Monday, December 16, 2019

December 15, 2019 Brunch. – The best seafood soup ever.  Dinner – Ham and Cheese Sandwiches on the flight to Oakland

The I Pad was stowed in a bag of souvenirs and found late on Monday, December 16, 2019 excuse the cryptic description of the events of Sunday.  I am 2000 miles and 48 hours away from the moments.

We awakened and packed our suitcases and then made brunch and ham and cheese sandwiches for our dinner on the flight home.  Today was a long day as most are traveling to and from on a trip.  Today we flew from PV to Oakland and from Oakland to Albuquerque arriving at 12:30 a.m. on December 16.   We had been adding ingredients to our seafood stew for five days; red snapper, mahi mahi, steamed carrots onions and zucchini , broccoli, cilantro, tomato, salsa, lime juice, shrimp, scallops, and octopus and it was the best seafood stew I have ever eaten.  We toasted slices of sour dough French baguette we had bought at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday to dip into the stew.  After lunch we loaded all our gear into the car and drove to the Comer store at Nueva Vallarta and bought a liter of Kahlua for less than $10.00. We then drove to Cruz de Huanacaxtle. Today I drove all the way down to the fish market and parked beside the market.  There are hundreds of booths at the weekly market on Sunday of all kinds, from handicrafts to food vendors to artists’ paintings spread ½ mile from along outside of the quay forming the sea wall for the harbor to the marina. There were three music venues and five or six food areas scattered along the line of stalls selling all manner of craft and other items such as all natural cosmetics, etc.

We walked the entire distance and I made it without any pain.  Suzette liked the basket weavers and we shared a fresh squeezed orange and mandarin juice and a chocolate chip cookie, plus a dense slice of flourless chocolate torte to take onto the plane.

At the end of near the marina entrance was a food court and an amazing quartet playing an energetic blend of Gypsy Kings, flamenco, Jazz, and mariachi music.  We sat and listened for about an hour.  I then returned to the car to turn on the air conditioner and open a beer while Suzette went to buy some woven baskets from the weavers.

It was after 2:00 so we drove to the Budget rental office in PV to return the car.  We got help to carry our by now six bags to the Southwest check in counter and checked in.  Suzette wanted ice cream but we found none, so she bought a bag of Lay’s potato chips and we simply waited for our flight to Oakland that left at 4:40

Once in flight I ordered a beer and Suzette ordered a Bloody Mary to celebrate the fact that neither of us had gotten sick on the trip.  We ate our sandwiches with potato chips and some of the sugar coated pecans we had bought in Rincon de Guayabitas on Saturday.

We quickly discovered that I had buttered the toasted French baguette but forgot to spread mayonnaise on the bread, so the sandwiches were a bit dry, which discouraged us from eat them open faced with only one slice of bread.

We had to wait inOakland from 7:00 until 9:20 to board our flight to Albuquerque.  The only folks I knew who we saw iron our flight were ex-Senator Fred Harris with his wife returning from a tour of Archaeological sites in Colombia.

We arrived at 12:30 and after fetching our bags, drove home and went to bed with a sip of Calvados .

Bon Appetit

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