The Friday morning of our 2017 trip found me at our son and daughter-in-law’s house. I was there to spend some time with our grandson Ari. He was sleeping when I got there and he continued sleeping for an hour after I arrived. When he woke up he was happy and ready to play after a quick bottle and a diaper change. He loves to kick so I put him in his playpen sideways so his feet were up on the side. He kicked away and we had a little conversation. When he tired of that, I put him on the floor under his little gym. He grabbed at the toys suspended above him and delighted in the music he made play as the arches of the gym moved. After about an hour he grew tired of that so we walked around, or rather I walked while he rode in my arms. Soon he made it clear he was hungry again so I warmed up a bottle. When it was half finished his mommy arrived. I changed his diaper and then turned him over to her. I gathered up my things and then said good-bye. Ari decided it was time to be incredibly cute and charming. He looked at me from his mother’s arms and laughed! Then he looked away and turned back quickly, chatting first and then laughing again. It was so adorable that I cried. Finally I left.

Back at home I fixed my face, changed my clothes, did a quick check of the house then I went next door to our neighbour’s house. He had graciously offered to drive me to the airport, saving me an hour and a half skytrain trip. We conversed easily and soon the trip was over. I thanked him and went into the airport. Dale was going to leave work early and meet me there, with the luggage. But I had about an hour’s wait so I went to Starbuck’s and had a tea and a chocolate croissant. The guy at Starbuck’s warmed it up for me. The gooey chocolate treat was the perfect way to pass the time. Soon Dale arrived. We checked our luggage and went through security.

The flight to Calgary was short and we got our luggage quickly. We wandered outside in the cold and snow in shorts and flip flops to our shuttle. Soon we were in our hotel room to sleep for a couple hours before getting our early morning flight to Los Cabos. That flight was longer but the time passed quickly. That’s when the adventure began.

First of all, the flight crew didn’t have the tourist cards we needed so we had to wait on the plane until they arrived. Then we had to fill them out before we could leave. The airport was very busy and the plane was quite a ways from the terminal. So, we walked, cards in hand, to the terminal, where the passengers from several other planes were waiting. The lineup to get to the customs agents was very, very long. We snaked our way back and forth, trying to stay positive and upbeat. We heard people talking about how friends had told them they had waited over two hours to get through customs. On one switchback an agent removed the barrier cord and waved us through. At first we thought they were opening a new line but we were the only ones let through. We wondered about it for a bit then realized it was my cane that got us into a priority lineup. We felt guilty but we took the opportunity and we got through customs much faster than most everyone else in the terminal.

Our luggage was waiting for us so we gathered it up and ran the gauntlet of entrepreneurs who wait just outside Mexican airports looking to get you to agree to a timeshare presentation by posing as shuttle or taxi drivers. We pushed past them but got sucked into going to a counter where the guy told us the name of our shuttle driver, based on the hotel we were staying at, and then he tried to talk us into doing a timeshare presentation. We told him no and went out to find Luis. Eventually we located him and bought some beer to soothe our shattered nerves and wet our parched throats while we waited. It wasn’t long before we were in the van and on our way to the hotel.

Check-in was easy. The resort is built on the hillside outside Cabo San Lucas. We were taken in a golf cart to our villa. We were on the third floor and we had an amazing view of the villa pool and the ocean. We dropped off our luggage and had the golf cart driver take us to one of the restaurants. After lunch we changed into our suits and found two empty lounges at our villa pool. We got a drink and started on our sunburns. We had dinner later that night, walking down several flights of stairs to the main restaurant. That meant we had to walk back up, but it was a beautiful night with a starry sky above us so it wasn’t a hardship.

The rest of the week was spent in variations of the first day. We checked out all the pools and tried all the restaurants. We hiked up and down the trails, avoiding golf carts and marvelling at the views. One morning we saw whales just off the shore as we walked down for breakfast. One afternoon we laughed at a maintenance crew. The guy repairing an exposed pipe several feet down the bank was in a harness that another guy above him on the bank was holding! One day we took the shuttle into Cabo and spent the day there, at a sister resort. Dale took several swims in the ocean while I read under the umbrella on the beach. We rested, drank, burned different parts of our bodies at different times, swam, ate, slept in, read dozens of books on our Kindles and played several games of Scrabble on our iPads. All in all, it was a wonderful week, and Dale only called me names when I beat him at Scrabble, which was every game!

Part of the “Market”, which was like a food court.