We recently went on a cruise along the west coast of Mexico on Norwegian Cruise Lines. One of the ports we stopped at was Puerto Vallarta, and I have to tell you how amazed I was to see a Wal-Mart and Sam's Club side-by-side across the street from where the cruise ship docked. I thought about going over there to see if their merchandise is the same as we are used to seeing in our local stores, and what the prices were.

I didn't go because I was afraid I would want to buy stuff; maybe the prices would be so great I couldn't resist. But mostly I didn't go because I didn't want to be supportive of the evil empire taking over the world.

I have a photo of them, but it's in the other camera. Not really needed, though - you know what they look like. The only difference was the Wal-Mart had covered parking like you see at apartments - not one big roof or a garage, strip roofs over each line of cars.

The ship people warned us that the Easter holiday celebration had started, and the streets were going to be very crowded so allow extra time to get back to the ship. That was another reason for us to stay on the ship, we didn't want to get caught up in a mob of people.

When it was time to sail away, there was one individual they kept paging. We think he made it back, but don't know for sure.

Now that the flu thing has surfaced, we're glad we didn't get out there and rub elbows with the hoi polloi. We did get the flu a few days after we got home, so maybe that is where it came from.