Well the plan was to have a nice week with a little shopping and some swimming and generally taking it easy and enjoying this place but it did not quite work out that way at all until the last three days.
So we arrived last Monday with Jennifer still suffering from her cough which we thought was a cold and it was no better on Tuesday and so we did a little research and came up with the fact that on the ship we were on, the P & O Arcadia and elderly woman had a cough, possible caused by the air conditioning and subsequently died!!!!. Further investigation showed that many other people on the same cruise, and previous cruises have also suffered from the 'Arcadia cough'. So we felt it was time to see a Doctor.
We went through the usual shenanigans with the AXA Travel Insurance people who suggested the supplier Concentra, the same people who were hopeless in Sand Francisco for Noel, but we looked around with the benefit if having Wi-Fi that worked and we found a Doctor who dealt with chest infections, coughs, asthma etc and at 1.30 pm Jen was filling all the forms, about ten in all, detailing her life history followed by a prepayment of about £ 50.00 and twenty minutes with the Doctor who confirmed she would live and that some antibiotics might help for a couple of days. So with antibiotics and some other pills totalling around £ 60.00 we hoped it would work. The good thing was that on Friday Jennifer felt so much better that we had a couple of hours by the pool followed by lunch in the clubhouse of a burger and fries, we chose the simple item in the hope it would arrive quickly accept the chef lost the order and after lots of complaints they arrived about 45 minutes late.
Saturday was St Valentine's day and we did consider a dinner out but then we have a nice condo with fully equipped everything so we went off to Whole Foods and bought some large shrimp as an appetizer and a chunk of salmon with steamed veggies and a bottle of French Chardonnay and what a nice evening it was. On the way back from Whole Foods we needed some gas ( petrol) , in the past as the prepay credit card machine requires a US billing Zip code, I usually leave my credit card at the payment desk, grab some fuel and settle up afterwards. This generally works fine although I do worry about leaving my credit card for some other person to steal the data, but anyway this lady would not do it and I have to guess how much I need in cost. I don't bloody know how big the tank is and so I purchased $ 30.00 ( about £ 20.00) of gas oops petrol only to find I had bought to much and the tank was full at $ 25.00 but it was not possible tro get the five bucks back. I won't do that again.
So in the afternoon I trolled the web listing the problem and talking to AMEX USA who could not help and then I came across a travel website with other bemoaning the same problem which I now understand can be resolved if you put in a Zip Code either 00000 or 99999, so will see what happens next time and keep you posted.
We watched an amazing film on Saturday night which we had bought at Walmart for US$5.00 called 'Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close' starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock but the star was the young boy called Thomas Horn who was quite brilliant. The story was perhaps not the best for a Valentines night but on the other hand it was really good and worth another watch.
On Sunday we had the usual Skype call with family and our granddaughter is growing and weaning well. So we had a walk around the housing area of the resort and then along the road to an Irish bar called Gallagher's with serving girls who had partly green hair. We ordered two iced tea and they were so large you could almost go for a swim in the large mugs. We were not hungry after a late breakfast so did not eat but the size of food portions coming out was frightening and one plate would feed a family of four we guess. There was a Mexican couple with a son who were all huge and the ground shook as they left.
We finished off the Costco pizza Sunday night after having started our packing to enable an early start and checked on the route again and was surprised the first day was only about 220 miles whereas yesterday it had shown the route as about 330 miles, so not sure what google maps did to the calculations.
So Jen is busy reading outside on the balcony before we decide if we want tea as the pizza was quite filling and then watch another film to night also from Walmart. You can't watch American TV for adverts which arrive almost every ten minutes and last about five or six minutes, no wonder people choose cable tv and movie channels.
So tomorrow we are back on the road to a place in Texas called Lordsburg for the night and may visit a deserted town call Shakespeare which is almost next door to it, Lordsburg is a small place and is challenged for places to eat it seems but hey ho it was only 10000 Hilton points.
