Mexico

For Thanksgiving, we chose to avoid the holiday and take a different kind of vacation--a relaxing one. We went to Isla Mujeres, in Mexico. Cheap flight. Cheap food. Wonderfully cheap hotel. Ohmygosh, we had a large balcony overlooking the ocean for $45/night.We almost got sucked into a time share at another hotel, but then we remembered our ocean front room for an unbeatable price and we managed to shake off the spell the timeshare people had cast. At night we watched ships make their way across the Caribbean. We slept with the sliding glass door open, listening to the surf crashing against the rocks. We woke each morning just as the sky started to lighten, but still in time to grab some coffee and watch the sunrise from the hammock on our balcony. Sigh. It was nice. At first, it was hard to relax, especially for Joel.
"Let's do something."
" We are."
"There's nothing to do."
"We're doing it: Swim, lie on the beach,get back in the water, lie on the beach some more, eat, sleep, repeat."
On the third day, I felt my shoulders release. I felt my blood pressure drop. Joel finally got the hang of it, too.
One day we navigated our way through some rocks in the water, and climbed a large boulder close to our hotel. From there we both spread some of Maura's ashes in the ocean.