Traveling back to the USA

We had a beautiful sunset the night before we left to head to the US from our new base in La Paz.   Months previous we booked flights from Puerto Vallarta to Chicago as we expected the boat to summer in PV. We needed to get to PV to catch our plane back up north to see family and friends again.  We had been wanting to take the Baja Ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan so that was our first leg.

Dinner was included with our Baja Ferry, ticket and the culinary offering was surprisingly good, especiallyfor ferry food.  We met a really nice couple from Mexico while we ate dinner.  We ended up spending some time with them on the ferry.

A big surprise for us was the entertainment on board.  The lounge had quite a few night owls watching the floor show. The duo was pretty good.  It was better then spending too much time in the room where our overnite seats were.

There was room for over 300 people in the sleeping salons. There were private cabins also available but that would have just been too fancy for sailor folk. I  expected the seats would recline more than they did. Needless to say I did not get much sleep that night. As you can see, Dave found a “comfortable” place to sleep. 

The 2nd leg of our trip was a bus ride from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta.  We thought we had plenty of time to get from the ferry to the bus station.   It didn’t work out that way.  The ferry was late and they did not off load passengers as quickly as we expected. We did not get off the boat until about 10:15 AM.  Our bus left the station at 10.  And busses in Mexico are prompt! The next bus was at 11 pm that night.  So it would be a day walking around Mazatlan.  We were able to store our larger bags at the bus station so we just had to carry our backpacks around town.

Our first stop was the beach and cervesa and to get a game plan. We decided to walk to old town have lunch then take in a movie. We saw Top Gun. Let’s just say it was worth the $2.50 we spent. We had a bite on our way back to bus station. We did sleep on the bus that night and arrived in Puerto Vallarta around 9am. Ahhhh a hotel!

Dave reservered us a hotel in the marina with a pool and all-day happy hour! First on the agenda was a nap. Then it was pool fun then dinner overlooking all the yachts in Marina Vallarta.

After a great night sleep we headed to the airport for our flight to Chicago via Mexico City. We made it to Mexico City and to our gate with no problem. Once on the plane though, we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours. That got us to Chicago around 2 AM. By 4 AM we were out of Chicago on our one-way in our expensive rental car and headed north to Charlevoix! We finall arrived in the morning to a beautiful sunrise. Yes it was once again nap time before we started the family fun. Our summer in the USA begins!