March 25-26, 2015 Scottsdale, AZ to Fort Collins, CO

We had a busy week in Arizona with our moms after returning from Baja Mexico. The RV got a thorough cleaning (inside) and waterline blowout in preparation of our return to “cold country.” We decided to sell the scooter and it sold quickly – maybe we should have asked for more money.  The guy that bought it was happy with it – duct tape and all!! We looked at a couple motorcycles and Tobey went for a test drive on a Suzuki UT250. We didn’t buy one yet, there are still more options to check out.We rounded our week out with a birthday celebration for my sister-in-law. It was great to spend time with the family!

Wednesday morning we said our goodbyes and were on the road at 7:15. It was a rough day! We had head winds, cross winds, then more head winds, and cross winds from the other direction! We finally got to Denver about midnight and found a quiet spot to park for the night. We had an 8:30 appointment with an RV repair shop because I found a small hole in the bathroom floor next to the bathtub and wanted to have it checked out. They concluded it was not structural, no water leaks, and we could repair it ourselves with some quarter round molding. YEAH! They also suggested we just shim next to the microwave to keep it from rattling so much. Fifteen minutes later (and no charge) we were on our way home. DOUBLE YEAH!!

We got everything unloaded and put away in just a few hours. It’s amazing how quickly it went! I still need to wash the outside of the RV and should do it since the weather in Fort Collins has been beautiful (in the 70s!), but part of me resists. Maybe it’s because I keep thinking we will have more snow and it will wash some of the junk off … maybe I am just dreaming!

TRIP RECAP

5721 Miles – Total Mileage (December 18, 2014 – March 26, 2015, Fort Collins Round trip)

3779 Miles – Scottsdale, AZ to Quartzsite, and onto Baja, then return to Scottsdale, AZ (January 16 – March 17, 2015)

EXPENSES:

Gas (and one toll road) – $1443

Oil Change – $46

Camping – $402

Dining Out – $345

Groceries – $290

Propane – $41

Entertainment – $152

Souvenirs – $55

Tel-Cel (Internet cell modem) – $55

Tourist Visa – $48

TOTAL – $2923

While we were in Mexico, gas prices were $13.57 pesos/liter. Most of the time, our conversion rate peso/dollar was 14.5 pesos/1USD, so the cost per GALLON was about $3.55 USD. YIKES! During the same time, gas prices in the US were about $2.15 per gallon.

I realized I forgot to record our gas in December from Colorado to Arizona in December. Whoops. In December, gas prices were about $2.00 per gallon and we would have used about 100 gallons, so we would really need to add $200 to the total trip expense, making it $3123. Still not bad!

 

Penny seems happy to be home and so are we – at least for a while!

Right now our next trip out is at the end of May – guess I have time to get the RV washed before we go!

March 17, 2015 - Bahia San Luis Gonzaga to Scottsdale, Arizona

Today was our last day in Mexico. We were both up early and ready to leave by 8 am. The 100 mile drive from our camping spot at Bahia Gonzaga to San Felipe took us just over two hours. 
We walked the main street then up the hill to see the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadelupe and the lighthouse, then back the malecon before lunch.

The shrine is in the large white building one the right at the top of the hill.When you get to the top it is behind a huge, mesh, wire door and the shrine itself is actually pretty small – not exactly what we expected, but interesting to see.
From the Shrine, we looked to the north and could see the lighthouse.Looking behind us in the picture below, you can see San Felipe’s malecon. We rounded out the trip with fish tacos and shrimp burritos for lunch, then hit the road for the U.S.
We had a military checkpoint where Hwy. 3 and 5 meet on our way north. This was one of the most thorough stops we experienced on this trip. I think they opened almost every cabinet, as well as looking in the bathroom, and under our bed!
North of San Felipe along Hwy 5 was a mining operation, but there was no identifying sign. I have found information that said it may be a copper mine, and other that said gold. If you know what it is, please let me know!!
 
Close to Rio Colorado and Rio Hardy we passed by the mudflats, but it looked a lot like salt to us. It was interesting that on one side of the road it was totally flat, and on the other side of the road were mountains.

The real bonus of the drive today was the road was wide and had shoulders, so we made it to Mexicali by 4 pm. We made a couple of last minute shopping stops then worked our way through the afternoon traffic to the U.S. border crossing.  The line seemed to take forever, but it was really only an hour.

I had our list of our purchases ready to present and we had finished all of our fruits and vegetables, so it was smooth sailing. It is interesting because you drive through an x-ray type machine and they process the picture  of your vehicle and if everything looks okay, you are free to go – and we were.

Back in the USA, we continued on to Yuma, Arizona where we stopped for gas - $2.29 per gallon – much cheaper than what we had been paying in Mexico! We also grabbed some Chinese food for dinner then drove on to Scottsdale. We arrived about 11:30 and spent the night in the RV so we didn’t wake our Moms.

MARCH 18, 2015  -  SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
We got up early this morning and went with our moms to walk our Penny dog. Penny seemed pretty happy to see us – although she was thoroughly spoiled while we were gone. She is one lucky dog to have such good “grandmas”!!! (And we are lucky to have such great moms to watch her for us!!!)
After our walk, I spent the rest of the day cleaning the RV and doing laundry! It’s getting there. Tobey will have the tires rotated before we head back to Colorado next week and he is thinking of selling our scooter before we go. We’ll see where that goes and let you know!
RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 16, 2015 - Bahia San Luis Gonzaga

Today was our last day at Bahia San Luis Gonzaga and we made the most of it. The weather cooperated and it was sunny and hot. We FINALLY went swimming – careful to avoid the jelly fish that were along the shore. We spent time just sitting in the sun and enjoying the day.

This afternoon we took the scooter and went over to the fish camp to stock up on fish to bring home. We didn’t know exactly how to get to the camp, so we went down the highway and into the next camping area. Well, that was wrong! We had to pass through the military check point to get to Papa Fernando’s where we thought it was located. It turned out that the road we needed was the one that goes to Alfonsina’s Restaurant – right by our camp! So, back we went, through the checkpoint and headed toward Alfonsina’s. From there we turned off onto another dirt road and found our way to the camp – and fish!!!
 

We got sea bass and corvina filets – 8.5 kilos – or 18.7 pounds of filets, for $650 pesos ($45.85USD). Okay, that works out to $2.45 USD per pound which we thought was quite a bargain!!! We had our five corvina and nine sea bass fileted by the fishermen for us, and we were prepared by taking our own bags.
After he got started fileting, Mario came to help out or it would have taken a long time because they didn’t have a very sharp knife. Most people don’t go to the camps to buy fish so they aren’t really prepared to sell filets.

I cooked a bass filet tonight for dinner and it was delicious. We will certainly miss eating fish fresh from the sea but are taking home some memories to savor later.

RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 15, 2015 - Bahia San Luis Gonzaga

We had a burst of excitement this morning before breakfast. We had gone outside to check out the weather and spotted a coyote at the campsite right next to us. He was about 3 feet away from the little dog – staring at it and not the least afraid of the people around.
I was able to go back into the RV, get my camera and come back before it started to go away! It just casually wandered down the parking area behind the palapas, checking out all the little dogs on the beach.As I stepped behind the RV to take a picture, I noticed two more coyotes in the field, coming to join this one! Everyone with dogs seemed to pass the word and kept them close for a good share of the morning!

We were pretty lazy most of the day, but this afternoon we hung out with a lovely young couple from Mexicali who are camped a couple palapas over. Rafael is originally from Costa Rica and was an exchange student in the US, and Sandra is from Mexico City. They have two dogs and we laughed because one of them is named “Toby!” They were so interesting to talk to, we visited most of the afternoon. They invited us to join them at Alfonsina’s for dinner. They had the chef (and owner) of the restaurant prepare shrimp tacos, fish and shrimp rancheros, a fish plate, and shrimp plate. Oh my gosh – everything was so delicious – and the food just kept coming! We had the most wonderful time and they wouldn’t let us pay for anything.

Life is good and it has been so much fun meeting so many interesting people. It will be hard to say goodbye to Mexico when we leave.

RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 14, 2015 - Bahia San Luis Gonzaga

The word for the day is “perezoso” – lazy! We worked hard at it today!
We walked south on the beach and picked up shells, then came back and hung out enjoying the calm day and sunshine.

After lunch we took money and walked down by the restaurant hoping to catch one of the fishing boats when they came back. No luck! We sat on the beach for a couple hours and came back empty handed.

We watched this sailboat head out for an afternoon sail and saw them come back in a few hours later. We added another kind of bird to our growing list of finds – looks like a duck of some kind.

The beach is filling up today with lots of Mexican families and groups. We talked to one guy from Tecate who told us this is a long, holiday weekend like President’s Day. We are more than happy to share our little section of the beach!

We do have four Americans camped one space over from us. They have a small boat and go out fishing every day. We joked with them this morning that they could catch the fish and clean them and give them to us to eat. When they came back in this evening they brought us a bag of sea bass they caught and cleaned! Thank you Jeannie and Norm! I guess it is okay that we didn’t get fish from the Mexican fishermen, after all. I baked cupcakes today, so we took some over for them and they thought it was a good trade.

We loved the sunset tonight. The water is actually to the east of us, so the first picture was taken from our campsite looking to the north. The last picture is the view behind our RV, looking to the west. Thanks for the Bronco sunset!
 

RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 13, 2015 - Gonzaga

Tobey was up in time for the sunrise today and got a great picture. As the day progressed, we had sunny skies, but it was very windy! We took the scooter up to the store hoping we could get WIFI and I thought we might actually fly there. I am glad it was only a mile up the road – we were buffeted around quite a bit!

Our “banda ancha” didn’t work, so we paid $15 pesos (just over $1USD) to use their WIFI for 30 minutes. Well, their WIFI only works with cell phones, not laptops, so we were out of luck and they gave us our money back!

We went back to the RV and hung out playing cards and watching the birds. We also watched a group of Mexican guys from Tijuana who had gone out in their kayaks to fish. It was so windy, they had trouble getting back to the shore. When they did, a couple of them were a long way from their campsite and didn’t have any strength left to paddle against the wind. Tobey went down and talked with them to see if he could help. One fellow had a hand-trailer and was able to pull his back; the other guy didn’t.

Tobey offered to help carry it back to their campsite. They offered him a beer, Tobey said no thanks, but he would take some fish tomorrow if they catch some!

This afternoon we walked back down by the restaurant, collecting shells and hoping that we would see some fishing boats come in so we could buy more fish. We found shells, but no fish. It was so windy that even the local fishermen didn’t go out today.

The wind died back a little and we enjoyed sitting on the beach watching the birds. There are so many varieties of gulls, frigates, herons, cormorants, pelicans and osprey here.

We’ve also seen lots of jumping fish. It is funny the way they leap out of the water 3-4 feet. So far, we haven’t seen any of the birds catch them when they jump. There’s always tomorrow …

RV CAMPING - BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 12, 2015 - Puertecitos - Bahia San Luis Gonzaga

We started our day by walking over the hill so Tobey could take a final dip in the hot pools. After all, who could pass up something that, according to their sign is “relaxing, medicinal, curative, and a blessing from God to you!”???? I’m sure it definitely helped him be relaxed for our drive today.

The picture below is looking back at the camping area at Puertecitos as we walked back from the hot springs.

Our drive from Puertecitos to Bahia San Luis Gonzaga was only 48 miles today over a wider, better paved road which actually had pullouts so we could stop and take pictures of the Sea of Cortez along the way! We saw these dark spots in the water and got the binoculars out to see what it was. There were hundreds of birds on the water catching fish. One of the Americans living in San Felipe told us that the grunion are running and the birds go after them.
We are camping on the beach and negotiated a good price – $50 pesos a night (about $3.50USD) without a palapa. We quickly leveled up and headed down the beach to get lunch at Alfonsina’s Restaurant. Alfonsina’s is located near the end of the land in the picture below before you get to the dark island – a little more than a mile down the beach.

We walked most of the way on the beach before cutting up to the road. At the far end there are several “permanent” homes and these folks had a Baja dune buggy.
Tobey had the fish tacos and I had shrimp burritos. Mine was definitely better! Lunch was pricey for what we got – $267 pesos ($19 USD) for 3 tacos, 3 burritos (they are small) and 2 soft drinks.

After eating we walked over toward the island. At low tide there is a small sand spit which allows you to cross over without getting very wet. We talked to a young man who was just coming back from the island. We asked if he had hiked the small trail you can see in the picture. He had just taken his little brother over to show him the trail, but told us that it is really a coyote trail. He said the coyotes often cross the spit at low tide then get stuck on the island when the water rises.


One of the fishing boats was coming in and we were able to buy a kilo of corvina for only $50 pesos ($3.50 USD) which gave us four large filets. We spIit one for dinner tonight - it was so good – and we were stuffed! We will go back tomorrow and see what the catch of the day is. Hopefully, we can stock up on some to take home! (We added fishing poles to our list of things to pack next time.)

Walking back to the RV we stayed close to the water because the sand was so soft – and hot! We had to watch our step because we spotted jellyfish along the shore.Our neighbors helped provide the afternoon’s entertainment. They returned from fishing and proceeded to clean their catch. The pelicans and gulls were quite intent on their actions. As they finished cleaning each fish, they would toss the head and spines out toward the water and the birds went nuts going after the carcass. The gulls pecked at the remains, then the pelicans would saunter up and grab it up and try to get it in their gullet as they flew back into the water. More than once, a gull would chase after the pelican and there was a tug-of-war in the water over the fish. We watched for more than an hour! We are easily entertained!

Who knows what wild adventures tomorrow will bring?

GPS: 29.7839N, 114.39468W
RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 11, 2015 - Ensenada - Puertecitos

We passed through several geographic changes on our route from Ensenada to Puertecitos today. Highway 3 leaves Ensenada and immediately begins some steep ascents through the mountains before heading back to the Sea of Cortez on the east side of the peninsula. While not having the elevation of the Rocky Mountains, we were reminded of home driving the 2-lane winding highway.



There was even an area that reminded us of a “mini-Catavina”boulder field! It only lasted about 5 miles, but was interesting to see.

Further along we enter a valley where there were some vineyards, as well as cheese production. Another thing we noticed was there are some creative “rock artists” in the area! This rock was turned into a frog, another further down the road looked like a crocodile!Descending the eastern side of the mountains barrel cacti covered the hills then gave way to miles and miles of ocotillo, many of them in bloom.

We stopped in San Felipe for a fish taco lunch then continued south to Puertocitos. The highway is paved, but it is pretty rough. There are also LOTS AND LOTS OF VADOS! We had been warned by two different people today to watch out for them because they aren’t all marked and you could might get airborne if you are going too fast. They were right! It was a two person job navigating the 50 mile drive.

While the road doesn’t look too bad in this section, other parts were pretty dicey.

We arrived in Puertecitos about 4pm and found the campground. Puertecitos is a strange little place where most of the houses appear to be abandoned or boarded up. There are sulfur hot springs in the ocean that can only be accessed through the gates of the town and RV park. We wanted to use the hot springs, so you either pay $15 USD for just the hot springs, or $20 USD to camp and use the hot springs. We are camping!

The hot pools run parallel to the Sea of Cortez with the hottest pools at the south end. As the tide comes in, it cools the water. The north end of the pool has more openings to the sea, so we started there. Like Goldilocks, when it got “too cold”, we moved over to the middle pool, however, like Goldilocks, it was “too hot.” We had to wait about 30 minutes before enough sea water entered to get in without boiling our skin off!

Just south, beyond the pool area there were several rocks where the pelicans were gathered for their afternoon socializing!

We were also treated to a blue heron flying by.

Back at the camping area we had a nice view of the small bay just in time for sundown.GPS: 30.34979N, 114.64060W
RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA

March 10, 2015 - Fidel’s El Pabellon Beach to Ensenada

We started our day off with a trip down memory lane … funny what our memories do to us when we get older! Ten years ago we went to the Old Mill Hotel area and since it is only 5 miles off the highway we decided to check it out again.

Here’s the history of the Old Mill area:
In the 1880s, a British land company with plans for a wheat empire purchased much of the San Quintín area from the US–based International Land Company. In response to promises of agricultural wealth, around a hundred English colonists purchased subdivided land tracts from the parent company, planted wheat, and constructed a gristmill. The English built a pier on the inner Bahiá San Quintín and began constructing a railway to link up with the Southern Pacific to the north in California in order to transport flour. Thirty kilometers of track were laid, including a rail causeway from the west bank of inner Bahiá San Quintín, before the colony failed. A 17-ton, six-wheeled locomotive still lies underwater at the mouth of the bay, the remains of a loading accident for the aborted railway.

Then, a drought devastated one of the first wheat harvests, and by 1900 all the colonists abandoned San Quintín. Remnants of the gristmill, the railroad causeway, the pier, and an English cemetery still stand along the perimeter of the inner bay.

SO, … fast forward to this morning. The road was a mess – all five miles of it. There has been quite a bit of rain recently in addition to deep ruts filled with water, there were miles of washboard dirt and low-hanging electrical wires! When we got there and parked, the museum was closed – didn’t open until noon. The area was built up quite a bit with more restaurants and special event venues, as well as catering to sport fishermen, so you really couldn’t see much of the “historic” value.


We didn’t see any sharks while we were there – this was a new addition to the dock area since we were last here. The best thing about the trip in was watching this sea lion catching fish. The birds were chasing him, trying to get the fish away from him.
Tobey told me that no matter what he says the next time we return to Baja Mexico, if he wants to go see the Old Mill, JUST SAY NO!! Soon we were back in the RV and retracing the 5 mile road back to the highway.

The area near San Quintin is still mostly agricultural with lots of farms and vineyards. We passed several fields of strawberries, radishes, and prickly pear cactus. The cactus are sold in groceries stores all over Mexico. I’m not sure how they prepare them, but we have seen the produce clerks cutting the “prickles” off the cactus and stacking them in the bins.



We followed three big Coca-Cola trucks for several miles. They certainly have a much larger footprint in Mexico than Pepsi.

 I am a Coke-Zero drinker at our house and Tobey is a Pepsi drinker, so I usually win when we go out to eat here in Mexico. (although it is usually Coca-Light). We were talking about how unfair it was for him when we immediately passed a restaurant advertising Pepsi. It was the first one we have seen!

Not much further down the road there was a HUGE group of motorcycles getting ready for a ride south. The had a lead vehicle and they were unloading some of the bikes from a trailer at the end of the group.

“Topes” are speed bumps in Mexico – and there are LOTS of them. We have often seen groups collecting donations at topes for different charities like these girls collecting for the local hospital.
 

We finally arrived in Ensenada around 1pm and stopped to have fish tacos. We went to the Malecon area and found a place that was pretty good and the tacos were $17 pesos each ($1.20USD) The better deal was our ice cream stop after lunch – $45 pesos for 10 scoops!!! ($3.25USD) We shared part of it before placing the rest in our RV freezer for desserts later.

We have finally found the answer to the age-old question of “Where’s Waldo?” Ensenada, Mexico! They are a discount store here!
Tonight we are “street camping” in Ensenada because it was getting late and we didn’t want to drive in the dark. Also, thinking of home we decided to get a take out pizza from Papa Johns and settle in for the night!

 
GPS: 31.86134N, 116.58478W
RV CAMPING – BAJA CALIFORNIA