Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Did you know that Mexico is officially known as Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or United Mexican States? I think maybe I did at some point, but had long forgotten. We’ve always been Europe and Asia travelers, so beaches in North America were never really our thing. This vacation was booked back in the spring and was meant to be a mental break from work and a mid-fall break from the Seattle doldrums. If I’m honest, the reason we chose it is because it’s sunny this time of year, is a direct flight on Alaska Air, and isn’t California… oh, and is considerably cheaper than Hawaii. Embarrassingly, we didn’t know much about the place going in. This was all before I was on leave and had any notion of van camping, Prague, or Vienna. So, yeah, it was meant to be a chill vacation with some sun, swimming, and hopefully some naps.

We stayed at Garza Blanca a few miles south of Puerto Vallarta’s more populated core. We wanted the ability to pool, beach, and/or drink alcoholic beverages with relative ease. I stumbled on this place having a big sale because apparently no one wants to go the second week of November, as most other kids are in school – we’ll enjoy it while we can. I did a bunch of math (shocking, I know) of the All Inclusive option and realized there was no way we’d break even with a three year old in tow. We opted for the Bed & Breakfast option, which meant we could always get some food in The Kid before he got too cranky. If you’re wondering, we saved quite a bit of cash even with both of us having adult beverages every day and us eating *off resort* only two meals (i.e. paying out of pocket for dinner at the resort other nights). Their market is people who don’t want to think about it and I guess that’s not me.

I think the property was everything we could have asked for, given our criteria. Our room was unnecessarily big, but it had two bedrooms, kitchen, nice balcony, there were pools to keep Dom happy, and the service was top notch. Meals at places like this are never ZOMG AWESOME; they’re fine for being able to walk back to your room. The unfortunate part of vacationing in such a heavy tourist area is you get a long, hard pitch for *excursion* up-sales both at the airport and when you arrive at your hotel. I got visibly angry at the airport because we’d been traveling with a tired pre-schooler and they refused to show us where our hotel transfer was until we listened to their hard sell. I eventually demanded they stop and show us – we later heard from other guests that the full sales pitch is 45 minutes… right after you clear customs in Mexico. WTF??

Anyway, this hotel is away from the masses and is plopped right in the jungle. You’re not really in Puerto Vallarta proper, although that only matters if you want to go shopping or eat out every day. It really was a nice place in a truly stunning setting, though. The sounds of the jungle surround you and the sounds of drunk tourists are miles away. The downside is you have to sit in a car or on a bus for 20 minutes to get to PV-proper BUT a ride-sharing hop there is < $5 US and the bus is $0.50 US. We spent our town time in the Malecon and Zona Romantica areas. The town was just cleaning up from Día de Muertos festivities, so we got to absorb of of the local culture. Those areas do cater heavily to tourists, but they’re not nearly as polished as the large shopping malls and restaurants farther north. Stay to the south if outdoor adults beverages at sunset is your thing. It’s kid friendly too.

I believe the Mexican people are the best part of Mexico. Conversing with them, sometimes in my very broken Spanish, I got the sense they were genuinely happy despite geopolitical and challenges within their own government – much like Vietnam. In both places, people are proud of their culture and love sharing it with you. It would be great to visit more remote places and meet more people, but that’s where you start to run up against travel advisories. Not something we’re interested in… especially with a young child in tow. The good news early November appeared to be pretty slow, so we got to experience all the beautiful dispositions Mexicans had to offer without a crushing number of Americans. Yay Mexico!

Bend, Oregon

We went to Bend a few weekends ago, to attend the wedding reception of Rebecca and Mike. When we originally booked the trip, we were supposed to fly in Thursday night and leave Sunday morning. Due to some additional developments with childcare, jobs, and whatnot, we ended up going about a half day earlier. We rented a pretty sweet house via vrbo and took a 45 minute Alaska Air flight save ourselves the 6-7 hour drive each way with a three year old.

The reception itself was pretty low-key, in part because of the couple and in part because the actual wedding was a few days earlier with family. There were a handful of kids there and Dom had a great time jumping around the dance floor and throwing his hat with the other boys around his age. We were fortunate enough to have childcare, so Dom went to bed around 9 pm and we stayed out until the end of the party.

Unfortunately, I woke up Thursday with a tickle in my throat that would develop into a full blown cold or the flu over the weekend. We didn’t do nearly as much in Bend as I’d hoped because I spent a lot of time in bed and even more time sitting around resting. Probably the worst part of it is I just recently got over whatever it was, but not before infecting Dom and Melissa. None have really done that much except be very sick in the two weeks since we got back. It was a nasty, nasty bug – the worst any of us has had for a long time.

Bend is an interesting place. It was cold, insanely dry (despite it snowing), and very reminiscent of a winter resort town. There was a lot of breweries, good food, and keeping warm by all the various fire pits Bend had to offer. The whole vibe of the place is to dress in really nice (and expensive) outdoor wear – at least that’s what we found of the tourists that appeared to be around us. It was hard to tell if we ever really around locals; I suspect not much. My cold really impacted our ability to explore, which is unfortunate. Everyone was really nice, though. It reminded me of how Seattle used to be when we moved here eight years ago.

We would go back to Bend, but it’s not super practical at this point in our lives. There are so many places closer to us in Washington (and Oregon) that we could drive to easily. Heck, we could even drive to Idaho in less time than we could drive the Bend. Flying is too expensive, even though tickets are somewhat reasonable. So, yeah, Bend! Congrats Mike and Rebecca.

Palm Desert

Two and a half months ago, not the lifetime like it feels, we took a family vacation to Palm Desert in California. We wanted to head somewhere where it was warm, the sun would be shining, and was in the same time zone. Coachella Valley to the rescue. We rented what is basically a glorified hotel room with a small kitchen on a Marriott property and that’s about it. We went to the zoo one day and went to pool a lot of the days. There were also naps and adult beverages at the pool. Oh, and we took a day trip through Joshua Tree National Park one day. That was cool. I could see us going back as a slow paced spring break getaway. Shame flying in Palm Springs is expensive enough that you drive the hour to/from Ontario.