Summer Vacay Puerto/Nuevo Vallarta Day 1 - Arrival

June 20, 2015.

The usual procrastinators that we are, we packed at the last minute, therefore I only managed to sleep half hour before leaving for the flyaway. We were supposed to leave at 5 but we missed the 530 bus and had to wait for the 6oclock one. Good thing no traffic and we made good time to the airport. United was the last terminal and boy they were packed.

On one of the stops, Tal pointed out that Mr. Chow AKA Ken Jeong was sitting right outside the terminal chatting with another passenger. I looked and to my disbelief, he did look like Mr Chow. I managed to snap one photo before the bus takes off but didn't manage to focus!

Since we packed liquids, we have to check in one of the bags plus need to print Aba's boarding pass because his flight was reserved with the wrong name. That took the longest because everyone was lining up behind a computerized kiosk and nobody seemed to know what needs to be done and needed assistance. When it was my time, I couldn't check my bag in because it passed the 45min prior to boarding. So needed assistance and none of the agent would help because it was only a specific agent that's assisting other kiosks that can help us.

Finally flagged him down and he understood that we were late, so he helped us out to check the bag and process Aba's boarding pass and took us upstairs, cut through security line and we ran to the gate like crazy with just minutes to spare. I honestly thought we were gonna miss the flight as we spent about 30mins to check in.

Flight was only 3 hours and we slept most of it. We were seated separately, however, the row in front me was the exit row and nobody was there so I gathered the other two to come and sit with me hehe nothing beats more leg room!

We breezed through immigration but upon collecting our bags, this darn dog sniffed my bag, I showed the officer that I only have muffins. Thought we were on the clear, there's another level of immigration and another freaking dog sniffed my bag and we had to be screened. They asked us to take our bags to opened. Didn't confiscate anything except some sandwiches that Tal's mom made which Aba brought all the way from Israel. What bummer!

After all that, we exit the area and searched for our transportation, the concierge advised to ignore the timeshare people that lurks around the airport. One of the guys approached us and identify himself as Vida for the transportation service and asked that we speak to someone at the counter. Guillermo told us that our car will be ready in 15mins and in the meantime he wanted to inform us of all activities around the area that we can take advantage of. He offered us kayaking to a unesco site for $30/person, 6hr fishing trip for $150/trip and zip line for $20/person. 

We opted for the kayak and zip line totaling $150 and he can only accept cash, the only catch is we just need to spend one hour timeshare presentation, which we've done many times so it wasn't a big deal. We paid him the money and exchanged our numbers so he can arrange to pick us up tomorrow for the presentation. He also forewarned us not to speak to the concierge at the hotel about other timeshare presentations when we get into the hotel.

It was about 20mins car ride to the hotel. The property is so huge that we had to depart with our luggage with the bellboy to be taken to the "Santuario" in a golf cart and from there another 10mins walk to the hotel itself to check-in. The Grand Mayan entrance is lined with humongous Mayan status - from my estimation they're probably about 100ft high and pitch dark for some reason maybe to appear mystical. 

To check in they put a deposit hold of US$700 on your credit card, in case of incidental damages. And ushered us to the direction of the concierge. As we were pre-warned by Guillermo, we were very cautious on what she was about to tell us. It wasn't her first rodeo, she already assumed that we spoke to the airport people as she called them and told us that she'd match whatever he promised us at no cost to us and also will upgrade us to a deluxe room in a different hotel closer to the beach provided that we attend their timeshare presentation.

When asked why should we go with her and not him, she said that they have bad reputation of holding customers for longer than an hour and not upholding or granting all the activities promised. She said we should be assured since she's at the hotel and work for the hotel unlike the guys at the airport that we have no way of reaching them.

It was a no brainer, so we agreed to drop that guy, he keeps the $150 and we get an upgrade as well as the activities we paid for. The timeshare comes with breakfast and we're only obligated to stay for one hour with no commitment to buy. Since we've already checked into Grand Mayan and now upgraded to Deluxe Tower which she said the rooms are twice as large with a huge deck and dip pool, we had to be carted to the new hotel so another golf cart driver awaits us to take us there. 3mins later we arrived to a much luxurious looking resort where there isn't really a reception counter but concierge desks instead. 

We were served with chilled jamaica (pronounced hamaica) and basil drink which is just hibiscus and boy it was so good and refreshing. After we confirmed everything, we were given wrist bands to be worn to identify which property we're staying in and it also has RFID that acts as our room key - we felt like royalties!

Our room is just on the second floor and we were upgraded to 2bedroom instead of 1, but the rooms are huge with big soaking tub and jacuzzi in each room, full kitchen equipped with microwave, electric range, coffee maker, blender, toaster, fridge, cookware, dinnerware, flatware and utensils for over 10people. The photo below only shows the kitchen/living area, there's doors that lead to both bedrooms and size of the rooms are the same as living while bath is about the size of kitchen.

All rooms are huge and airy with high ceiling and have access to the balcony where they have a dip pool, hammock, dining set and buffet table. Balcony has partial ocean view and full river view where we were told crocodiles and snapping turtles live.

Ah, this is the good life.

2014 Roadtrip Day 7 / Dec 31: Boulder - Grand Junction

We discovered a Costco close to the motel and decided to check it out and of course when you're at Costco, you've got to try all the samples they give out! We ended up buying 3pk canvas tote for grocery shopping and jerky for the road as well as topping up our gas and this was the lowest I've ever seen!

And we're off to a long drive, but first a little detour and discovered this finny fire hydrant disguised as a minion.

We were both exhausted and afraid of snoozing while driving so we pulled over to take a nap. The view was just breathtaking.

After a nice nap, I had to pee and scout the area to see if there was a decent place for nature call, in the end managed to hide behind some snow and made it all yellow haha

We pretty much spent the rest of daylight driving toward Grand Junction but was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the sun making a grand exit amongst the clouds.

Since it was NY's eve, that night after we took the doggies out for their walk, Tal tested out some of the fireworks but none of the loud ones since we were still in motel's property just the handheld shooters which shoots up quite colorfully.

2014 Roadtrip Day 6 / Dec 30: Laramie - Cheyenne - Boulder

It takes only about an hour to Cheyenne from Laramie. As our regular ritual, we started to load all our stuff into the car. The motel has a pool that was filled to the brim with snow. How awesome! I've always wanted to use snow as cooler and this was the perfect chance. The drinks were warm since we kept in the room, but it didn't take long for them to cool.

We didn't really have any plans so we drove to the Cheyenne Botanic Garden. Nothing green, everything was covered in white. We even spotted this bunny taking a shelter underneath the van. How cute!

Went for a bathroom break in the main building, other than that, there weren't too much we can do as it was freezing cold here. I just snapped a couple photos with Matthew.

Driving on the street covered with snow is more difficult, and I slid for the first time for braking too fast/hard. It was scary not to be in control of your car. Thankfully, there weren't that many cars. The neighborhood looked adorable with everything covered in snow.

Next we found ourselves at the old town, we parked and left the doggies inside the car, walked to the square in front of the train station.

We walked into a few stores to warm up and get back into the snow. Took about an hour or so to cover the entire block, going in and out of shops, but figured we should go back to the doggies.

After this, we head out south to Boulder, which is about 1.5hrs away. We spotted another fireworks shop on the freeway, so we pulled over because Tal wanted to check it out. He said this shop has much more and far better inventory. He got another $50 worth of fireworks!

For the first time, we were stuck in traffic on the way to Boulder. It was dark by the time we arrived at the town center, we walked around the plaza and snapped some photos.

We wanted to cover Denver too before retiring for the night and it's just half an hour drive away so we took off and got back on the freeway. Denver feels more developed and cramped with all the high rise. We didn't do anything much once again due to the freezing weather, but we did stop by at the skate park which is filled with snow. Took the doggies out to stretch and head to the motel.

2014 Roadtrip Day 5 / Dec 29: Evanston - Laramie

When we arrived at the motel, the place looked like it was from the 60s. We got our key and went to look for our room, and did a quick check to ensure everything is working before we start moving our stuff in. I thought Tal was waiting for me in the car but I found him at the corridoor and he asked where did I go, I told to our room, he said I got the wrong room. The bizarre thing was I was able to open the other room with our key! It turned out that we were able to access all other rooms with the same key. Gosh! We didn't care too much because this place is literally in the middle of nowhere and obviously the owners didn't think it'd matter much.

Anyway the bathroom in the wrong room that I went to was overflow, thank goodness it wasn't really our room because I didn't want to have to go thru the front desk. We moved all our stuff in and settled down shower and make dinner. Close to midnight we get dressed and take the doggies out and saw what happened to the car:

We didn't leave for Laramie until it was time to check out which was close to noon. This motel basically looked like just a stop for truckers.

It takes around 4.5hrs to drive from Evanston to Laramie. I've seen snowstorm warnings but haven't actually been in one until this stretch of drive. Thankfully there weren't too many vehicles on the road with us and we were going at a pretty good speed. Once again I have to credit the ploughers for keeping the roads ice free.

The snowstorm pattern was eerily similar to the sandstorm we encountered years ago on Roadtrip to NM. Definitely sand do more damage than snow though. 

Just to show you how cold it was, the water bottle left inside the car froze. Our drive today is just on I-80 across Wyoming and the only thing that piqued our attention was the fireworks stores and they're abundant in this part of the country. We stopped at one to checkout their inventory. Tal bought about $15 worth of them.

We arrived at Laramie motel close to 6 and thank goodness it's renovated/updated and clean too! Took this screenshot from my weather app, it sure is getting colder and colder!

2014 Roadtrip Day 9 / Jan 2: Cedar City - Las Vegas

Almost to the last stretch - we were only 2.5hrs away from Vegas! Didn't do much in Cedar City, just made a little something to eat for breakfast and found our way back to the strip where we purchased the chains, returned them then head back on the road.

We did however stopped at a Sonic to grab something sweet at their drive thru - banana split! 

Uneventful drive down and the further away we got Cedar City, the snow starts to disappear. As a matter of fact, after halfway through the drive, after passing St George, I started peeling off the outer layers. And upon reaching Vegas, I had to take off my heavy shoes and opted for flip flop instead haha it was good for them toes to be breathing freely again.

I was running low on gas at the outskirts of Vegas and found a station with decent rate and offers Carwash too, so we decided to get my baby cleaned. Boy, was she filthy from all the salt, snow, dirt, mud and whatnot! People were probably wondering why the both of us got out to take photos of the car haha

And all it took was just a wash to get it sparkling again. We were getting hungry by then and since I've been raking points on my dunkin donuts perks card, we made a beeline toward the closest store in town and got some much needed overdue coffee. Although we're not religious coffee drinkers, this was really a treat for us and we each got a sandwich wrap which we gobbled down in no time. Best of all, the food was all free!

Tal was able to book two nights at La Quinta by the airport at discounted rate. It was surprisingly nice and the room was pretty big with two nice comfy queen size bed, flat screen tv and medium fridge. The rates were definitely higher probably $20/night more than the motels we stayed in it was worth paying extra since we were going to stay here for two nights. Two pros - they take dogs and they offer free breakfast!

2014 Roadtrip Day 8 / Jan 1: Grand Junction - Cedar City

It was dark when we arrived at the motel, so it was nice to actually be able to see the property in daylight. Little did we realize when we played with the fireworks that we were next to an open area. 

We were also very close to the airport, drove by to check it out and it was empty. Perhaps due to NewYear. Since we have another 5hr of driving ahead of us, we pushed on.

About halfway through the drive, we stopped at this place called Black Dragon Canyon which surroundings look similar to Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the camera setting and most photos taken here were overexposed. 

Strolled a little to stretch our legs and there were a few other families who had the same idea. It was really scenic so many took photos before continuing their journey. 

We stopped again at another scenic off ramp and this area has less stopper bys the photo did no justice to it:

There were not so much snow around this area and I was able to uncover my face. Landscape changes drastically after this stop as there were less snow and I thought we were out of the snow, but as we get closer to Cedar City, there were still plenty of snow on the ground. 

Had to wait a long time to check in because of the holiday and right after I got there, people started to come in. We couldn't wait to get our rooms and take a nice warm shower and make some hot grubs. Made some steamed rice and warm up canned chili and that just hit the spot!

2014 Roadtrip Day 4 / Dec 28: Lehi - Salt Lake City - Evanston

It felt really good to be back in civilization after only one freezing night out in the "wild". After checking into the motel, we showered and made some dinner. I made brown rice and toss a can of chili which hit the spot on cold nights. After dinner, we took the doggies out for walk and went to replenish some supplies at nearby Walmart. We saw one guy in shorts walking into Walmart, wow in that temperature, that was a first for us.

We were also able to do one load of laundry and had a good night sleeping in warm comfy bed. In the morning, we walked the doggies around the motel and it was funny to see their reaction toward snow.

As usual, they're excited to go out for walks, but after a couple seconds in snow, they started to lose the excitement, especially Matthew he started crying and can't decide which paw should he take off from the snow! 

After packing all our stuff back into the car, we drove around and spotted photo ops, these are my favorites:

After that we headed north toward Salt Lake City which is only half hour drive. It began to snow slightly when we were on the freeway driving toward SLC. The road looked like they were just recently ploughed making it safe to drive at regular freeway speed. The falling snows were mesmerizing as you drive into them, hypnotizing you of its gracefulness. It continues to fall harder reducing visibility forcing me to slow down but we were approaching the Mormon HQ so no hurry there.

We found a parking spot right outside the compound. It was so cool to walk around while snowing, even managed to catch one snow falling in action. 

They also have nativity staged in the compound, it looked pretty awesome in the snow. 

It started to get a little wet so we went inside one of the many buildings to warm up and also restroom. Chit chatted with one of the volunteers and found out they come from all over the world, saw one from the Philippines. 

The lot the church and other buildings sit on are quite big. I can only imagine how much money they're making to maintain all this.

After we were warmed up, we walked around the compound to try to gauge the size of the lot. 

Simply put - it's huge!

All that walking made us hungry, we yelped around to see what's good, first option what Vietnamese based on reviews, even drove to the restaurant only to find out they ran out of food and couldn't accept more customer. Bummer!

Yelped again and this time we settled for Thai. Not too far but the restaurant was empty. By this time we were famished and just decided to try anyway. 

We ordered green curry, cashew chicken and pad Thai. Oh ya we also got a yelp deal for half off on the pad Thai. Food was not bad, ta pao whatever we couldn't finish and continued on to Evanston, Wyoming. Just can't beat these kinda views. 

2014 Roadtrip Day 3 / Dec 27: Zion National Park - Provo - Lehi

The This was possibly one of the longest nights of our lives according to Tal and I have to admit he is right. Did not expect the temperature to drop so drastically, it was -9F at its lowest. Our sleeping bags was not built for this kind of weather - if I remember correctly, it was only good up to around 10F.

Our tent was more like a summer tent with vents so that was not good for us. The only separation between us and the ground was just the tarp and I bought a twin size comforter but did not help much. Milo actually went inside Tal's sleeping bag and slept with him by his feet. Since there's extra space where the feet is, Tal said that's why it's always cold. My feet was frozen most of the night and it was hard to get them warm. I tried to get Matthew to sleep with me but he was fussy so he goes and sleep by himself on the bed.The heater was literally life saver as we took turn to warm up our feet and rotate between the doggies, thank goodness Tal brought it!

Poor Tal, he had worse time than me, he couldn't get comfortable at all and he even wrapped his face with one of his thermals to keep himself warm. He didn't get as much sleep as I did. This was also the first time I felt claustrophobic because of the sleeping bag. We had the mummy ones and I would zip it all the way to my head and there were several times that I woke up gasping for air as if I couldn't breathe - it's also because my hands were on the inside and I wasn't able to quickly open up the bag. It was not a good feeling at all.

In the middle of the night, I needed to pee and there was no way I was going to walk all the way to the restroom, I didn't think I'd hold it for that long. It was cold and I was desperate so I just went behind the tree. I only wore my flip flop with socks of course and to my amazement, the stars were so bright and the skies looked like they were lit by them - it was so beautiful! I only managed to admire this during the 4-5 secs when I ran out to pee. After that it was just too cold so I went back inside the tent to warm up.

Before the sun came out, I started making soup for breakfast. Thank goodness for the rice cooker - I was able to boil the water and pour in sachet of instant soup that we got from Israel. This really warmed us up. I also managed to make fried rice - brought some eggs and leftover rice with us, this was heavenly on a freezing day like this.

After breakfast, we couldn't sleep anymore and went outside then realized the sun has already came out. To my astonishment, my car was frozen too! Didn't think that it would happen to it:

It was good to get out of the tent and stretch. The doggies went to do their business and we thought we should start packing our stuff and be on our way. We didn't even bother to go deeper inside the park, just did our business and off we go. My car happily started with no glitches but I couldn't spray the windshield because the fluids were frozen! So I just used a piece of cloth to scrape the ice off, it wasn't that hard.

We see small chunks of snow here and there but as we move north toward I-15 the landscape changed drastically to this! It was just beautiful to see everything blanketed in white powdery flakes.

Only an hour into our drive we're back to civilization and the first thing we saw that prompted us to exit the freeway was Panda Express at Cedar City! Haha good ol chinese food does the trick to get us back on track. We got our food from the drive thru and ate in the parking lot. It was freezing but I was really excited to see snow, I just went outside to grab some water from the trunk and almost slipped from the ice.

We continued on to Lehi carefully with icy and snowy road condition, total drive was around 3 hours from CC. Gotta say the ploughers did a great job on clearing out the snow to make our drives safer.