Update #8 - El Centro Ca to Canmore

Greetings Everyone from a snowy Canmore;

     This is the last update for our annual trip south.  We arrived home last week and are now experiencing a snowfall which is why we leave in the first place.

     We spent a few days in El Centro Ca getting ourselves organized for the rest of the trip.  It's very hot and dry here (El Centro is below sea level, buildings actually have sea level markings on them).  One afternoon the hot wind was blowing, the air

temperature was 92 degrees and Drew said he felt like he was in a convection oven.  We retreated to the motor home and put on the air conditioning.  The next day was a cooling trend so it only got to 79 degrees and the wind they promised never materialized. 

From El Centro we went to Quartzite by travelling the back roads through the Chocolate Mtns and over the Imperial Dunes. An Amazing place to go for a walk in the sand, although we were very happy to not be there on the weekend, as the sand machine tracks were everywhere! 

Quartzsite which is a bit of an unusual place.  People come here to rock hound and a large number boon dock out on the desert.  There are also a large number of RV Parks here as well.  Couple of gas stations, a McDonalds, a few other restaurants, place to buy solar panels, a bakery, a couple of grocery/hardware stores, and a bookstore.   The rest of the town is basically a flea market.   Most of these establishments also close by the end of April.  Our main purpose for stopping here was to buy a solar panel for the motor home which we did, 160 watts. While bike riding and geocaching, we visited the

Reading Oasis Bookstore which has an interesting owner.  He wears a hat, shoes and a little crocheted thing and that's about it.  I had my picture taken with him and that's about what there is to do in Quartzsite.

From here we went to Buckskin State Park right on the Colorado River between Parker and the Parker Dam.  This is a big boating area on both sides of the river.  The park is in a canyon and it's very mountainous around it.   I must say the Colorado River has done quite a job of creating marvellous canyons along it's route to the Gulf of California. 

Then it was on to Lake Havasu City which is the home of the London Bridge.  The bridge was purchased from London in the 70's, taken apart and reassembled in Lake Havasu City.  Some of the numbers on the bricks are still visible. 

From here we went to Needles,California.  Needles is on Old Route66.  The town seems pretty run down and there's not much here.  We did notice that gas is about a dollar more a gallon that on the Arizona side so my guess is that people that live here go to the Arizona side to do all their shopping. 

We drove out to Oatman which is a town on the Arizona side that used to be a major stop on Route 66.  It started out as a gold mining town, became a place to stop on a road trip and then became pretty much deserted once the Interstate was finished.  Folks started to come because of the feral donkeys in the area.  Now it's a tourist place for a little shopping, a little lunch and a chance to feed the donkeys.  

Most of our time along the Colorado River has been extremely hot so we try to get out in the mornings for a walk or bike ride and geocaching.  We've now done 450 geocaches since we started.

 

Then it was off to our last major stop of the trip, Las Vegas.  All the times we've stayed in Vegas or driven through Vegas we had never gone to Red Rock Canyon.  This is aNational Conservation Area and I must say of all the National Parks, Monuments etc in both Canada and the States, this is the best Visitor Centre that I have ever been to.  First we did the inside displays, then we went outside and it's a huge area devoted to the outside displays. You could spend

a whole day just doing the visitor centre.  Then we did the 13 mile scenic loop drive which has many pullouts, small walks to get a closer look at the rocks and viewpoints of the valley.  The red rocks are unique here as well as during some of the thrusting newer rock was put on top of old rock.

A little treat for me was a Quilt Show in Henderson the next day.  So I got a day of looking at quilts, shopping at the vendors (which is sometimes just as important as looking at the quilts) and learning a little bit about how quilts are evaluated. 

We had one last bike ride on the bikes up to Anthem and I do mean up.  It was up, up and more up.  However that means that the ride back was down, down and more down.  Then it was time to pack up the motor home and pick our way home. 

We took highway 93 is the Great Basin Highway.  This means we don't go through Utah and that means we don't go through the Salt Lake City area.  Most Rvers are not impressed with this drive.  However you only do 93 if the weather is favourable and it was.  

Once on the highway instead of taking the 318 shortcut we continued on 93 to the town of Caliente.  This is a very neat, nice little town.  I personally was expecting the usual dirty, dusty desert town.  They had a flood in 2005 and since then have built a great paved path around the town.  We took the opportunity to walk it and then have our lunch.  At one time this was a huge stop for the railway complete with a roundhouse.  The old railway station is still here and is now city offices.  Unfortunately it was Sunday so it was closed.  We did peek in a few windows. 

We spent the night in Ely and then drove on to Twin Falls.  We decided to stop here for the night and since it was stinking hot we got back into our shorts and went for a walk along the Snake River.  

We were able to watch folks parachuting off a perfectly good bridge.  Apparently this is the only place in the U.S. That allows folks to do this without a permit or some kind of out lay of money.  The city fathers decided that they will spend their money on places to stay, food and gas. 

Then it was off to Dillon Mt. but instead of going over to I-15

we continued up the 93 and ended up at Craters of the Moon National Park.  We did the visitor centre and drove the 7 mile loop.  We walked out on a lava flow, saw a spatter dome and were able to walk to the top of a lava dome. 

From Dillon we managed to get to Lethbridge and then onto Canmore the next day.  The trip home was uneventful except we did get pulled over at the border and they did check the motor home.  In all the times we've been over the border, that's the first time it's happened.  It was actually quite painless and they really didn't take very long. 

So now we're home enduring some snow.  They are talking more snow for today and tomorrow but it's not really cold and should be gone soon.

Adios till next winter.      Drew and Donna.

Update #7 - Guerro Negro to El Centro California

Buena Dias Everyone,

Our next stop is Guerro Negro. The only reason to stop here other than a convenient overnight stop is whale watching. The surrounding area is prairie and desert and there isn't even very much agriculture happening. The main industry is a salt works and of course whale watching.

It's the grey whales that come into the lagoon after their migration from Alaska. The males hang around long enough to mate with the females that aren't pregnant.

The females begin to give birth in January and stay in the lagoon long enough for the babies to be competent swimmers. By the end of April all the whales have left the lagoon and are headed back to Alaska. The orcas and sharks wait outside the lagoon to prey on these huge animals. Mostly it's the babies that they take out. Our guide told us that only 30% of the babies born in the lagoon will make it back the following year. These whales are huge; about 3 times the length of the panga we were in. The whales come right up to the boats and the mothers even seem to be pushing their babies up to the boat for a pet. The whales go under the boat, in front of the boat, behind the boat and alongside the boat and somehow never touch or knock the boat which I found pretty amazing. Scanning the horizon you could see many blowholes, the heads of whales, and the tails. One even had the tail up and came down very slowly,

almost like a ballet. Every now and again a whale would breach and make a big SPLASH; amazingly enough never near a boat. The only risk in the boat is when the whales come above the water near the boat, liquid comes out of the blow hole and you can get pretty wet. Not sure that all the liquid is water. On the way back to the dock the driver took us close to the sand dune area.

These are large dunes of mostly white sand. We also saw dolphins and seals on our trip. We also stopped at the salt works. Mexico is one of the biggest producers of salt in the world. At this mine the salt is used in Mexico as well as being exported to the U.S., Japan and other Asian countries.

The next stop is Catavina. This is another little oasis in the desert. The area is also the most diverse as far as plant life in the Baja. We walked into the desert among the boulders and the very big cactus. They include cardon, cirios (boojam), cholla, prickly pear, and several that none of us knew the names of. The boulders are an interesting array of shapes and sizes and appear to be sandstone with a granite look. It's very soft and I could even break it with my hands. In some of the boulders there's a hard rock layer. Later that day we drove to a cave painting with easy access. We walked across a wash and up the side of a hill where it's actually a cave. It was a small cave with many paintings.

The colours used were red, white, black, yellow, and blue. The designs were mostly geometric, lines (counting?), faces, and hand prints.

As an interesting aside, there are no power lines between the turnoff to Bahia de Los Angeles and El Rosario. The town of Catavina has a bank of solar panels, the hotel has a generator and most homes and businesses seem to have extra solar panels or generators. This is also the first place we had rain and did it pour. It rained most of the night of Feb. 28 and the afternoon of Mar. 1. We personally had not had rain since Dec. 20 in Apache Junction.

On our drive to El Rosario, Drew and I had an interesting little experience. We were behind Bob and Ann when their outside carpet flew out of the back of their truck. What luck, there's a pull out right here so Drew pulled in and immediately knew he was stuck. After a good rain it's really not a good idea to use these unpaved pullouts with the very sticky, gooey mud. Even we sunk in 3 or 4 inches when we came out of the motor home. We got the car unhitched and then just by chance a tow truck came along. Drew flagged him down and he said he'd send a big tow truck. Soon all kinds of people were stopping and asking if we needed help including semis. 

Nobody had the proper chains and hooks to get us out. Finally one truck drove by and then I see him doing a U-turn down the road and he comes back and he's got the proper chain and hooks. Now remember we don't speak Spanish and these folks stopping don't speak English so the communication is all through our lousy Spanish and a lot of sign language. Drew tried to make him understand that our rig is very heavy and of course he said “no problemo”. He backed up the truck including trailer, hooked up the chains and pulled the rodent out. That part took very little time. Amazingly enough after he pulled us out, of course the 2 rigs were blocking the whole road, no traffic came along at all. Chains were unhooked, of course the trucker had to do another U-turn to be on his way and we had to hook up the car and be on our way. And oh, yes, I found a paved pullout just up the road so we pulled in there to put everything back together. We decided that it was a cheap lesson for both of us. It was also a good lesson about people on the road and Mexican truckers just don't want to leave anybody stranded no matter who they happen to be. This little incident took about 1 hour out of our day and we were in El Rosario and parked and eating lunch by 12:30.

We are now in a huge agricultural area that goes from El Rosario to Vincent Guerro at the north end. Acres and acres of green houses and fields of vegetables. Strawberries and tomatoes seem to be the biggest crops. There's also a series of towns that are one right after the other. We stayed in a cute little campground called Los Olivos which is in an olive orchard. It was extremely neat and tidy and there was no dust or sand or grit and somewhat protected from the wind. The caretaker was busy raking the gravel when we arrived and we felt guilty as we were still dropping red mud from our incident. 

There was a hotel next door with a fabulous garden and a fabulous restaurant. We did walk through the garden and we ate at the restaurant one evening.

While here we did some amazing walks on beaches and in the countryside. 

We also took a trip out to Los Volcanos Park 

Then it was off to Ensenada for a week. We stayed at a resort which was a bit of treat after all the places with questionable electricity, water that was sometimes on and sometimes not, dust, sand, rocks and hot showers that were sometimes hot and sometimes not. The resort consists of a hotel, RV Park, houses and restaurant and bar. The resort is on an estuary so there's lots of bird life. There's a sea wall that goes from the RV Park around to the hotel and restaurant which makes for a very pleasant walk.

Ensenada is a large city of 500,000 and also the wealthiest city in the Baja. Just about every day there's a cruise ship in port. It's also a container port. When a cruise ship is in port the city is extremely busy. All the shops and restaurants are open, vendors of every description including mothers with young children trying to sell jewelry or small toys, beggars, bars trying to see you beer and margaritas, and of course more vendors. ( When I say vendors I'm talking about folks that walk the streets selling some product such as wallets, jewelry, and anything they can carry in a bag or on a board that folds up.) The second day we went into the city there was no cruise ship in port. There were also no beggars, no mothers with children selling stuff, only a few vendors, some of the shops were closed and while most of the restaurants seemed to be open, nobody was trying to sell us beer and margaritas.

We visited the oldest building in Ensenada which was built in 1886. It started it's life as a military armoury and then became a municipal jail. Now it's an anthropology museum and a small museum showing the history of the building. We also went to the fish market. 

 Another building we visited was the Riveria de Ensenada which began it's life as a hotel. It was built in 1930 during Prohibition in the States. Americans would come down to drink and gamble. It fell into disrepair during the 60's and 70's. In 1978 renovations began and it's now back to it's former grandeur. It's now municipal offices and available for special events. The gardens are also beautiful with several fountains and statues.

We went out to Bufadora; the snorting buffalo. The Pacific coast along here is very scenic and very rough. It reminded me of the Oregon coast and parts of the California coast. Bufadora is a point where the water comes into a narrow channel and then “blows” straight up. After parking the car we had to run the gauntlet of vendors to get to the Bufadora. It did put on a good show for us as the tide was coming in.

Our last stop in the Baja was the Valle de Guadalupe which is the centre of wine producing in the Baja. There are 52 wineries in the valley and they produce both red and white wines although I think they're a bit better at the red wine. We tasted many varieties and they ranged from very good to very bad. This is also a olive and olive oil area so besides wine we bought olives, olive oil (it's so good, I'm now wishing I bought a case), salad dressing, salsa, jam, bread, cheese, and juice.

Sadly it's time for us to cross the border back into the U.S. The crossing was easy and we're now in El Centro, California. We're here a few days to get groceries, do laundry, clean up the motor home and car and of course do the update. We had a good time in the Baja and I think I have another Baja trip in me with the motor home. We'll have to see what Drew thinks. Driving is a challenge with the narrow, twisty roads, construction with the detours in the ditch, interesting roads into campgrounds and then of course parking in campgrounds with small spaces. The scenery is fabulous with the combination of mountains, sea coast and desert. The people are friendly and eager to help. In fact they really don't like to say they can't help you.

Adios for now. Drew and Donna.

Update #6 - Mulege to San Ignacio

Buenos Dias Everyone;

Our next stop is Mulege which is situated on the Rio Mulege. It's a little oasis with palms and mangroves along the river. Our campground is on the river and has been flooded several times. This area

has had about 4 hurricanes since 2006; the one is 2006 was the worst. A good rain could also flood anything along the river as we learned it drains a very large area and it's all mountains around Mulege.

We walked into Mulege and visited the museum. This museum is housed in an old prison. Our guide didn't speak too much English so as far as I could figure, the prison was built in the early 20^th century and was in use till some time in the 40's. The prison had no doors on the cells. There were usually 2 or 3 people to a cell which would have been very cozy. The women were housed next to the kitchen and of course did all the cooking for the prison. Some prisoners were allowed to go to work in the town for the day and would be called back to the prison with a conch shell. The “very bad” prisoners were kept in an area behind a locked gate. They even had an isolation room where water would be dripped on the prisoners head. Even in this area the individual cells didn't have doors on them. The museum also houses many artifacts from the Mulege area including old sewing machines, old typewriters, all manner of farm equipment and tools. We then walked along the other side of the river and discovered a small piece of malecon that was left after a hurricane.

The Baja is home to 700 known sites of cave paintings. Two of the sites near Mulege are reasonably accessible in the Trinidad Canyon. We drove out to Rancho Trinidad, stopping at a citrus ranch on the way. Here we were able to buy oranges, grapefruit and mandarins for next to nothing. The Rancho Trinidad is giving the guides access through their

land to the paintings. We pay 100 pesos each and we get access plus a fabulous bathroom, a place for lunch and the rancher also keeps the trail in good condition and has even made signs for the plants. From the ranch we walked about 1 km where we have a choice of swimming or riding in a broken down kayak across a small lake made by a dam.

Four of us chose to swim and 4 chose to ride. That means 5 trips for the guide as only 1 person at a time and 1 trip for the backpacks. And let's just say the swim was very REFRESHING!! The first site is at this point and while it's not really a cave, it's an inset which has protected the paintings. Deer, hand prints, a turtle, coyote and lines (which may be a way of counting) are the most prominent images. Red and white are the most used colours although some black, orange and yellow were also used. Then it was off to the 2^nd site which was a bit more challenging that we thought it would be. We were walking up a canyon over rocks, through water and finally a climb up to the site. The guide said 600 meters, we thought closer to 1 1/2 kms. These paintings weren't as clear but we could see deer, fish, starfish and something that looked like a praying mantis. In some places it looked like new paintings were painted over old. 

 Then it was time for the return trip and that included another REFRESHING swimacross the lake. We had a burrito lunch at the ranch and then the return drive to Mulege.

We also drove out to the lighthouse and walked up to the top.

It was time to leave Mulege and drive to Santa Rosalia.

We stayed south of town in San Lucas Cove. A very nice campground right on the beach although most of the beach from sites are taken up by permanents. Santa Rosalia is a copper mining town. Copper was discovered here in the late 19^th century and in 1884 Boleo, a french mining company, bought the rights and built the town that survives today.

The infrastructure included 600 kms of tunnels, a copper smelting foundry, a pier and a 30km mine railway. The buildings are wooden with a french architecture style. There's a french bakery that dates from 1901 and you can still buy a baguette today.

The church was designed by Gustave Eiffel. It was apparently showcased at a World's Fair in Paris and ended up in a warehouse in Brussels where the story goes it was destined for South Africa. The manager of the mine saw it there, bought it and had it shipped to Santa Rosalia. The Boleo mine was there till 1954 when it became too expensive to mine the copper with the techniques they were using. The Mexican government continued mining till 1980 when they closed the mine down. In 2001 a Canadian company became involved and once again copper, cobalt and zinc are being mined. We also visited the

Frances Hotel which was built in 1886 and is still in use today. It has cloth walls, high ceilings and plank floors. The museum is in the old Boleo offices houses all manner of typewriters, adding machines, a board room and presidents office and pictures showing not only the mining but other activities that went on in Santa Rosalia.

From Santa Rosalia we went up over the "devil's backbone " to San  Ignacio where we stayed at “Rice and Beans”. This is another oasis in the desert with palm trees and water. We had RV entertainment when a caravan of 21 pulled into the park and we got to watch them get parked.

Unfortunately Donna was not feeling well so we did a hike to the San Ignacio Mesa which gave us a wonderful view of the town and of the Three Virgins. San Ignacio Mission and the adjoining Rock Painting Museum were very impressive. This is a pretty little town that in my mind signified 'true' Mexico. 

The other thing we find amazing is these little Oasis' that are all over the place where water finds its way to the surface bringing on wonderful little micro climates!! 

 Hope this finds everyone getting warmer. Drew and Donna.