On January 31/24 we left Santispac beach (after 2 1/2 months) & moved to Huerta Don Chano RV Park in Mulege, across the road from the river - decided it was time for a change & we wanted a bit of "luxury". A bit more expensive at 300 pesos/ night if booked for a month so $665 for 4 weeks but we have 30 amp service, water & sewer, WiFi, laundry, cell service (none at the beach) & a 20 minute walk into the centre of town. We lucked into one of the biggest site in the park, close to the amazing hot showers, bathrooms & on site resturant. All the beach vendors come thru the park selling their wares. We are under a big mango tree, surrounded by banana palms & flowers & even a bit of grass. The park is family run & well cared for. And happily we have lots of birds visiting our feeder, including the Xantus hummingbird, only found in Baja.
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| banana palm |
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| Xanthus hummingbird, only in Baja |
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| hooded oriole |
We are keeping busy going for daily walks into town, to the beach or out into the hills & up arroyos.
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| local graveyard |
We have explored all the shops in Mulege, some even sell some Costco merchandise (at a premium price), & are eating our way through the many resturants. We finally got a couple Sonoran hotdogs - once at the Pig Races & once when we ventured into town after dark (the town comes alive after 6, including the hot dog place)!
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| one of several grocery stores |
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| a favorite spot in town for al Pastor tacos |
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| Don Chano resturant in the campground |
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| the hot dog place |
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| catching up with dear old friends Vi & Eric |
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| spending Valentine's with new friends CJ & Ned |
Across the street from the campground is the river & the Malecon - the location for events. We enjoyed the Pig Races & the Cevichada (ceviche prepared many ways) - both with tasty food, drinks, live music, vendors & fun!
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| Cevichada |
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| the candy cart! |
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| local dancers |
We made good use of unlimited power & Wifi doing research for our upcoming trip this next winter.
We checked out the old prison museum in Mulege & several other spots in town.
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| the old prison |
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| a huge bougainvillea tree |
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| the town arch |
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| some well stocked second-hand shops, common in Baja |
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| a local farm |
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| a house in the hills |
March 14 we officially started heading north stopping in Santa Rosalia for one more set of shrimp tacos, picking up our last chuleta ahumada (tasty smoked pork chops ) & a bit of beach glass hunting.
Next stop Guerrero Negro, spending the night at Mallarimo’s RV and booking a whale watching tour for the next day.
We woke to a rainy, windy, cool day so we headed out wearing our winter coats plus a hoodie underneath. We passed by the salt works on our way to the lagoon. Most of Canada’ road salt comes from the Guerrero Negro salt flats.
The ocean was rough with swells of over 6 feet and our boat was being tossed around. We didn’t appreciate the weather and we think neither did the whales - we didn’t get up close nor did we get to touch any but we did get a few sightings. We’ve been much luckier in past years so we weren’t overly disappointed.
We continued on, taking the newer Highway five - enjoying seeing the desert greening up & things flowering.
We did a quick stop at the new Coco‘s corner, remembering our time meeting the original Coco.
We overnighted for free in the parking lot at Rancho grand at Gonzaga Bay and the next day drove on to La Poma a new site for us on the beach. We stayed two nights at a cost of 340 pesos/night - had showers and a good beach for walking.
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| drinks brought to you on the beach! |
March 18 we headed for Mexicali to cross into the US, but unfortunately our GPS took us on a convoluted route & into the middle of the line for the border. We were very quickly stopped by a police officer and told to follow him to the police station to pay a fine because we butted in line.
We were polite with our Google Translate and asked for him to please direct us to the correct place to join the line & instead of leading us to the police station, he let us straight to the proper place to join the line. Our lucky day!
Not so lucky on our time in line - turned out to be Benito Juarez Day and we spent over 2 1/2 hours getting to the border.
On into Yuma, Arizona for some shopping and over eating at Lin's buffet.
We headed back into Mexico at Algodones the next day for a haircut & colour for myself and we both had our teeth cleaned at a new dentist for $40 each. It turned out to be the spring farewell party, where the shopkeepers in Algodones thank the snowbirds for their business. One of the streets was closed off with booths offering free margaritas, free beer, free tacos, free T-shirts, free medication and live entertainment. Lots of fun & a little bit day drunk!
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| handcrafted wire name necklaces for the granddaughters |
We ran into some new friends that we met at the beach and spent the night with them in BLM land.
We spent a couple days in Phoenix, doing some shopping and window shopping for our upcoming trip in the winter then on to Quartzsite.
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| Mesa Marketplace |
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| Scheel's Sporting Goods store, ferris wheel |
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| and a Huge aquarium! |
We made it in time for happy hour at our old park and got to catch up with some old dear friends . we wandered around town and did some shopping and then headed north.
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| saw a Tesla truck at Gemworld |
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| beers at Beer Belly's |
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| Happy Hour at Kofa |
Temperature was 24° in Vegas and down to 3° in Ely where we spent the night . We finally got some good pictures of the river in Twin Falls as we actually could pull off and stop, much easier to do in the Roadtrek.
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| Idaho Falls |
We had our first experience of truckstop showers in Great Falls, Montana. We paid $15 - we were given two sets of towels and a key to a spotless private room with toilet, sink & shower. Impressive!
It dipped to -4 overnight and we woke to a frozen waterline which quickly thawed and the next day our furnace quit, but by then we were close to home.
April 1 we made a stop at Montana Shipping for an Amazon order (much cheaper doing it this way) and crossed the border back into Alberta and on to our “home” at Elk Island Retreat Campground. We were happy to see very little snow compared to previous years.
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| unexpected snowstorm |
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| happily back to 43 ft vs 20 ft of living space! |
We have spent the last few weeks getting settled in, catching up with family and grandkids & doing a couple of trade shows.
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| learning how to knap |
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| spring finally arrived! |
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| K & R Creations |
Our next adventure will take us on a 6 month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia beginning in October 2024 - lots to plan and lots of excitement looking forward to it.
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| our backpacks, mine has wheels |
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| and we have theft proof "fanny packs"/cross body bags |
We continue to live the dream!
