UPS’s we have.

I put my robe on and went downstairs to the study to investigate. I turned on the laptop and had to physically hook it up to the router since the one upstairs (that handles all WiFi traffic) was shut down due to the UPS upstairs running out of power.

Once I was connected to the router (and thus the internet) I logged into the Georgia Power website and reported the outage. It actually gave an estimated time of repair for around 8:05am.

Using a candle I took a shower and got ready for work. The power came back on at around 8am. Their estimate was actually pretty good.

For fun, I did some analysis and determined the following:

-The UPS powering the Linux and XP desktops ran out of juice at 4:18am
-The UPS powering the TiVo and upstairs WiFi router ran out of juice at 4:35am
-The UPS powering the DSL modem and downstairs WiFi router never ran out of power.

It was difficult to tell exactly when the power went off because all of the UPS’s are ‘dumb’ UPS’s in that there is no data connection to a computer to log a loss of power.

Shortly after this I went to work and for some reason today went by way too fast and I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. I did find out that I have to get onto a conference call at 2am and do some work tonight.

Tonight we had dinner at Jen’s parents’ house. Jen drove and Scott came with us. We had salad, lasagna, tofu, and chicken. It was pretty good.

The absolute best though was the desert. Jen’s mom made some of the best pie I’ve ever had. It was a homemade from scratch blueberry pie and also a homemade from scratch blackberry pie. They were outstanding.

After dinner we headed back home (I drove). Before going to bed, I set my pager to wake me up at 1:50am.

Yesterday during the day I checked flights to Oakland, California. They didn’t look so good so I switched our plans to fly into San Francisco instead on the 8am flight.

Before going to bed last night I checked the flights again and the 8am flight to SFO didn’t look good at all. In fact, none of them really looked that good. I was pretty nervous.

As a result of this I had a hard time sleeping last night because I was so stressed about getting out to California tomorrow. I wish I didn’t get so stressed about these types of things.

Jen and I woke up at 5am and were out of the house by 6am - not bad! We drove to the airport and I dropped Jen off with the two bags to check. I parked at work and took the shuttle bus over to the airport and met Jen.

When I got to the airport I called Jen. She was waiting for me in the security line. It was interesting because when she first got in the line, there were hardly any people, but in the course of just about ten minutes, the line grew incredibly large. I suppose I was in the wrong when I complained previously about the Atlanta airport website being mis-informative with the security-line wait time. I guess it can change very quickly.

When we arrived at the gate, we checked the GIDS screen and saw that we were #6 and 7 on the standby list and there was only one seat left on the plane. Not a good sign.

We waited around and they actually called us up and said that there was one seat left if we wanted to split up. We declined but it didn’t matter anyway because a late-arriving ticketed passenger got that last seat anyway.

Once the flight closed out, the gate agent transferred us over to the next flight to SFO which was about 2.5 hours later (10:30am). Jen and I got some breakfast from Chick-Fil-A and watched ‘Shrek 2‘ on my laptop while we waited.

The movie wasn’t that great. I liked the first one better. For the 10:30am flight we both got on board but were two rows apart.

The four-hour flight to San Francisco seemed long. I listened to my iPod and read two of my ‘Digital Photography’ magazines. We finally arrived in SFO, deplaned, and got our luggage. Our luggage actually came with the 8am flight so we didn’t have to wait around for it, it was sitting in the baggage claim office.

I’ve never been to San Francisco before and the airport is a bit hard to navigate. We went through a labyrinth of maze-like corridors until we finally found the little train that took us to the Avis counter.

Our car was a mini-SUV, a Ford Escape. I don’t like it as much as my Explorer. Our route to Napa Valley took us over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty cool. I wanted to stop on the other side of the bridge to take some photos but I couldn’t figure out the right way to go and we sort of got lost.

Because we were on a tight schedule (being that we took a later flight), we scrapped the idea of stopping at the bridge and headed north.

During the drive I called up Jegan to check on things and render assistance with the code activation he is doing for production. I was actually able to help so that made me feel good.

We drove into Napa Valley and into the little town of St. Helena. Jen was extremely worried and agitated that we would be too late for our Beringer winery tour at 3:30pm. They had told her that we need to be there no later than 3:15pm and we didn’t arrive until about 3:35pm. To Jen’s relief there were no major problems and we made it to the tour on time.

It was a lot of fun touring Beringer. It’s a gigantic winery and has a lot of history. It’s also the oldest continuous operating winery in the valley.

We went through a cool grove of trees with tables underneath and a soft pine-much-like ground covering. I was impressed. Next, we saw the ancient caves that Chinese workers dug out a long time ago. This is where they keep oak barrels full of wine to age.

(Old caves)

Next we went into a large mansion-like place and toured all of the rooms. Our tour ended in a private wine-tasting room upstairs. It was pretty cool to have our own private wine tasting room with the rest of the tour (about 16 people). The wines were pretty good but nothing to write home about.

After the tour we stopped at the gift shop and bought a cool-looking map of the valley. We decided to ship it out to Jen’s aunt & uncle to be framed.

(I liked the effect of this photo of Jen next to the stained glass)

Next we drove to the restaurant which was actually very close since we’re near St. Helena. The restaurant is called ‘Terra‘. Our reservations were for 6:30pm and we got there at 5:30pm. They were not seating people until 6pm so we walked around for about 45 minutes and came back. While we were walking around, we stopped at a little drugstore and bought some postcards to mail out.

When we got back to the restaurant (Terra) we were seated. It was very charming inside. There were two giant racks of wine bottles along one wall and it looked very cool.

Jen and I ordered a bottle of wine and had a selection of cheeses for an appetizer. For dinner we each had a salad and split a fish entrée from the menu.

The cheese and wine went together wonderfully. There was one cheese in particular that had peppercorns inside that I loved. The main course was filling despite the fact that we split it. The little salads turned out to be $24 each (it was a special not on the menu). I think it’s pretty crazy for a small salad to be $24. As a result, it was a pretty expensive dinner but that’s what we expected so it wasn’t such a shock.

After dinner we stopped at a Safeway to buy some bottled water for the room as well as some granola bars and some oatmeal for breakfast. We drove to the hotel in Yountville (25 minute drive).

Once we got there it was fairly late. We checked in and went to our room. It was actually a very nice hotel (Yountville Inn). We got a good rate too, only $150/night.

Jen and I unpacked, unwinded, and then went to bed. It had been a pretty long day.

It’s amazing how quickly our time here has gone by. Today is our last day in Napa Valley. We woke up early and checked out of the Yountville Inn hotel. As we were checking out we discovered that they have breakfast in the lobby for the guests. Too bad we didn’t know about that beforehand!

Our only wine tour today was the Pride Mountain vineyards. Larry gave this place a ton of praise so we were pretty stoked to be going there. It’s a small winery and is by appointment only.

Pride Mountain, as the name would suggest, is a small mountain near the valley. The drive led us along a pleasant winding road up a mountain near St. Helena. It took us a while to get there due to the remoteness of the location.

The grounds of Pride Mountain were quite beautiful and it was fun to see a mountainside winery instead of the ones we’re used to seeing. When we entered the winery the first thing we saw was merchandise all over the place. I expected this at Beringer, but it was a bit of a surprise to see here at this small winery.

(The grounds of Pride Mountain are picturesque)

The guy actually doing the tasting greeted us and asked if we had an appointment. We told him our names and he checked his little book to make sure. Jen and I were under the impression that we had an actual wine touring appointment at 11am. It turns out that they don’t do tours. Oops. It also turns out that we were there about 45 minutes early. This seemed to really distress the guy because we were there before our scheduled tasting time. Apparently he was quite worried that things would get really crazy if anyone else showed up. I looked around and saw only two other people there. The guy reluctantly agreed to let us commence with the tasting.

So instead of the non-existent tour, we did the wine tasting. The Pride Mountain wines were pretty good, albeit pricey. We tasted the following wines:

Pride Mountain 1991 Merlot - It definitely tasted like old wine and had a lot of complexity.
Pride Mountain 2003 Merlot - I liked this better than the 1991.
Pride Mountain 2003 Chardonnay - We liked this one this best of all the wines we tasted here.
Pride Mountain 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon - It was ‘ok’, not enough depth.

The guy didn’t pay much attention to us (maybe we didn’t look like we would be buying any wine) and in the middle of our tasting, some guys showed up looking for the owner of the winery. I think they were distributors. The wine tasting guy told them that the owner was out of town but invited them to a tasting (I guess they were exceptions to the appointment-only list). He was more than happy to converse with them and spend time with them.

Jen and I liked the Chardonnay the best and decided to get a bottle for Larry and Amy since they like this winery so much. Although our personally experience wasn’t that great - it might have been related to the chilly reception we got from the wine tasting guy.

Before we left, we walked around the grounds a bit. The winery is pretty to look at and we stopped for a bit on the top of a hill to take in the sights.

After this, we left Pride Mountain (probably for the last time) and drove back towards St. Helena. It was still early enough before lunch that we decide to pop into Silver Oak Cellars for a tasting.

Our drive took us down the same road as last night to the Silver Oak winery. We parked and went inside. The tasting was pleasant enough. Silver Oak is pretty notorious for their Cabernets (I think their slogan is, ‘Life is a Cabernet’). We first tried their 2002 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Next we tried the 2002 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Despite being the cheaper of the two, Jen and I preferred the Alexander Valley cab. We decided to buy a bottle. To our delight, they also gave us two free wine glasses with our purchase - pretty cool.

It was getting closer to lunch time so we headed towards our lunch destination: Mustards Grill. Mustards Grill is close to Yountville and we had 1:30pm reservations. We got there around 1pm and the place was super packed. We waited and waited but ended up having to wait until around 1:30pm to be seated anyhow.

Mustards Grill was probably my favorite restaurant of the entire Napa trip. I had a lot of wine already today so I passed on wine at lunch, but Jen (who wasn’t driving) ordered a sampler of three wines. She had:

2003 Unti Grenache - very sweet
2003 Cline Mourvedre - spicy but also much better after breathing for ten minutes
2002 Neyus Syrah - medium-body, fruity & vanilla

Lunch was great. The food wasn’t as ‘fancy’ as all of the other places we’ve been so it was a nice change of pace.

After a long and enjoyable lunch we began the road-trip portion of our journey. Our vacation is actually in three phases: 1) Napa Valley, 2) Pacific Coast Highway (and Hearst Castle) to San Diego, and 3) Cabo.

Our drive took us from Napa Valley down to San Francisco. This time we DID stop at the Golden Gate Bridge. Back in Napa it was sunny and HOT. At the Golden Gate Bridge it was cloudy and quite cold!

I didn’t bring anything for cold weather except for a sports coat that Jen bought for me from Banana Republic. I looked a bit silly with my shorts and tennis shoes with the tan sports coat but at least I was warm.

(What an outfit!)

We hung around the park overlooking the bridge for about thirty minutes. It was pretty windy from the ocean breeze. We took a lot of photos and had a generally great time. It was fun to be outside in the invigorating air.

After our fun time at the bridge, we headed into San Francisco and got on California Stat Route 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway). We stayed on this road all day, passing through San Francisco. I wasn’t as impressed with the city as I thought it would be, but maybe we didn’t see the right parts.

Beyond San Francisco along the coastline-hugging route 1 I was a bit bummed because there was a perpetual fog all along the coastline. I had expected it to be nice and sunny and great out so I was a little let down.

We stopped at a couple of beaches to stretch our legs and take in the sights. It was still a little cold probably due to our proximity to the ocean.

(Jen and I having a self-portrait with the help of the Sigma 15mm fisheye lens)

The rest of the day we drove down the small highway until, eventually we got hungry. We decided to stop in Monterey for some dinner. We randomly got off at an exit but didn’t like the neighborhood so we went on a few miles and tried again. We lucked out as it was a nice area and we ended up going into a mall-like area similar to Perimeter Mall here in Atlanta.

Jen and I saw a California Pizza Kitchen and had dinner there. I mistakenly ordered their raspberry lemonade. It was so sweet that I couldn’t drink it! I ordered a glass of water and another cup so I could cut it with some water.

Jen and I split a pizza and had a salad too. After dinner we stopped by Starbucks for some coffee for Jen.

We drove on beyond Monterey down route 1 it started to get dark and more and more sparse. In Monterey we were at a quarter tank of gas and I should have filled up there but I assumed we would find at least one gas station along the way. How wrong I was.

The darker it got, it seemed that the road got more and more treacherous. Eventually it was pitch-black outside and there were absolutely no signs of civilization around. All I could see was the little area in front of the car illuminated by the headlights and the billowing fog pouring over the road.

At the same time it became acutely concerning that we had a situation with the lack of gas in the car. I had Jen check the map and all we saw for the foreseeable future were tiny little dots for a few towns sprinkled down the PCH. As the low fuel light had already come on, I was banking on the idea that one of these towns would have a gas station.

Only one of these towns did have a gas station and it was closed. Not good. We had no choice but to continue on in hopes that we could find a gas station before the car ran out of gas.

So, for what seemed like the next three hours we continued down the pitch-black winding road perched on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The only way we knew that we were close to the ocean was the presence of a couple of light houses along the way. It was definitely rural and isolated out here.

I didn’t know what we were going to do if we ran out of gas since there wasn’t really anywhere to go and it was simply too dark outside. I didn’t think we had any chance of making the little town where our hotel is since it seemed too far away.

By Zeus’s beard we somehow made it to that little town without running out of gas. The little town was full of run-down looking hotels. Indeed there was nothing else there, not even a gas station! It was pretty aggravating to not find a gas station, but we were both quite tired.

It was around 11:30pm when we rolled into our hotel and checked in. It was a ‘quality inn‘ and I think cost us around $120 for the night. The place was anything but ‘quality’. Indeed, there was a large sign in the lobby put up by the state of California warning everyone that this hotel contains chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects.

(You can’t even fabricate these kinds of things)

We didn’t have much choice so we checked in and went to our room. In order to have ‘air conditioning’ we had to open the sliding glass door to let some air in. I can’t recommend this place for anyone looking to secure lodging near the Hearst castle.

Jen was pretty disgusted with the whole thing and just wanted to go to bed. We gingerly moved around the hotel room trying desperately not to stir up any of the ‘cancer casing chemicals’ and tentatively climbed into bed to fall asleep to the sounds of some vagrants loitering around outside (since our sliding glass door was open).

After a comfortable night’s sleep, Jen and I woke up refreshed at 6:30am. We showered, dressed, and packed up for our trip down to Cabo in the southern-tip of the Baja peninsula in Mexico.

We decided to pack up our stuff in the larger suitcase and leave our smaller one behind at Larry and Amy’s house.

Amy was running around all over the house giving last-minute instructions to her mother who will be remaining behind to help watch the three kids. Jenny, the babysitter will also be helping. Actually I think that Jenny will be doing most of the work.

Larry had already left early this morning to go into work. Amy, Jen, and I packed up our rental car (from Napa) and headed out. We dropped the rental car off at the airport but only after I realized that I forgot to fill the car up with gas. I didn’t take the fuel option and as a result, it was around $50 extra for the gas. I was pretty upset at this.

Amy anticipated long lines at the airport based on her experience the last time they went to Cabo. It turns out that we didn’t have any trouble today. We went through the check-in line rather quickly. Larry met us while we waited in line.

The people in front of us did not have a passport or birth certificate and it looked as if they would not be able to go but it seems that (with NorthWest Airlines at least) they can pay a notary public to write something which will allow them to go. This is interesting. No passport required.

The security line was also short so we had some time to kill. We bought some food from California Pizza Kitchen to take on the plane. We also got some drinks from Starbucks.

The four of us made our way to the gate and eventually boarded. It’s strange to be flying as a paying passenger. No dress code to follow. Indeed, I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis-shoes.

The flight from San Diego down to Cabo was short. It was only 1.75 hours. As we flew into Cabo I saw a vast desert-like area. We deplaned and got our bags.

(Walking from the plane to the terminal)

Before one can leave the airport, they must pass through customs. They way the Mexican government does customs here in Cabo is that they have a big traffic-light looking thing with a button on the front. Everyone walks up and presses the button. It will either light up green or red. If it lights up red, you must submit to be searched.

Larry and Amy went through and the random button things gave them a red light. Next Jen and I walked up and I pressed the button. It flashed red with a loud buzzing noise. Larry thought this was pretty funny and had a good laugh. The customs worker simply looked inside our suitcase to make sure that there was mostly clothes and let us on our way.

Once we exited the customs area we were assaulted by people offering to drive us anywhere. It was to the point such that they were overbearing. Eventually we found our true driver (for ‘Exclusive Resorts‘) who led us to a suburban and we headed out.

The drive from the airport to the resort was about thirty-minutes long. The entire area was desert-like until we reached the resort. The resort was very lush and vegetated. It’s also on the coastline along with all of the other resorts.

After passing through a couple of checkpoints, we were inside the main resort area with the villas and the driver dropped us off at our villa. Inside was the concierge lady to greet us. Larry and Amy had been here before around Mother’s Day so they already knew the details so the concierge lady didn’t wait around too long. She had prepared the house with music playing throughout all of the rooms. It was a fun touch.

Jen and I were simply blown away by how large and breathtaking the villa is. Everything was high-quality workmanship and materials (large solid hard-wood doors throughout the house for example). Outside of the main house in the entrance courtyard is another small guest house.

Inside the main villa is a large living-room area with a dining room and kitchen. There are also three bedrooms. Larry and Amy took the larger master bedroom while Jen and I took the smaller one. We had a king-size bed that sat tall with a large tailed walk-in shower containing a rainfall showerhead. As I write about this place I think back to how impressive it was.

(The room where Jen and I slept)

Outside in the rear of the house was a covered patio with a dining-table and a private area next to each bedroom. There was also a pool and hot tub. Next to the pool was a gazebo dining area and an outdoor grill. It is a really cool place.

We quickly unpacked and changed into our swimsuits. The four of us piled into the house golf cart and headed down to the beach club place. The beach club is also very cool. It’s apart of the resort (Esperanza) but only for villa owners; another beach club is a little further down the beach but is only for the resort guests.

At the beach club is an open-air gym with a view of the ocean, a grill and small restaurant, and of course the pool and beach access. Only a few other people were there. We grabbed some chairs overlooking the ocean and sat out to collect some sunshine. We ordered some chips and salsa and drinks. I ordered a mojito. It was very tasty. I think I ordered one more before we eventually left.

Larry and I walked down to the rocky beach and looked around but eventually went back to where our chairs were (as well as Amy and Jen). We stayed there a few hours before heading back to the villa around 5pm.

Jen and I grabbed a shower in the really cool shower. It is a lot of fun - I wish we had one of those at home. We changed into some nicer clothes and headed back out to have dinner at the nice resort restaurant.

It was pretty cool showing up to the restaurant in our golf cart because they valet-parked it just like a car. From the looks of it we were the first ones there and got what I think was the best seat in the entire place. The restaurant is nestled on some terraced cliffs overlooking the ocean. Our table was on a protruding circular terrace place with an awesome view.

(Our table at dinner)

Dinner was wonderful. We had two bottles of wine and a nice meal. We took our time and talked and enjoyed the evening. As to be expected, dinner at such a nice place was expensive. It was about $370 total for all of us.

(Jen having a great time at dinner)

After dinner we walked over to a bar at another part of the resort. We all had a drink and talked for a while. Afterwards we walked back over to the restaurant, collected our golf cart and drove back to the villa.

Once back at the house, we changed into swimsuits and went swimming in the pool in the back and then sat in the hot tub. What a wonderful day!

Today we woke up (without an alarm of course) around 8am. I worked on my laptop so I could take some notes for my journal. I also utilized the remote desktop feature to log into home and work on MS Money to keep an eye of the checkbook. I’ve found that it is much easier to spend a little time on it every few days instead of waiting weeks and trying to consolidate all of the info then.

This morning we were blessed with another freshly-cooked breakfast from Anna. Today we had some sort of enchiladas, bacon, beans, quesadillas (with the good goat-cheese again), a fruit tray, freshly-squeezed orange juice, and coffee. It was a very tasty breakfast.

Amy wanted to go to the beach club early today so I took her and Larry over there in the golf cart but came back to the villa. Jen and I hung out at the villa for a bit before we also left for the beach club. As we drove up to the beach club place I took the corner too quickly and Jen’s bag flew out of the golf cart. Jen wasn’t too happy with me as a result.

This time I worked out with Jen in the gym. She was on the elliptical machine and I was on the treadmill. I did about 20-25 minutes of cardio and then hit the weights. The workout facility is really cool. In addition to all of the equipment, one wall was opened-up to the outside affording an incredible view of palm-trees and the ocean beyond.

It felt great to work out again. I did chin-ups and dips on one machine and also did some leg work on another machine. Afterwards, while Jen was wrapping up, I took some photos of the facility since it has such a great view.

(Jen working out at the cool gym)

Once Jen finished, we both changed and headed down to the pool. We took a dip in the pool to cool off. It felt great to be in the water. Afterwards we laid out in the sun. I read my magazine and listened to the iPod - it was quite enjoyable!

After a while of leisurely laying in the sun, we decided to have lunch at the beach club. Today I had the fish tacos and they were excellent! The fish was very fresh and we had a nice sauce to go with it. I had a mojito with my lunch.

(Jennifer and Amy at lunch)

A little later on we went back to the villa. Once there we played around in the pool for a bit. Sometime later in the late afternoon we packed up a bottle of wine and walked over to the beach club again to see what it is like at sunset.

When we got there they were close to closing so we had some dinner as soon as we arrived. Once again I had the excellent fish tacos - I liked them so much I had them again. I also ordered a mojito which was quite excellent.

We brought along the bottle of wine and at first had some trouble getting them to open it. They said that they can only sell bottles and not open any bottles that we bring along. Eventually they gave in and opened it for us. The wine and dinner were quite good and we had a great time.

After dinner we laid out by the pool again in the waning sun. Larry and I took some photos with the setting sun light conditions. It put a whole new perspective on the scene with the different light.

(Jen and Amy in the pool near sunset)

The girls walked along the beach, collecting shells, for a while. Larry and I joined them. We hung out there for a while.

(Jen collecting shells)

I had the fisheye lens on my camera and got a shot that I think is my favorite from the whole trip. The Sigma 15mm fisheye lens continues to amaze me. Amy found a jellyfish-looking thing and held it out in front of her. I opened-up the aperture on the fisheye and got really close to the object she held out and composed the shot with her in the background. Despite her being just a couple of feet away, she was all blurred and the focus was strictly on the jellyfish. The result looked cool.

Eventually we walked back to the villa. On the way back we stopped at a bar at another part of the resort. We all had a drink and then continued on.

Jen and I went to bed earlier than usual today. It was a really good day.