Now that summer is here, what better place to vacation than Yellowstone. Here’s our trip of a couple of years ago.
We’re spreading our dining dollars around. Sunday night we dined at The Bistro here at Pueblo Bonito. I had chicken enchiladas and Bev had her usual Todos Santos combo, which is shrimp and Mahi Mahi. Monday night we dined at Ernie Tomato Restaurant and Bar I had chicken enchiladas and Bev had shrimp sauteed in butter and garlic. Last night the six of us dined at Panchos across from Pueblo Bonito Mazatlan and we all ordered coconut shrimp. That was the best dinner yet.
We still have the Fish market and Topolo to go before trying Il Mosto.
Patrick Osio, Jr., Editor HispanicVista.com writes:
“Our government and the U.S. media have convinced most Americans that Mexico is not a safe place to visit as drug traffickers are fighting it out to see which gang will have the right to sell their illicit drugs to the very group that will not be visiting Mexico.”
So here are some multiple choice questions for you:
a. Germany, b. United Kingdom, c. Canada, d. Switzerland, e. Mexico
4. Which country has the most prisoners?
a. United States, b. China, c. Russia, d. India, e. Mexico
(Answers: 1. d. U.S., 2. c. U.S., 3. e. Mexico, 4. a. U.S.- Source: http://www.nationmaster.com)
Maybe, the U.S. is scared that baby boomers, unable to afford the cost of living, will pack up and move to Mexico where housing, healthcare and house keepers are cheaper.
We made it! Just as I pictured each night before going to sleep; warm, the tropical smell of the lobby on our arrival, the sea breaking on shore, the birds calling, the lighted, blue-pools glistening in the evening, and the friendly conversations with friends over dinner. We’re back.
Where is Mazatlan? Mazatlan is on the mainland of Mexico across the Sea of Cortez from Cabo San Lucas. Here’s a map:
View Untitled in a larger map
Here’s a special shout out to my students on the Route 143 Yellow bus in Portland. Hope you have a great day!
I’ve not been happy lately with the traffic coming to Mover Mike. I have consistently posted since September, 2004, over a variety of topics. Either I don’t write very well or my multiple subjects are not conducive to having consistent viewers. I have tried to be like Instapundit, but the experts suggest a blog to be successful, must concentrate on one area. So today, I am spinning off coverage of “Travel” and “Moving to Mexico” by creating Mexico Calling. My goal is to become a snowbird, spending at least six months a year in some area of the country. Mexico calls to me. I want to chronicle my preparations for the change and impart to you what drives me to move there.
I’ve wondered about this and so I do not care if someone sees my junk. The body scanner is preferable to a pat down.
The radiation you get from body scanners is the same as what you get in two minutes in an airplane at 30,000 feet.
So scan away!
March 6th can’t come soon enough.
Friday, I wrote about the quakes that took place in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores. I didn’t know much about the Azores, just that it was a stop off point for refueling now or in the past. Hellomagazine.com in an article written for the Azores Tourist Association fills in some of the background on the islands:
The name may be most familiar from regular mentions on the weather forecast, but the beautiful and remote Portuguese archipelago of the Azores should, perhaps, be best known for its volcanoes. The nine small islands offer a paradise for nature lovers who can hike among the craters, visit the lava beaches, and maybe even spot a whale or two off shore.
Tags: earthquakes Azores
With many of us planning vacations in August and September, I thought the following information very valuable:
By Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of CardHub.com, an online marketplace for credit card offers
I’ve been working in the credit card industry for almost a decade, and at this point I consider myself to be something of a subject matter expert. However, on a recent trip to London, I was humbled to discover some gaps in my basic knowledge of how to best use credit cards when traveling abroad.
During my stay in London, I used my credit card to make most of my purchases. Credit cards offer some of the best exchange rates and the convenience of not having to carry around large amounts of cash. I was also sure to use a no foreign fee credit card, so I knew I was getting a good deal. This was all well and good, until I came back home and received my credit card bill.
It was almost 10 percent more than the charges I thought I had made on my trip. When I examined my bill and receipts side by side, I discovered that I had been charged an extra fee for currency conversion on many of my purchases. My advice to you: never accept a merchant’s offer to convert your credit card transactions from the local currency into U.S. dollars. I accepted this offer many times while I was in London because an amount in dollars means more to me than the same amount in British pounds. What I didn’t know was that this is a consumer trap called Dynamic Currency Conversion.
Merchants use Dynamic Currency Conversion to charge travelers exorbitant conversion rates as high as 7 percent and pocket the difference as a fee. It gets by you because, if you’re like me, you’re not doing the math on the spot to see if the currency conversion is in line with the official exchange rate. If a merchant offers to make this conversion for you, save yourself some money and respectfully decline.
A secondary lesson that came from this trip, which I also learned the hard way, is that if you want to use your credit card in Europe, you need to carry your passport with you at all times. Most countries in Western Europe, have switched to chip-and-pin technology for their credit cards. These cards are much more sophisticated than the magnetic stripe cards we have in the U.S. and offer more security.
Therefore, if you want to use the magnetic stripe cards, merchants expect that you have your passport with you as an added measure of security. This came as a surprise to me, given that in the United States they don’t even bother to verify your signature. Merchants will and have to accept your U.S. credit card, but if you don’t have your passport to identify yourself, you can pretty much forget about making the purchase.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that credit cards are one of the most effective ways to make purchases while traveling abroad. They offer favorable exchange rates, the security of not carrying around large amounts of cash, and the convenience of always having enough money and not being stuck with left over foreign currency. In order to make the most out of your credit card, my advice is to do the following: carry your passport with you at all times, decline any merchant’s currency conversion offer, and compare credit card applications for the best no foreign transaction fee credit card before you leave. If you do all of these things, there is no better way to make purchases overseas.
