Cozumel on a Whim

Bonnie & I just got back from 7 days in Cozumel...


Here is our hotel. Just kidding this was an abandoned hotel next to ours that went belly-up after hurricane Wilma went through a couple years ago.


Here is a picture of our real hotel, the El Cozumeleno.


The water was really clear just about everywhere. The weather was excellent except for a little bit on two of the days where it rained. Here are some of the water activities going on all around the hotel.


Our maid Guadalupe setup this little elephant for us on the 2nd day.


Here is a shot of our hotel from the water as we were leaving on a booze cruise.


There were cruise ships going in and out of Cozumel every day. Here is the Norwegian Pearl getting ready to leave as we went by on our booze cruise boat.


Of course when you have a bunch of drunk people passing a cruise ship anything can happen...



We got some nice sunset shots after the moons were gone.


On the way back to port there were 2 guys doing tricks with fire



























One day we took a jeep tour around the island of Cozumel. The first stop was snorkeling along a reef where Bonnie and I saw a bunch of cool fish and a huge eel.


The next stop was the San Gervasio Mayan ruins in the middle of Cozumel...


We were going to take a day to see the ruins of Chichen Itza or Tulum, but we decided this was enough ruins for us for one trip.



This iguana was posing so nice on these ruins I just had to take his picture.















Next stop was the casa Antigua tequila museum...

Thank god they had a pee pee station there.


They grow agave plants to make tequila, but I guess instead of using the leaves they use a big pieapple looking thing that grows from the plant. I think they said it takes like 10 years before a plant is ready to be harvested for tequila. We got a lengthy overview of authentic tequila and the process by which it is made. Patron and Sauza were dismissed as not being real tequila. Don Julio Reposado I believe is still safe as a real tequila though.


The highlight of the museum was the end where they had the tequila samples. They had approximately 9 or 10 different types of tequila including regular, orange, cinnamen, ambrosia, vanilla, some blue kind which tasted like candy. We tried a shot of just about each kind, and some we had seconds on.




The next stop on our jeep tour was the East side of the island where there no hotels...

and... Still More Gadget

More Gadget

Gadget

Ice Fishing - The Party's Over

Wait a minute, Kurt's holding a case of beer... this can't be a loading-up-to-leave picture, it must be a loading-to-go-to-the-lake-for-fishing picture from one of the other days. Oh well.







Hey, I think we have less than we came with. Actually I picked up 2 coolers full of venison from the local meat processor. He made me some goodies from one of the deer I shot over gun-hunting. Venison pepper sticks, venison polish sausage, venison bacon, venison breakfast sausage, venison italian sausage for pizza and such.





The smoker's traveled by themselves so they could suck lung rockets all the way up and back









The day we left they got 6-8 inches of snow. Figures... just in time for us to drive home in it







The snow made for some nice scenery shots though.

Pics From Ice Fishing - Day 2

We got the tip-ups out and then stood around and had a couple beers.






There were some remnants of a fire where we were setup so Paul started building a fire of his own. Eventually everyone joined in with the process until we had a pretty good fire blasting. It gave us something to do while waiting for the tip-ups to pop, and gave us somewhere to stand if we got cold.



We all learned what we were supposed to be doing from Geoff as he was the one who had (by far) the most ice-fishing experience in the group. We dubbed him our guide, even though he had never fished anywhere in this area in his life. We just wanted someone to blame when we didn't catch anything. Luckily we did catch a couple and everyone had a good time. We are going to try and make this a yearly event and next time we might even get enough for one of us to eat a meal.





A storm came blowing in over the lake, but Geoff and Paul had picked our location carefully so we were sheltered from the wind.






Good Times...








Drying out the wood before we can burn it







That fire building was hard work

Yes, I'm positive the ice can support the truck... Well, pretty sure anyway







I smell walleye in the air... they're close, very close








I know you're down there you walleyes








I knew it!
Finally we caught one... now lets get out of here and get a burger.

Pics From Ice Fishing - Day 1

Last weekend Steve, Kurt, Paul, Geoff, and I went to Iron River, Wi for some extreme ice fishing. Here are the pics... we had a lot of beer, a bunch of snow, some good food, a little gambling, and even a couple fish.

Here is the cabin.

The view of the lake from the cabin. We fished on this lake all day Friday.











Jeff went to town with his power auger, putting in about 20 holes in about 2 minutes. I think he covered the whole lake.



























All setup... now what?








Checking the tip-ups.






























I'm goin' fishin' baby!








I got my pole and my pillow...







...and my stool. I'm all set.










This might be the only fish we get on...







Wait... we have a bite.









Feels like it could be a big one...








Watch out, here it comes. Don't break the line...







It seemed bigger when I was pulling it out.









OK maybe not. Back in the hole for you baby. We're gonna wait for the bigger fish.









Now we gotta get the hook out.









How could something so small swallow the hook so far down?







Let's forget this and go eat dinner. One way or another we're having a fish fry tonight Jack!









End of day one pictures...
We ate at one of the best fish-fry joints around, then visited the not-so-local casino. 30 minutes to get there turned into about an hour and a half. After dropping most of his money in about the first 10 minutes we were there, Paul pulled a straight flush in 3-hand poker and raked in a couple hundred dollars. We made him buy drinks the next night.

Stay tuned for the pictures from day 2...