A New Year

Small creek on my commute to work...

So - Happy new year to everyone, and hope all your holidays went keenly.

I had a week off between x-mas and new years, in which I did absolutely nothing worthwhile.  Which is fine, as I needed time to recover from our trip to Mexico.  Spent a week in and near Playa Del Carmen, south of Cancun.


Cancun, seen from our departing flight....  miss it for sure.

We had a very posh environment for our stay - and all-inclusive hotel nearly a stones-throw from the beach.  Took several day trips to nearly local ruins and other attractions.  Snorkeled for my first time, what a trip, even swam over a stingray.  I have a photo of it somewhere on one of those disposable underwater camera things....








Mexico was a cool place, but then again, we were relatively "safe" as far as the drug cartels and kidnappings go. The amount of utilitarian cyclists was nearly mind-boggling, especially after comimg from where commuting is becoming/has become a sort of status symbol (if such a term exists anymore). Bikes of all types and sizes, many single speeds too.  I was even covetous of a couple of them, even though they were beaters, they had amazing character.


These are the rental bikes at Coba - the ruins with a couple large pyramids.
There were also a lot of bike taxis as well...


A bike taxi in Playa...


Denotes bike lane..



The hotel was in a very "sheltered" area - but on our excursions, we got a sense of "real" life may be like.  Many houses had no roofs, or windows... some domiciles look as if they were just acquired by their inhabitants - like an abandoned gas station... I'm not trying to put any impression forward here, it was just very different from what I've seen up here, and then again, similar to what I've seen on reservations here - minus the jungle of course.  Interesting for sure. 


Taxi stand... if you think that the schiesters in your local urban enviro are
a bit aggressive - well, these cats, pretty much all the vendors on 5th avenue
were very high pressure sales-types

It was cool to get out of the "city" and in to the burbs (relatively speaking, I think).  Included in one of our excursions was a little side trip to a contemporary Mayan family.  We just show up, get out, and pretty much tromp all over their property while they do their thing.  I think our guide said something to the effect that the family gets additional "help" from the government for letting the tourists see "how they live" or whatever.  It was interesting, but seemed just a bit contrived, if not a bit melodramatic too.  But another place we went, the Grand Cenote (underground rivers), seemed a bit more authentic - from the missing toilet seats at the banos, to the pet deer named Coquette, that wandered into the dining area as we ate our $5 quesadillas (that's $5 for two, a bag a chips, and three diet cokes).  Strange to watch a deer walk in the door as your eating...  also got to watch as the owners (?) finished off their palm tree roof.  very cool....


that there is Coquette, the family deer.  The "authentic" Mayan family
we visited also had a pet deer, but it was tied to a tree, and my guess is
that its name was "dinner"....

The other thing to note was all the strange local wildlife, which locals of course don't even blink at...  Strange cat/lemur like things, funny cross breeds between guinea pigs and squirrels, spider monkeys and funny snakes... 


Lots of Pelicans on the beaches...


I forgot what the correct name for these dudes is, but took to calling them Tony....


These were my favorites, don't have the name off-hand, but the females run around
in gangs of like 15-30 - they descend from the trees after sundown and ravage garbage
cans, and if you're a tourist with some snacks, they will be your new best friends...







Okay, back to the USA now...




Just after the year the changed over, I ended up losing my prized little yashica/digital holga.  I am heartbroken over it, and a replacement will happen sooner rather than later.  grrrrr.

And so, with the arrival of winter, I've gotten out in the snow a bit, time permitting...  went to the Ice Climbing Festival in Ouray, Colorado a couple weeks ago.  Fun stuff, they have a narrow canyon there is quite the place to ice climb, especially since they run their own water down in to it to make their own ice flows.  Very cool stuff.  Very difficult.  Did it for my first time, and will for sure do more of it.  Got the snowboard out a bit too, ended up at Wolf Creek, fun place.  Beats the hell out of stuff back "home"....  did a little snowshoeing too, just to get used to it, and to help prepare me for the eventuality of doing some back-country snowboarding... not sure my skills will be keen enough for that this year though...


Snowshoeing at Vallecito...


Su in the XC ski groove...

And to top all that off, I am current enrolled in, and attending college.  Just killing my pre-reqs right now, hopefully I can get them squared away in time to enroll in the radiology program next year...





We've been pummeled with feet of snow the last few days, I've never seen and
willing shoveled so much of this stuff ever.  blah.



And finally, after over a month of hating on windows harder than normal, I've resolved my Firefox issue.  Turns out I had a sneaky instance of Norton running in the background, I swear I never saw it there.  Ended up downloading a removal tool from norton, and that was it.  cool...  now I just have to get a new laptop screen...

Hope everyone's new year is starting on the positive.  Right now, during the week with school, I have little time for anything, but I'm looking very forward to spring, the end of the semester, and some freaking bike riding!!!!

Thanks for lookin'
:peace: