Friday, October 30, 2009
Retirement Fantasy
Last week our friends Charles and Mary invited us to join them for a long weekend at the beach to help celebrate Mary's 51st birthday. Our B&B owning, across-the-street neighbor recommended a rental property in Troncones, a little north of Zihuatanejo on Mexico's Pacific coast.
The place was next to ideal. The Canadian owners, who'd just arrived from Vancouver, were friendly and gracious. (They went so far as to bake us a cake when we admitted we'd forgotten that little birthday detail.) We stayed in rustic, but nicely appointed, open-air palapas, and had our own private sala and kitchen, which opened onto a large pool. The grounds were beautifully landscaped, palm trees everywhere. Rocky, volcanic tidepools fronted the property and a nice sandy beach was about 100 yards to the south. We spent 4 lovely days reading, lounging in hammocks and playing mindless, if highly competitive, games. When it came time to pack up Tuesday morning, none of us was ready to leave. So... fulfilling a longstanding fantasy of mine, we simply agreed -- what the hell, we're retired, right? -- to stay another day.
What a great decision! That night, we decided to revisit a nearby, romantic beachside restaurant housed in a yoga-meditation retreat. A yoga-meditation retreat I could definitely get behind as it offered a Happy Hour and exceptionally well-stocked bar. We arrived just before sunset, ordered drinks, and proceeded on to dinner as the sky darkened. Much to our surprise, one of the staff walked out onto the beach, inflated a large movie screen, and plugged in a projector. Once it was totally dark, (and beginning to rain), he popped in a DVD of a Rolling Stones concert from the 80's and cranked the volume. There we sat, looking out at the ocean in a pouring rain, martini buzzed and rocking out with about twenty erstwhile strangers from all over the world to some of the best rock music ever! Our last-minute, devil-take-the-hindmost decision to stay on couldn't have been more perfectly (or surprisingly) rewarded.
I'm more convinced than ever, creating memories is where it's at. This one will stick with us for a long, long time.
# posted by goots @ 1:35 PM 
