October’s Windshield View – 2022

October 2022: Oh the choices for this October’s windshield view are numerous so picking one has been a real challenge, and while all the choices have a special meaning this one won out over all the rest. This photo was taken on US-101 just a few miles north of Brooking Oregon, the sun was shining on us but we could see the marine layer in front of us.

This October has been a real vacation month with the first of October finding us in Campbell River over looking the Salish Sea and the Alaskan Marine Highway, then started our southern trek on Vancouver Island, as we explored Vancouver Island and then of course our preparation for our departure back to the States on the Coho ferry back into Washington State and then continue our trek south down the western coast. We crossed in to California on the sixteenth of the month to continue our costal trek south as far as San Francisco before turning into the middle of the state and finding Interstate 5 to make a push south and get us back into the desert. Then head east to Arizona and the Yuma area for the meetup with the “Baja Gang“.

We have taken on a different approach to our travel down the western coast of the States with the addition of the “Elks Lodges” to our available camping stops. The weather has been amazing with only a couple of days of moist weather, It would be a tough call as to what area we liked the most, as we only seen the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California. But in all cases it has left us wanting more exploration of each State, for more details of our adventures see my blogs weeks 2-5 of of our 2022 vacation. Below is a just a few of our memory photos of this adventure.

October 2021: is here and yes once again we start the month on site #217 at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) but the windshield sun shade will be removed in a couple of days, the sunshade serves dual purpose for us, with its main task being keeping the coach cooler when the sun shines on our huge windshield and the secondary task is to provide some privacy during the daytime hours. It still puzzles me as to how much heat the shade is actually able to reduce in the coach on a sunny day, but as the days start cooling off, that warming of the coach by the sun becomes very welcome. I removed the shade on the last weekend of the park season, so this photo was taken after the park had closed looking out the windshield over the kayaks on the SportTrac, west toward the lake, as you can see the trees still have most of their leaves, as we have not even received a frost yet. This is actually a screen shot from my dashcam which sits attached to the windshield just a little left of center, notice the GPS readings and although obscured by the white of the kayak, it has the speed of the coach in km/h, as well as exact time, just in case of any incident on the road and the wide-angle lens distorts things, but it is a true view from the windshield. Yes I remember that I said October’s windshield should be shorter that September’s rambling post but it appears to be almost as long or maybe even longer … sorry eh.

Ok so it is the first day of October and Miss Laurie and I were sitting watching the morning news on the television when the front roof air conditioner compressor starts running, the thermostat was turned off, we had touched nothing but it started on its own, but I also noticed the fan did not start with the compressor. So because I had just renewed my BAC (Beaver Ambassador Club) membership I threw this little puzzlement onto the service forum website to see what turns up, and with a google search it was suggested to be a thermostat problem and that seemed to make sense to me, because nothing that I did with the thermostat controls would stop the compressor, so my best guess and also the least expensive part to change was the thermostat, so I have one ordered from Amazon.

After closing the pool and the public washrooms Richard and Bonnie decided to renovate the washroom building, so that work had started, and we were able to winterize about a dozen trailers, on Tuesday the fifth, a great warm sunny day, this task is so much easier on a dry day, as now the rains seem to have become heavier and that has made trying to keep the lawns mowed nearly impossible, and now it just becomes a waiting game to close the park.

Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, the last few days for everyone to get their trailers closed for the season, unfortunately the weather is not being very cooperative, with lots of rain in the weekend forecast. So a number of people have been up during the week to close their units, while the weather was warm and dry, it is just nicer and easier not to have to pull in wet slides. The sun came out on Sunday afternoon and Richard and I were able to knock off a few more trailer closures. The replacement thermostat showed up on Sunday afternoon from Amazon so on Thanksgiving Monday I installed the new thermostat and the air conditioner issue seems to have been corrected.

Closing day can get kind of crazy and I wrote a separate blog on that already Closing Day 2021 here is the link (https://thebuchanansrollingdowntheroad.com/2021/10/12/closing-day-2021/). Because we needed a little time off, we took Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up on some personal items to prepare for our journey to Arizona, cleaning of storage spaces the switching out of some storage containers, as we continue to learn how to make the best use of our limited space and we also keep purging unused items as we can. We also got Mr. Sam to a veterinary clinic (thanks Sandra) to receive his rabies shot to allow him to cross the border with us this fall, it is October the 12th and we are anticipating the next border announcement due by the 21st, and hoping that it will bring good news.

So at 5:30 this morning the 13th of October as I’m tossing and turning in bed, trying to avoid answering that daily call of nature. I can’t help but notice a glow from Miss Laurie’s cell phone as Miss Shari has sent Miss Laurie information about the possible border opening in early November. Miss Laurie is not really an early morning person so all this activity is certainly uprooting both Sam’s as well as my morning routine, this is normally my quiet time when I write my blogs as Mr. Sam lays on my lap to give me inspiration.

But on the upside, the opening of the American land border is very good news to us, as well as a few million other snowbirds. Now it just comes down to the actual opening date and see how that will effect our travel plans.

We always say it, kind of kiddingly at times, that we put in 10-2-2 days, which means get on the road by ten and we try to get off the road by two and we stop for lunch and I may even have a short nap. We try to avoid driving on raining days or in any other kind of nasty weather.

So let’s look at what we had hoped to have been able to do, the three week (21 days) from the end of our work at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) to the beginning of our volunteer position at BTA (Boyce Thompson Arboretum). In that period, visiting friends and a leisurely drive across the continent enjoying the travel, exploring the interesting sights, while avoiding the bad weather.

But now depending on the actual date, at the best we have ten days, which is going to force us to reduce our visiting time, it also means longer driving days, and as we cross the American mid-west as we climb in elevation the chance of storms with snow become a reality and not an ideal driving condition for us.

The land border closed in March of 2020 when the pandemic was first taking over the world, we crossed the Blue Water Bridge back into Canada on April the 8th of 2020 and now we are anticipating being in the line up the day it opens on November the 1st 2021 to head south for our winter escape.

Our original travel plans have now been cut short, our shortest distance is 2100 miles (3380 kms) and only nine days to get that done. We have one required stop and that is in Pemberville Ohio to visit with Butch & Betty who have not seen since November 2019, because we will have limited time that will most likely become our first day from the Canadian border to their home which is 220 miles (360 kms). Then we head off to BTA another 1850 miles (2980 kms) down the road, to meet our present commitment if we increase our daily travel to 300 miles we should make the trip in six days. which means no naps for me.

It’s Thursday October the 14th, another warm sunny fall day, and the day we start the process of closing the park, winterizing trailers, wanting to take advantage of the weather we started early and finished late in the afternoon with only one more trailer to winterize left.

Friday morning and the announcement came down that the border would open on November the 8th, while the opening is meet with some happiness the fact that it was a week later that we had hoped will cause us some issues with our next commitment in Arizona, and while it is technically possible to get there in two days it is not something that we are planning on doing, so we will ask for an extra week to allow us to travel with out too much stress. It will shorten some of our plans and won’t allow for any exploration on the way along with moving us one week closer to the chance of winter weather through the American mid-west.

So the last of the trailers were winterized this morning, and some repairs are completed to repair water leaks, before the water system is shut down to start the purging of the water lines to both sides of the park this is done by hooking up air compressors to the water lines and walking to every site to purge the water until just air is escaping from the system, lots of walking as we make our way around the park numerous times, and while not nearly as nice a day as Thursday, Friday was still warm but had a light rain as we worked around the park. So now we have only the washroom building and the pool left to winterize, then we just have the equipment left to clean and prepare for winter, although the forecast is not good for Saturday as more fall rain is in the forecast.

Down pours to start the Saturday morning, but by late morning we were able to finish the purging of the south side of the park, then off to what is left of the washroom and laundry to winterize it, with most of the plumbing having already been removed it was a quick stop this year. The next big task was winterizing the pool which includes the pool solar system on the roof of the washroom building, this is always a time consuming process, but failing here could make for a major repair in the spring. So by days end on Saturday we have completed all the major winterizing, now all that is left is equipment to be cleaned and put away but I took Sunday off because of rain and will start the equipment preparation on Tuesday.

Because I’m an old fart, I scheduled a flu shot with the local pharmacy online and I was able to get in for the shot on Tuesday the 19th and because it was such a warm and beautiful day we went to the beach in the afternoon, while maybe not a swimming kind of warm, the day was warm enough to be of the shirtsleeve variety of day, Miss Laurie wandered the beach looking for sea glass, while I tried out my drone set up, using an iPad instead of my cell phone for the display. This should have been very easy as I was able to purchase a bracket for the iPad, but ran into a complication when I had to order a RC (remote control) cable from China and had been waiting for it to arrive for over a month, I’m pleased to tell you that it makes flying the drone so much easier with the bigger screen. But more importantly the battery in the iPad outlasts the battery in a cell phone for this task, as it was usually the phone battery that grounded the drone before the drone batteries actually did.

On the 20th our last official day of work at LHR (Lake Huron Resort), I did what will most likely become my final pump out, maybe forever, and while I’m certainly not saddened by that fact, I will miss working with Dale, Don and Richard. You learn so much more about a person while doing pump-outs than you ever would over a beer on a warm day. The “Honey Wagon” has now been winterized for the winter so this means that Thunder will be moving in the next ten days or so to drive to the dump station.

I also washed most of the equipment and moved it to the recreation hall for the winter, carefully making sure to shut off the fuel supply at the tank and running the engine to drain all the fuel from the carburetor for the winter, this is done to reduce the gumming deposit in the carburetor when the gasoline evaporates over the winter, and shutting the fuel off at the tank reduces the chance of a leak over the winter, in a perfect world you would drain the fuel tanks as well, but we don’t live in that world.

We just received an email this evening on the 20th of October from BTA (Boyce Thompson Arboretum), and while not pleased that we will arrive late, at least they are understanding. The problem is that the time around Thanksgiving is very busy at the arboretum and they were hoping for our assistance, we reassured them that we were quick learners and would get up to speed quickly. But this all means that the number of travel days are going to be reduced again which means longer driving days and little or no forgiveness for any bad weather, as our new plan is to be in Arizona by the 17th of November, now we are hoping for mother nature to cooperate at least a little.

I have to mention the state of the pandemic as much as we would like it to be over, it is not over yet. Ontario and Canada just brought out the covid vaccine QR code passport as proof of your vaccination status, and of course it has upset some of the special people out there, but it has made the important people like myself feel much better when going out for dinner to support the hard hit restaurants from all the lock downs. And as of today the 25th of October they are allowed to go back to full capacity as long as they are checking vaccine passports. As of this morning 87.9% of the eligible Ontario population have had a shot and 83.9% are fully vaccinated, a vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old is being reviewed by Health Canada for approval hopefully next month, and the covid case count is running below 400 per day on average and only 326 being reported today and the majority (231) are people who are of the unvaccinated. By comparison Arizona’s case counts are 2,550 cases per day on the seven day average, which makes perfect sense when you look closely to see that 41% of Arizona residents remain unvaccinated those are numbers that you would expect from third world countries not from a state in the United States of America supposedly one of the more advanced countries in the world, makes you stop and think.

So now that we are officially done at LHR what are we doing? Well the quick answer is quite a bit, we are packing and purging, and because we seem to be in monsoon season here on the shore of Lake Huron we have a leak that has developed on the slide I have been trying to resolve, and while making progress it is not complete yet. I filled our fresh water tank to find a couple of leaks there, one was a repair that I had made in Florida back in 2019 that has not leaked since, but I have discovered why it is leaking now and I can easily fix it, by adding some support to one area of the tank that when full is sagging causing the area of the leak to buckle allowing the leak to reappear. But I have a new leak at the freshwater tank drain, it seems to be at the point where the drain pipe is attached and I think it just needs to be resealed. Part of the issue is that the fresh water tank is located in the basement and is mounted between the frame rails of the coach, it is a 100 gallon tank so is very heavy and has some flex to it when full, by increasing the support (by adding some plywood to increase the support surface area) it should help reduce the issue of the tank flexing.

Because we are going to be doing a lot of travelling in the SportTrac right now to visit with family and friends I have removed the kayaks and the roof rack to improve the fuel mileage, and with the price of fuel being somewhere between stupid and ridicules right now every little bit helps, but with the price of oil being as high as it is it also drives the value of the Canadian dollar up as well, but today it has rained all day leaving little to do other than catch up on our friends on YouTube friends and to work on this blog.

October 26th and it looks like we are getting a little reprieve from the rain, but we are not going to get out of single digits today with 9C (48F) being todays high and rain is forecast again for this afternoon. One of my weather apps which gives a fourteen day forecast so now we can see the weather right up to our crossing date and it is showing typical fall weather with rain and cold temperatures. Our expectation is that we are in for a few weeks of cool fall weather until we get to Arizona.

When we are in the States getting good internet is always an issue, we have in the past had a Verizon hot spot but it was not a cheap option to get very limited at $70 US for 30 Giga bytes of high speed and we used to have Roam Cellular for our cell phones, (which is now defunct (because of the pandemic stopping people from traveling)) that gave us an additional limited amount of mobile data. So this year we were looking at a number of different options but two seem to stand out are “Star Link” which uses satellites for unlimited high speed data, the hooks are you need clear sky, expensive equipment, limited number of accounts in each area, and the required resetting of your location every time we move with the risk of not getting service in a desired area, monthly price $99 US for down load speeds up to 250 mbps, and while available in Canada, it can not be taken across the border yet. We are going with a service called “Nomad Internet” and offers unlimited internet at 4G speed, where ever cellular coverage is available, equipment purchase cost is much less, no contract, the cost is $129 US per month, it will not work in Canada but should give us good coverage where we are heading for the winter. I ordered it today to have it delivered to an American address that we will pick up after crossing on the 8th, I will report on the system when I have it up and running, but it is being used by a number of people we know, who are big YouTubers that use lots of data.

Well it’s official, Miss Laurie is hanging up her office key, with every site at LHR full for the 2022 season as well as every trailer that was for sale now sold to some very nice folks for next year. Many trailers have been brought in, since the park closed to be installed onto their lots for next spring, the ground is saturated but with the tractor installation has been quick and easy with little or no damage.

It is looking like I will avoid the fall tree removal because of how wet the park is, at this point that will happen after the ground freezes, and the forecast is not showing any below freezing temperatures before our departure. We are still preparing for our departure and today was leak fixing day on the fresh water tank, a couple of good products are “FlexSeal” which comes in multiple forms and of course “Eternabond” tape that is used to repair rubber roofs and so much more as it has real sticking power.

October the 28th and the roar of heavy equipment got our attention before 8 o’clock this morning, so the corn field is being harvested which besides being a sign of fall, it means that there will not be a food supply for the rodents over the winter months. I remember two years ago the corn crop was not harvested until February and the whole back row of the park seemed to have a rodent issue, you may notice the photo that I took from the entrance road how many green leaves are still on the trees in the park, we still have not had a hard frost at the park.

But a sunny afternoon made for a great beach day, the water was calm, and fresh tracks in the sand right to the water indicate some deer traffic, the amount of beach is the most we have ever seen, and frost or no frost there is colour change on some trees at the park, there is a strip of land by the lake that the temperature is moderated by the lake so the trees shed their leaves much later than expected.

We are nearing the last few days of October, and planning has started for the trek south when the border opens, we are doing some final visits to as many people as possible, the final packing of the truck and the coach is about a week away, there have been a lot of laughs and more than a few tears as goodbyes are exchanged and as I review this blog it is obviously a rambling mess of my thoughts and memories as they flash into my head. So before anymore verbal diarrhea escapes I’m going to close this blog out, and the good news is that the travel blogs will begin soon.

October 2020: At this point in time it was becoming very apparent that we would not be going south for the winter this year, as the border was still closed to nonessential travel and while it could be deemed essential to us to have a warm place to live, it would most likely not be deemed essential by a border guard. So with the coach still tucked into site 89 at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) now we had to locate a place to live and stay warm for the winter, and had to prepare to winterize the coach for the first time. The park was going to be open later because of opening a couple of weeks late because of the pandemic restrictions, and while a few people took advantage of the park being open later the majority of people were gone by the thanksgiving weekend, it just made closing the park more difficult to prepare the gardens with people still in the park and the park winterization because of cold wet weather that was upon us.

We decided to stay in the coach until November the fifteenth, before moving into Goderich to a small two bedroom house that we had rented till April the fifteenth when we could return to the park and our coach. Our fall was very busy, trying to get all the trailers winterized before the first freeze, putting all the gardens to bed, and cleaning up after the tree removal.

Here are a few of the photos from October 2020.

October 2019: As our first year as managers at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) is coming to a close and as we are preparing to head south for the winter October was a whole ball of mixed emotions, as our cat Mr. Divot whom had been with us since he was six weeks old was going downhill. He was twenty three years old, the equivalent to one hundred and ten in human years, he was losing weight, because he was barely eating and a trip to the vet confirmed our suspicions that age was not on Divots side, but as with any family pet, he was loved, but his future was not bright.

The park closed on the Thanksgiving weekend, and we were soon to learn how much work it takes to winterize a two hundred site campground, the week after closing was pretty much a blur with the winterizing of trailers, the purging of the water lines and taps with compressed air, winterizing the washrooms and laundry, and of course the winterizing of the swimming pool. a very physical week with us having to purge each tap in the park numerous times, crawling under bunks in trailers to find the water heater bypasses, We left LHR on the twentieth of October, and stopped in Woodstock to visit with my family, as it was my brother Scott’s birthday, we then found a spot mooch-docking at Rob & Dianne’s where we enjoyed a meal and a visit before heading to Rich & Bonnie’s other park Maple Grove, it was here that Mr. Divot passed away and we took a few days to mourn the loss of our twenty three year companion.

Mr. Divot 1996 – 2019

After a couple of days we said good bye to Richard & Bonnie at Maple Grove and moved onto the Niagara area where we mooch-dock at Bob & Irena’s for a few days while we visited with family and friends, I had made arrangements to have the bottom of the door on the coach repaired at Gino’s body shop so we spent an evening in the body shop parking lot during the repair, our plan was to cross the border on the thirty first of the month, when you spend as much time as we do in the States, we have watch our days very close to avoid having to filing a 8840 form with the American IRS although the filing of the tax forms is in our near future, because of the day count.

We crossed the border late in the afternoon on October 31st, and because of the restrictions at the border on so many grocery items, we had planned on stopping at the Walmart in Niagara Falls New York to restock our supplies for the trip west. The weather was stormy so we decided just to stay in the Walmart parking lot for the night, this turned out to be a bad decision as the wind blew a shopping cart into the side of the coach so hard I thought someone had actually ran into the coach, but it was just a shopping cart and we still have the dent to prove it.

Here are a few photos from October 2019, notice the windshield view overlooking the lake, after the park closed we moved to a lakefront site just to see how the lakefront folks live …

October 2018: Was a continuation of a year of learning, we had rushed around so much in September and now were just kind of kicking around putting in time, the first of October found us at a Walmart parking lot in Stoney Creek for a couple of days as we did some visiting. We then moved to Beamsville and Bob & Irena’s driveway where we spend the best part of three weeks mooch-docking there before moving to Fifty Point Conservation Area to close out the month.

Now just to clarify we did not just sit around doing nothing for the whole month, I helped Bob at his shop, Miss Laurie was learning some water colour painting technic from Irena, we were visiting family and friends, while we were still closing down our business and selling off many assets.

If September 2018 taught us any thing it was to slow our pace down, while we were trying to do so many thing they were all too condensed, and now we were putting off crossing the border until November for some reason but I’ll be damned if I can remember why as I write this blog, and looking back we should have been kicking around the mid American states as we worked our way south to Florida for the winter. But I’m going to assume that it was to allow us to delay our return in the spring, hoping to avoid the cold wet spring temperatures of Ontario.

October 2017: Well this was the month that we officially moved into our coach as full-timers, so on the 3rd of October after our house deal finally closed, the house sale closed a day later than scheduled because of some sort of lawyer issue. We had been sleeping in the coach and parking at the Fonthill Lions hall parking lot for over a week, or at least since our bed was sold and gone, we were moving the coach to the house location each day to load items during the daytime and spending the evenings back in the parking lot at the Lions hall.

Our NorCold refrigerator is now repaired and working well, now trying to find the perfect temperature to keep things cold enough but not frozen was taken some time, the house batteries are still proving to be a problem, well actually let me rephrase that, the batteries were still an issue but the problem was my inability to get them fully charged and keep them fully charged. I was learning just how long it takes to fully charge our four golf cart (lead-acid) batteries, and running the coach generator would involve many hours of run time. The carbon monoxide detector was proving to be a little bit of an issue as well as research indicated that the sensor needs to be replaced every five years, so when I checked the date on the unit and it was only a couple of years old, suggesting to me that the battery issue had been going on for some time with the previous owner as well.

It was our plan to cross the border on October the 30th to start our first winter away as “snowbirds” but there was a whole bunch of things that had to be accomplished. You may remember my little oh oh that happened in Chicago, it needed to be repaired, and the packing and repacking (kind of like Tetris) of the coach basement, discussions about what to take and what not to take, I was still working and because of our short time frame before our departure date, we had decided to just tow my work van on a dolly until we could purchase a more suitable tow vehicle, the problem was we didn’t even own a dolly, we had just borrowed one for our shake down trip in July. We had to pickup the new right rear fender that I had damaged from our U.S. parcel receiver in New York, and it was big enough that taking the coach over the border looked like the best way to transport it, so an appointment at the body shop was arranged, a new dolly was ordered from the manufacture in North Carolina to be shipped to our New York receiver, the trip to over the border was planned and during all this commotion we were now living fulltime in the coach and having to make regular runs to dump and to refill our fresh water.

So by the end of October we had retrieved the fender from the states, spent about four days living in Gino’s body shop, had been visiting everyone in preparation for our departure, had the coach packed to the hilt, had received notification the dolly had been delivered in New York, and had been making weekly runs to a local dump station, and refilling with fresh water with ever improving efficiency. My research on the dolly, had indicated that some assembly would be required before it could even be towed, so I enlisted help from our friend Bob who would cross the border and meet us at the Walmart parking lot in Niagara Falls New York to help me assemble and retrieve the dolly from the warehouse and then tow it to the Walmart parking lot. So after a little abuse at the border from the customs people, because Miss Laurie was following the coach in a very commercial looking van, we made it to the parking lot, and Bob pulled in shortly afterwards to pick me up to go and retrieve the dolly, the assembly was minimal and we had it hitched to Bob’s truck for a trip across Niagara Falls to the Walmart lot, where we completed the final assembly and loaded the van onto the dolly in preparation for our journey south.

So on the 31st of October we headed west on Interstate 90 and 187 miles (300 Kilometers) later we settled into a rest stop in Ohio to spend the night, the trips first day had seen some snow flurries through Erie PA and while it was not accumulating yet, there most certainly was a chill in the air that reminded us that winter was not far off.

Travel if you can, But stay safe and well!

Week 8 of our vacation 2022

Wednesday, November 16th, 2022: At this point in time we have been caravanning a little over two weeks, and it seems to have been almost flawless, with reservations where possible and boon-docking locations falling together where reservations were not possible. Every stop has been unique in its own right, each providing another glimpse into the mystic beauty of this amazing country, the ruggedness, the unaltered beauty, it has been an amazing adventure. So let’s just say we were most likely due for a little rough road, but at this point in time we were not aware of how much rough road, but more on this a little later.

This is our last morning at Playa Los Cerritos on the Pacific Coast of Baja California Sur, and a number of the group are enjoying a last morning enjoying a coffee on the beach, watching the waves crash on the shoreline. The surfers are already up and in the water catching a wave to either ride to shore or get pummeled by if they failed, it appears to be a rather unforgiving sport, but I can understand the attraction and draw. But we have a ten o’clock departure time this morning as we are actually heading north this morning as we have reached our most southern point of travel on the Pacific coast.

Today we will turn north on to MEX-19 and back track toward the junction of MEX-1 which will have us heading east toward the Sea of Cortez coast, we are headed to a small village “La Ventana“, which is a popular kite surfing area. Because there are no reservations at this small beach front campground we wanted to get there mid week and reasonably early in the day. So we were on schedule and the caravan is trekking north, backtracking our route of three days earlier, back to the split where MEX-19 headed southwest from MEX-1, and as we make the turn we are exploring new territory again, we are climbing again as we need to cross the mountain range that separates the coasts of the Baja. We left the MEX-1 highway just past “El Triunfo” into the small village of “San Antonio” with cows walking along the village streets and headed to the coast and La Ventana and as we neared the village we could see multiple kites in the air, and as we reached the campground it was quickly becoming apparent there would be no room here, for a caravan of seven coaches.

This would be our first bump in the road, as we had planned to spend three nights in “La Ventana“, before trekking further south. A quick group decision was made, and the decision was made to just head onto our next stop, the timing would be tight to arrive before dark, and if we may have made it, had we not experienced a small hold up, but we did not make it before dark. And ended up driving the last half hour in total darkness, and the last 18 kilometers (11 miles) of this journey was all on washboard dirt road that had our vehicle speed down to under 16 kmph (10 mph) as we twisted and turned weaving our way to a small beach at “Los Frailes” (which if you are looking for it on a map is often referred to just as “Los Frailes fishing camp”) but this area had suffered extensive damage from the last hurricane and the camping area where Paul and Lorena had parked a couple of years earlier was un-passable with our coaches at this time, so we ended up just parking nose to tail on the side of the entrance road, where we simply shut it down for the night.

This was one of the nastiest pieces of road (and I use the term “road” very loosely) that we have experienced, and we have only driven the coach after dark two times, over all our time on the road. Our coach is twenty plus years old, and uses headlamps designed by Ford that were used in early Lincoln vehicles, but they are a plastic design and have taken on the yellow hazy look, then add to that the use of tungsten bulbs that are very sensitive to low voltage, and our Beaver coach being known for poor headlamp voltage, because of voltage drop over long stretches’ of undersized wiring, our coach headlamps are pretty much useless. The shrubs were overgrown on the road so far that they scratched both sides of the coach, just to add to the ugliness of this little adventure, so to say I was about at wits end by the time we landed would be a bit of an understatement.

Thursday, November 17th, 2022: Well we woke this morning to see just where the heck we actually had ended up, just as the beach was coming alive with activity. I have always said that necessity is the mother of invention! Oh there are tons of thing that we didn’t know we needed until they were invented, the perfect example of that was Ron Popeil and his “pocket fisherman” as I’m pretty sure no one had ever thought I wish I had a plastic fishing pole that will fit in the glovebox of my car. But he sold millions of the pocket fisherman after inventing it and introducing it to the world. Here at Los Frailes fish camp, there is no boat ramp (launch) to get the boats in or out of the water, in fact I haven’t even seen a boat trailer. All of their fishing boats are just beached on the sand, well away from the shoreline, so watching the process to launch these fishing boats has became this mornings entertainment.

Beaching a fishing boat in Mexico!

There seems to be great cooperation between everyone at the fish camp with just a couple of old beat up old Chevy Blazers or Ford Broncos being used for the task. The vehicle has a ram rod welded to the front that extends a few feet from the front bumper, and a nylon tow strap on the rear. The strap is attached to the bow of the boat and it is spun around so the bow is facing the shore line, the boat is then pulled toward the water as far as the vehicle can, then the vehicle moves to the stern of the boat, where the ram rod is used against the transom to then push the boat as far into the water as possible, then with the help of the surf it is floated into the sea. Getting the boat out of the water is even crazier with the boat lining up at the shore and approaching at full speed to just lift the motor at the last minute propelling the boat up onto the beach. Before being dragged higher onto the beach with the tow strap on the truck where it stays for the night.

The consensus of the group is because of the lack of parking area here that we will only spend one more night here before heading back to “Cabo Pulmo” and the Marine Park. But for today we are going to do some exploring so after breakfast we unloaded the kayaks and paddled to the cliffs to the north, there is an area that commonly attracts sea lions and we were off to find it. All was well until we rounded the point and found ourselves in a much rougher sea, in fact rough enough we felt it better to give up our quest, a difficult decision because we could hear the sea lions barking, but better to be safe than sorry as the saying goes. We returned to the coach and left the kayaks on the beach or anyone else to use.

Next was the snorkel gear and a walk down to the point, where we got kicked around by the surf as we geared up to get into the water. Lets just say it wasn’t pretty but a few waves later we were exploring the wildlife under the surface, with the action of the waves we are being battered around a bit and it is stirring up the sediment and reducing the visibility. There were lots of different fish species to see, but not big quantities, so about half an hour later we were walking back to the beach in front of the coaches, where we set up chairs to watch the horizon and look for whales.

Lorena made a big pot of posole for the gang today, it is a Mexican soup made with hominy, and while it is often made with pork, this version was a vegetarian version. We have eaten out many nights on this adventure, as there are so many different dietary preferences, and while this group did not have any hard core vegans there were a number of vegetarians and throw in a few pescatarians and pollotarians so preparing a meal for everyone would be more than challenging. But everyone agreed that Lorena’s posole was a winner.

We ended our stay in Los Frailes with a campfire on the beach, burning up some of the drift wood that littered so much of the beach area here, and the decision was made to start moving north in the morning.

Friday, November 18th, 2022: Today we are moving back north on this terrible stretch of road, the high point of todays travel is that we are going less than ten kilometers (six miles) so while it was a slow trek, at least it wasn’t in the dark this time. The location that we found for our next stop was right on the Sea of Cortez and was an area covered with what I would refer to as large river rock, which of course brought on the conversation as to where it had came from? As it was nothing like we had seen anywhere else on our travels, and I felt the quantity was too extensive to have been trucked there from another location. It was a free boondocking spot just north of village of “Cabo Pulmo” in an are called “Playa Miramar” and while it had no amenities it did give us a windshield view of the Sea of Cortez.

Three Beavers on the beach in Baja California Sur!

Now the story for this area goes kind of like this, fifty some years ago this village that consisted mainly of fishermen, realized that the fishing stocks were dwindling to a stage that the fishing would have to come to an end. And it goes on to explain that the fishermen in the village petitioned to get the area declared a “Marine Protected Area” which would stop all fishing in a 17,500 acre area around the village. The government agreed to the request, and since then the fish stocks have replenished, and it is now one of the most successful Marine Parks in the world, and now hosts some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling in the world. It is also home the only Pacific coral reef located in the Sea of Cortez.

The group decided to drive in to the village to look around and get some lunch at a local restaurant. So we were able to get a table for 14 with out a reservation, with a view of the Sea of Cortez and got to watch the dive and snorkel boats enter and leave the area as we had lunch.

The boats in the above photos are the scuba/snorkeling boats, if you notice in the far right photo there appears to be something with white markers sitting in the water. That is actually a wagon, with four wheels, and a platform for the boat to sit on it, the white markers are guides to help the captain of the boat to power it on to or off of the wagon. Once the boat is on the wagon it is pulled out of the water and back to the dive shop to be off loaded or reloaded, a fairly unique process but it eliminates the need for boat docks or launches.

So if you are going on a scuba adventure all the equipment is loaded on the boat along with all the people going on the adventure, then the wagon is towed to the water and backed into the water until the boat floats off of the wagon. When they return from the adventure the boat with everyone aboard is powered onto the wagon and then the wagon is towed out of the water. While we sat and had our lunch there must have been close to a dozen boats come and go, making it a very busy location to dive from. I did not dive here, as it is not my idea of a great process, because as a diver you do not know what you will be diving on until you are on the boat, and then it is the luck of the draw which site you get.

Saturday, November 19th, 2022: We were woken this morning by one on the locals serenading us with Mexican music as he drove around our rigs, one of the joys of parking on open land. While not really an issue for us as we were already up enjoying the sunrise, it would be a annoyance for many people, it just go to prove there are crazy people every where, in the Baja it’s some nut with a radio, in Quartzsite some nut with an ATV.

It was a laid back start to the day, our plan is to snorkel off the beach just the other side of the village, we will actually be snorkeling the end of the reef, and it is close enough that we will be walking to the site. The far side of the reef has been known to have bull sharks and sea lions feeding, and while we did move along the reef, we did not get to see any sharks or sea lions.

Sometimes some of the best things in life just happen totally unscripted, and today was one of those days. While the snorkeling was good, on the safe side of the reef it was a little murky, and on the dangerous side we incurred no real dangerous creatures, on our walk back to the coach we stopped at a small hole in the wall restaurant called “Tacos & Beer” a little open air spot, and while the name pretty much says it all, I can verify very cold beer, and that the tacos were inexpensive and tasted excellent. We sat down ordered a beer and our lunch was there almost too fast. It kind of made you wonder if it was someone else’s order, but it was our order and it was yummy.

We wondered back to the coach where, we packed up and prepared to head back north to Los Brailles and our home for the next four weeks. We believe we have reservations with full hookups available for all of us at Playa Norta RV Park, we do not know where in the park we will be, as getting solid commitments from anyone in Mexico is in itself a challenge, and when we arrive the manager was not there. So Lorena was on the phone with the manager and walking around the park finding empty sites that were possibly available, we were offered an ocean front site, but could not be guaranteed four weeks there, but we said yes to the upcharge for ocean front, so we wove our way to site 14 with the ocean view.

Because we were not sure that we would be able to stay at this site till the manager gets back we have not totally unpacked, but the view of the ocean from our coach is pretty great.

It was decided that we would celebrate of arrival to Los Brailles and the official end to our caravan with a dinner at a small restaurant on the corner of the campground. We also met up with Cheryl & Richard at dinner, Cheryl & Richard are friends of Paul & Lorena from there life back in Las Vegas before they started there nomadic lifestyle, they rent an apartment on the beach in Los Brailles, and will be part of most of our adventures from here on.

Sunday, November 20th, 2022: I was up early this morning, so I was able to enjoy another great sunrise from our waterfront site. There was a lot of cloud this morning, which just adds to the beauty of the start to our first full day at Playa Norta RV park at Los Brailles here on the Mexican Baja.

Today will just be a down day, there are no planned adventures, but there will be some beach time. We learnt today that we could stay in this site for at least three weeks so we are now able to unpack the coach and set up an area for us to enjoy, we also set up an area in front of the coach to enjoy the sunrises in the morning and to watch the kite surfers in the afternoon breeze.

Monday, November 21st, 2022: Since we have not been watching any television in the evenings we are both getting up earlier in the morning, or maybe I should clarify, Miss Laurie is getting up earlier. So after a cup of blessed coffee we decided to enjoy a walk on the beach before breakfast, so I pulled on a bathing suit and a t-shirt and we headed for the beach, we met Paul & Lorena heading for the beach as well. They were heading to the turtle release area just a few hundred meters south of our location on the beach.

The organization’s that do this work have to get permissions to move the turtle nests to a fenced in controlled area, and the actions of these people increase the odds of survival of these tiny creatures drastically. Although their odds of survival are still only 2 in 1000. We wandered down the beach to find a crowd forming around the this mornings release area. The release happens in the morning and will be the release of all the turtles that hatched the previous day, this mornings release will be of over two hundred newly hatched sea turtles.

Unlike our last turtle release experience, where they allowed many people to release the turtles a few at a time, this organization literally just dumps them out of a big tub in a row, from there they scatter and their natural instinct is to head toward the sun, so this morning that is into the Sea of Cortez. That is why they are released in the morning on the east side of the Baja and the evening on the west side of the Baja. The people operating at this area said that they have been doing this for fifteen years, and that it was possible that some of their first release’s were returning to lay eggs on the beach where they were released. These sea turtles live approximately fifty year, grow to approximately 50 kilograms (100 pounds) and start laying eggs some time after ten years of age. They always return to their beach of hatching to lay their eggs, so as the beach traffic and beach activity becomes busier, the work done by these wonderful people becomes even more important. Our next hope is to see a turtle coming to shore to lay a nest of eggs, when this process is spotted, the nest is marked by sticking sticks in the sand around it to mark the nest to try to avoid damage by humans until it can be moved to a protected area.

Of course after a start to your day like this it is hard for your day to get much better, but a bacon and tomato sandwich for breakfast is a pretty good follow up, before kicking back in the antigravity chairs to enjoy the day. Our site has a couple of larger palm trees that have been providing some needed shade as we have managed to avoid any severe sunburns so far, and other than having to chase the shade a little as the sun moves through the sky it has been a welcome relief. It seems to be quite windy each day so far, and when speaking with our resident kiter Paul he explains it as being thermal winds caused by the sun warming the land.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022: Well as dawn breaks this morning I’m now almost two blogs behind, well that’s not totally true, as I have lots of detail in both blogs but because of the lack of reliable internet publishing has been impossible for right now. But I woke this morning at around 5:30 to see a small crescent moon out the windshield of the coach with just a slight orange hue on the horizon as dawn breaks.

This morning we got ready for our morning walk a little too late to take in the turtle release, but there was obviously one happening as we could see the crowd from our coach. We decided to walk the beach in the opposite direction this morning, the water seems very calm this morning and there were all sorts of people enjoying multiple different water sports, kayaking, paddle boarders, snorkeling, fishing, boating, even a powered surf board, plus numerous people just walking the beach. All of this before eight o’clock and breakfast and today we will start exploring the area around the RV park.

One of todays adventures was a trip to the local supermarket, and to be quite honest it did not go as well as we had hoped. It is times like this that you realize that you are in a foreign country, this a different language as well as a currency that we are still trying to convert back to a currency that we understand. Packaging is totally different, even brand names that you may recognize are in packaging that you don’t. Some of the most basic items are packaged very different, an example tomato sauce we expect in a can or bottle, in Mexico is in a terrapak, eggs that we expect to be in a refrigerated section are on a regular shelf, reading packages is near impossible with our limited use of the Spanish language. And there seemed to be a real shortage of meat to choose from, we did find out later that depending on what day you shop, availability of many items may change. Our last shopping had been at a Walmart in La Paz that while difficult at that time, all of a sudden seemed easier.

Lets just close this blog out by saying that there was more than a few cocktails consumed this afternoon, while watching the waves roll ashore. Although even just buying mix was proving to be a challenge. we have been surviving with no real issue, margaritas have been flowing well, and the cerveza (beer) has been cold.

The Mexican Baja gets two thumbs up!

Blog 459

Day 1876