M-M-M-Miller

Miller Park marks the 29th MLB baseball stadium we’ve been to and undoubtedly will rank among our favorites.

The beauty of the day (Memorial Day 2009) probably accounts for some of our pleasure with Miller Park but we would have loved the stadium anyway. We saw an afternoon game with the bright sun warming our backs. Everyone around us was having a good time. The game itself was a pitchers’ duel with no hits until the 6th inning, with the Brewers beating archrival St. Louis 1-0 in 10 innings.

Milwaukee’s Yovani Gallardo gave up just 2 hits over 8 innings , while the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter had a perfect game until the 7th inning. Bill Hall won the game for the Brewers with a two-out single, scoring Casey McGehee, who reached first to start on the inning on an error by third baseman Brian Barden.

Miller Park has an old-time baseball feel even though it opened in 2001 and has a fan-shaped retractable roof. There’s lots of brick on the exterior. Arched windows circle the stadium. There are a number of statues in the front, including one of Hank Aaron.

The park, with construction starting in 1996, had been scheduled to open in 1999 and was to have been the site for the 1999 All Star game. But financing problems stalled the construction (the original $250 million cost went to $400 million), as well as a crane accident in July 1999 that killed three construction workers. There’s a monument to the workers near the front of the stadium (see photo). The All Star game was finally played at Miller Park in 2002.

The field has a huge color screen past center field, as well as a scoreboard that stretches 76 feet. Past left-center field is a yellow slide for the mascot, Bernie the Brewer, to slide down. Inside the park is a Brewers Hall of Fame and the Miller Park Kids Zone play area.

We were told a must-have for lunch was a brat. I tried one and was disappointed, a Johnsonville brat would have been better than the one I had. Alta had a huge pretzel (10-12 inches across) that was dipped in melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Sausage as well as beer is a definite feature of Miller Park. Beside the kind you eat, there is a “sausage race” during the 7th inning stretch, when “Roll Out the Barrel” is played on the loudspeakers.

We walked to the park from our motel (Best Western Woods View Inn on National Avenue), a 20-minute walk past a VA hospital and through a wooded park. A very nice experience on a beautiful day. The park is adjacent to Wood National Cemetery, established in 1871 originally for the burial of Civil War veterans. Among those buried there are five Medal of Honor recipients. Since we were there on Memorial Day weekend flowers, flags and personal mementos had been placed on all the grave sites (photo).

Doomed Dome

The Minnesota Twins’ ballpark since 1982, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, is in its final season in 2009. It will be replaced in 2010 by Target Field. I doubt anyone will be sorry to see the Metrodome go.

We’ve been to games in 28 of the ballparks for the 30 Major League Baseball teams, plus the old Olympic Stadium in the Montreal Expos last season. Olympic Stadium was really bad and the Metrodome is nearly as bad.

When I walked into the Metrodome for a Twins game against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 23, I felt like it was the 1960s and I was in the old arena where the National Western Stock Show was held in Denver.

A narrow, concrete concourse winds around the park’s exterior, with a few concession stands sprinkled around. You can’t see the game from the concourse, unless you try to peak through guarded gates. We sat in the second level. After taking stairs to that level, we were told (politely but firmly) by a guard at the top of the stairs that we couldn’t go back to the first level. That’s to make sure that low-lifes like us couldn’t try to find better seats later in the game.

The seats, at least in the second level, were built so that we had to look around the heads of fans in front of us to see home plate. There also isn’t any leg room. The sound system reverberates with a hollow sounds that makes it difficult to understand the announcer. And the plastic turf looks like faded green carpet that’s been left out in the Minnesota winters.

Again following the advice of the New York Times, we tried the carved turkey sandwich from the Minnesota Carvery, located behind Section 132 on the ground level (don’t try to sneak back down from the second level after the game starts). The Times was right about the moist and flavorful turkey, although that’s all you get on your sandwich, no lettuce, no tomato, no nothing. It does come with a Caesar salad, but you can scrape that off your plate without trying it unless you just have to have lettuce.

When you leave the Metrodome through one of the regular doors, you get pushed out by the air pressure pumped into the stadium to keep the dome up. You can also use the carousel-like entry, which prevents the wind-tunnel effect.

The real highlight of going to a Twins home game (I’m sure the smaller Target Field due to open in April 2010 will be better), is going to Minneapolis. We loved everything we saw in Minneapolis in the 2 days we were there. We stayed in a great (and reasonable) hotel, the Aloft Hotel on Washington Avenue South in the Mill District near the Mississippi River. Nearby is the gorgeous new Guthrie Theater complex, the Saturday Farmers’ Market, Stone Arch Bridge across the river, the Sculpture Garden, and St. Anthony Falls (the latter is the reason Minneapolis was such a mill town).

Target Field, which will cost about $480 million, is still adjacent to downtown Minneapolis. It’s being built by the same architect (Populous) that build Baltimore’s Camden Yards, PNC Park in Pittsburgh and AT&T Park in San Francisco. We read that the grass for the new park will be from Colorado. The sod got its initial inspection by Twins officials this year.

Since this is the last year for the Metrodome, the Twins are collecting votes for the top moments in the park’s history. My vote goes to tearing it down.

Treking at Kauffman

There are three main reasons to go to a baseball game, besides the game itself. First, there’s the park experience. Next, discovering the hometown faves and unique foods (think fried Twinkies). Finally, it’s watching the fans.

We visited three parks in May – Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, the Metrodome in Minneapolis and Miller Park in Milwaukee. Miller Park was the best of the three, but more about that later.

At Kauffman Stadium we expected the entertainment to be led by the best pitcher in baseball this year, Zack Greinke, who had a 0.60 ERA and 7 wins going into the game against the Cleveland Indians. But Greinke had an off-day for him, exiting after 6 innings. The Royals led at that point, 3-2, but went on to lose, 8-3, as their bullpen went into freefall.

Midway through the game we noticed a fan, a young man probably taking the afternoon off work on a glorious Thursday afternoon, reading a book between innings. Turns out he was more than halfway through “Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls,” one of the latest in that series. Captain Jean-Luc Picard has to stop the soldiers of Armageddon as they lay waste to worlds. You could cast Greinke in the lead role and the Indians as the evil soldiers, but in that case Picard is gone (living to fight another day) and Armageddon wins.

We’d (at least I had) been looking forward to some famous Kansas City barbeque at Kauffman. The New York Times did a story last year about the best ballpark food and listed the barbeque from the Gates and Sons Bar-B-Q stand at the stadium. Turns out that the $250 million renovation of Kauffman Stadium, completed in 2008, saw the exit of Gates. There’s now another BBQ stand but we opted for what one of the customer service reps said was the best food – the $9 chicken quesadilla at the Rivals Sports Bar past right field. If we go back to Kauffman, we’ll be looking for something else to eat.

Kauffman Stadium is one of the oldest MLB parks, opening in 1973. The renovation has made it feel new, and much of it is. The concourse is twice as wide as it was, opening up space for more vendors and concession stands. You also can walk the main concourse clear around the park, stopping in centerfield to enjoy a fountain celebration (photo), and the cascading waterfalls in left field ($7 game tickets for the Fountain Seats). Kauffman also has what is the biggest JumboTron in any park I’ve been in.

We've Got Liftoff

We thought American Airlines and Mother Nature were conspiring to keep us from seeing the Houston Astros. (Prepare for a rant.)

We had tickets to see the Astros play the Cincinnati Reds at Minute Maid Park April 18. Game time was 6:05 p.m. and our flight from Dallas was scheduled to arrive before 2 p.m., so we didn’t think there would be a problem, especially since our hotel was walking distance from the park.

Our flight was announced at DFW after the gate attendant said the crew had arrived. We boarded the plane and sat down, expecting to take off close to our 12:45 scheduled departure. After 5 or so minutes, passengers started complaining it was getting too warm so the flight attendant said she’d get someone to turn on the air. She came back to say the flight crew actually had not arrived and no one could cool things down. Another 5-10 minutes and a voice over the loud-speaker suggested we might want to get off the plane because no one knew where the pilot and co-pilot were.

That’s the way it stood until about 3 p.m., when the gate attendant announced they’d found another flight crew. Ten minutes later we were told the weather was so bad in Houston they’d closed Bush International. We sat, and sat, and sat some more.

We finally got into the Houston airport well after 5, had to pick up a car, drive to our downtown hotel and check-in, then walk about 6 blocks to Minute Maid Park. We made it for the 7th-inning stretch (during which they sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas”).

Minute Maid Park (originally called Enron Park before that financial debacle) celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2009, replacing the Astros’ home of 35 years at the Astrodome. It has a retractable roof and three retractable side walls beyond left field (they all were closed when we were there because of the heavy rain).

We discovered the retractable roof has leaks. My seat happened to be right under one, which dampened my enjoyment of the game until we moved down a couple of spots.

There’s a large model of a locomotive on the wall above left field, because the park’s site used to be Houston’s railroad terminal. Other than that, Minute Maid Park doesn't have many interesting elements, except the models of Texas-sized cowboy boots (photo) at various locations in the public areas and the FiveSeven Grille overlooking centerfield. The FiveSeven is named for the numbers worn by two of the Astros best players, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell.

Another distinctive feature of the park is a small hill sloping up in the far reaches of centerfield, beyond the warning track. A flag pole sits at the top of the hill, within the field itself. But it’s 436 feet from home plate, so not many fly balls are hit there.

Houston was up 3-0 when we arrived but we did get to see a four-run 7th in a 7-0 shutout of the Cincinnati Reds. Astros starter Wandy Rodriguez had 10 strikeouts while limiting the Reds to two hits and two walks.

Dreamin' of Nolan

The Texas Rangers are living in the past. The past may be good, but it doesn’t help the now.

The Rangers put on a pre-game show at Rangers Stadium the night we went to see them play the Kansas City Royals. The show, which featured former Rangers flamethrower Nolan Ryan, got as many cheers from the fans as the team did on the field. The modern-day Rangers looked like they were dreaming about the past on this night, April 17, as the Royals took batting practice off a series of Rangers pitchers for 19 hits and 12 runs in a 12-3 blowout that looks closer on paper than it was.

The pre-game video of Ryan showed him reaching various pitching summits, but the episode that drew the most cheers and laughter wasn’t about baseball. It showed a Ryan pitch hitting Robin Ventura in a 1993 game, then Ventura charging the mound. Ryan, then 46, wrapped Ventura in a headlock and pummeled him in the face. Texans are proud of that sort of thing. Nolan must be proud of it too, because he’s now president of the Rangers. (Admittedly, it isn’t just Texans who enjoy full-contact baseball. The video still gets high ratings on the Internet.)

For us, the best things about Rangers Ballpark, opened in 1994, were its museum and the fireworks show after the game (photo above). We took a tour of the stadium before the game, getting glimpses of some of the corporate boxes, the press box, the indoor batting cages (the Rangers get two, while the visiting team gets one), a Nolan Ryan warm-up room (which he didn’t use professionally) and a three-story museum. The latter is filled with Ranger memorabilia but the best part is a section with baseball memorabilia garnered from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Only 24,000 fans showed up for the game we saw. There would have been fewer except for the post-game fireworks, which matched a lot of Fourth of July celebrations. There had been a heavy rain earlier in the day and the chilly night reminded us of an early-season Colorado Rockies game in Coors Field. The only offense for the Rangers were three ho-hum solo home runs in the 8th and 9th, while Texas had no pitching and made several mental errors on the bases.

The Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (it’s official name) is open to the sky and was built to give it an old-time feel. Oddly, the architects and team killed that feel by placing a multi-story office building just beyond centerfield. The offices appear to have balconies that allow the office-dwellers to watch the game from lawn chairs, although no one wanted to see the Rangers self-destruct the night we were there. I reckon the office owners can invite prospects over and charge it off as a business expense.

Rangers Ballpark is attractive from the outside, with lots of red brick and glass. The architect also recreated a miniature version of the park for youth ball games outside the stadium and there’s a Minute Maid kids playground just inside the front gate. The park lies just down the street from Six Flags over Texas.

Food? We tried to search out what was the most distinctive food at Rangers Ballpark but found nothing worth talking about. Even our tour guide admitted there was nothing special, unless you think barbecue is unique. Better to eat down the street at Humperdink’s, a brew pub with very good hamburgers, Tex Mex and other pub delights.

The Best of Puerto Vallarta

About the biggest decision we made everyday was where to eat dinner (or sometimes lunch), so this “best of” list is decidedly one-sided. Two and 1/2 weeks anywhere is limiting and obviously is not all-inclusive. Most of our jaunts also were within the confines of El Centro and the Zona Romantica. With those caveats, here goes:

Best Sunset View: Casa Isabel. High on the hill on the south side of PV, just off the main north-south highway. Alta had spotted Casa Isabel earlier during one of our walks. Mexican, U.S. and Canadian flags hang from the open-sided, palapa-covered bar overlooking the bay. We went there with our new Canadian friends Wayne and Carol for a cocktail party by the local ex-pat community (bulletin board

Best Tacos: Café de Olla in the Zona Romantica. The chicken tacos are simple but flavorful. We also liked the grilled Dorada (mahi-mahi) and the grilled papas (potatoes). This place is popular just about any evening but they do take reservations.

Best Fish & Chips: No place can compare with Joe Jack’s Fish Shack. They use Red Snapper for the fish. Go there on a Friday afternoon when it is all-you-can-eat fish and chips and the mojitos are 2-for-1 until 5 or 6 p.m.

Best Walk: It would be impossible to say anything but the Malecon along the bay. It stretches from La Rosita Hotel (the oldest existing hotel in PV) on the north side of El Centro to south of the pier at Playa de Los Muertos. In Zona Romantica it is lined by restaurants; north of the river there are shops and then you walk along the beach with El Centro’s bars, restaurants and shops on the east. Check out the sand sculptures on the beach, as well as the bronze sculptures (photo) on the Malecon itself.

Best Chicken Soup: The Cuates y Cuetes (C&C) bar and restaurant right by the pier in the Zona Romantica. You can get it to-go or eat there, with or without rice. Lots of flavor and “good for you” taste. Costs just 100 pesos (less than $10 at the time) for two monster portions served with toasted bread. The Cuates y Cuetes (loosely translated as “friends and drunks”) bar also has entertainment some nights (jazz the night we were there).

Best Hamburguesa: Picnic café on Olas Altas in the Zona Romantica. It has a small balcony that overlooks the street, as well as an open-air patio. They have a sign out front that says “best hamburgers in Puerto Vallarta” and we believed them.

Best Vegetarian food: The Planeta Vegetariano in El Centro. We were told they were rated one of the best vegetarian restaurants in the world by Gourmet Magazine. Lots of salads and deep-fried veggies using bean-flour batter.

Best B&B: Casa Andrea, where we stayed. We liked it mostly for the people we met there and the ensuing conversations, but also for the location and tranquility. See the earlier post.

Biggest Disappointment: Walking to see Casa Kimberly, where Liz Taylor stayed during her tryst with Richard Burton during the filming of Night of the Iguana. It’s a semi-interesting walk uphill to the house, which is vacant, barred, empty and deteriorating. The curved stone walkway is still there, going to the house where Richard stayed, but that house was being demolished when we were there. There are several nice-looking second homes in the area, known as Gringo Gulch, overlooking the Rio Cuale.

A Whale of a Baby

Everyone loves a baby, but what if the baby is 20 feet long and weighs 2 tons? The answer is still "yes" and this baby might even have been described as “cute” despite its size.

We were near the end of a five-hour whale-watching tour in Banderas Bay off Puerto Vallarta when we had one of those delicious moments of serendipity. The cruise, in a speedy little Zodiac raft run by Ecotours, had started slowly. Our guides, Ricardo, a marine biologist, and Oscar, the boat captain, admitted later they were worried we weren’t going to see many whales.

Right away we had spotted a group of three whales but things quieted after that. All the whales in Banderas Bay in the winter are humpback whales. They summer along the northern Pacific coast up to Alaska. Ricardo told us the humpbacks only come to Banderas to mate, or try to mate, and never eat anything. They obviously lose much of their 80,000 pounds while they’re here (for more about humpbacks, click here).

Watching whales is a lot like watching birds. There’s a lot of waiting and then suddenly something happens. Whales surface every 5-to-15 minutes to breath but they keep moving so you never know where they’re going to be.

We kept moving around the bay, skimming along the swells as we moved to the north, almost to new resort area along Punta de Mita at the end of the bay. Sometimes a pelican or brown-footed booby would race alongside, but quickly became bored and flew away. Every now and then Oscar or Ricardo would see another whale and we’d veer off. We saw perhaps a dozen whales, none too closely (partly due to Mexican ecological rules). At one point we stopped and Ricardo lowered a microphone equipped with speakers so we could hear a male humpback singing.

We had to be back to the marina by 1 p.m. so with about an hour left Oscar turned up the motor and shot off to the south, passing the small towns of La Cruz and Bucerias as we went, then Nuevo Vallarta. Ricardo called out that he’d seen another whale in the distance and we headed that way. As we closed, perhaps 250-300 yards away, we saw a male humpback breach, throwing its huge body most of the way out of the water and then coming down with a belly flop to end all belly flops.

We followed the male a little while but then cranked up the motor again. We were in sight of the entrance to the marina when Ricardo saw another whale off to the side of the Zodiac. He killed the engine and we just sat for a minute or two. Then the most remarkable thing happened. The whale, which turned out to be a relatively newborn calf, swam closer to the raft until it was 10-15 feet away. It lazily swam in a half-circle around the boat, rolling slowly onto its side so that it could see us with one of its eyes. The whole episode took just a few minutes before what we presumed to be its mother rose to the surface 50 feet away and, after apparently signaling the curious child, they both disappeared.

(End note: This was our second tour with Ecotours, which was recommended to us by Andrea and others. The other was a bird-watching tour to the 17th Century mining town of San Sebastian. We saw 27 tropical forest species, including an Elegant Trogon and a Mountain Trogon. The latter, relatively rare, has a bright red breast, white throat and iridescent green head and back. We also visited a small coffee plantation, where, of course, we bought coffee.)

Obama en Mexico

We were walking past the Hotel Mercurio in Puerto Vallarta and out of the corner of my eye, in the lobby, I saw the image of a tall, dark man dressed in a black suit. It was Barack Obama. Actually it was a life-size cardboard cutout of his photo. He was standing next to the window where guests check in, perhaps to welcome everyone to the hotel.

A couple of days later, walking past the hotel again since it is next door to Casa Andrea, I saw Obama’s twin, also standing in the lobby. As the days advanced, Obama II kept shifting his position in the lobby, retreating from the open door, perhaps because the ocean breezes were blowing him over. I don’t think it was a political statement.

Today, inauguration day, we got up, grabbed some coffee to drink, and a bowl of fruit, yogurt and granola, and sat down by the pool-side TV to watch Obama get sworn in. Seven of us, two ladies from Vancouver and the rest from various parts of the U.S. One of the couples was from San Francisco and said they lived just down the street from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who coordinated the inaugural. They also had backed Hilary Clinton in the primaries, donating enough money that they had met Hilary and her husband at some event.

All the Americans and Canadians we’ve met in Puerto Vallarta have been Obama supporters. Either that or Bush detractors. Mexicans too. Not sure what that means. Adam, who works at Casa Andrea, remarked about Bush, Chinga tu madre, which is about the worst thing a Mexican can say to someone. All of us watching the TV inaugural were happy about Obama coming and Bush leaving. No big show of emotion but some clapping and smiles. I didn’t think Obama was talking about retirees like myself when he said Americans should work to help their country, not seek leisure.

Later on inauguration day we were walking past the Hotel Mercurio again and I noticed the Obama cutouts were gone. I asked the hotel clerk where they were and he said they had rented them out to the botanic gardens for the day. Some of the guests at Casa Andrea had gone to the gardens on inauguration day and told us the restaurant was closed for what apparently was a fundraiser. In addition to the 40 peso entrance fee, people could pay something like 500 pesos (about $40 USD) for a private luncheon and celebration. The gardens are owned by a Texan, although they are a non-profit.

There was a TV at the botanic gardens so people could watch the inaugural, and the speeches were broadcast over the loudspeaker system along the tree-lined paths. A Canadian couple we met sat among the coffee trees and listened to Obama’s address. Jill, an American who voted for Obama, said she was put off by the extra fee to get into the lunch.

We also learned that the Obama cutouts were used as props at the luncheon. American flags lined the tables. There also was at least one cutout of a George W. Bush photo. People could pay extra money to throw things at W’s image. If you hit W you won an Obama T-shirt.

Adios Carlos

Anyone who ever came to Puerto Vallarta will remember Carlos O’Brian’s, even if you never went to the watering hole best known for the drunkeness that spilled onto Puerto Vallarta’s Malecon. Carlos O'Brian's has been in operation since 1971, just 7 years after Richard and Elizabeth made PV famous during the filming of that iguana film. Personally, I never went closer than the front steps, honest.

As we were driving into PV a week ago the cab driver pointed out Carlos’ place and told us it had closed, never to reopen. The bar was purchased by another larger chain (I don’t remember but maybe Senor Frog) in October and has been closed.

Today, when we walked down the Malecon, workers had built plywood fences around the building (see photo) and they had started work on it. They were using sledgehammers and chisels to start removing part of the roof. We don’t know what’s going to happen to the building but it’s location right on the Malecon in the busiest part of El Centro makes it prime real estate. Condos anyone?

Jesus Saves

Jesus looked down on us as we got on the bus. From his perch, he could see everyone who got on or off. Jesus’ 6x8 color image was glued to the bus’ ceiling just above the steps. The graphic was surrounded by gold-colored fringe that hung down about 4 inches, so it wasn’t easy right away to spot Jesus.

We were headed back to Casa Andrea after spending an hour shopping at Puerto Vallarta’s spiffy Super Wal-Mart near the Marina. The Wal-Mart, new since we were here last, is gigantic. More than half of it is groceries. There are some American brands but most of them are Mexican (some of which we can buy in Colorado). There’s a large produce section near the front of the store, at least as large as any of the King Sooper’s stores near our home. Of course, the produce section is filled with fruits and vegetables you might not find in the U.S., like “tuna roja,” the pear-shaped fruit of a large cactus found all over Mexico’s deserts.

The bus ride from Parque Lazaro Cardenas, about 4 blocks from Casa Andrea where Calle Olas Altas hits the Malecon, takes about 30 minutes. Maybe a third of the passengers are norte Americanos. You know which bus to take first by asking directions to the bus stop and then because the destinations are painted in white on the windshield. Each bus has a list of several places it’s going. On the way out we got on the one that said “Wal-Mart” and coming back we found one that said “Centro.” The driver of the second even helpfully told us where to get off.

Riding the bus, if you’ve got time, is by far the best way to get around PV. The cab ride from the airport to Casa Andrea cost us 230 pesos. The bus to Wal-Mart, which is not too far from the airport, cost 11 pesos for two. You have to put up with the jouncey ride created by the cobblestone streets and the twists and turns when the driver swerves out of the way of a car or hits the brakes to avoid a collision.

I read an editorial in a PV magazine that complained about how many buses there are in the city. The editorial said local politicians keep adding bus operators to pay off a political debt of some sort. There are a lot of buses, but there are far more taxi cabs, many more than when we were here last. Maybe they multiply for the same reason. Streets are lined with the little yellow cabs, some with their drivers taking a nap or talking with other cabbies.

The taxis in our experience are clean and efficient. They get you places faster than the bus, but they don’t give you the same cultural experience. When we took the bus back from the botanic gardens most of the passengers were Mexican. When we got off, a man clambered off behind us with two packages grasped in his hands. From his left hand dangled a cage with a black rooster inside. The right hand held a cardboard box with many holes cut in it but we couldn’t see inside; there might have been another chicken inside that the man wanted to conceal. Perhaps a fighting cock or two? Who knows?

Every bus is decorated differently, although we haven’t seen any like we saw in Durango that had names painted on the front, names like “El Tigre del Norte.” It seems the drivers now are pretty much confined to decorating the inside, usually with religious objects like La Virgen de Guadalupe or Jesus. Perhaps they help keep everyone safe.

(Photo looking through a bus windshield, note the word “Sams” signaling Sams Club, which is next to the Wal-Mart.)

Breakfast at Andrea's

Casa Andrea is a collection of apartments built around an interior courtyard, but run as a bed-and-breakfast. The outside world is, for the most part, kept outside by the wrought iron gates and high wall at the front. You walk through the gates into a brick-and-stone courtyard dotted with tropical plants. Some, especially the purple bougainvillea at the front, are in bloom but mostly it’s a sense of greenery.

There’s a pool and hot tub at one end of the courtyard which becomes the focal point of the non-activity during the day. Ten steps near the middle of the courtyard lead to a raised area with umbrella-shaded tables and a bar, where fruit, yogurt and granola (sometimes huevos revueltos or scrambled eggs) are served in the morning.

Alta and I are in No. 10, which is on the third floor in the far interior. From our balcony we can see into the large second-floor apartment across the way and the computer-TV-reading room on the ground floor. Our balcony, which hangs over the pool, gives a good view of the area near the bar, where Adam makes margaritas and serves cervesa about 6 p.m. A couple of times, after the sun sets, Alta and I feel like Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window,” although we haven’t seen any murders or even suspicious activity in the apartment across the way.

The rooms are painted inside with murals and there’s a large ocean-themed mural behind the swimming pool. Our room has a mural over the bed picturing forest interior, with a birdhouse mounted to the trunk of a tree. A cat sits on top of the birdhouse and two birds sit on a branch, staring at each other. We’ve seen that in a New Yorker cartoon, I think.

My favorite thing about Casa Andrea’s is breakfast, which is served at 8 a.m. and onward. Our breakfasts usually take 2 or 3 hours, not because we are particularly slow but because this is the gathering time, the time to talk with everyone else staying here. Maybe we were lucky, but everyone staying here, at least to this point, has an interesting story to tell. Most of the people early in the week seemed to be from Canada, while the new arrivals seems to be more American.

There are three ladies from the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, which is a 45-minute ferry ride from Vancouver. One is a former Canadian Olympic volleyball player who now raises Canadian horses (it’s a separate breed). Another has worked for BC Ferries, starting off as a deck hand and now is working in the customer service department. The other is a doctor.

Among the Americans are Terri and George, a sociology professor at a New Jersey community college and a retired manager with Bell Labs. The four of us took a 45-minute bus ride from PV to the Botanic Gardens (20 peso ride and 40 peso entrance fee) south of the city. Before we went to the gardens Wayne and Carol from Ottawa told us their visit, when they saw orchid bees pollinating the vanilla flowers. Wayne posted a video on YouTube that shows up first when you search for “orchid bees.” The iridescent green male bees collect the perfume of the floors to attract females, while the orchid flower places a pollinating substance on the bee’s back. (The photo above shows the cafe Picnic overlooking Calle Olas Altas near Casa Andrea.)

And there’s Pearl, a retired nurse from the Niagara Peninsula in eastern Canada. She’s here to visit her daughter, Heather, who quit her social working job in Canada to decompress in PV. Pearl, with a close cap of white hair, looks like someone’s favorite grandmother but sounds more like an adventurer. She has a sailboat on Lake Ontario, has sailed in the Caribbean, went with a small group to Vietnam last fall and will be spending several weeks with a friend outside Guadalajara after she leaves here. Everyone wants to sit at her table in the mornings.

Remembering Puerto Vallarta

Less than 2 hours after we’d landed in Puerto Vallarta we had already checked into the Casa Andrea B&B (pictured) in old Vallarta. Alta had had a margarita and I finished off a Pacifico. We didn’t even unpack our bags. We’d met three other guests at Andrea’s outdoor bar, a couple from New Jersey and an affable retired nurse from Canada.

Now we were standing in the line outside the Café de Olla, recommended by Andrea (and, obviously, a lot of others in PV) as one of the best "autenico" Mexican restaurants in town. After nearly an hour, we and several other couples became aware that parties of 4-to-6 were being seated ahead of us. Part of the problem was there were two lines, one for people with reservations who also seemed to be good friends with the always-smiling maitre d', and another line for those willing to stand for an hour.

We were standing with two other couples. After noticing that larger groups were getting the tables, we agreed to band together. As it turned out the next table was for four, so we teamed up with a couple from Racine, Wisconsin, Todd and Robin. It was nice to have the company. Todd’s a big guy who looks like he might have played football and now is a youth league soccer coach who works in highway and bridge construction. Robin works in commercial banking for a family-owned bank in Racine.

As we ate tacos and tostadas, we talked about Racine (historically a manufacturing center now hurting from the economy), why Todd thinks the U.S. shouldn’t build more highways (save the land and expense while seeking alternative energy and transportation), and why we like Mexico and Mexicans (Mexicans are friendly, hard-working and always waiting for something better. As a Mexican friend once remarked, “Esperar means both ‘to wait’ and ‘to hope’”).

We don’t remember how many times we’ve been to Puerto Vallarta, our favorite Mexican resort. Our first time wasn’t in 1973, when we drove 4,000 miles across the country in our first big Mexican trip. The only resort we hit then, with Brent and Phil and our schnoodle, Misty, in the back of the pick-up, was San Blas. At that time San Blas was very much a resort for Mexicans who could put up with the swarms of vicious, almost microscopic jujenes that came out at dusk and devoured any flesh in their path. The last time we were in San Blas, in the 1990s, the jujenes were gone, undone by government DDT spraying (who knows what else was gone).

We’ve been to PV many times, though, and each time it seems less foreign. Foreign implies strangeness, so no wonder places you keep going to become less foreign. Of course, gringos in PV really don’t have to speak Spanish. There are so many Americans and Canadians here you don’t quite feel you’re in a different culture. Drinking agua purificada, not brushing your teeth with tap water, and treating vegetables with Microdyn becomes habitual.

The year we lived in Durango, Mexico, didn’t feel that way, even though we got to know the city and some of its residents quite well. The only Americans or Canadians we knew there all were a small cadre of teachers. Very few people outside the collegio spoke English. That made a huge difference, even though our Spanish became good enough to get by.

But Puerto Vallarta seems familiar now. We’ve stayed all over, from old Vallarta up to Nuevo Vallarta in the north. It’s been 4 years since we’ve been here (we thought it was more recent until we looked it up). Some things have changed, especially the construction of hotels and condos. There are more Americans and Canadians than ever before, even in our “non-touristy” Zona Romantica area south of the Rio Cuale. Lots of Italian restaurants and American-run diners or cafes. Even the cement walkway along the Malecon next to downtown Vallarta’s beachfront has been extended. But the cars still shake and rattle on the city’s cobblestone streets (walking on the cobblestones feels like you’re in a stream). The plaza principal is unchanged, surrounded by government offices on one side and the Banamex bank on the other. Christmas decorations hang from a phony pine tree in the plaza and along some of the streets.

And some of the lines still are long.