Pic-of-the-Month for October 2023

 Hola Amigos! 

Here it is the end of the month and you're maybe wondering if we made it back to our home in Baja, and did we survive the hurricane that came through a little over a week ago.  Yes!  and Yes!  

Trip down:  We left as scheduled on October 4th from Fort Rock where we store our trailer at friends Katie and Mel's place.  It was freezing and foggy!  We have no ice scraper in our truck, so we started the truck and warmed it and the windows up until we could use the windshield wipers on the frost. It was foggy in patches all the way to Summer Lake, but eerily beautiful.  The pic below was our view until we got the windshield defrosted!  (While we were all bundled up in our warmest jackets!)

It turns out that we didn't travel with cousins Tom and Karan after all.  They were delayed due to some business issues, and we couldn't wait to get started back home.  So, we did another solo trip of 2000 miles on now familiar roads.  The Sierra Nevadas in California had some nice snow fall already, and the Aspens were starting to turn yellow.  The freeway traffic from Victorville to El Cajon was not too bad this trip, and we got to the border at a decent time of day (late morning).  Unfortunately, the border agent wanted to see what was in the back of our truck, so Ben had to crawl in there and take out and open any box the man wanted to see.  I think he was a bit disappointed in our second hand books and miscellaneous "stuff" that we need for Baja.  We were allowed to go without paying duty on anything, but it took a 1/2 hour of driving time!  Ensenada was foggy again, but just right on the bay.  A few blocks over, it was sunny and bright.  The major construction south of Ensenada is still on-going, so that slowed us down again, but at least we were on pavement the entire way.  It will be very nice when they're done with that project...maybe by next June?!  

We made it to Hotel El Jardin in San Quintin, and spent 2 nights there so we could visit a nearby winery on Saturday.  It turned out the winery was closed on Saturday, but we did find their tasting room open, and found some wine to our liking.  The winery is Becerra, which is one of the few in this area.  We visited with the winemaker on our visit there last year, and are sorry we missed him this year.  Another thing we like to do in this area is visit the Eucalipto Restaurant, since their food is excellent.  Our hotel's gardens and the restaurant make this stop an excellent one!  The slow traffic due to commuter buses on two lane roads is one of the disadvantages, but one we can live with...usually!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next travel day was very drippy and foggy Sunday morning until we broke into the sun near El Rosario. The 3 Military stops were no problem (one of the guys wanted to talk about the good wines in Valle de Guadalupe (we agreed whole heartedly), others just waved us through.) Very little traffic on our Sunday drive, and we enjoyed the scenery and unique flora. We stopped in Guerrero Negro only to buy some of our favorite Baja and Argentine wines and headed on to San Ignacio further south.

The only down side was a National Guard police stop south of Vizcaíno. He wanted Ben's Driver's license, our truck registration, and a "provisional permit" which we took to mean a temporary import permit. This was new to us! (We don't have one). Our police officer friend Magali was called, talked to the guy, and we eventually were allowed to leave (big line of traffic behind us!) We talked to others later who'd been stopped there as well. Several were searched thoroughly (we weren't) and another was only asked "where are you going". Strange!  Always something to become a new adventure!  Anyhow, we made it to San Ignacio with no other problems, and the next day, had a short drive to Loreto.  We had friends we met in San Ignacio who decided to drive home to Los Barriles from San Ignacio, and they ran into some heavy rain storms that delayed traffic somewhat.  We decided to hold back and take our time, which turned out to be the best choice.  By the time we got to La Paz on Tuesday, there were no wet roads.  We made it home early Tuesday afternoon.

Our home was in good shape, house and garden. Dalia and Marco had done a lot of work to get it looking good! My little red car had a very dead battery.  And it is an expensive one, not available here in town.  Fortunately, Ben found one at the Ford dealer in La Paz.  Also, we had no phone or internet... turns out our line was broken!  It took about a week, but we finally got a Telmex guy out here, and we now have Fiber Optic cable and high-speed internet.  Very nice!  The weather was hot when we got here, but it has cooled down nicely, with nighttime lows in the 70's and highs in the 80's.   Ben has spent a lot of time doing gardening, taking shutters down and putting them back up, then down again... We had a hurricane come through on about the 20th (Norma) but it wasn't too bad in our area.  La Paz, however, got the brunt of it, and many yachts and sailboats sunk in the harbor.  We've heard at least 30, some of them very expensive.  

Our friends Katie and Mel and another friend traveling with them, David, made it to our house on the Thursday before the storm and camped in our yard for a week.  They normally camp in the arroyo at Los Frailes, so they were happy to have a relatively dry place to park their rigs until the storm was over and roads graded!  

 

Our neighbors Brian and Hope showed up yesterday, so the neighborhood is getting back to normal.  Oh, the rains washed out our roads pretty good, and the road graders aren't doing a whole lot so far to help.  Quite a few 2 wheel drive cars have gotten stuck in the soft sand they've pushed around in the road.  Thank goodness both our rigs are 4x4.  

I've started walking "seriously" again since I got back home, and just this morning, made my goal for this month.  I'm still on track for miles for the year.  I also take the opportunity to take photos on my walks and have seen some beautiful flowers and sea views.  Photos for October 2023 are here!  (Lots of photos, mostly captioned, including some hurricane pics). 

 

There are many projects waiting for us here, but we still have time to show you around if you want to come see us.  Guest rooms are NOT booked for the year!  Let us know if and when you'd like to visit.

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet, Ben & Zoey