MEHIKO 2012

Before you start reading, beware this is an extremely long post it is not for the weary or faint of heart.... or the illiterate, because if you're illiterate then you can't read, but I suppose you can look at the pictures, so I guess it is also for the illiterate, unless you're illiterate and blind then you won't know what the pictures are, unless of course someone describes the pictures to you then I suppose it would be okay for an illiterate blind guy to look at,  but if you're illiterate, blind, and deaf then this post is most definitely not for you. So just to sum things up, if you're weary, faint of heart, illiterate and blind and deaf, do not attempt to read, everyone else is okay.

 

Also there are probably numerous grammatical, and political errors within this posting, I didn't have the patience to review.

 

Last April we went on the best and greatest vacation ever to Puerto Penasco, Mexico with The Wrights, Grammy and Poppy and Anna Jean

 

We flew out of Salt Lake to Phoenix and from there we rented cars to drive into Mexico.

We had originally planned on renting SUV's to take but the rental person said they didn't allow any sort of SUV to go into Mexico because they would most likely get stolen, I fought it tooth and nail but we had to settle for Mini Vans! (how embarrassing)

We stopped in Ajo, Arizona and bought a ton of food for the trip down, I also bought the most disgusting pepsi I've ever had in my life. I also got a really dirty look from an older lady in the parking lot for squealing the tires.

 

As you can see from the picture above I'm extremely angry because we had to get a Mini Van, but it actually turned out to be good because I was able to squeal the tires like crazy and every time we got out I could repeatedly honk the horn with the keyless entry and annoy others.

None of the adults rode in our van because in the very blunt and slightly offensive words of a certain member of our group I am a "Horrible Driver!" so they just had all of the precious children ride with me so if anything happened the adults would at least be spared from danger.

Here's Charly showing off her new camera at the rental car place in Phoenix

 

When we got close we took several wrong turns, fortunately we encountered a group of friendly workers from another resort who kindly led us to our destination

 

 

The house we stayed at was amazing! and I must give full credit and thanks to Emily and Korey for renting it and inviting us to come along.

 

This is the Back of the house, it had an awesome patio where we could relax all day, a hot tub (that later mysteriously stopped working), an outdoor shower, and grass to sunbath on.

Here is the view from the patio, we were about 100 yards from the beach, it was awesome. I wanted to take that huge vase with me when we left but it wouldn't fit in my suitcase.

The inside of the house was awesome too, the main area had a large domed ceiling that was fully bricked.

The sunset from the roof of the house on our first night

Relaxing on the patio after a long day of travel

Apparently someone (hopefully a woman) figured that since we were so close to the ocean it would be okay to let the entire group know that it was shark week.

Here's Em, serving a batch of her custom homemade frozen pizza that she bought from the store in Ajo.

Shamri pointing (again) at two loose ceiling bricks that she was certain would fall at any moment, destroying her pizza, and ruining her entire vacation

Making S'mores in the fire pit

We had to bring plenty of our own Marshmallows because Emily assured us that American marshmallows absolutely do not exist in Mexico

The next morning we became the targets for every street vendor in town. Here you can see Laura and Sham Bam getting suckered into buying cheap jewelry that broke moments after purchase

Here's Charly getting her hair braided in dreadlocks,  where we later learned the reason they are called dreadlocks is because they're dreadful to get out!

Here's poppy getting a massage, he says that no one gives a massage like a fiery Latina!

Here's Emily getting a massage from Lupe, the local massage therapist, she still claims to have not gotten her money's worth because Lupe was all worn out from using all her energy on the Poppy

All done with braiding, that'll be 25 dollars!

 

 

THE TACO WALK

 

 

We were all in the mood for some authentic Mexican tacos so we asked Lupe how far to the nearest taqueria. Lupe told us that just a ten minute walk down the beach would take us to a fine taco shop, so Grammy, Laura, Emily, Cole, and I started our Taco walk. The sand was excruciatingly hot but with visions of delicious tacos in our heads and extreme hunger in our bellies we endured the pain. We soon started loosing people to heat exhaustion starting with Grammy. After about 20 minutes of walking and not a single taco in sight we decided to give up and turn around only to face the same fiery sands yet again. Everyone was disappointed that we returned empty handed and with even emptier bellies. I think Lupe sent us on a wild goose chase to distract us for some reason.

 

While there, Grammy wanted to make a photo advertisement for Iphone so she got Poppy and Keyton to pose with her, unfortunately Apple didn't accept her photo because you can see the reflection of my back side in the window above their heads

 

 

 

UPDATE: The other day at Walmart I saw something interesting on the shelf! It looks like Carol's photo made it onto the packaging for go phones, Crazy!

 

 

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PHONE
 

 

 So on that very fateful day on the patio there was a great and troublesome incident that occurred, it was discovered that Emily's brand new Iphone 4s suddenly went missing

 

Now, as you know, anytime something goes missing the first thing to do after frantically searching is to find the person responsible for your missing item, and that person just happened to be Korey. And also as many of you know when a person is blamed for the loss of a very valuable item that person naturally becomes defensive and angry at the person casting the blame, which is exactly what happened between Emily and Korey.

 

Soon everyone was looking for the phone, we looked everywhere in the house, on the patio, in the garage, in the vans but our search was fruitless. This search led us to our next conclusion, that the phone was stolen, and who better to blame than the only stranger that spent time on the patio with us...Lupe The local massage lady!!

 

Notice how Lupe always keeps her face covered so no one can track her down, and it was kind of suspicious that she sent us on a 30 minute walk to a taco stand that didn't exist! It must have been Lupe!

 

 

 Despite Lupe's amazing massage skills Emily wanted Lupe brought to justice, but by that time Lupe had taken her portable massage table and was long gone.  Emily's phone had probably already been erased of all its data and sold on the black market, or disassembled and sold on the streets for spare parts.

 

 

A few days later Korey happened to open the trunk of their van and much to our surprise Emily's Iphone was there unharmed, safe and sound. I guess Lupe couldn't live with the guilt of stealing from a valuable client (who she most likely will never see again) so she came up with an elaborate plan to sneak into our house at night, find the keys in Korey's jeans, sneak into the garage, place the Iphone in the van, lock everything up and return the keys as if though nothing happened. Dang she's sneaky, but guess what Lupe, you're not fooling me I know what you did and I will catch you someday...somehow!

 

 

 

Getting some grub at the local Italian restaurant, the service was excellent, mainly because we were the only group in the entire place. Some of the workers were a little annoyed at me in the beginning because I excessively beeped the horn with the key less entry for about 8 minutes straight on when we pulled up.

Shamri, taking a bite and looking extremely annoyed at the same time

Me, taking a bite of my fillet Mignon, like a Boss 

Since no one else was there Shamri decided to do a little dancing with Aiden

So I thought this was an odd thing to find in a restaurant bathroom. Immediate mouth cleansing suggested after eating here. I wonder if it's okay to drink directly from the bottle.

The hours are clearly and specifically marked on the building

We were told by some locals that we could find some cool Sand Dollars on this specific beach but all we found were thousands and thousands of miniature hermit crabs and this mysterious sea creature that lost one of its legs over 150 years ago from cannon fire while taking down a miniature battleship and its crew.

 

 

This is an artists rendering of the miniature battleship attack just before the creatures leg was blown clean off from a tiny port side cannon

 

You may not be able to hear it from the picture but Shamri is letting out a blood curdling scream right in Poppy's ear (also, she's pointing)

Emily found a mini hermit crab, she wanted to cook it up but we figured there wouldn't be enough meat to share with a group as big as ours, so she left it out in the hot sun a great distance from the beach where it would be safe from the attacks of other hermit crabs.

 

One of my favorite things to do is go to the local stores and buy a bunch of local snacks and sodas

You can't see him in the photo but here's Poppy taking an emergency potty break

Ever heard of the legendary "Chupacabra" monster? Turns out it's just a really junky scary looking Volkswagen beetle

I would have to say that of all the cool things on this car my favorite would have to be the toilet seat surrounding the mannequin head on the hood

 

Here we are at the seafood/shrimp cocktail/coconut huts

Here are Aiden and Keyton just before discovering that raw coconut is flavorless and bland, but the pineapple was delicious

Grammy appears to be chocking on her shrimp cocktail, also just so you know, the reason that the shrimp cocktail in Mexico was so good is because it does not contain Katsup

Korey ready to play a hilarious prank with that shrimp

Poppy either doing a Popeye impression or he ate an extremely sour lime

 

There is nothing better than eating at all the local food joints

Going shopping, this grocery store has its own construction site, the workers were nice enough to stop jack hammering while we were shopping near them

 

 

 

 If you know me than you know that I cant resist going in a candy store, especially if it's in Mexico

Here are Laura and Shamri (the one pointing) excited because we discovered some actual American marshmallows that up until that point didn't exist in Mexico, they must have just arrived that very day

 

Of course we had to buy some odd and unusual candies just to try them out, we knew they would be nasty but we had to try them anyway.

This one is some sort of sugary spicy salt

This is some sort of fruit coated in chili spices, sugar and salt

Here I am suffering from the effects of eating too much Mexican spicy candy, holding a bag of Tamarind sticks that were, of course, coated in spicy sugary salt.

 

We even got Grammy and Poppy to try them out

 

 

 

 

I didn't take a picture but Cole bought some candy liquid stuff that came in small pouches and contained purple liquid and we actually tried it and I can honestly say that it was the worst candy I've ever tasted in my life!

 

Cutting up some fresh Pina, that means pineapple in Mexican

um num num, Laura seconds before biting off the tip of her finger, ouch!

Here's me and Cole peeling and devaining the shrimp while Anna Jean got ready to make some Kabobs

 

 Laura and Sham-bam trying to keep us entertained while we slaved over a hot stove.

 

 

This is Anna Jean giving me a stern reprimand for preparing the shrimp incorrectly, this was before she tasted my Legendary Shrimp Scampi to which later she confessed being best shrimp she had ever eaten in her life, true story

 

 

 

Here's Korey preparing the steaks, he says if you should always take off your shirt to prepare and cook steaks because it humbles the meat and makes it more tender

 

Yo ho ho and a bottle o' Rum!

 

 

Here are Aiden and Keyton out trying to hussle the husslers, they actually came back with some pretty good deals because the vendors knew that they truly didn't have more money then what was in hand.

 

The kids could see that their money was quickly disappearing and with so much stuff to be had they quickly devised a plan to raise funds quickly. So they decided to start a small business doing massages, it was easy because small business laws are more laxed in Mexico.

Sham, their first customer looking very relaxed as Aiden and Keyton give her a couples massage. And when I say "couples" what I mean to say is Aiden and Keyton were a couple of dorks trying to earn some money.

After making a few well earned dollars the boys decided to try to expand their business and came up with an add campaign

 

 

The massages were free but tips were mandatory

After seeing the boy's success Charly and Ashlinda decided to jump on the band wagon. Here they are giving Emily a Me-ssage, to which Emily reported as being good but incomparable to Lupe.

 

 

The boys giving The Poppy a foot massage while he watched Rocky 2 on the big screen, it was a tough job because poppy was really getting into the movie and unintentionally kept throwing jabs at the boys

 

The Poppy says that if you lap up the milk from your spoon it really brings out the creamy goodness

 

Korey and Emily were certain that if they showed of their deriairs they would get amazing deals from the street vendors

Charly and Ashlyn trying to earn just a few more pesos

 

Family hot tub time! 

Sea shellin'

This may look like a Coors Light canopy but it is actually a Coors Light canopy providing much needed shade to several people attending a funeral under it.

The local Militia patrolling the streets

 

 

Shamri enjoying her hot fudge sundae that contained no real heat or fudge,

in fact the chocolate used for fudge was the hard stuff they use to make dipped cones

 

 

Apparently there was something very interesting on that wall

 

 

This is the best and greatest sign for ice cream. Doesn't that just make you crave ice cream?

 

Juan, the shrimp cocktail dude, freely gave us the recipe for his cocktail, the only problem is that it contains a special pepper found only in that area of Mexico, which means next time I want to make a batch I'll have to drive all the way to Puerto Punasco to pick some of those peppers.

Here's me and Sham-Bam (she's the one pointing)

Sweet E-Brake!


THE STREET MARKET

Here are a few pics and experiences we had while shopping at the street market near the marina, it was a cluster of small stores grouped so tightly that it was difficult to know where one store started and the other ended.

Check out this exact scale replica of a bloated, dead deer we saw at the street market

 

Of course no Mexican market would be complete without

a pharmacy with their top products clearly on display, the

only prescription needed here is a Benjamin Franklin

 

 

 Childrens Luchador costumes, nothing says "I want to smash your face in" like Hello Kitty

 

 

 

DAS A REALLY GOOD PRICE!

or The buisiness man:

When we arrived at the market Shamri was immediately drawn toward the ponchos. After some deep negotiations she was able to secure a price at $8 from the lady running the shop. Being her first stop Shamri wanted to be sure that she was getting the best deal possible so she decided to check the other shops prices. The worker said ok and let Sham hold on to the poncho while she shopped around. As we approached the next store the owner, Ernesto, saw an opportunity do do business and quickly came over. This is how our conversation went:

 

ME: How much are your ponchos?

ERNESTO: Dat depends. Are you looking to buy a poncho?

SHAMRI: Yea, well I got this one from over there.

ERNESTO: I don't know, how much didgu pay for dat poncho?

SHAMRI: Well I haven't paid for it yet, but the lady said it was 8 dollars.

ERNESTO: Oh, 8 dollers? das a really good price, she tell you she sell it for 8 dollers? cus das a really good price!

ME: So can you sell her a poncho for less than that?

ERNESTO: ohh, I don no. 8 dollers das a really good price, u know u come over here, holding a poncho from another store, an tell me it's 8 dollers. I can't jus tell you for how much I can sell you one of my ponchos wen u are holding a poncho from another store. Das jus not a good way to run a business, but 8 dollers, das a really good price. U know if you wan to bring dat poncho back to her an come back we can talk about da prices, but I can't tell you how much is my poncho when you ar holding dis poncho from over there,  but, 8 dollars is a really good price!

ME (confused): Um? so can you sell her a poncho for less than eight dollars or not, because we can just bring this one back if you can, otherwise she will buy this one from that store.

ERNESTO: Well, I can't really tell you dat if u still have dat poncho, but if she tell you she will sell it for 8 dollers das a really good price.

ME: okay, um we'll just buy this one from the other shop then.

 

Shamri paid the nice lady for the poncho, took it home and never wore it again, except one time on March 10, 2013 for approximately 8.5 minutes.

 

 

 

BI DA MONKY!

Their was a really pushy salesmen who was desperate to sell me anything, including this beer drinking cowboy monkey with his weenier hanging out. He used a completely different sales tactic than the last guy. 

 

Our conversation went something like this:

 

SALESMAN: "u wan da monky?"

ME: "No I don't want the monkey"

SALESMAN: "u wan da monky? u wan da monky? bi da monky, bi da monky!"

ME: "Haha no thanks I definitely don't want the monkey"

SALESMAN: "cum an bi da monky! it gat da Dos Equies, u lik da Dos Equies? u lik da Corona? he got da Corona. U no lik da Corona? he got da Budweiser, he got da Bud light. Bi da monky"

ME: "Haha, I don't drink beer, and even if I did, I still wouldn't buy that monkey."

SALESMAN: "O, u no lik da beer, u lik da Coca Cola? u lik da Pepsi? he got da Coca Cola. Bi da monky." 

ME: "Dude, I honestly wouldn't take that monkey home if you were giving it away for free"

 

 

BI DA GATAR!

 

A little later Aiden was trying to convince me to buy him something and we just happened to go back to the same pushy salesman's shop.  Aiden started begging me to buy him this cheap piece of crap guitar. When the salesman saw Aidens interest he immediately took action our conversation went as follows:

 

AIDEN: "Dad can I get this guitar"

ME: "No this thing looks like a piece of crap, I can tell it'll break before we even get home, it's homemaid and won't even play on tune"

AIDEN: "So, it's cool."

SALESMAN: "u wan da gatar? bi da gatar, it wurk"

salesman then picks up guitar, and attempts to play

SALESMAN: "bi da gatar"

clang! CLING! clang! clunk! CLING! (sounds salesman attempting to play the guitar) "bi da gatar"

ME: "no way, that thing looks like it's about to break"

Aiden and I then go to the booth next to his, pushy salesman follows us

SALESMAN: "bi da gatar" clang! CLANG! clang! cling! CLING! clang!

we continue to move farther away, as he follows us

SALESMAN: "bi da gatar" CLANG! CLUN! cling! cling! clang! cling!"

sound fades as we walk away.

 

Aiden and Keyton showing off their sweet new swag, an authentic Nacho Libre mask, and a genuine Mexican poncho, that cost eight dollars.

 

THE PINA COLADA SHACK

All that shopping made us thirsty so we stopped at the local Pina Colada stand and got some amazing Pina Coladas. I saved my pineapple as a souvenir but after a few weeks it got all moldy and soggy so I had to throw it out.

Me, my Sweetheart, and one big pina colada

The scenery at the pina colada hut was second to none!

This is my mini van gang, and Jose, the son of the pina colada man.

 

 

If we take a closer look at Jose we can see the real reason why he is smiling

Here's me and Aiden out on the high seas doing some canooing

 

GROCERY GOODNESS :-P

While in Puerto Penasco we saw some very unusual things while shopping for food, here are a few of them.

 

Pickled pork rinds for sale at a gas station

 

Chamoy, It's like a sweet, salty mild hot sauce that can be put on anything. It's actually pretty good on mango. As you can see to the left they are also available in jumbo size.

  

 

 The locals like their Coke in large amounts, 3 liters to

be exact.

 

 

 

     They also like tuna in extremely large quantities, this is the biggest can of tuna I've ever seen

 

 

 

The biggest bag of cheese puffs I've ever seen, as you can see it took both me and Cole to support its weight.

 

Mexico's best candy

  

 

Plenty to drink at the gas station

   

 

Tamarind candy

 

 

Popcorn flavors; chile lime, valentina hot sauce and jalapeno cheese, queso jalapeno was the best.

 

 

 

GAME NIGHT

Having plenty of candy is essential for a successful game night! So we hit up the local gas station to load up on snacks.

This dude was standing outside of the gas station trying to earn some money, first he simply asked for money and then he tried to sell us some very high quality, clean, and not outdated at all Christmas ornaments.

 

These are just like the ornaments he was trying to sell, except the ones he was selling were about 15 years old, smashed up a little and dirty.

He became angry when we didn't want his crap, I gave him some change but he got even more angry because he wanted more money

Here we are playing "Things" one of the best games ever

 

Me and Sham-Bam are laughing hysterically because of the inappropriate card I wrote and made Anna Jean read during her turn as the card reader. The card contained the word "dump" just to let you know of it's content.

Hanging out after everyone else has gone to bed

Aiden attempting to build a sand castle

 

Here's Grammy and Anna Jean just before throwing their sea shells in the air and dancing around like school girls.

Breakfast Burritos. How do you say burrito in spanish?

Here's Aiden trying to pull Keytons arm out of socket

Keyton giving Aiden the most painful Indian burn he's ever gotten.

Laura and Shamri attempting to operate the canoe

The Poppy taking the boys on a nice gentle ride

Grammy said that the only accurate way to judge a piece of jewelry is to wear two pares of glasses, one for magnification and the other to reduce the glare from the sun.

 

Here's Laura looking like a traffic cone. I may have accidentally tried to fill up the hot tub and forgot to turn off the hose

 

Bailing out the hot tub

 

Fortunately Mexico has no laws prohibiting public urination so I just felt free to go where ever I felt the need. Ahhhhhh.....shiver

The 88 degree weather made Aiden cold so he had to put on his newly acquired poncho

 

The greatest restaurant in town. How many hats can you see in this picture?

 

They only had 4 things on the menu; chicken, beans, rice, and soda all of which were amazing.

Korey getting after a chicken leg

This is the women's bathroom, unfortunately if you're weary don't plan on sitting down or your hinder will get wet

This is a sweet custom cabinet but I'm afraid they forgot to install the doors, drawers, and the other faucet.

If you're in the mood for some good eatin' try out the restaurant with the mustache and sombrero, but not the one with only a mustache or you're in for disappointment

Another mobile pina colada mobile

 

 

What it looks like to be too fat for all of the life jackets

Me and Sham-Bam on the jet ski

 

Aiden using some basic hand signals, I think he's trying to say five minutes under water, or five times I pee'd, I'm not quite sure

 

 

Um, Aiden took this one, not really sure whats going on here

Shamri held that position all the way under the water...Slap!

Here's Laura and Sham Bam attempting to take another photo under water, Laura was having the hardest time opening her eyes so they took about 20 different pictures.

She just couldn't get those eyes opened!

Thud!

Laura's eyes..still closed, apparently as long as her face is wet she can't open them

 

Sham looks intense

This is what a belly flop looks like a split second before impact

 

This is what a back flop looks like a split second before impact. Needless to say she regretted her actions.

on our last night their it was insanely windy and sand got everywhere, there was a group of workers there early in the morning to rake the sand out of the lawn, apparently that wasn't their first rodeo

 

IN TROUBLE...AGAIN

On our last morning just before leaving I learned a valuable lesson, that being; I can get in trouble in countries other than my own

 

 

On the last morning in Mexico, Cole and I made a conscious decision to ruin the entire vacation,  make everyone mad at us, and get the silent treatment for the rest of the trip home, possibly longer. We did this by sneaking out and going to the street market.

 

 While at the market we saw some pretty awesome things!

This awesome beer holster, why would you need a pistol when you could have a cerveza instead.

I'm really not sure what these are, either something used to smoke weed with or something used to....um never mind

 

 

Isn't this what the caterpillar was smoking in Alice in Wonderland?

 

yep!

 

 Some sort of skeleton, not sure if it's real but they wanted to charge people to take their pic with it.

They had some really awesome T-shirts, I would have bought every last one but they didn't have my size, dang!

I would be proud to wear this shirt at any occasion no matter how formal

 

GOING HOME :-(

It really sucks to go home from such a fun vacation, but you can still have fun all the way home

 

 

 

So this dude had his signs EVERYWHERE in Puerto Penasco, he goes by Rocky Point Dan, and apparently he's a bad ass, oops that one slipped, what I mean to say is that he's a self proclaimed swell guy!

No driving side by side!

Apparently littering is not frowned upon here, and apparently littering here means throwing ALL of your garbage anywhere you please

I love how humble the houses are, yet they all have a satellite for quality tv watching

More garbage

Border town street sales, on your way home why not load up a brand new used king size bed, or an outdated tube TV?

 I actually wanted to buy one so the kids could watch some Spanish TV on the way home but the mini van didn't have an adapter to plug it in, or an antenna to pick up a good signal.

I'm sure bringing a propane tank across the border wouldn't

raise suspicion at all.

Motor problems? Just pull the entire engine right here on the street

 

If you look a littler closer at the picture you can see that there is a man standing in the engine compartment where the engine should be, you can barely see his feet standing on the ground

I know a lot of people like sushi, but you would really really have to like it a lot to eat raw fish in a Mexico border town

The border

A truck fully loaded with wheel chairs heading to Mexico

Cole fell asleep while listening to "Eye of the Tiger" over and over again, I guess that's what happens when you watch Rocky.

At least my Mini Van Gang wasn't pummeling me with silence

At the phoenix airport

 

Charly, showing off her purse that I purchased at the market that very morning. At this point I was still getting the silent treatment from everyone

 

On the way through Arizona we passed by crazy roll over accident

 

 

The plane cast a sweet shadow on the cloud, it looked like a circular rainbow with an airplane in the middle

 

 

On the way home Charly found a new best friend, she visited with this guy the entire way home, he just patiently sat and talked with her until we landed.

 

Flying home, the worst part of a vacation is definitely the end, unless of course you were on board that carnival cruise that broke down and became shipwrecked for several days in the middle of the ocean, in which case the entire vacation would have been the worst part.

It annoys me when people say "It was a fun vacation but it's good to be back" because the truth is that it's not good to be back that's why you left in the first place to have fun and leave the stress behind. Why on earth would you want the fun to end and the stress to begin?

At the Salt Lake airport there was a news lady interviewing someone on camera and I walked up behind the person being interviewed and fell down on the baggage claim roller, I don't know if it made it on the news but it was moderately awesome, not quite legendary, but definitely worth doing!