It’s a good day to be vertical and breathing. The nasty humidity from yesterday afternoon is gone for the moment, but that could be because we’re lounging in the adult pool, our favorite place. This is what it looks like from where I’m sitting on the top step.

Diane is sitting on another area around the corner from me reading a book on her iPad. Very relaxing.

Last night, Diane was watching a Spanish weather report and learned that tropical storm Manual is in the vicinity and supposedly heading our direction. Looking around, I don’t see even one cloud in the sky, so it doesn’t look promising for anything bad to happen any time soon. But, it’s only 1050 in the morning and there’s a lot daylight remaining. Just a light breeze ruffling the palm trees and rippling the water a little.

The pool water is about 2 degrees lower than my body heat and feels awesome. Diane’s floating around now and said that this is the best part about being here – we have the pool to ourselves so we can pretend it’s in our back yard. Best part for me is that someone else maintains it. I don’t like that part. It actually sucks, like a large vacuum cleaner.

We’re going to lolly gag here in the pool until 1330 when we will attend our free lunch with a high pressure saleswo/man. That wasn’t a mistake there. I just decided that my abbreviation for “woman or man” is “wo/man”. Saves time. Anyway, lunch is free, a good thing, and it will be great. And, we’ve learned, over the years, to not be swayed by the continuous pressure applied by the salesperson.

Diane was really bummed this morning because she couldn’t find the cereal she bought for the trip. It was a bundle of those little packages of individual servings. I was sure I replaced it in the food suitcase when I rearranged everything, but must have left it laying on Jeran’s bed. Either that, or the TSA agent in Portland took it when he inspected the case. We know he inspected it because he left a note. Really, he did. I know it was a “he” because a woman would never have done that to a person. Take their cereal? That just isn’t right. So, we are cerealess for the duration of the stay. This morning we had yogurt, coffee, and toast. The coffee and grinder made it through customs just fine. Did I already mention that?

Time for a break. I’m going to go floating, now.

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OK. Done floating, had lunch, then went for a massage. Both of us. At the same time, but in different rooms. Naked. Diane’s massager was Claudia, mine was Lydia. I just had a deep tissue on my upper back and neck. When she pushed across in the area of my shoulder blades I’m sure it must have felt like rocks to her. Sure did to me. And it hurt. A lot. But I barely whimpered, and let her work on them. Tomorrow I’m sure I’ll have bruises, but that’s OK.

Now we’re just hanging out in our room because we’re both pretty mellowed-out from activity. We’re sitting in our living room, with all the windows, and the front door open, so the ocean breeze is blowing right through the place. Very peaceful. Everyone will have to come with us next year. You’ll need a passport.

Did I mention they have pink flamingos hanging out here? The do. They don’t do much. Just stand around and look pretty. They were much more fun as croquet mallets in “Alice in Wonderland”.

Now we have an incredibly huge decision to make because it’s getting on toward supper time for us. Yes, we ate lunch only 4.5 hours ago, but it was just a cheeseburger and fries. It was good, but not as good as a Burgerville Tillamook Cheeseburger. No sir! Those are the absolute best when it comes to cheeseburgers.

Last night on the news, shortly before we went to bed, the government was on the verge of shutting down so we quit watching. Since we’ve neither seen nor heard any news today, we do not know what happened. Could be we might just have to stay here a while until they government gets opened back up. Perhaps one of you will let us know if the borders are open later in the week. Say, Saturday.

Supper is over and, based on the cost of room service for our cheeseburger lunch ($17.80 including tax), I decided to put some arbitrary prices on the dinner we had …
2 Handmade sandwiches created from imported tuna, mayo, relish, and onion powder – $47.50
2 Large glasses of milk from an unaware Spanish speaking cow – $6.00
2 Imported fruit cups (pear for Diane, peach for me) – $8.50
4 Imported Rice Krispy Treats – $8.00
2 Cups of coffee made from imported coffee beans, ground to powder on an imported coffee grinder – $5.00

Using my old high school math, that comes to about $75.00 for both meals. Actually, it works out exactly to $75.00, as I’m sure you already know. Considering that buying the all inclusive option for this resort ($76/day per person for the 7 day stay, but you only have to pay for 5 of the seven because two of them are arrival/departure days which works out to about $55/day/person) we made the correct choice. For us.

However … the all inclusive includes all drinks, too, so for those who enjoying embibing to excess, it’s a deal maker for them. Neither Diane nor I are known for our drinking prowess, so doing that just didn’t make sense. We drink water, mainly, and we obtain it from our imported Britta filter pitcher, which was filled with all manner of cosmetics in the food suitcase. Water at the resort is reportedly filtered, and I’ve experienced no problem from past visits, but why take a chance, right?

I broke down, while Diane was whipping up those incredibly expensive sandwiches, and turned on the TV to watch CNN so I could find out how the government is doing. Looks to me like it’s going down the drain. I mean, 800,000 federal workers furloughed BUT the idiots who caused the problem continue to get paid? That’s fair, don’t you think? I believe it’s 800,000. The number just kinda flashed by on the screen, but I’m sure it’s a big number. After listening to both sides plead their case, it all turned to white noise for me, and annoyed Diane to distraction. So, I turned it off and we sat by the open windows and enjoyed another incredible sunset while we ate an expensive dinner. We read our books while eating, stealing random glances out the windows as the scene changed, and the sun finally made it’s swan dive into the ocean.

It’s now almost 2000. In a bit, we’re heading down to capture a little of the free wi-fi at the Deli and get this sent off to the ozone. I’ll even try to add pictures, too.

Hope you all had a wonderful day.

This was from yesterday, looking over the infinity pool …

This is a picture of the adult pool looking from out 3rd floor window …

This is my foot relaxing in the adult pool this afternoon …

This is me watching Diane relax in a deck chair by the kids wading pool …

This is me relaxing on the sofa in our room …

This is the sunset we watched tonight from our room …