Cabo Azul--Cabo, Mexico--2008

If you are interested in renting this spot, please see my email at bottom of this post:

We just got back from Cabo. Once we got out of the airport "time share" adventure, our vacation was a blast. We stayed just north of Cabo San Lucas in the town of Cabo Del San Jose. San Jose is a little more quaint than San Lucas, however, both towns are definitely worth seeing. The resort we were staying at was beautiful. Five star with all the amenities...however it wasn't as family friendly as I would have liked. For example, out by the pool, was a lot of polished limestone or travertine. It looked beautiful, but Matt had a couple of falls. I even saw a few adults slip on these areas. The inside was beautiful too. However, the all white couch's and polished travertine was not the most family friendly. Anyway, it was a beautiful room.

We spent most of our time at the pool, however we took a couple of day trips. We rented a car and traveled north on a small two lane highway through the desert to a small town called Buena Vista. Here there were no waves, so the kids had a blast swimming with the fish. We thought we'd get some lunch since it was a little after 11:30. Since this is a fishing village, lunch is not served until after 1:30 and you needed a reservation. It seemed strange at the time since there was not a sole on the beach or at the resort. Any we decided to move on to our second destination...Cabo Pulmo. Pulmo is South of Buena Vista. There are not a whole lot of signs in this area, so you have to go on your instinct, what you can translate from the locals, and your map. We ended up heading down a single lane dirt road...it probably would have got us there...but it didn't feel right.

We ended up backing tracking and getting on another road. Everything seemed right until we ran into another dirt road. This one was a two way road and there were some cars coming the other way. We figured we must be on the right track??? However, there were no signs, so we still didn't know if we were even heading in the right direction...finally we arrived some 10-15 miles later. Pulmo was worth it though. It was a National Marine Reserve that had all the views you would expect from this beautiful untouched area. It probably looked just like it did 100's of years ago.

We also took some shorter trips into San Jose (above) where we had great food and great sunsets. This was taken from Shooter's overlooking the town. This was a great place to get some good Mexican food as well as some kid friendly hamburgers.

We also took a water taxi from Cabo San Lucas out to see the famous arch and Lover's Beach. We stayed at the beach and had a blast. While the boys were playing in the small surf, and Stef was watching Matt, I swam around a small point to small cave. It was fun to see the cave up close. At least I got a little exercise.

If interested in renting for a week, please contact me by email: jackmowers@hotmail.com

Anyway, it's back to real life...talk to you soon. Jack

Laker Finals Game 4

Thursday, June 12, 2008 my friend Marc Harris calls and says..."let's go to the Laker game tonight." How much are tickets, and where are we sitting I ask. He informed me that this is a tough market to buy tickets due to the nature of the game. If the Laker's win, the series will be tied 2-2. If not, the Laker's will be down 3-1. He told me the tickets are too expensive right now, but we should be able to do better at the Staples Center. So he picked me up at 3:30 pm and we headed to Staples. A couple hours later we found ourselves in compeititon with 1000 other Laker fans looking for tickets. They were sold out every where. The scalpers didn't even have any tickets. We were getting desperate. We went into a ticket broker next to Staples...none...all sold out. We couldn't even get in the door. We kept asking everybody...and there were no tickets anywhere. By this time the game had already started. Luckily, the Lakers' were winning. I was watching the score on my BlackBerry. Marc wasn't listening to my updates. He was just focusing on our situation. Did we drive all the way to LA for no reason?? We thought we would try one ticket broker next to Staples. We walked in and of course, we heard the same response. "no tickets." As we were about to leave, thinking we had lost, we saw a man walk in with 4 tickets. He was selling them on consignment to the broker. Luckily, Marc saw this and went right up to the counter. The person behind the counter and Marc were talking and then I saw Marc handing over our money so I knew something good was happening. He said we're in the door for $500 each. We were very lucky. This is the first time I been on an adventure like this, but not Marc...he's done this before. The tickets were in a suite...which at least gives us a good starting point. From the very start, Marc said we would find better seats. He always finds his way down to better seats. Something, that I'm not very comfortable with nor know how to do. He told me not to make any eye contact, follow him, and look like you know what you are doing. After a quick pit stop, we check in on the game. We went into the first tunnel and snapped a couple pictures. The first quarter was half way over and the Lakers were up over 10 points. This was a very good sign. We hopped on the VIP elevator to head up to our third level suite. The door opened at the first level (not our floor) and Marc jumped off at the last second. I quickly followed. We walked around restaurant and found another tunnel down to some pretty good seats. Of course the usher stopped Marc as he tried to talk her into letting us sit for a while. She didn't say no and Marc didn't wait for answer, he just sat down in an open seat. We were sitting in some pretty good seats in the lower bowl level 2. We watched the game for about the rest of the quarter. Then I looked up and saw the usher. She was signaling us out. Marc said, "you didn't make eye contact did you?" My bad...Marc said don't worry, we'll find some better seats. We moved closer to midcourt and made our way down to the Premier Seats. The usher stopped us, but said we couldn't go down until the action went the other way. As soon as the possession changed, we headed down. We found two open seats, with the menu's for the waitress service which was still rolled up in the beverage holder. This was a good sign. Marc reminded me that these seats were going for over $3,500 a seat late in the day. These seats would be our home for the remainder of the game. No one came to kick us out they were teriffic seats. As you know, if you are a Laker fan, (or Celtic fan) the Lakers made history this night. No, they did not win the game and tie the series, they were the first team ever to lose a 24 point lead after leading the first quarter by more than 10 points. Yes, we witnessed the biggest melt down in Finals history. The crowd was absolutely stunned. It was so quite leaving Stapes, all you could hear were the cheers of Celtic fans and the grumbles of Laker fans. No team in Finals history has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit. Kobe and Phil say it's not over...today we will see what the Lakers are made of. Will they fold for summer vacation, or rise like champions...??? I can only give the Laker's one small bit of advise..."Never Give Up" Take it one game at a time and keep surviving. You never know what might happen...look at what Marc and I did on our adventure. Our backs were up agaist the wall, we had no tickets and really no way of getting any. But somehow, we got in to the game. Some how the Lakers must find a way to win three in a row and two of them in Boston!

Video: Kobe to the Rack

ME: