Home Sweet Home

The last leg of our journey took us through Las Vegas where it was raining so hard we didn't even go see the Strip! It was definitely spring there though, with trees in bloom, but snow on the mountains.
We took a secondary hiway north, it was a great suggestion & a relaxing drive. We stopped at ET Fresh Jerky, a small roadside shop, bought jerky, of course & learned more about Area 51 which was almost "next door". The road followed a wide valley, good road complete with tumbleweeds blowing across the hiway. We stopped for lunch in Ely, at Hotel Nevada which was built in 1929 & at that time it was the tallest building in the state. Lots of eclectic decor!
We overnighted in Boise, tucked in with 20 semis at a truck stop, then off to Cabelas for a bunch of fishing gear for next winter.
Through Oregan we drove thru forests & snow along the ditches & then spent 3 nights at a Pilot truck stop & RV park in Stanfield. From there we headed west to Hood River for our much awaited kayak purchase! The drive there was through the beautiful  Columbia river valley, green hills, flowers & a big group of  some type of big horn sheep.
We are now the proud owners of a tandem sit on top bright yellow kayak. Of course along with the kayak comes roof racks, a kayak rack & paddles. Cannot wait to try it out on Skaha or Vaseau lake. We were happy to find a wonderful authentic Mexican resturant close by for carnitas, but no cervesas!
Some sights through Washington - Moses Lake, 20,000 people with an international airport, a runway that#s 13,500 ft long which is one of the longest in the US. It was built to protect the Grand Coulee Dam & an atomic energy site & it#s now used by Boeing, the US military & air carriers for heavy jet testing & training. Strange to see Hercules flying low over us. Washington also provides horse corrals at it#s roadside rest stops.
North thru Washington along another secondary hiway, thru Grand Coulee then through the border. It took less than 10 minutes to get thru customs, just a small fib about purchases, didn#t claim the kayak.
It#s nice to be home, but after 1 warm day it is now quite chilly & it has snowd a bit - yucky! We are busy with yard work, cleaning & organizing the RV, setting up assorted appts & doing taxes.
Our next adventure will be heading out to Edmonton to do a bunch of renos on our condo & visit the kids.
Pictures: Joshua trees & cloudy in Nevada, hiway, Hotel Nevada, Cabelas display,our kayak,sheep, Columbia river valley, flowers x 2, Penticton & Skaha lake.

Still Living the Dream, just slower.

Buffets & Burros

It's been a fairly quiet week, but I'm doing an update before we head off into the wilds of Nevada & no WiFi. We have been enjoying the lovely weather, highs of 24-26 & sunny until today which now looks like rain. We are in Bullhead City, Arizona which is right across the river from Laughlin, Nevada. The RV park has a hot tub - guess where Robin is, and a gym which we both have actually used! It also has cable TV but we are proud to say that we have not turned on the TV that we brought even once. The TV doesn't get to come on vacation next year either.

We checked out Laughlin - we found the info magazine, figured out which casinos give you $5 free play for signing up for their player cards & those are the ones we went to. We also received 2 T-shirts & a travel mug for our efforts. I am down $18, but had some fun, Robin declined to "waste" his money. We also checked out the buffets - 3 in fact in 3 days (rather embarrasing to say). You can't go wrong for dinner buffet for $6 or lunch 2 for $8. Laughlin doesn't have quite the glitz of Vegas, but it's also not nearly so crowded.

We had a great visit with Mary & Gary, old friends from Two Hills & a longtime co-worker of mine. They are lucky enough to have a place here is Bullhead City and spend the winter here.

Today we went on a road trip to Oatman, Arizona, an old gold mining town on Route 66. It was a lovely drive through the mountains, very scenic. The town consists mainly of souvenir shops - Route 66 stuff, jewelry, native arts & crafts & lots of motorcycle stuff. Thier signature thing is that there are many wild burros who wander through the town, waiting to be fed burro food (of course also sold in most shops). They are the descendants of pack mules used in the gold rush days. The babies have a sticker on their foreheads that states "Don't feed me anything please". Very cute. They also had a "gunfight" on main street at noon - kinda hokey, but it's a fund raiser for the Shriners.

We are leaving here in the morning, headed to Vegas, but hoping to mainly bypass it - need to pick up a proper Honda roof rack so we are ready for the kayak we are buying in Hood River, Oregon. After Vegas we are heading north to Twin Falls, Idaho along state hiways but not big interstates. We have it on good authority that it's a good route. This way we get home sooner, we are at the point that home sounds good.
Getting home also means that we then get to head out to Alberta in April to see the kids!
Pictures: casino in Laughlin & the lights at night, then pics of our trip to Oatman.

Still lovin it!

Farewell to Mexico

Since our last post we travelled from San Quintin, thru huge vineyards & hilly Mexican countryside to Ensenada where we camped just above the ocean. We enjoyed our last walks along the ocean, saw dolphins & maybe a whale off shore, pelicans and an amazing sunset. We shopped at an outdoor market for veggies & fresh tortillas and at Walmart for our last really good Mexican ice cream. A trip to the fish market helped fill our freezer with shrimp & fish & ourselves with more seafood.

We stashed our "extra" booze (not that much really) & ate the rest of our fruit & veggies (except for the avacados & little bananas I hid in the oven) then headed for the border at Tecate. Our last "interesting" Mexican roads & our last military checkpoint & inspection, then an uneventful crossing. A ways down the hiway we could actually see the high fence separating the US & Mexico. We caught a glimpse of snow in the ditch at 3800 ft, hopefully it's the last snow we will see this winter.

We stopped in Blythe for a nice visit with a couple from Oliver who winter there.
We had to check out Quartzsite, even though the main season is over. We missed the million people who go there for the swap meets & gem shows - glad we did. There are shops & tents all over town selling everything from rocks & gem stones to clothing to RV supplies & much more! Needs to be seen to be believed! Probably the strangest thing we saw was at the Oasis Bookstore - the owner Paul only wears a G-string.  A friendly normal kind of guy, but.....

We made a quick day trip back to Yuma for a few things for the RV - found some great deals, including 2 salt water fishing rods & reels. Still looking for the kayak. While we were in Yuma we crossed into Mexico at Algodones to return our tourist cards (supposed to do, but no where to park in Tecate). Of course we had to have more tacos & beer.

We did get a couple estimates for solar for the RV, but they were a lot more than we expected, so we are rethinking it for a bit.

We are currently in Bullhead City, Arizona to visit some old friends from Two Hills ( & probably hit a casino across the river in Laughlin, Nevada.)

The roads are better, the desert is greener with flowers blooming & now we are like the horse on the way to the barn - in a hurry to be home.
Pictures: Mexican countryside, our sign we had made,fish market in Ensanada,  last Mexican  sunset, area of huge rocks,  camping at Quartzsite on BLM land (where you can stay 14 days for free), vineyards & olive trees, Arizona countryside, our last Mexcian campsite right above the ocean, Robin's carving - spirit wood canes - pretty good! Oasis Books- the guy with the G-string.

Still Living the Dream!

Kayaking, Whales & onyx mine

We finished our  glorious 9 day stay on Santispac beach with some kayaking where we saw dozens of stingrays - glad we weren't swimming! I spent our last day of hot weather floating on my floatie in the ocean soaking up the last of the sun, then enjoying pizza delivery (unsolicited, just brought to the beach hoping to sell them). Robin went out in a small/tiny tin boat with Randy & they returned with 2 trigger fish.

We have spent 3 days driving through the desert, now much greener, with flowers blooming amongst the cacti. We unhooked the car & drove separately up the "Grade from Hell", easier than having the RV do all that pulling - we need to keep the old girl in good shape for future trips. We have been thru 3 military checkpoints where armed men search thru the RV looking for drugs & guns, somewhat imtimidating. We spent 2 nights in Guerrero Negro where we went out on another whale watching tour - they say they get only 1/2" of rain per year & we got half of it! Out on the water for 3 hrs, in a 20 ft boat, big waves, windy & rain - but all worthwhile as we saw many whales, but unfortunately still didn't get to touch one. Maybe next year! We went out for Chinese food, actually quite good, & had to "beg" the RV office to exchange US dollars for pesos as the banks in town don't like our debit card.

We went exploring to Ojo de Liebre lagoon, scouting for next year - took a wrong turn & ended up in the working area of the salt flats. They flood huge areas of land with sea water where it evaporates, then they scoop up the salt - big business, it's exported all over the world, including Canada as road salt. We got a good picture of one of their HUGE trucks, sort of what Adam drives. Of course we added a chunk of salt to our rock collection.

We visisted El Marmol, an abandoned onyx mine where we found a school building made entirely of blocks of onyx. There was everything from huge boulders to small chunks, all colorful srtiped onyx - white, yellow, orange, & green. Of course we brought back a "few" chunks, plus purchased a wind chime & some earrings. We camped in the yard of the family who run the small onyx gift shop & we woke to a temperature of 8C inside the RV & frost on the car! This is as close to winter as we would like to see!

We are now in San Quintin, on the Pacific coast - miles of deserted beach, big sand dunes & the occasional fisherman digging clams or diving for abalone. We have been "adopted" by a lovely family with 4 young kids from Pennsylvania. We spent the morning tiring each other out, going for a long walk along the beach after watching their dad surf. We went into town for lunch, found a palapa resturant where they make crab soup in a tinfoil "boat" & cook it over an open fire - delicious & picante! We went for a drive thru the farm fields of strawberries, broccoli & ?? and were lucky enough to see a roadrunner.

The Mexican part of our trip is nearly over, our last stop will be Ensenada - we will drive there tomorrow & be sure to stock up at the fish market.

Pictures: sunset at Santispac over the RV, stingray in the water, kayaking x2, whale tour - panga, whale spouting & us (yes it was cold), HUGE salt trucks, desert cacti, crab soup on the fire, & their resturant, Pacific beach at San Quintin.

Still Loving it!

Santispac - Lazy days

We finally buy an internet stick & go figure - it doesn't work on the beach! Here I sit, doing laundry & doing internet in Mulege. All remains well, we've done some kayaking here & lots of hiking. We had a lovely pot luck supper with scallops, barbequed tuna & all the fixins for Valentines Day.
The vendors keep coming to the beach, today it was ice cream - I never want to leave!
Robin found a nice fishin' hole - at the end of the beach there's a mangrove pond, connected to the ocean. We checked it out last evening & there were several kinds of large birds fishing. This morning Robin went out & caught a nice sized corvina (the name the local gave it), should be good eating for supper!
Last evening the beer truck came to supply the 2 beach resturants, we bought 24 Pacifico for about $16. They make it too easy to stay here for ever!
Weather is improving- it was cool, but now it's back into the mid 20's for a high & sunny.
We will stay here a few more days, stretching it out as long as we can, then continue north.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Family day weekend, we will be thinking of all our family & friends!

Still living the dream!

Ballena Gris - Lopez Mateos

We finished our stay in La Paz with a nice long bike ride - the bikes have been mainly an inconvenience in Mexico, few suitable places to ride. They won't get to come on vacation next year! We left La Paz on Feb. 7, stopped for a 10 lb. bag of oranges (from a truck vendor) for about $2.50, fresh & juicy! We arrived in the little fishing village of Lopez Mateos early afternoon & after some searching found the dock from which the pangas (small fishing boats) depart. There were several "tent' resturants & souvenir shops right next to the water & we were able to park the RV next to them & about 50 ft from the water. The bay (Magdelena Bay) is very narrow there, less than a km. across & we could see whales cruising up & down 100-200 metres away from us. Robin spotted 14 before breakfast one morning. We went out in a panga, along with 3 American women for 1 1/2 hrs, saw several mamas & babies, as close as 10 ft from the boat. The calving season was a bit later this year, the babies still young & the mamas a bit protective, so none came close enough to touch. It was still a magical experience to be so close to such huge creatures! We plan to do another whale tour further north as well. Trying to get good pictures was tricky - but we have good memeories.
We stayed there 2 nights, had a yummy seafood dinner, lobster, shrimp & fish & did some bike riding. We also left some school supplies with the local school. Oh, of course, more shells!

We headed to Loreto next, spent only 2 nights - lucked out to be there on Sunday for the huge outdoor market. It was set up overnight in the dry riverbed - tents after tents - fresh fruit & veggies, seafood, meat, souvenirs, clothing, toys, kids stuff - used by Gringos & locals. Also several places to eat - we chose one with no English signs, had pozole, a pork/ham soup which was very good, lucky we didn't choose the soup made with cow stomachs! Stocked up on shrimp & fish.

We arrived at Santispac beach 3 days ago, its on Bahia Conception, near the town of Mulege. Beautiful sandy beach, parked right near the water, facing the bay. Peaceful, but not empty - there are 32 rigs parked there, but still everone has ocean frontage. Weather is cooler, you can tell we are moving north - 14 last night, highs of 18-23, still better than home. We took a drive yesterday to a tiny village on the Sea of Cortez, San Nicholas - not much there, the 16 km road in took 1 hr., but lots of good shells & a nice walk along the water - much bigger waves than where we are. Robin has found more good wood for carving.  Our new friends from Washington arrived 2 days ago, so much wine, beer & story telling!

Our new internet stick won't work on the beach, no cell service, so we are in Mulege, guess I have to do some more shopping, since we are here!

Pictures:sunset over the pangas, Ballena Gris (grey whales), whale tail, whale, whale by the boat, mama & baby, another sunset, scenery thru the mountains, vendor cart in Loreto, Robin above Bahia Conception,, me at the beach, San Nicholas, fish camp there, burros along the drive.

Still having fun!