In the City of Brotherly Love, where America meets the world

PHILADELPHIA, Penn., USA - The couple two tables away from me is chattering away in Japanese and if you listen carefully there are occasional snatches of Spanish and French.

The English spoken by the service workers has a definite twang to it, peppered with some new terms and a Philly dialect that I'm having trouble understanding. My ear is still tuned to Spanish. I remember Philly English faintly from when I went to Villanova University in 1966-1968. That's a longer story.

The Admiral and I have been flying through this airport now for four or five years and it seems almost finished. This cafe - Au Bon Pain - offers exceptionally good food (in or out of an airport) and, gasp, the staff is friendly and seems to enjoy serving the customers.

In Philadelphia. Who'd a thunk it?


Not the friendly skies, but cordial

Our last airplane experience was in December of 2009, when we jetted from Sacramento to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Puerto Vallarta.

Since then, U.S. Airways has changed a few things. For one, no peanuts or snacks, except in first class. And in first class, all you get is a bag of peanuts now, too. But the second change had Admiral Fox's blood pressure spiking to red levels as we got ready to depart Wednesday.

When we arrived at the PV airport hours before our flight, we asked to jump on a nearly empty Phoenix-bound plane. No problem, senora, the gate agent said. But the small problem (for us) was that U.S. Airways wanted to charge each of us a $50 change fee.

In the past, the airline would have simply put us - and our 50+ pound bags - on an earlier flight. They might have even smiled while they did it. (Might have...)

But nooooooo, not now. There is a new company policy. All changes initiated by the customer are subject to fees.

So we sat, are much farther along in reading our books, and I have $100 to spend.


View from the front porch at Valois

Three hours from now we will jump on a small U.S. Airways plane for the last leg of this three-flight sojourn, a Philly-to-Elmira, NY flight that can be exciting if there are any thunderstorms.

But no storms are forecast - and there is even a chance the temperatures might hit 80 degrees Saturday.

Eighty degrees!  When do we get the pontoon boat out of storage and launch the sailboat?


Last summer at the Showboat on Seneca Lake

Shutting down for the season, just ahead of the heat

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - The weather has gone from balmy and breezy to humid and hot. Really hot. Really humid.

But it has its charms, like getting up and being able to water the grass and plants before dawn - standing in a bathing suit. Already the sun is high enough to make it as steamy as a novel set in a South American jungle and work has moved from outside to inside - or in the shade.

The Admiral and I made a quick trip to Puerto Vallarta Sunday to drop off amigos Randy and Karin at the airport and then a muy rapido overnight with Dustin, Cami and Sasha before heading back here to El Rancho Arroyo Seco. In about one week, the Admiral and I will head out to New York, via Phoenix and Philadelphia, just ahead of the rains that start here in June and go until November.

Last night, the forecast said chance of thunderstorms and it looked it.


Dustin's new puppy

Dustin's puppy from an Arroyo Seco litter, which he picked up a week ago, is doing great. At only four weeks old, the pooch is already eating solid food (mixed with milk) and has become part of the Dustin-Cami-Sasha-Max household.

Max? Max is a labrador-mix dog who doubles as a watchdog and pet for the house. Max is quite perplexed by the fact that this puppy gets to go inside the house while Max is banished to the outside.

It helps to be cute, I guess.

Also cute, of course, is granddaughter Sasha who is learning to play catch - sort of.



We are already making plans for this afternoon - which probably will include a quick trip (or long trip) over to Playa Chica for swimming (and possibly some cerveza imbibing for hydrating). When we arrived home late afternoon from Puerto Vallarta yesterday, we barely dropped off the bags before we headed out to the beach.

And on the beach we saw our vecinos (neighbors) Luis and Nena exercising their pooches. The brief movie below says Puerto Vallarta - a definite gaffe on the part of the cinematographer. It's Playa Chica, for sure.

The only other person around was a fisherman on the rocks, waiting for that big dorado to grab his line.




Sitting on the rock by the bay