Author: John Bassett

There are basically two reasons to visit this part of North Carolina. One is to hike around Great Smoky National Park. And the other is to see Biltmore, the estate of George Washington Vanderbilt, the largest private home in the United States. Biltmore is one of the grandest monuments of what Mark Twain called “The Gilded Age.” Twain’s phrase was not a panegyric to his era. Twain felt that there was not only something tasteless about the displays of wealth in the late nineteenth century but that it was false and inauthentic at best and profoundly corrupt at worst. And some part of all of that can be seen at Biltmore.

As was typical for the homes of the wealthy during this time, it was built to look like one of ancestral residences of European nobility. Using the architectural vocabulary of the past was not simply a lack of imagination on the part of nineteenth century builders. It was also a ploy to make the wealth of the owners more legitimate. And in the case of the Vanderbilts, who had made their fortune through ruthlessly undercutting competitors in ferry and steamship operations before establishing a near monopoly on railroads in the mid-Atlantic states, the fantasy of legitimate wealth was particularly important. 

The house was built by George Washington Vanderbilt II, the youngest son of William Vanderbilt, the heir to the railroad fortune. George was one of those classic “sickly” Victorian children. He had a lifetime of various pulmonary ailments, and doctors were certain that the pure air of the mountains, as opposed to the fetid vapors of the city, could cure tuberculosis and other ailments. He looks not only unhealthy but vaguely evil in John Singer Sargent’s portrait.

Vanderbilt and his mother came to Asheville in the winter of 1888. He was 26 and had inherited a little over 10 million dollars after the deaths of his grandfather and his father. The young Vanderbilt had no interest in the transportation empires his forefathers had created. Rather, he decided that with his fortune, quite a large one by the standards of the time, he could transform himself into a European aristocrat. Using a variety of agents and concealed identities, he bought up 144 square miles of forest and farm land just south and west of Asheville. Vanderbilt was certain that he could make such a grand mass of land pay for the upkeep of a great manor house. It never did. 

But the great manor house was built, the biggest private home ever constructed before or after in the United States. Vanderbilt hired William Morris Hunt, the celebrated New York architect to design the home. Vanderbilt and Hunt traveled across Europe looking for examples, and finally settled on a design drawing principally from the Chateau de Chambord in the Loire Valley. But in place of François I’s circular towers, conical roofs, and Renaissance details, Hunt made the whole thing vaguely Gothic. Biltmore is unmistakably nineteenth-century architecture. 

For the grounds and the design of his agricultural schemes, Vanderbilt chose the aged Frederick Law Olmstead, famed for his work creating New York’s Central Park. Law recognized the fact that most of the land had minimal agricultural value, and convinced Vanderbilt that reforesting the area for commercial logging was the best use of this massive amount of acreage. Law also decided to create that he would create formal gardens in the French and Italian style close to the house, a wilder landscaped garden in the style of Capability Brown further out, and then allow this to merge with the forest beyond. 

Some of the acreage not far from the house, near the French Broad River, would be used for fruit, vegetable, and dairy farms. 

The first floor rooms are predictably grand. The “winter garden” would have been one of the first things that visitors to the house would have seen.

The dining room seats a couple dozen people comfortably. The enormous room is complete with a two manual E. M. Skinner pipe organ.

The “breakfast room” was nearly as impressive. Remember this was for informal morning dining. 

Vanderbilt was particularly proud of his library of 20,000 volumes. He regarded himself as a intellectual and hosted luminaries such as Henry James and Edith Wharton. 

John liked this bas relief and thought it should be on the door of my new attic office when it is finished later this year. 

John also liked the loggia with its panoramic views of the Mount Pisgah and the Smoky Mountains.

We passed on the winery tour and decided to return to the hotel. In the evening we managed to get a table at Curate (that’s KOOH rah tay, as in “take care of yourself” in Spanish), Asheville’s most celebrated restaurant. 

We left out bed and breakfast not long after getting out of bed and having breakfast.We were determined to find the most scenic way to Asheville through Smoky Mountains National Park. Google Maps, however, had other ideas. While I normally appreciate how my phone helpfully directs me to a destination without every chastising me for making a wrong turn, sometimes I actually have a route in mind that I want to take and I would like to do so. Instead, my GSP was determined to send us on the fastest route to Asheville by Interstate highway. The result was over an hour of me driving where I thought I wanted to go and discovering that my sense of north and south is far from infallible. But along the way we did get to see some of the most hideous stretches of this generally depressing part of East Tennessee. Pigeon Forge exceeds Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim for kitsch, and could just possibly rival the Las Vegas Strip.

And let’s not forget the near life-size reproduction of the RMS Titanic complete with a fiberglass iceberg. 

But this only touches on some of the aesthetic horrors that you can find here.You will just have to visit Sevier County to see all of them yourselves. 

Still, after about an hour of calling down vaguely biblical curses on my iPhone, we somehow made it into the national park. Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in the country. I suspect that has to do with the fact that you pretty much have to go through some part of it to get from Tennessee to North Carolina as well as the fact that the Appalachian Trail, the American equivalent of the Camino for the Columbian sportswear crowd, goes through it. Despite the overuse, it still remains remarkably lovely. 

John and I stopped to admire the view a few times along the road. I am in favor of pure nature photographs, but John thinks it is important to show the world that we really have visited a place. I get that, but think that there probably should be a federal law against taking selfies after the age of thirty. 

Our most significant stop along the way was to go to the top of Clingman’s Dome, the highest peak in Tennessee and the third highest peak in the park. We were able to drive most of the way up, but there was a half mile hike up a paved trail to the observation tower. From the moaning and groaning of the people on the trail, you might have thought it was the Bataan Death March. Whenever I feel bad about being overweight, I could just take a trip to the South where I am rather on the thin side. We did have a group of Mennonites who had the grace to neither complain now be perturbed at how all the obese Baptists were staring at them.

Once we were out of the park, Google Maps again tried to persuade us to take the fastest route to Asheville. But we decided that we wanted to take the Blue Ridge Parkway for at least part of the way. It ended up being about 70 miles of the parkway, however, which was probably too much of a good thing, particularly as the gas gauge grew closer and closer to empty while we went down this nearly empty road. 

Asheville appears to be a cute town, but we have just settled in. We are staying at the Reynolds Bed and Breakfast on the north side of the city. Our innkeeper is this gay guy who is apparently obsessed with Dark Shadows. He has a picture of Jonathan-what’s-his-name, the vampire, on the walls of the office. The house belongs to the same family that brought the world Reynolds Tobacco, and not surprisingly it was built by slaves. Maybe the aura of evil on the office walls is deserved. 

Once out in the country, the mansion is now surrounded by suburban condos and other development. Still, the evening view from the veranda was lovely. 

We set off for the heart of Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, Gatlinburg, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Dollywood. We were practically to our bed-and-breakfast, The Eight Gables Inn, and I just couldn’t wait anymore. John pulled over and sent me running into a store called Knife World to use the restroom. The store was packed with tourists and Tennessee mountain folk all shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Not only does the store carry a large variety of knives but, it had every kind of armament you might need from bazookas to crossbows. I couldn’t find the facility as I went up and down the crowded aisles. Finally, a kind young man pointed me in the right direction.

The parking lot of Dollywood filled us with trepidation.

But, inside it was all American, and was pretty much like a Six Flags or Knott’s Berry Farm. Despite the expressions on our faces we actually had a pretty good time.

There was a section of the park devoted to Dolly history. Instead of Mr. Lincoln they had antamatronic gospel singers who I’m sure were quite famous if you were familiar with that scene.

There was a show in which Dolly starred on video while members of her real family traded stories and sang songs with her. The family was live. Dolly was on tape, a good way to keep good family relations.

The rest of the park, green and lush and well landscaped, was a collection of restaurants and the usual games and rides. Here and there were tucked little oddities like a weeping piano and a hot dog. The less said the better about the hot dog. 

At closing time it was the obligatory fireworks display as Dolly sang about her Tennessee family on recording. I’m a sucker for fireworks. Then off to the Eight Gables.

We arrived in Nashville just after dark. It was Friday night and “the joint was jumpin’.

We stayed at the Hotel Indigo, just around the corner from Printer’s Alley, the historic center of Nashville’s music scene.

There were herds of young women traveling in packs, dressed to the nines. It turns out that Nashville is where Southern gals have their bachelorette party.

During our time in Nashville it was a rare moment that we did not have a live musician somewhere in the background. In every restaurant, bar, convenience store, mall, open green space, and even the breakfast buffet at our hotel, live musicians were performing, each hoping to make it big in Nashville. Some of these performers had been contestants on early episodes of The Voice or American Idol.

Saturday morning we rented bikes early hoping to beat the heat. We saw the original Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium.

Riding a little ways out of town we stopped at the Union Station Hotel. It is still a functioning hotel. Rooms open directly into the lobby.

From there we pushed on to Centennial Park. We were no longer beating the heat by the time we got to Centennial Park. What I had wanted to see was the reproduction of the Parthenon, but unlike that old broken down one in Greece this one is in mint condition, though built of concrete.

When we went inside peeking through the pillars we saw the giant statue of Athena.

Athena has not appeared in the Athens Parthenon for a couple millennia. I guess she moved here to make it into the music business.

The Elgin Marbles are here too.

Outside we competed with the dog for some shade and watched some actually very good bands who were performing adjacent to the Parthenon. Remembering the end of Robert Altman’s movie Nashville, which ended tragically at a concert in this location,  we decided it was time to head back into town. 

We left our rental bikes at the park and took a Lyft back to the hotel. Our driver played his CD for us. We tried to catch a brief nap before the evening’s big activity, the Grand Ole Opry. 

We went to the Grand Old Opry because we were in Nashville and that’s what you do when you are visiting Nashville. I felt like I had gotten someone else bucket list but, truth be told we had a great time. A variety show, divided into four half hour segments, no one act was on stage long enough to get too annoying and production values are high. Slick and sentimental, there was a lot of songs and talk about departed family, and as the next day was father’s day, we heard a lot about good old tough, but loving dad. There was one young man, who had been raised as a foster child, who sang well about how his father was gone but he always knew he had a loving protecter who loved him “this much” and stretched arms out in a crucifixion poise. I poked John, who needed to stifle his laugh, as the lady next to us whipped away a tear. It’s snobs like us that give Yankees a bad name down her

See America last. Mr. Bassett is off in Tennessee at an Episcopal gathering in Sewanee, Tennessee. Yes, like the river, but not spelled the same way I am told. I don’t get spelling. I’m going to join him for his last few days, but even though he loves the place he thinks I’d get stir-crazy spending more than a few days while he is off in workshops. Not being an old folk who likes to stay home, I’m off to San Francisco for Naida and Raul’s annual Summer Solstice garden party. Yes, the party is a little early this year.

Naida’s cat population is down. She now only has four living in the house. One is a new rescue which had a crushed leg that had to be amputated. He now covers his very real leavings in the cat box with a phantom limb. Some how he gets the job done. 

Another one had an injury that left his head cocked at an angle that makes him look perpetually curious, which he is. Any door left open he immediately investigates. I went to unload the drier and left the door open for only a minute.

I’m sure all the cats have names and I’m sure I was told what they were several times.

Saturday I went off to the new and improved SFMOMA (modern art museum) solo. Hence the “selfie”. Same old art, greatly expanded and improved building! 

I found a friend and we passed judgment on all offerings. Actually, I really enjoyed a video installation by Shirin Nshat with Philip Glass music. It’s only 11 minutes long so, if you’re there check it out. I enjoyed the outdoor space too.

Sunday, I want off to the garden party. The garden, which Raul and Bob put in many years ago, and is always listed as one of Northern California best, is looking as beautiful and quirky as ever. I was frustrated by my inability to capture the garden’s  intimacy or mass with a camera, and I forgot to take pictures of the  guests, much to their relief. 

Monday I was off for Tennessee, but my flight was not until late in the evening. I had an urge to go up to Coit Tower to check out the WPA murals which I had not seen for a long time. The longer I examined  the frescoes the more details became apparent. Note to newspaper headline. Is that man holding a gun? 

After one more stop in the old neighborhood I would be off. There had been an unpleasant incident that weekend in Orlando and the old neighborhood had shown its sympathy.

After a long and arduous flight with a layover in Charlotte (I should’ve gone to see my friend Myra) I made it to Sewanee. The retreat center was as John describes it, “high on a mountaintop in Tennessee.” By California standards it is a mere hilltop. But by California standards it is also almost frighteningly green.

The campus of University of the South looks like a little bit of Cambridge or Oxford though its smaller and warmer. The student population during the year maxes out at about 2000 students, making it about the size of a smaller LA high school.

The church looks totally like a UK church only cleaner, but upon examining the stain glass windows you realize you are in the Southern US. I think Coit Tower put me in a frame of mind for looking at small details.

Speaking of Coit Tower, which looks like a giant . . . fire hose nozzle? Sewanee has its own erection over looking a vista.

On the last evening John’s group, which has accepted me with open arms, when into town for dinner. I became the designated driver and everyone had a drink or two.  

The next morning they did not look too hung over at breakfast.

After John was finished with his group, we took off for Chattanooga to visit with Cary’s mom and her boyfriend. Sandy and Gary live in a gated community near downtown Chattanooga. In other periods of my life I might have made fun of places like this, but not living in a  community on the waterfront with swimming pools, tennis courts, no traffic, and no crime does not sound bad at all.

Gary’s bookshelves are filled with Civil War history books. So after taking us to a late lunch, we did a quick tour of important sites in the Battle of Chattanooga. We wound up on the top of Lookout Mountain where we examined cannons and ate ice cream. 

All too soon it was time to say goodbye to our hosts and pushed on to Nashville.

Today was our last full day in Mexico. We leave tomorrow morning. Pretty soon I’ll be back checking homework and preparing lessons. Sigh. Spring Break needs to last longer. 

We met up with Bob for breakfast at our hotel. Yvonne and Lori joined us for some tea. Bob was interested to hear Lori talk about being in Guadalajara for two weeks back in the 1970s and how much the city has changed. Yvonne was interested in all the things Bob knows about tropical plants like heliconias. We made plans to meet Bob and Luis later for lunch.

John and I went with Yvonne and Lori over to the plaza. Bob had suggested that we might find a couple stalls in the market where we could find decent handicrafts. We looked first in the official handicraft market behind the cathedral. These shops are in a couple big white tents. 

There was some nice stuff in there, but nothing that would easily fit into luggage to take home. We stopped by the opera house again

and this time it was open. What a grand old theater!

We continued on to the market, but it was claustrophobically crowded and mostly consisted of clothes. Nobody wanted to search all the different levels of the market in search of elusive tinware or blown glass. We needed to get back to Bob’s place. I was all for taking a cab, but Yvonne wanted to try to get there in a horse-drawn carriage. I was sure that the hackman would turn is down, but he agreed to it.

Back at Bob’s place, we discussed going to lunch at a hacienda outside of town. Bob warned us that our route would take us through the ugliest parts of the city. John and I went with Luis and Bob while Yvonne and Lori followed in their rental car. It took a while to arrive, but it was worth it! The hacienda is a beautiful neocolonial building

with a dining room on one patio. 

The pool is quite sweet, but the real attraction here is the amazing view of a nearby gorge.

The food was good quite good. Service, even by the normally languid Mexican standards, was deliberately slow. So everybody walked off at different times to explore the grounds. There is a chapel here

and no doubt weddings are the bread and butter of this place.

It was too soon time to get back into the car and drive back to our hotels. Our flight is incredibly early tomorrow morning. I’ll have to get to bed before nine if I have to get up before four in the morning tomorrow. Adios, Mexico!

We spent a lot of time in the car today. We pulled out of El Encanto just after breakfast. Christian and Natasha will be staying for a few more days, but the rest of us will spend a night or two in Guadalajara before flying home. We packed the car and we all hugged Jim, thanked him, and said goodbye.

And then we drove. And drove. There were many times I wanted to utter that plaintive cry of every child, “Are we there yet?” But somehow it seemed like every time we checked our progress on Google Maps we still had an hour and a half left to go! Mike drove the whole way, but he seems to like to do that. We finally made it through some dense traffic in the city and dropped the car off at Hidalgo Airport in Guadalajara. And we took a cab from there to our hotel. 

We are staying at the Petit Hotel Casa Pedro Loza. Our friend Bob Clarke recommended it. It is a beautiful boutique hotel in an old colonial building not far from the plaza and the cathedral. The rooms are quite elegant:  we are definitely having a more formal experience here than El Encanto! But like a stage set, the room looks better from a distance. 

It also has a rooftop bar with an astonishing panoramic view of the city.

We all took a quick nap after our long drive and then we went in search of our friend Bob. He is difficult to reach by telephone and he has several properties in the area. We stopped by one which he now rents out to female art students from one of Guadalajara’s many post-secondary institutions. A older woman stopped by to check out what we were doing, and her suspicions were allayed when she remembered John from his last visit. She is one of those people one finds in a number of Spanish-speaking countries who keeps the street clean, watches over everybody’s property, and seems to have keys to every house. She walked us over Bob’s house. We sat around the pool there for a few minutes until Bob arrived. He’s the one in the center in the picture below. 

Bob was perhaps the Bay Area’s foremost garden designer before he retired a decade ago. But you can see his skill in the wonderful designs he makes for his own home. 

In the evening, we went out to eat with Bob and Luis. This was not an easy thing to do. Today is Good Friday and in honor of this solemn day most of the shops and restaurants in the city are closed. Bob likes to remind us that Guadalajara is perhaps the most Catholic of all Mexican cities … and the one with the most gay bars, too. We found an Italian place. Ellen discovered that Italian food in Mexico involves some hot peppers. She ate one, thinking it was a sweet peperoncino. It was something much hotter and she nearly went flying up through the ceiling!

After dinner, Luis dropped us off by the cathedral we walked around the plaza. We met up with Yvonne and Lori. We had some coffee in a little cafe in the Teatro Degadillo, Guadalajara’s opera house. And then we found our way back to the hotel and went to bed. Before doing so, we said goodbye to Ellen and Mike who will be leaving early tomorrow morning. 

Today we bid farewell to many of our friends. It’s hard to believe how closely we feel bonded to each other even though some of us have known others for only a few days! Ellen and I had some visitors on our rooftop patio in the morning. 

After lunch, John and I tried to get some pictures of everybody. Christian and Robin hit it off:  she has a granddaughter Josephine’s age.

Jill had to pose with the “there’s a ham on my head” pig that Ellen found for her. 

Rochelle overcame any shyness in front of a camera!

 

Tom Giles, ever rock-solid, watched all this from the safety of a pickup truck. It seemed like the perfect prop for him, too. 

And all the women wanted to get a group shot. Girl power!

While Jill and Robin were riding back with Sherry and Giles, Rochelle and Rebecca went to Puerta Vallarta in a cab. 

At the gate, Jim, our host, bid everyone adieu. 

After most of our group had left, we were left wondering what to do without ourselves. Jim suggested that we might want to check out El Chaco, a nearby beach. (Some of our number kept calling it El Chapo, but that’s a part of Mexico we would just as soon not experience!) It was an amazing experience, though not one I am sure I want to repeat.

Holy Week, Semana Santa in Spanish, is a Mexican national holiday. Not only that, but camping on the beach, usually forbidden, is permitted or at least allowed this one week of the year. So when we arrived at this beach, just south of the center of San Blas, we found tens of thousands of people already there. It is a long flat stretch of sand. A couple dozen long palapas lined the beach, generally two deep. Each was split into twenty or thirty little stalls. Most people simple drove their cars — or more frequently pickup trucks — to their spot and unloaded everything. We found one of the last few unclaimed stall and just to feel like we fit in, we drove our rental SUV up to it as well. Having found a spot, even if it did not have a particularly good view of the water, we watched the beach with fascination. Vendors walked up and down the beach selling food and trinkets. And groups of musicians did as well. The family in the stall next to our hired these a brightly-clad group to perform for them. 

Elsewhere on the beach, were at least a half dozen brass and percussion ensembles. As you walked up and down the beach the sound of one blended into the music of another in a cacophonous layering that perhaps only Charles Ives could fully appreciate. 

We had also purchased wrist bands for a few pesos which allowed us to use the pool at the nearby restaurant. Poor are great for kids, and Josephine loves to go to the pool. Not surprisingly, she made herself the queen of the chlorine even without speaking a word of Spanish.

It was a fascinating afternoon, but we all felt a bit exhausted by the experience. So we came back to the hotel where many of us took naps and even relaxed on the patio.

In the evening we had our final meal together in Jim’s lovely communal dining room. He made the most incredibly delicious shiitake mushroom burgers. Better than beef, by far! And afterwards, everyone gathered around a campfire. 

Tomorrow most of us leave for Guadalajara.

Mornings are pretty relaxed at El Encanto. Everybody is up pretty early in the morning because without television nobody stayed up too late the night before. And early mornings allow some time for getting to know each other. Here Christian and Giles chat while young Miles attentively observes.

Jim’s breakfasts are wonderful. And he always has some hardboiled eggs and a couple other things to eat out before he formally starts serving at 8:00. Lori appreciated that !

Lori was a new friend for this trip. She and Yvonne have known each other since junior high school. Oddly enough, she now lives only a few blocks from our old house in Long Beach. Definitely small world. 

Speaking of things small, Miss Josephine make sure that we always knew where she was and what she was thinking at every moment. And when sheer volume was not enough, there was always the creative us of make up to create a presence at the table. 

After breakfast, John and Sherry went off to San Blas to go shopping. Sherry wanted to cook one of the meals here and decided that given the local ingredients Shrimp Creole will be the perfect choice to bring a bit of Loo-ze-anna to Nayarit, Mexico. 

Once John and Sherry came back, Jim piled us into a couple vans — Mike drove one — and we went off to the “secret beach.” It’s not a secret, of course, but it is far enough off the main road that we had it to ourselves even during this busiest beach week of the year. As you can see, it is a beautiful swath of golden sand.

Everybody wanted to get their feet wet as soon as we arrive. 

John, always thinking about other people instead of himself, helped Jim to put up a big parachute for a beach palapa. 

After everybody had been in swimming, we had a delicious lunch of ceviche on a huge avocado half. 

Miles particularly enjoyed his meal. He is such a fantastic baby.

The waves were not the best for surfing, but Natasha brought her board along anyhow. 

Weirdly enough, even though nobody else was on the beach, all of a sudden this pink car came driving down the sand … selling ice cream. Rats! The one time John did not have a single peso on him.

But after a few blissful hours it was time to pack up and go. Josephine hitched a ride.

But the rest of us just trudged sadly away from the lovely spot, wishing we could spend a few more hours there.

Later, after dinner, John and some of the ladies went into town to check out a local festival. 

Tomorrow many of our party will leave to return to the United States. What a great time it has been!

One of the best things about El Encanto is the whimsical artistic sensibility that Jim brings to the hotel and the gardens that surround it. Take this bench, for example.

Of course, I am a soft touch for any canine, and Jim has some wonderful dogs, all rescued. I am here with Sugar, a Pit Bull and Dalmatian mix.

Our second adventure here in Nayarit was a little bit nostalgic for John and me. We had come to this part of Mexico about 25 years ago with John’s dad. We were staying at a friend’s house in Puerto Vallarta, and we came north in a roofless Volkswagen bug to look at the towns on the Bahia de Banderas and along the Nayarit coast. I am not sure how we knew that you could take a boat through the mangrove swamps just south of San Blas, but we did so. I think there were only a couple boats there and we just parked along the side of the road. 

How things have changed. Today that wide spot in the road boats a couple dozen shops and restaurants and there is a boatman’s cooperative that operate the rides through the jungle. There is a upside to all of this:  we had a fight with our boatman twenty five years ago when he tried to tell us at the end of the ride that the price was five times more than we had agreed on. Today we just went to the office and bought a ticket and climbed into the boat.

I am not sure if this was here when we were here last, but I think it dates from the early nineties. It is the remains of a movie set build here for what I think was a Sylvester Stallone film. Maybe one of you gentle readers has actually watched one of those films and might remember which one it was. 

They promised us on our ticket that we would see “cocodrilos” and sure enough we spotted an alligator about five minutes into the ride.

We also spotted a number of birds, but the boat operator did not slow down enough for me to get a photograph of any of them. After riding for about twenty minutes we came to a small zoo in the middle of the estuary. There were a number of somewhat depressing pens there, particularly a smallish one where a lynx was pacing back and forth. The ones with the alligators seemed to have the most contented inhabitants. I suspect alligators are content to do nothing if they are not having to hunt for themselves. 

There was also a little swimming area, happily caged off from the rest of the estuary. Miles enjoyed the warm water. He is such a happy little baby. 

On the way back, Josephine took charge, as she often does, placing herself in the bow.

After the boat ride, we went into San Blas for a bit. John knew a small hotel there which supposedly had the “best burgers in San Blas.” As it turned out, the restaurant did not open for about 45 minutes, but they were kind enough to let us use the pool.

When they finally did begin to serve lunch, some of our party, the ones in the wet swim trunks ate outside while others of us ate indoors. I am not sure about the burgers, but the comida mexicana was quite good. We had a really absurd conversation about how you could say “I have a ham on my head” in a variety of different languages. I think we figured it out in eleven! At the end of the meal, they surprised Jill with a birthday cupcake.

Back at the hotel most everybody rested until dinner. I did a little work on this blog. 

Today was Jill’s birthday, and Jim provided a carrot cake for the occasion.

Ellen surprised her with a small gift:  a ceramic pig to put on her head. Oh, how did I forget to take a picture of that!