Correction to the Palmilla story

Thanks to an anonymous comment by a reader, my history has been corrected.

And I quote:

"The fire was in 'Aqua' is the new restaurant with the beautiful Palapas. The other restaurant that was remodelled is called 'Market', formerly known as restaurant 'C' which is the remodelled original Palmilla Hotel Restaurant."

So there you have it. This person sounds like they know what they are talking about so I won't go too far to verify the comment. I'm sure they are probably connected to the Palmilla somehow. (I used to go visit a friend there years ago who was I believe the head sous-chef at the time. I won't tell you his name but his initials were Jim Wallace. Great guy, married a lovely local girl and has been moving up in the high-end restaurant world ever since. Somewhere along the line my age and poor memory has clouded the picture.)

Thanks "Anonymous." I appreciate it.

One and Only Palmilla Fire Update

I can't add much about the fire except that it sounds like a faulty electrical device was the cause. According to the people I talked to, the dining area and the display kitchen were hardest hit. In my estimation, the repairs will take at least a month so for you Agua fans out there, sorry. I already told you my culinary preferences so I can't even offer you a good alternative. I DO however know where the best taco stands are!!

The Palmilla is literally the cornerstone of Los Cabos tourism, with over fifty years of tradition. (She's rated a DIAMOND which is actually higher than 5 Stars.) The official name change to “The One&Only Palmilla,” came after the purchase by the Kirschner group in 2002. The hotel was remodeled immediately and was extensive, time consuming and the cost was estimated at $90,000,000 (yep, 90 million.) AND by the way, the location along the Southern coast of Baja California Sur is pretty much as nice as you're going to get.

Somehow I was left off the guest list and didn't actually attend but I heard that the grand re-opening was attended by personalities such as: Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones, and hundreds of other famous musicians, politicians, diplomats, sultans, kings and wealthy folks from around the world. Why would all these people take time out of their incredibly busy schedules to spend the night in a nice hotel? Because the grand re-opening was timed to throw an exclusive 50th birthday party celebration for John Travolta. Why else!

I don't see a lot of TV but it was covered by the entertainment channels and a big deal for weeks. The birthday cake alone (valued at $50,000 dollars) was created by one of the most famous pastry chefs in the world, and a star in the world of culinary arts. I've seen pictures: the cake was replica of one of Sr. Travolta's airplanes. Incredible.

So if ya got a little dough to spare, the One and Only is the place to go. Trust me on this.

Fire at the Palmilla!

I heard earlier from two different sources who wish to remain anonymous that there was a severe fire in the Agua restaurant at the Palmilla hotel early this morning. Agua is located in the "original" Palmilla restaurant site. When the hotel changed hands several years ago, the basic restaurant was remodeled and the name "Agua" was added. I've only eaten there a couple of times but the food was amazing. (I'm more of a $10 pizza guy than a $300 lobster dinner guy but I promise you that I can tell the difference.) I'm pretty sure that even in these trying times, the owners of the Palmilla can afford to rebuild the restaurant but how long it will take is anybody's guess. My sympathies go out to the employees who will be laid off until the repairs are made.

Near Miss

My old boss called a close call a "near miss." Seems to me that a "near hit" is more accurate. So I would say we survived a near hit. The evil Lady Jimena has passed the Los Cabos area and is continuing on the same path towards the middle of the Baja Peninsula. She has lost some intensity too which should cheer up the folks in her path. By the way, the screenshot above was taken from the Weather Underground site. Highly recommended. There is a lot of weather information there.

As for us, we needed the rain. I'm pretty sure all of Baja Sur will end up with a good soaking from this storm. It is always the prettiest in the fall after a storm. The whole countryside transforms into a lush, green paradise like you see in the movies. We rarely get much rain from October through July anywhere but the mountains.

So much for this particular hurricane. I'll get back to the mudane, everyday, boring stuff.

We're still safe.......

So far, so good. Jimena is still tracking N by NW and looks like landfall will be on a sparsely populated area near Constitucion. There's a nice little town named "San Carlos" nearby where we go clam digging. If Lady Jimena continues her present course, the residents of San Carlos will be hit hard. Here in Los Barriles, we will no doubt have a LOT of rain but the wind velocity will be considerably lower than near the eye.

We came to the restaurant this morning. (In case you're not a regular reader, my wife Donna opened a diner-style restaurant 3 years ago in Los Barriles.) We only had 2 employees show this morning but Donna and I and our nuera (quick, to the bablefish Batman)are here prepping food as well as possible. It's amateur hour at the Roadrunner Cafe!!!! Outside it's raining steadily; sometimes more, sometimes less.

Jimena has become news.

Well She's still coming. Her horizontal speed has slowed to 8 mph from 12 and she's still out there huffing and puffing.The first picture to your right is from the NOAA site. The good thing is that the trajectory has been consistent for a couple of days. When hurricane John hit, the predictions were all over the map from the different agencies. He was headed directly for San Jose del Cabo but at the last minute, took a right turn, went out into the Sea of Cortez, then took a left turn and landed almost on top of us in the Buena Vista area. John was reported as a class 3 I believe but the local wind station broke at about 170mph. It was NASTY. Broke 6 glass sliders in our house and a few windows. Thank God there wasn't much rain: mostly wind. Some storms don't have much wind but dump rain at an inch an hour. You have to witness that much rain for 24 hours to believe it.
The second picture is more of a "visible" look at the storm. Looks bad huh? But since I'm not a weather person, IT LOOKS WORSE!!!! AAAAHHH!!!!! Just kidding. I'm not scared. Much.
One more screenshot. This shows the area that will be affected by the storm. We are located on the right edge of the Baja. (click on the photo, then click the "return" arrow) We should only get some rain and not much wind. We'll see, no?
By the way, I always check a site called "eebmike.com". He or she (I actually don't have a clue who this wonderful person is) has combined data from several sources and the site is the place we Bajonians go for the latest scoop.

Hurricane Alert!!

It's that dreaded time of year again. No tourists season. Everything s l o w s d o w n and you wonder if you're ever going to have another customer in your life. It's hot and humid and the A/C is maxed out and your employees are maxed out and you're thinking about your business and you think, "What was I thinking? This isn't any fun!!" A lot of businesses just say "heck with it" and close for the month of August or September.

But then it gets interesting. A hurricane happens!! Hooray!! It forms up South of the Baja Peninsula and starts coming North. Actually nobody says "Hooray" except our friends who have never actually lived through one. But the point is that a hurricane certainly breaks up the monotony.

So right now we have a fairly strong hurricane bearing down on us. Her (I think) name is "Jimena." That is pronounced "He may nah" more or less using English. (Sorry if I sound like some mean teacher talking to bad students but some people just don't know how to pronounce words written in Spanish)

According to the prognosticators, Señorita Jimena will show us her fury sometime Tuesday. So we're busy making sure the generator works, checking for loose stuff outside, moving things away from the windows and fun stuff like that. You don't want things lying around that can blow through a window.

I've had the dubious pleasure of being here for every hurricane since Isis in 1998. I think 1998; my memory really wants to block out the first one. We were house and baby sitting for some friends who had gone to San Francisco for their anniversary. They were only gone one day when the hurricane decided to show and it was on top of us very quickly. So we were in this Fabulous house over-looking the Sea of Cortez with our 2 boys, 6 and 12 and their 4 kids, 5 through 14. The kids made their own plan, covered the whole floor of a large walk-in closet with pillows, took in a tv and vcr, every soft drink in the house and every bit of "portable" food. So while we were bailing water, saving expensive artwork, squeezing out towels and generally panicking about these peoples' nice house, the kids thought we were having a noisy picnic. In the end there was no permanent damage to our friends' beautiful house.

So here we go, a day or 2 of speuclation and watching the internet updates. See you on the other side.