Another lovely Monday….
So things have been good but busy lately – this weekend was supposed to be a lot of things, but turned out the main focus of it unfortunately was that my car broke down on the way to Houston – really it wasn’t quite so bad except the water pump decided to crap out so I was stranded in 100+ degree heat for a couple of hours in the middle of nowhere so my Mam had to come pick me up! It literally wouldn’t hold any water to cool the engine, so I would drive a couple miles and have to pull over b/c it was reheating, then wait for a half hour for it to cool or so (all the while sweating my brains out) and fill it up with water and run to the driver’s side to get every drop out of it I could – kind of comical except it wasted much of Friday, and I didn’t get to spend Saturday at all with Curt as he and my dad went to go get it… ugh! I guess that’s how life happens sometimes but messed up all of our other weekend plans…
Other than that, been working, hitting the gym and keeping the house OCD clean – we had a showing on Saturday with the following feedback “buyer loved this house but it faces west,” – ugh! Double frustrating as yes, it does face west but that’s only an issue for some if they want to be in those rooms at night, which I promise Curt and I are never in the front of the house – people live in the living room and kitchen! So that sucks, but we just have to find that one person who doesn’t care that the house faces west or realizes that you don’t spend a lot of your time in the formal living and dining area… sigh… Curt brought up a great point in that at least we’re not exposed to the north for some of these high winds we get all the time, so hopefully someone will be smart enough to point this out if they’re really worried about direction of the house…
Other than that this week is going to be a true effort to wake up early in the morning to work out – ALMOST happened this morning but I rationalized in my head that pilates tonight at the gym would be a better work out to gear me up for some cardio tomorrow morning – I’m going to have to get a wake up call I think! This will free my nights up immensely if I can just do this for the first week or so to get in the habit…. Anyone feel free to call me at 6 a.m. on weekdays only, but no Fridays! A girl has to have her limits…
Anyway, back to work but wanted to check in! p.s. We have our flights to London booked! I’m coming from Sept. 28 – Oct. 9th and Curt and my mom are coming from Oct. 4th to the 9th! Whoop! It’s going to be a blast… before Curt and my mom come over Vicki, Jo and myself are going to take a girls trip to Prague… LOVE IT! So that’s what I’m looking forward to, and it will be here before we all know it!
Speaking of… does everyone know it’s the end of July? How did this happen???
xx
Monday, July 24, 2006
Monday, July 17, 2006
Can someone please pass a bed?
Ok, so overly dramatic but I really am quite exhausted… last week was same ol’ same ol’ really, though I did have some good luck with Craig’s List which was pretty exciting! A colleague at work had mentioned I use it to try and sell some of our stuff that we don’t want to move, so I did and have everything sold! The only think left to go is the aquarium which someone is coming by for tonight – this one will be the most sad… can’t bear to give Ariel and Lily away but hopefully this guy will give them a good home.
Went to the gym a lot as well which was great, and by Wednesday Curt and I forced ourselves into deciding our plans for the weekend – there were several options, each of which required someone or both to drive forever so we opted for the most fun sounding – going camping in Austin to go float the Guadalupe River! This has to be done annually anyway so we thought we may as well get it out of the way and also kill two other birds – going to Leslie and Brent’s 10th anniversary celebration in Luckenbach (yes, from the song) and also spending some time with Curtis & Judy on Sunday afternoon. So it was a fun and very tiring weekend – Curt and I drove into Austin separately and met at the campsite on Friday night with the others who were there (Jeff, Tatiana, Jonathan, Patrick, Sylvia, Sam, Andrea and her sisters). I was so beat that by midnight I crashed in our “3000 square foot tent” that the guys gave us for the wedding. It was so hot that I slept on top of the sleeping bags, and Curt was just so giddy to spend some time with his buds that he got nice and tipsy and came crawling in at 3 a.m. or so! Haha – he doesn’t do this very often so was pretty comical… we slept until the sun started to shine through our tent (approximately 6:30 a.m. and from then on it was too hot to sleep so we were up for the day). Had some great breakfast tacos (man, that sounds good – just figured out what I’ll eat for dinner!) and somehow we didn’t actually make it on the river until noon – how did this happen, I’m not sure but we were boiling by the time we lowered our tubes into the wonderfully cool river… what made it not as fun as it typically is was how PACKED it was – I have never in my life seen the river so jam packed full of people and tubes. Literally we got in the water, looked down river and you couldn’t see a speck of water, just thousands of people. So no room to swim really like I normally like to do, but the company was good, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches courtesy of Sylvia’s Culinary Delights were great, and 3.5 hours later we were slightly crispier (& toastier) and crawling out! A mishap along the way however, was that Curt informed me that somehow he had lost his keys… of all the things you do not want to lose on the river, you do not want to lose your keys b/c they are gone! Of course I was ridiculously mad but seethed to myself for a bit and got over it 10 long minutes later… it all worked out ok, when we got to the cars we called a locksmith so 45 minutes and $85 later we were in business with a key! In the meantime, we actually all had a ton of fun as Patrick was pretty toasty and dancing like a nut for the world to see – it was hilarious! Haha!!
So Curt and I split from the group and hopped in his truck (I had left my car at Sylvia’s) to get over to Luckenbach to meet up with my fam and Ashley’s fam for the ceremony (which we of course missed but that’s ok). So we got there, said hello and congrats, met my fam for dinner for an AMAZING chicken fried steak – yum – then went back to the hotel to rest for a bit until Ash called for us to meet them for dessert in Fredericksburg. So Mom, Dad, Curt and I went walking through the quaint little town of Fredericksburg (all closed down at 9 p.m.) and then got to spend some time with Ash, TJ, Cody, Miss Cindy, Chandler and Shelby. Was a blast – Cody is as cute as ever and not only did he SAY my name, he SCREAMED it over and over under the table (we had been playing a peek-a-boo game) so that was thrilling for me – he knows who I am! Haha… after we finished hanging out and all were ready for bed we went back to the hotel were Curt and I camped out on the floor (in our sleeping bags in a very small space)!
The next morning we woke up and celebrated Mom’s 50th Birthday for a bit (is today – Happy Birthday, Mom!) and gave her the iPod Kendyl and I chipped in for, and headed on out to retrieve my car and head onto Giddings (didn’t I say tour of Texas or what?). There we spent some time looking at the progress of Curtis & Judy’s amazing new house that Curtis has essentially built with his own two hands (only outsourced the Air Conditioning and rock) so it’s coming along very nicely, but what is more is the view of the spread… wow is it gorgeous out there even it was hotter than blazes! Kendyl also had one of her new guns (she’s in a skeet shooting competition so felt compelled to buy a rifle) out to practice with so she and I and the boys all had fun practicing, and guess what?! Turns out I’m a leftie when it comes to shooting a gun… amazing to me that I’ve always been a pretty great shot but I have always noticed that I had to compensate for my arms being short, the gun being too big, etc. So I guess I was firing and seeing where it hit, and then compensating the gun to my line of sight to shoot, when really all I needed to do was switch sides! So my Dad, Curtis, and Curt got me all set up with my new leftie stance, and low and behold I blew the can away on the first shot! Kendyl is pretty great, too – she was getting some of the moving “clays” that they were throwing for her (really trash from the pit but oh well, she shot them)! So that was fun… at about 4 p.m. we all said our goodbyes so we could get on the road to all different places… got some gas and headed out to Fort Worth and got home around 7:30 p.m. and greeted by a girl who wanted to take my gazelle off my hands. Was sad to part with it, but that was part of the deal, and tonight the guy who is buying the aquarium is coming over as well. This one has potential to be more messy, so I’m thinking we’ll go through the backyard with most of it… we’ll see how it goes!
My day has gotten better than how it started… I forgot to say at the top that ALSO why I’m so tired is b/c last night the power went out for 6 houses on my side of the street, so was talking to Curt on the phone in bed (excited b/c it was 10:30 and I was actually in bed!) and all of a sudden the power is out! I of course freaked out b/c I live by myself for the moment, so immediately thought someone was trying to come in to get me and had cut the power, so ran to get a flashlight and went out the front door – found several neighbors in the street as well… it was very much like a scene from a UFO movie where the lights go out, and then everyone comes out to the street and looks around in wonderment. So we were waiting and hoping that the lights would come back soon, but no, of course they didn’t until sometime mid-morning today SO I spent the night hot and camping in my own house – ugh! No a/c, no fan, not even a good light to read until I calmed down enough to sleep… so you can bet I will be trying to get to bed at a decent hour tonight!
Hope all is well with everyone, Happy Birthday again, Mom! I love you so much!!
xx
Went to the gym a lot as well which was great, and by Wednesday Curt and I forced ourselves into deciding our plans for the weekend – there were several options, each of which required someone or both to drive forever so we opted for the most fun sounding – going camping in Austin to go float the Guadalupe River! This has to be done annually anyway so we thought we may as well get it out of the way and also kill two other birds – going to Leslie and Brent’s 10th anniversary celebration in Luckenbach (yes, from the song) and also spending some time with Curtis & Judy on Sunday afternoon. So it was a fun and very tiring weekend – Curt and I drove into Austin separately and met at the campsite on Friday night with the others who were there (Jeff, Tatiana, Jonathan, Patrick, Sylvia, Sam, Andrea and her sisters). I was so beat that by midnight I crashed in our “3000 square foot tent” that the guys gave us for the wedding. It was so hot that I slept on top of the sleeping bags, and Curt was just so giddy to spend some time with his buds that he got nice and tipsy and came crawling in at 3 a.m. or so! Haha – he doesn’t do this very often so was pretty comical… we slept until the sun started to shine through our tent (approximately 6:30 a.m. and from then on it was too hot to sleep so we were up for the day). Had some great breakfast tacos (man, that sounds good – just figured out what I’ll eat for dinner!) and somehow we didn’t actually make it on the river until noon – how did this happen, I’m not sure but we were boiling by the time we lowered our tubes into the wonderfully cool river… what made it not as fun as it typically is was how PACKED it was – I have never in my life seen the river so jam packed full of people and tubes. Literally we got in the water, looked down river and you couldn’t see a speck of water, just thousands of people. So no room to swim really like I normally like to do, but the company was good, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches courtesy of Sylvia’s Culinary Delights were great, and 3.5 hours later we were slightly crispier (& toastier) and crawling out! A mishap along the way however, was that Curt informed me that somehow he had lost his keys… of all the things you do not want to lose on the river, you do not want to lose your keys b/c they are gone! Of course I was ridiculously mad but seethed to myself for a bit and got over it 10 long minutes later… it all worked out ok, when we got to the cars we called a locksmith so 45 minutes and $85 later we were in business with a key! In the meantime, we actually all had a ton of fun as Patrick was pretty toasty and dancing like a nut for the world to see – it was hilarious! Haha!!
So Curt and I split from the group and hopped in his truck (I had left my car at Sylvia’s) to get over to Luckenbach to meet up with my fam and Ashley’s fam for the ceremony (which we of course missed but that’s ok). So we got there, said hello and congrats, met my fam for dinner for an AMAZING chicken fried steak – yum – then went back to the hotel to rest for a bit until Ash called for us to meet them for dessert in Fredericksburg. So Mom, Dad, Curt and I went walking through the quaint little town of Fredericksburg (all closed down at 9 p.m.) and then got to spend some time with Ash, TJ, Cody, Miss Cindy, Chandler and Shelby. Was a blast – Cody is as cute as ever and not only did he SAY my name, he SCREAMED it over and over under the table (we had been playing a peek-a-boo game) so that was thrilling for me – he knows who I am! Haha… after we finished hanging out and all were ready for bed we went back to the hotel were Curt and I camped out on the floor (in our sleeping bags in a very small space)!
The next morning we woke up and celebrated Mom’s 50th Birthday for a bit (is today – Happy Birthday, Mom!) and gave her the iPod Kendyl and I chipped in for, and headed on out to retrieve my car and head onto Giddings (didn’t I say tour of Texas or what?). There we spent some time looking at the progress of Curtis & Judy’s amazing new house that Curtis has essentially built with his own two hands (only outsourced the Air Conditioning and rock) so it’s coming along very nicely, but what is more is the view of the spread… wow is it gorgeous out there even it was hotter than blazes! Kendyl also had one of her new guns (she’s in a skeet shooting competition so felt compelled to buy a rifle) out to practice with so she and I and the boys all had fun practicing, and guess what?! Turns out I’m a leftie when it comes to shooting a gun… amazing to me that I’ve always been a pretty great shot but I have always noticed that I had to compensate for my arms being short, the gun being too big, etc. So I guess I was firing and seeing where it hit, and then compensating the gun to my line of sight to shoot, when really all I needed to do was switch sides! So my Dad, Curtis, and Curt got me all set up with my new leftie stance, and low and behold I blew the can away on the first shot! Kendyl is pretty great, too – she was getting some of the moving “clays” that they were throwing for her (really trash from the pit but oh well, she shot them)! So that was fun… at about 4 p.m. we all said our goodbyes so we could get on the road to all different places… got some gas and headed out to Fort Worth and got home around 7:30 p.m. and greeted by a girl who wanted to take my gazelle off my hands. Was sad to part with it, but that was part of the deal, and tonight the guy who is buying the aquarium is coming over as well. This one has potential to be more messy, so I’m thinking we’ll go through the backyard with most of it… we’ll see how it goes!
My day has gotten better than how it started… I forgot to say at the top that ALSO why I’m so tired is b/c last night the power went out for 6 houses on my side of the street, so was talking to Curt on the phone in bed (excited b/c it was 10:30 and I was actually in bed!) and all of a sudden the power is out! I of course freaked out b/c I live by myself for the moment, so immediately thought someone was trying to come in to get me and had cut the power, so ran to get a flashlight and went out the front door – found several neighbors in the street as well… it was very much like a scene from a UFO movie where the lights go out, and then everyone comes out to the street and looks around in wonderment. So we were waiting and hoping that the lights would come back soon, but no, of course they didn’t until sometime mid-morning today SO I spent the night hot and camping in my own house – ugh! No a/c, no fan, not even a good light to read until I calmed down enough to sleep… so you can bet I will be trying to get to bed at a decent hour tonight!
Hope all is well with everyone, Happy Birthday again, Mom! I love you so much!!
xx
Monday, July 10, 2006
Lots of candles...
So I spent all week writing about Playa, and didn’t have time to actually write about my first week without Curt in the house! There’s not much to tell other than it’s lonely and kinda weird to not have anyone in the house (dogs or Curt) and to obsessively clean up behind yourself wherever you go… So did my thing – am reading much more and catching up on our DVR cache which has been full for who knows how long, and then of course doing work and other necessary tasks… was very excited for this past weekend though b/c Curt and Kendyl both came into town to celebrate my birthday! We had a lot of fun planned….
Friday night Kendyl and I went to dinner at my favorite local Italian place and had a feast! Then we watched Enron, Smartest Guys in the Room until Curt and the boat got there later that night. Saturday we woke up and got ready for a day at
the lake on our boat with Kendyl, Kevin, Kim, Curt and myself so that was a blast… turns out Curt got me a wakeskate for my birthday so that was pretty sweet! So we spent the day having fun in the sun and learning to wakeskate so we had a blast – Kim and Kevin were first timers and they did really well, too! After we finished at the lake we rushed home to eat and clean up so we could make our 7:45 p.m. movie to see Pirates of the Caribbean! Same crew for the movie, plus Juan, Shelly and Cory! I was so excited to see this movie… so we got there in ample time to get good seats, and settled in for a few hours of fun (pre-previews, previews, movie was 3 hours)!! The movie was fantastic (I won’t give anything away) and then home to go to bed (lake days make you tired, you know).Sunday woke up and dallied around for a bit, Curt and Kendyl sang Happy Birthday to me and we ate my cake for breakfast, and then got ready to go to the lake AGAIN! Tried a different lake this time which was actually much more calm so we did SO much better on the wakeskating front… Kendyl even tried it (was just Curt, me and her) and it was hilarious – she really made some good progress though so we were
proud… so that will be a fun hobby to get us in the sun and on the boat… was exciting! So we did that up until 3ish and got on the road to go home… listened to Dad commentate the last few minutes of the Italy vs. France game which was fun, Go Italy!, got home and got showered while Curt and Kendyl went hunting for my “token” birthday gift. They got home and presented me with what they had found – a *gorgeous* white and black pearl earring drop set and necklace with diamonds… very sophisticated and very pretty! I can’t wait to wear them tomorrow…. I have a life so blessed. 
Sunday evening I made Curt and Kendyl some yummy dinner, and got them on the road with full bellies of chicken and biscuits and chocolate cake! It was very sad to have my fam with me (or part of them) and then to say goodbye again for the week... both got home safely and on to the rest of the week... BUT it is my birthday week so that should be a highlight!
I'll be going to Kevin and Kim's for dinner, and then seeing Ashley, TJ, Cody (yea!) and her pregnant belly - ASHLEY'S PREGNANT!! as they're staying at my house on their way to Houston so that will be a joy...
So that's me - happy birthday to me!
xx
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Playa Del Carmen, Mexico!
Ok... so here it goes....
Starting with Friday where I left off - Curt and I hopped on the plane, and got into Playa pretty late that night as the flight was delayed... got in our happy shuttle and were on our way to our hostel, which had looked great on hostel world... and it was, but when we got there at about 12:30 a.m., we meet up with the owner (he had left a hilarious sign on the gate - "Mr. Curtis, please call xxx") so he can let us in, and he shows us to our room. The hostel is immaculate, nice, and gorgeous, with the immediately obvious drawback that it is blistering hot inside that room - ok - so no air conditioning. I'm a camper, I inquire but after we find out the small fan that does NOTHING is all we have, I resign to sticking it out b/c Curt booked this, and by God I was going to be a great wife about it!
It really was a shame, b/c I'm sure in the off-season this hostel is prime space, but there was seriously no ventilation at all, and we both just lied there in the bed sweating to death, and of course you can't sleep when you sweat so it was pretty miserable... so at about 3 a.m. Curt swallowed his pride and said he'd had enough and was going out to look for a hotel (we had to think about our diving schedule, too you know, can't dive when you've been releasing every ounce of hydration each night before!). I was of course nervous about this, but he took a little dive knife with him and ventured out while I sat on the bed for a half hour waiting for him wondering what the hell I would do if he didn't come back... but he did - whew! And he had great news - he found the cutest little hotel with GREAT A/C and so we packed up and rolled our luggage out of there at 3:30 a.m. Playa is very safe, we found out, so yea for us there! So we got settled, set the A/C to 16 degrees Celsius (roughly 64 degrees F) and fell fast asleep until 11 a.m. the next morning! Thank goodness for some sleep! We of course missed any chance at a morning dive, but got on the books for a 2-tank afternoon dive as well as a night dive (which would be our first)!
Our dive that afternoon was a great back-in-the-water dive... nothing really spectacular or hard, just some nice reefs with a good group, and enough to get our buoyancy in check and get back into the swing of things... then we hung out and had dinner at a great Italian place and high-tailed it to another dive shop for our night dive which we were pretty excited about! We shoved off at around 7:30 p.m., got our briefing and were diving a site called Jardines (gardens in Spanish) that was literally 100 yards off the beach - if people only knew how close they were to some of this stuff :-). So we got our torches (basically big flashlights), sat on the edge of the boat, and flipped backwards (also a first for me - we usually do a giant stride off the bigger boats) into the water. Wow - night diving is a whole different ballgame, folks! We had been briefed about what to look for, not to touch any sleeping fish (some actually form a bubble around them at night) b/c the panic could harm them, or touch anything for that matter which is usually a pretty easy rule to abide by... some of the notables: a snail like creature that stays in a shell I know we have all seen, but clings on to the coral and is unrecognizable b/c it pushes out its insides which is a beautiful speckled substance. So Juan picked one of these off the coral to show me, closed his hand over it and shook his hand (non-dangerous, promise) and when he opened his hand it was this shell! I was literally so shocked
(it was so unexpected, like magic) that I gave a little shriek into my regulator - haha! It had turned back into itself to show it's outer shell, a silky brown spiral shell! We also saw the corals feeding which is so amazing - and of course tons of sleepy fish and some eels as well (moray and spotted). Then we got a pretty big treat - the biggest moray eel I've ever seen in wild or captivity, was out hunting! Juan had told us if we were lucky we might see this, so we knew what to expect and what it was doing... this eel had to be over 9 feet long, and over a foot in height - massive! He was snaking back and forth along the reef, and they hunt by this body motion as once they brush up against something that is alive, they snap at it and constrict similarly to a boa constrictor, though they add a little twist by knotting themselves and pulling their prey through so it tears it to pieces - lovely, I know, but we got to see a hunter in action! He got SO CLOSE to a blue tang several times, but the tang outsmarted the eel that night... (eels have very poor vision which is why they hunt mostly by touch). At the end of the dive we had a great opportunity that is pretty uncommon as well - we got to play with the bioluminescence (sp?)! Juan had us kneel in the sand (Curt, myself and Emmitt - our friend from Southern Ireland) and turn off our torches, and then we all made quick movements with our hands and torches that produced the tiny organisms to spark bright green sparks! It was SO NEAT!!!
So the night dive was pretty awesome... Curt and I were excited about getting the opportunity to do this... so after we got cleaned up we went out on 5th and walked up and down the avenue. If I could count how many times we went up and down this street it would really be hilarious, but it's so active that it was just the natural thing to do! haha... then we went to bed as it was getting late, and we had to wake up early the next morning to go on some more dives!
Sunday morning we headed to Tank Ha, the company that we did most of our dives with (all but the night dive - Dive Mike) to get ready for Tortuga! So we headed out early so we
could catch some breakfast on 5th, and got on our way... loaded onto the dive boat and headed out to a beautiful area along the coast that was not inhabited, but it really wasn't too far from Playa! This was to be a true drift dive (another first for Curt and me) so we jumped into the water and immediately the current got to work at carrying us away! A drift dive is where you jump into the water at one point, the current carries you so the boat has to pick you up at another point all together - pretty cool! So we got going, and immediately started to see turtles... in total on this dive we saw 13 (a lot), and some were just hanging out on the bottom, others were on the bottom and eating the corals, and others were lazily swimming along. Some of them were HUGE - 4 ft x 2 ft probably, and I was literally within inches swimming along with them... it was kind of comical because the current was so swift, and they are so well camaflouged that you don't really see them until you're almost on top of them, so then I would turn and swim hard into the current to stay for a minute to check them out, and then when I got tired I would just let go and tur
n again to see the next one... there were some small guys, too - there was even one pair that was swimming along, and they were so small in comparison to their larger counterparts! At one point we also came upon a school of tarpon (huge silver fish) - it was so eerie b/c our dive guide banged on his tank to show us something, and I looked and didn't see anything - I looked away for a second and then looked back and out of nowhere had appeared an enormous school of tarpon! Tarpon are a huge fish (about 4 feet long) that is actually pretty amazing b/c they can live in virtually any environment b/c they can actually breathe oxygen from the surface! They were completely still and just came out of nowhere so it was very cool to see how sometimes things are right in front of your face! After Tortuga we dove a site called Sabalos (means Tarpon, actually) and saw more great stuff - a few eels in caves, some great tiny organisms, and of course beautiful and colorful fish...
After we finished our dives for the day we went and took a much needed nap! Diving with oxygen tends to make you pretty tired, so we're going to have to look into Nitrox sooner or later (have to be certified to dive with Nitrox but a lot of people love it). After our nap we got up and moving and went out on 5th again, had a "long walk on the beach" so we had lots of together time :-)! This night we also went out of town a bit to have dinner at Alux (pronounced Aloosh)
which is a restuarant that is in a huge cave - it was so cool! We walked in expecting a way nice restaurant though, and it was but they were playing totally out of place music - 80's American! So it didn't quite fit but there were a ton of songs that were just hilarious to hear at a restaurant that was so nice - so we jammed to some "Gloria," "By the Rivers of Babylon," and more bizarro dining music! At first it was totally weird, but after awhile we just went into fits of giggles waiting to hear what was next... it was a trip! The food turned out to be DELICIOUS though - Curt got filet mignon and I got flambee shrimp - they cooked it at our table and omg it was just so yummy...
The next day of diving was the Cenotes (pronounced senotay)! Got up early again and got out to Tank Ha to meet up with Luca who was going to be our dive guide - turns out Luca is from Perugia which is about 40 minutes from Castiglion Fiorentino so we had a lot to talk about! He's been gone from Italy for quite a few years - shut down his business one day and started traveling all over the world to be a dive guide and has worked in Egypt and other great dive spots! Anyway, we drove just outside of Playa to reach the cenote system Chak Mol (means jaguar's paw I think in Mayan?) where we were to dive two cenotes: Kukulkan and Little Brother. Cenotes just as some background are basically holes that open up in the earth that are
caves filled with water - saltwater is the base of the water table, and then fresh water over time has formed the top layer, but it's not brackish water per se in that there is a line called a halocline where the fresh and salt are separated like oil and vinegar, they don't mix! Thus when you are at that line and swimming it tries to mix and creates a blur so if you're behind someone (which we were!) it's like looking at something in the Twilight Zone (I literally thought that when I first encountered it)! And what is strange is that Luca told us to expect this and I had a picture of what it would look like in my head, but when we actually encountered it I thought something was seriously wrong b/c it's not just a blur it's like things are wavy b/c of how the light refracts... here's a picture of what looking through a halocline looks like... once we got used to this we figured out you just have to not follow directly behind so you could have crystal clear vision. And by crystal clear I mean you sometimes would forget that you were actually underwater the visibility was so crisp! So that was interesting... not to mention being in the dark, going through tunnels, viewing stalactities 
and stalagmites, warps in the strat of the rock (love geology!) and the fossils that were in the limestone... one observation that Curt made that was pretty cool is how unbelievably sharp the limestone was, but it's because water has never run through there, just sat in there so everything was preserved to however it lay when it caved in (or whatever happened, cenotes are somewhat of a mystery), was dry (and thus the stalac/stalags forming, and then under water as time went on! All very interesting, but you can bet your britches diving these was an exercise in my will and self control. Not that I was on the verge of panic, but you know me in always needing an escape route, and these were severely limited though at any time you could be at the service in less than 10 seconds (it's just that in many places how to get to the service 
would be another issue all together, but Luca knows the system like the back of his hand - stay close to your dive guide! :-) Needless to say, was an experience of a lifetime and we will probably do this again - the overwhelming feeling at the end and during was just a humbling realization of how we always think we are so great and smart but we just have nothing on God - being underwater and surrounded by amazing rock formations is definitely an awe-inspiring experience!
After the cenotes we were sad that our diving was over, but we still had some great fun that night! After our dives we had a great snack at a restaurant across from Tank Ha - so yummy! We filled out our dive logs, got organized, then met up with Luca and other locals (or transplant locals) to have some cool drinks and a good ol' bbq - it was so nice of them to invite us! It seemed like every person there was from a different country... Curt and I sometimes wonder who is really smarter - the person that is ambitious and chooses to climb the corporate ladder, or the person who practices "life is too short, might as well enjoy it" lifestyle? We have no idea... I guess the grass is always greener...
We went to bed at a reasonable time as we had to wake up in the 5's to get to the airport, so the next morning got to Houston without any glitches, but from there I had a hell of a day getting back to DFW - ugh! There were storms all over Texas on July 4th, so Curt and I parted (sad) in the airport (after Dad and Kendyl delivered my laptop - THANK YOU!) and then I got on my way only to be delayed on the runway, caught in a holding pattern, experience an aborted landing, THEN sit at the gate for a good half hour b/c the ground crew was not allowed to assist us b/c of lightening... SO overall I was supposed to be at the airport at 2 p.m. and didn't actually get in to the airport until 6:30 p.m. - I could have driven it! What's worse is that some of our friends were picking me up so I was still in Houston when I was supposed to be landing so told them not to bother and that I'd call them when I got to DFW - I felt so awful! Luckily I didn't impose on any 4th plans for them, so when I did finally get in I took them to dinner as a thanks...
Whew! Ok, so this has taken me days to write... Curt gets in town tonight so we'll get the rest of the pictures up soon! Stay tuned for those... they will be the highlight! :-)
xx
Starting with Friday where I left off - Curt and I hopped on the plane, and got into Playa pretty late that night as the flight was delayed... got in our happy shuttle and were on our way to our hostel, which had looked great on hostel world... and it was, but when we got there at about 12:30 a.m., we meet up with the owner (he had left a hilarious sign on the gate - "Mr. Curtis, please call xxx") so he can let us in, and he shows us to our room. The hostel is immaculate, nice, and gorgeous, with the immediately obvious drawback that it is blistering hot inside that room - ok - so no air conditioning. I'm a camper, I inquire but after we find out the small fan that does NOTHING is all we have, I resign to sticking it out b/c Curt booked this, and by God I was going to be a great wife about it!
It really was a shame, b/c I'm sure in the off-season this hostel is prime space, but there was seriously no ventilation at all, and we both just lied there in the bed sweating to death, and of course you can't sleep when you sweat so it was pretty miserable... so at about 3 a.m. Curt swallowed his pride and said he'd had enough and was going out to look for a hotel (we had to think about our diving schedule, too you know, can't dive when you've been releasing every ounce of hydration each night before!). I was of course nervous about this, but he took a little dive knife with him and ventured out while I sat on the bed for a half hour waiting for him wondering what the hell I would do if he didn't come back... but he did - whew! And he had great news - he found the cutest little hotel with GREAT A/C and so we packed up and rolled our luggage out of there at 3:30 a.m. Playa is very safe, we found out, so yea for us there! So we got settled, set the A/C to 16 degrees Celsius (roughly 64 degrees F) and fell fast asleep until 11 a.m. the next morning! Thank goodness for some sleep! We of course missed any chance at a morning dive, but got on the books for a 2-tank afternoon dive as well as a night dive (which would be our first)!Our dive that afternoon was a great back-in-the-water dive... nothing really spectacular or hard, just some nice reefs with a good group, and enough to get our buoyancy in check and get back into the swing of things... then we hung out and had dinner at a great Italian place and high-tailed it to another dive shop for our night dive which we were pretty excited about! We shoved off at around 7:30 p.m., got our briefing and were diving a site called Jardines (gardens in Spanish) that was literally 100 yards off the beach - if people only knew how close they were to some of this stuff :-). So we got our torches (basically big flashlights), sat on the edge of the boat, and flipped backwards (also a first for me - we usually do a giant stride off the bigger boats) into the water. Wow - night diving is a whole different ballgame, folks! We had been briefed about what to look for, not to touch any sleeping fish (some actually form a bubble around them at night) b/c the panic could harm them, or touch anything for that matter which is usually a pretty easy rule to abide by... some of the notables: a snail like creature that stays in a shell I know we have all seen, but clings on to the coral and is unrecognizable b/c it pushes out its insides which is a beautiful speckled substance. So Juan picked one of these off the coral to show me, closed his hand over it and shook his hand (non-dangerous, promise) and when he opened his hand it was this shell! I was literally so shocked
(it was so unexpected, like magic) that I gave a little shriek into my regulator - haha! It had turned back into itself to show it's outer shell, a silky brown spiral shell! We also saw the corals feeding which is so amazing - and of course tons of sleepy fish and some eels as well (moray and spotted). Then we got a pretty big treat - the biggest moray eel I've ever seen in wild or captivity, was out hunting! Juan had told us if we were lucky we might see this, so we knew what to expect and what it was doing... this eel had to be over 9 feet long, and over a foot in height - massive! He was snaking back and forth along the reef, and they hunt by this body motion as once they brush up against something that is alive, they snap at it and constrict similarly to a boa constrictor, though they add a little twist by knotting themselves and pulling their prey through so it tears it to pieces - lovely, I know, but we got to see a hunter in action! He got SO CLOSE to a blue tang several times, but the tang outsmarted the eel that night... (eels have very poor vision which is why they hunt mostly by touch). At the end of the dive we had a great opportunity that is pretty uncommon as well - we got to play with the bioluminescence (sp?)! Juan had us kneel in the sand (Curt, myself and Emmitt - our friend from Southern Ireland) and turn off our torches, and then we all made quick movements with our hands and torches that produced the tiny organisms to spark bright green sparks! It was SO NEAT!!!So the night dive was pretty awesome... Curt and I were excited about getting the opportunity to do this... so after we got cleaned up we went out on 5th and walked up and down the avenue. If I could count how many times we went up and down this street it would really be hilarious, but it's so active that it was just the natural thing to do! haha... then we went to bed as it was getting late, and we had to wake up early the next morning to go on some more dives!
Sunday morning we headed to Tank Ha, the company that we did most of our dives with (all but the night dive - Dive Mike) to get ready for Tortuga! So we headed out early so we
could catch some breakfast on 5th, and got on our way... loaded onto the dive boat and headed out to a beautiful area along the coast that was not inhabited, but it really wasn't too far from Playa! This was to be a true drift dive (another first for Curt and me) so we jumped into the water and immediately the current got to work at carrying us away! A drift dive is where you jump into the water at one point, the current carries you so the boat has to pick you up at another point all together - pretty cool! So we got going, and immediately started to see turtles... in total on this dive we saw 13 (a lot), and some were just hanging out on the bottom, others were on the bottom and eating the corals, and others were lazily swimming along. Some of them were HUGE - 4 ft x 2 ft probably, and I was literally within inches swimming along with them... it was kind of comical because the current was so swift, and they are so well camaflouged that you don't really see them until you're almost on top of them, so then I would turn and swim hard into the current to stay for a minute to check them out, and then when I got tired I would just let go and tur
n again to see the next one... there were some small guys, too - there was even one pair that was swimming along, and they were so small in comparison to their larger counterparts! At one point we also came upon a school of tarpon (huge silver fish) - it was so eerie b/c our dive guide banged on his tank to show us something, and I looked and didn't see anything - I looked away for a second and then looked back and out of nowhere had appeared an enormous school of tarpon! Tarpon are a huge fish (about 4 feet long) that is actually pretty amazing b/c they can live in virtually any environment b/c they can actually breathe oxygen from the surface! They were completely still and just came out of nowhere so it was very cool to see how sometimes things are right in front of your face! After Tortuga we dove a site called Sabalos (means Tarpon, actually) and saw more great stuff - a few eels in caves, some great tiny organisms, and of course beautiful and colorful fish...After we finished our dives for the day we went and took a much needed nap! Diving with oxygen tends to make you pretty tired, so we're going to have to look into Nitrox sooner or later (have to be certified to dive with Nitrox but a lot of people love it). After our nap we got up and moving and went out on 5th again, had a "long walk on the beach" so we had lots of together time :-)! This night we also went out of town a bit to have dinner at Alux (pronounced Aloosh)
which is a restuarant that is in a huge cave - it was so cool! We walked in expecting a way nice restaurant though, and it was but they were playing totally out of place music - 80's American! So it didn't quite fit but there were a ton of songs that were just hilarious to hear at a restaurant that was so nice - so we jammed to some "Gloria," "By the Rivers of Babylon," and more bizarro dining music! At first it was totally weird, but after awhile we just went into fits of giggles waiting to hear what was next... it was a trip! The food turned out to be DELICIOUS though - Curt got filet mignon and I got flambee shrimp - they cooked it at our table and omg it was just so yummy...The next day of diving was the Cenotes (pronounced senotay)! Got up early again and got out to Tank Ha to meet up with Luca who was going to be our dive guide - turns out Luca is from Perugia which is about 40 minutes from Castiglion Fiorentino so we had a lot to talk about! He's been gone from Italy for quite a few years - shut down his business one day and started traveling all over the world to be a dive guide and has worked in Egypt and other great dive spots! Anyway, we drove just outside of Playa to reach the cenote system Chak Mol (means jaguar's paw I think in Mayan?) where we were to dive two cenotes: Kukulkan and Little Brother. Cenotes just as some background are basically holes that open up in the earth that are
caves filled with water - saltwater is the base of the water table, and then fresh water over time has formed the top layer, but it's not brackish water per se in that there is a line called a halocline where the fresh and salt are separated like oil and vinegar, they don't mix! Thus when you are at that line and swimming it tries to mix and creates a blur so if you're behind someone (which we were!) it's like looking at something in the Twilight Zone (I literally thought that when I first encountered it)! And what is strange is that Luca told us to expect this and I had a picture of what it would look like in my head, but when we actually encountered it I thought something was seriously wrong b/c it's not just a blur it's like things are wavy b/c of how the light refracts... here's a picture of what looking through a halocline looks like... once we got used to this we figured out you just have to not follow directly behind so you could have crystal clear vision. And by crystal clear I mean you sometimes would forget that you were actually underwater the visibility was so crisp! So that was interesting... not to mention being in the dark, going through tunnels, viewing stalactities 
and stalagmites, warps in the strat of the rock (love geology!) and the fossils that were in the limestone... one observation that Curt made that was pretty cool is how unbelievably sharp the limestone was, but it's because water has never run through there, just sat in there so everything was preserved to however it lay when it caved in (or whatever happened, cenotes are somewhat of a mystery), was dry (and thus the stalac/stalags forming, and then under water as time went on! All very interesting, but you can bet your britches diving these was an exercise in my will and self control. Not that I was on the verge of panic, but you know me in always needing an escape route, and these were severely limited though at any time you could be at the service in less than 10 seconds (it's just that in many places how to get to the service 
would be another issue all together, but Luca knows the system like the back of his hand - stay close to your dive guide! :-) Needless to say, was an experience of a lifetime and we will probably do this again - the overwhelming feeling at the end and during was just a humbling realization of how we always think we are so great and smart but we just have nothing on God - being underwater and surrounded by amazing rock formations is definitely an awe-inspiring experience!After the cenotes we were sad that our diving was over, but we still had some great fun that night! After our dives we had a great snack at a restaurant across from Tank Ha - so yummy! We filled out our dive logs, got organized, then met up with Luca and other locals (or transplant locals) to have some cool drinks and a good ol' bbq - it was so nice of them to invite us! It seemed like every person there was from a different country... Curt and I sometimes wonder who is really smarter - the person that is ambitious and chooses to climb the corporate ladder, or the person who practices "life is too short, might as well enjoy it" lifestyle? We have no idea... I guess the grass is always greener...
We went to bed at a reasonable time as we had to wake up in the 5's to get to the airport, so the next morning got to Houston without any glitches, but from there I had a hell of a day getting back to DFW - ugh! There were storms all over Texas on July 4th, so Curt and I parted (sad) in the airport (after Dad and Kendyl delivered my laptop - THANK YOU!) and then I got on my way only to be delayed on the runway, caught in a holding pattern, experience an aborted landing, THEN sit at the gate for a good half hour b/c the ground crew was not allowed to assist us b/c of lightening... SO overall I was supposed to be at the airport at 2 p.m. and didn't actually get in to the airport until 6:30 p.m. - I could have driven it! What's worse is that some of our friends were picking me up so I was still in Houston when I was supposed to be landing so told them not to bother and that I'd call them when I got to DFW - I felt so awful! Luckily I didn't impose on any 4th plans for them, so when I did finally get in I took them to dinner as a thanks...
Whew! Ok, so this has taken me days to write... Curt gets in town tonight so we'll get the rest of the pictures up soon! Stay tuned for those... they will be the highlight! :-)
xx
Stay tuned....
I am planning on writing a ton tonight and hopefully getting some pictures from our vacation up - I can't wait to share b/c we had SUCH a great time and I think y'all will get a kick out of it...
It is a bummer to be back at work, though, and I don't even get to see Curt when I get home! :-( I guess that means that I'll have plenty of time to write, huh? Not really - have lots to do, but GREAT NEWS - we have two showings of the house today, so that's good, and we're up on the websites and stuff so things are moving in the right direction!
Cross your fingers!
Will post soon....
xx
It is a bummer to be back at work, though, and I don't even get to see Curt when I get home! :-( I guess that means that I'll have plenty of time to write, huh? Not really - have lots to do, but GREAT NEWS - we have two showings of the house today, so that's good, and we're up on the websites and stuff so things are moving in the right direction!
Cross your fingers!
Will post soon....
xx
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