Shadow Shot Sunday 2: San Jose del Cabo

Photos © Kay Davies, April, 2012

Posted for Shadow Shot Sunday 2

We're back...again...didja miss us?

Photos to come soon of our latest journey, to San Diego for several days (yes, we went to the zoo) and from San Diego on a cruise to Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas (and San Jose del Cabo) and to Ensenada, which is no longer the sleepy, dusty little town I remember from years gone by.


Here we are on the deck of the Carnival Spirit at Puerto Vallarta. There were many families aboard the ship because so many children had Easter vacations. It was a busy cruise, on a "fun ship"! Dick enjoyed the big waterslide, and I loved the spa.






We got home yesterday, and this afternoon a young grey cat decided it wants to come into our house, despite the fact that it saw the lovely Lindy, our Golden Retriever, through the door. Lindy was wagging her tail and looking like she might enjoy having a cat roommate, but we travel too much to be able to have two pets. We'll have to put up "Found" notices.

ABC Wednesday: Y is for Yucatan

© Photo by Richard Schear.

© Photo by Clint Davies.

In January, 2010, Dick and I went to the Mayan Riviera with my brother Clint and his wife Maria. One of our side trips was to the Mexican state of Yucatan to visit the Mayan city at Chichen Itza. If I look less than enthusiastic (or downright miserable) here, it is because my back was hurting. I wasn't prepared for Clint to take my picture, or I'd have smiled because I was very happy to be there.

© Photo by Richard Schear.

Clint's irrepressible enthusiasm, however, more than made up for my missing smile.

Posted for
ABC
Wednesday
hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt's talented team of alphabetical photo-bloggers.
To see how others have used the letter
Y please click HERE!

© Photo by Kay Davies.

© Photo by Clint Davies.

Dick and Maria strolling through the ancient Mayan ruins.

© Photo by Kay Davies.

"I" is for Iguanas around the world

Land iguana, Galapagos Islands

Land iguana, Galapagos Islands

Marine Iguana, Galapagos Islands

Marine Iguana, Galapagos Islands

Costa Rica

Dick meets iguanas in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Click photos to enlarge.

Costa Rica

Quintana Roo, Mexico

Posted for ABC Wednesday, Mrs. Nesbitt's alphabetical meme,

hosted each week by her very talented team.

To see what others have made of the letter "I" please click

HERE! 

Skywatch Friday - nighttime in California, Mexico and Spain

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC 2006

SAN FELIPE, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO
Moon reflecting on the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California)

CHRISTMAS EVE IN MADRID, SPAIN

CHRISTMAS SEASON, BARCELONA, SPAIN

Photos by Richard Schear and Kay Davies

Posted for Skywatch Friday meme,

for more pictures of skies around the world, please click

HERE

Seeking shadows in tropical places

On our tour from the Mayan Riviera in Mexico's Quintana Roo state to see the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Yucatan, we stopped at this restaurant for lunch. It wasn't easy to find a shady place in which to sit at noon in the tropics.

There was a little bit of shade near this beautiful yellow flower, but not a lot.

In the neighborhood of these gorgeous pink blooms, though, we found a little more shadow, if not exactly a great deal of shade.

Earlier this year, Dick and I joined my brother Clint and his wife, Maria, for a week at a resort on the Mayan Riviera in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. They flew to Cancun from Vancouver, while we flew there from Calgary via Houston, Texas. We spent a night in a hotel near the Houston airport and got our flight to Cancun the next day. I have trouble with long plane flights, and long days spent traveling.

As I've mentioned before, and will undoubtedly mention again, this is one of the best pieces of advice I can offer other unfitties who travel: stop and rest for a night, don't try to do the whole trip in one day. You'll be glad you did. Instead of trying, and failing, to get comfortable in the seat of a plane, you can eat in a restaurant, sleep in a bed, have a good breakfast, and take another comparatively short flight to your destination.

Photos by Kay Davies and Richard Schear. Posted by Kay Davies for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Hey, thank you, Harriet, for choosing our shot of a Galapagos gull and his shadow for your Shadow Gallery this weekend.

Scenes as I've seen 'em

above, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

above, rainy day in Alaska

above, taken from a panga in the Galapagos Islands

above, in the Galapagos Islands

above, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico's Baja Peninsula

above, in Costa Rica

above, in Tenerife, Canary Islands

above, marine iguanas inland, Galapagos Islands

above, the jungle, Costa Rica

above, Galapagos Islands

above, specially bred sled dogs, and Dick, in Whitehorse, Yukon

Almost invariably, when we travel, Dick sees the scenery and I see Dick's back. Never content to walk beside me, seldom remembering to offer me his arm or his hand, my big, strong, healthy husband is usually walking some steps ahead of me: sometimes a few steps, sometimes a great many steps. So I'm working on a chapter for An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel entitled: "The back of Dick's back"!

Welcome to my blog

Hi -- I hope you're enjoying the chapters of An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel that I post every two weeks (more or less), and also the photos I post in between (often at random).

If you're new to my blog, take a look at the list in the sidebar. It can take you back to my first post. Click on 2009, when I was new to this, too.

If you have a Google account, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, Name/URL, please feel free to leave comments on my blog. You can also use 'Anonymous' on the "Comment as" list (click on comment number below to find the list.) If you're in a hurry, you can check one of the boxes at the bottom of each blog section. Otherwise, blog comments are very welcome at ourcopyeditor@gmail.com

Thanks for visiting. And thanks to Clint and Maria Davies for this photo of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.

-- Kay

Chichen Itza -- at last I got to see it

Photos by Kay Davies

CHAPTER 2 — FROM THE AUTHOR

This is a true story. It more or less has a beginning and an end, but it isn’t a novel and it doesn’t have a plot. It happened to me. The ‘I’ in the book is me, Kay Davies, a former workaholic and now a government-registered unfittie; the ‘he’ in the book is my husband Richard Schear, a senior who can still run fast enough to referee high school basketball and football.
Being away from home isn’t a new idea to me. My parents spent some 25 winters in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, as well as many summers traveling and camping while my father gathered material and took thousands of 35mm color transparencies for his books about the rivers of British Columbia.
So travel isn’t new to me, either. When I was younger, I thought nothing of flying from the west coast of Canada to the east coast of the US for a long weekend, or catching a flight to southern California to rent a car and pop down the Baja to visit my parents for a week. I once took a year off to play rather than work, and during that year I took my brother to Australia for a month.
But the time came when it all stopped. Not just running foot races with my youngest brother. That went first, of course, because he got faster as I got slower. But my pick-up-and-take-off lifestyle eventually stopped, too.
I didn’t relinquish my wanderlust willingly, but relinquish it I finally did, because I could no longer work. I could no longer guarantee I’d show up on the job every day, or produce any significant amount of work once I got there. When I was thoroughly beaten down, the government ended up giving me money every month to make up for my general uselessness and lack of reliability.

KAY’S COLLECTION OF ILLNESSES
For a while (for too long, in fact) I fought my fate. I denied it even as I railed against it, and refused to apply for a pension until several different pains and problems in various parts of my body had me pretty much licked. I tried to work, but couldn’t, so I had to sell my house and live on the proceeds. Then I gave up, applied to the feds, and had to wait for my application to be approved. I moved myself and my two cats to a drier climate, but the medication prescribed for one illness had caused more damage to my already beleaguered body. My eyes developed cataracts, my blood sugar went wonky, my bones got terrifyingly thin, and I got fat. I swelled up like a balloon, and I’ve never lost that steroid weight.
I did, however, lose my looks. Sometimes I still wonder which I miss most, a successful career in the newspaper and printing industry, or a pretty face and a slim body.
It’s a tough call.
Newspaper compositors are being replaced by computers every day, and on the other hand, it doesn’t much matter if old ladies aren’t pretty. Dick thinks I’m cute, which is probably why I married him. However, it is a compliment about which I’m ambivalent. Most of the time, I am glad he thinks so, until I remember I’m a cute old lady, not a cute young thing. Sigh.
So, where was I? Ah, yes, I relinquished my lifestyle, moved away from the wet west coast, and some years later settled into semi-domesticity (I’m no one’s idea of a housewife) out here on the prairie, where the deer and the antelope play. I could book a seat-sale flight, or Dick would drive me out to BC to check on my elderly parents a couple of times a year. I’d see other members of the family, visit a few old friends, get some good fish and chips, and it was enough. I was content.
“There are penguins in the Galapagos Islands,” said Dick.
We’ve been traveling ever since.

Playa del Sol, San Felipe, Baja Norte, Mexico