The Perfect Place

For most, Thanksgiving means piles of food, getting together with family, and drunk uncles.  As fun as it is to sit around a TV with relatives and pretend to be interested in the Detroit Lions, we usually opt for a low-keyed Baja holiday.  This year we headed back to Cabo.

Cabo, of course, didn't disappoint.  Regina got the sunshine she'd been missing, Dylan found the last remaining seashells on the beach, Grady had a kiddy pool, and I had Pacifico and lime.  We were all happy.

Well, mostly happy.  The Dia de los Muertos was nearly a month past, but most shops were still selling the skeleton dolls to tourists.  The first time Grady saw one, he was riding along on my shoulders and came face to face with a pair of 4 foot tall skeletons dressed in wedding clothes.  He clamped down on my neck like a bull rider and steered my head away from the danger.  I couldn't blame him though, those souvenirs got to be a little too much after a while.  Soon, Grady was skittish of every doll, Senor Frog statue, and lacquered puffer fish we saw.

What did make Grady happy was the pool and the chicks around the pool.  He's a constant flirt, so whenever any female passed by, he's stick out his skinny chest and coyly say hi.  "Ohh, what a cutie," or, "Que guapo," they'd reply and I'd pat him on the back.  "Thata boy, here comes another one, get ready."

Dylan was content to swim in the pool or play on the beach, but she also had a few pesos to burn, so trips in our rental turned into opportunities to shop.  When we could hear each other talk between the blaring Pitbull songs at the grocery store, she'd try to buy every item she saw.  I had to keep reminding her that pretty much all of things there were also available at home.  She finally bought a little turtle in a shop in Todo Santos.  "This is what you want?" we asked skeptically.  It was and, of course, as soon as she got back to the room she broke off its head.

We've always known this, but on vacation it becomes amplified: Dylan talks non-stop.  At the pool, it's just chatter and it's fun.  Downtown, we're often concerned that she'll offend (at one point I thought she was counting Mexicans, but she informed me that she was counting coconut trees).  And in the car, she just talks.  And talks.  We learned that some words do, in fact, rhyme with orange (but they only make sense to Dylan), and basketball court, and beach, and ocean, and whatever else she happened to see from her window.

For the adults, Cabo is about as easy a vacation as you can find.  Tired of the pool?  Go to the beach.  Too much sand?  Go get a taco.  Full?  Take a nap.  Awake?  Drink a Pacifico.  And, of course, we took full advantage of that cycle.  We did miss the chaos of a Hanna family Thanksgiving, but the sound of the waves, the laughter of kids by the pool, and, somewhere faint and far off, from a television at the bar, the sound of the Lions losing on Thanksgiving made it feel like we were in the perfect place.