Fun in the sun - Mazatlan

Oh Mazatlan, I forgot your charms.
Two years ago we started saving for and planning a family trip to return to Mazatlan. The idea was that we would supply a couple of rooms and the kids would find their own way down there.
We were wondering if we had made a mistake when we began hearing about all the drug violence in other parts of Mexico but Mazatlan remains beautiful, warm, and culturally rich as usual. How can you go wrong with Mexican hospitality and culture, the beautiful Pacific ocean, and SUN.

Traveling with passports is still not for everyone but it does open doors to some of the best vacation spots in the world.
I almost feel at "home" when I am there...maybe it is just the loving people we have come to know there that makes it such a special place...and until their govt gets their act together, the tourist industry is a vital part of their livelihood. For that reason I like to be generous with my tips...these people work so hard and I know it is a way of sharing what we have. Join us with a peek at one of our favorite spots off the tourist beat for dinner in the old historical Mazatlan called the Machado. The little guy is grandson Micah...I took this video so he can have a record of his first visit to Mexico. (see video clip below)
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1111859032600&saved#/video/?id=1110622279

LAX...The meanest airport in America?

Is it me or is LA international the meanest place in America?

Rod and some extended family came through LAX last night to catch the last leg of our trip home on the late pm flight.

Leaving beautiful warm Mazatlan Mexico to land in LAX and go through customs is always a shock. First y0u are herded into "stalls" at customs staffed by foreign looking people whose job seems to be to assume YOU are a terrorist hell bent on doing the whole place in.

I prepared my son JR that you will feel like a slimeball trying to sneak in disease laden fruit that will destroy the entire agriculture industry of the US and the existance of many other countries. Then Alaska Airlines will herd you around via overweight female minority workers whose only people skills seem to be verbal yelling and gesturing until they get you and your "checked" bags out of the terminal and onto the sidewalk to try and figure out where to go with your "checked" luggage without a guide.

Every time it is the same, weary passengers, dragging heavy "checked" luggage down the sidewalk asking each other and total strangers "are we going the right way". Finally we all somehow find the right line in the next building only to be yelled out some more as we drop our "checked" baggage off for the airline and are told to DOUBLE BACK through the same crowded line of weary passengers trying to get their "checked" luggage to the next terminal for this ineffecient airport.

Daughter Bethany accidently had a third of a bottle of water in her carry on when she got to the last check point. The employee told her to go dump it out and go to the BACK OF THE LINE (now another whole flight of people had come in) and go through the whole security check again with her empty water bottle! (her favorite metal bottle was not going to be left behind)

I know people coming back from vacation and sun to the realities of life are not always that fun to deal with...maybe we have made these employees mean? But, seemed to me the passengers were the ones trying to get along and make things work?

I would like to write about Mexico....ahhhhh. Maybe I will once I get over the trauma of coming home!