u - Up and out........

Subject: u - Up and out........

Last night we wafted off to sleep with the motor home rocking quite seriously in the wind and the sound of the sides being blasted by the sands blowing off the dunes on the beach.  This morning we woke up to grit even in our teeth and the bed felt more like sleeping on the beach..... the temperature was great last night and we had left the roof vent open.  Ah well.  Frank says "we have got to get the beach out of the bed!"  He really has to be careful just how he says that or it comes out totally wrong!  :)  I took a quick walk down to the waterside right as the sun was rising and saw some really incredible sand art......  The winds had swirled the white and black sand together making a beach full of the most fascinating patterns - all with tiny, almost unseen, gold flecks.  Out came the camera.........  I found a few sand dollars on the wet sand and a bit of seaweed here and there, but nothing much else at all. And the wind started up again..

So after taking a brisk walk with the doglets around the campground, we headed out of there.  It would have been good to stay there for a day or two more but definitely not with the wind also hanging around.  Frank has been great about adjusting to the incredible amount of sand and dust around, but this was just too much, even for me.  The sand down here sticks to everything and after I walked this morning, even wiping my feet on the outside rug did not get it off at all..... we have a small hand broom at the door and have to brush quite vigorously to unstick the sand.  It's weird, the dust and sand is even on stuff in the refrigerator!  Too much, too much.

On the way down south a few weeks ago now, we noticed one particular fence that had a blue background and something in front of it - well, today we saw it again and I took some zoomed in photos...... its cardboard boxes hanging in front of the blue plastic!  And then there was another cardboard box fence.... quite amazing that they hold up so well - I guess the weather just does not bite here as it does at home.  There are a good many things we notice while driving around..... the walls of the schools have lovely paintings on them, bright colors and whales, flowers and people........  there are many people gathering in little groups to eat or chat or walk together, rather unlike home where everyone is too busy to stop and chat too much....  there are little eateries everywhere, many are not permanent at all - a car pulls up,  the trunk opens, out pops a table and the makings of a tortilla or burrito, spices and a drink - bingo, a gathering happens.... many fences are not fences as we know them, they are made from boxes, billboards, doors, corrugated iron - anything that will stand up...  the   businesses are all multicolored with no regard to the next door color which makes for a glorious patchwork of color all through the towns.. the streets are swept by hand..... the weeds on the sidewalks all along Mex 1 are cut by hand, many miles of it....the guys riding in the back of the Federale truck with their guns are not trying to look fierce in their balaclavas, they are just trying to stay warm in the early morning air..... many rocks along the way are painted with religous  art or animals and other odd things........washing machines are outside items, it hardly ever rains here...

Some of the topes (speed bumps) are painted on, but they look real enough and we are not prepared to guess which ones are real or not, so we slow down to a crawl over them all...... we do get honked at by the locals at the painted on ones and many times the people on the side of the road stand there grinning at us as we realize that we have been duped once again.

There are a good many pickup trucks heading south fully laden with household furniture and goodies - there must be a great many people moving south!  We thought we might stay along the coast again, near our first stop in Baja that had the hot springs on the beach, but the wind still played around too much which makes it really unpleasant on the beaches, so we headed on through the insanely busy town of Ensenada without getting lost this time, took the turnoff to the Mex 3 and enjoyed some new roads again.  We had been advised by a good many people not to go out of Tijuana as the wait was over 4 hours much of the time, so we headed east to the Tecate exit.  We plugged Blondie in and she showed us nothing, but the arrow did this lonely little dance in the center of the screen as we wound our way through the Mexican mountains.... a real ditzy blond she is!

The first part of the Mex 3 is under re-construction and took us a while to get through there at 10 miles per hour, but the road was not bad at all and the views were just gorgeous through the vineyards.  The rains that chased us south earlier than we planned at the beginning have painted everything a beautiful green!  It looks so lush and inviting, especially going through these gentle hills, all the different shades of green popped in and out of view as we tootled around the corners at a very comfortable speed.

One town is pretty much the same as another from the view of the passenger seat in the rv, but it still amazes me just how many people are out and about, how much is happening all over the place and how even through the dust and grit, its all so incredibly interesting!    The little places we went through today on the Mex 3, seemed to have more little churches than any of the other places, or maybe they were just easier to see?  Most of them are fairly plain little buildings, painted beautifully with lovely bells hanging from the towers.  It seems that most of these small towns are fairly isolated, with a good distance between them, but none of them were as ramshackle as many we have seen further south.  Maybe its because they are closer to the border.....  I did notice more bars over the windows of the houses up this way - but even they look more quaint than efficient.

So after a couple of hours of really easy driving through beautiful countryside that had no cactus in it at all, we arrived in Tecate which is right on the USA border.  This all happened much faster than I had bargained for, but while thinking about it, I realized that I was ready to head north of the border again.  Well, it's not like we had a choice at this point - there really was no where to go apart from either forward or backward - no campground and no viable alternate road to keep us in Baja longer......   So we started looking for the signs to the border crossing.  They really do not make it obvious at all and even though we did not get lost or take a wrong turn, it was close at times!  Just a small sign in a not too obvious place pointed the way out.  Blondie woke up and told us that we were now on "Thing Road" and headed kinda sorta in the right direction - she changed her mind every two minutes or so.... we ignored her, switched her sound off and just smiled.....

And over a hill we came to find a loooong line of cars at a standstill and some guys walking up and down selling food and drinks to everyone waiting to head north.  We got a couple of burritos each and watched as people went about their business.  This road we were on runs parallel with the border fence which was just about two feet from my window, and which had some lovely paintings on it all along the way.  On the Mexican side, the businesses were open and bustling, colorful and all painted with advertisements.  There was a place to exchange your money - the rate is really good right now for the tourist to Mexico - places where one could call the USA and many other just plain normal businesses.  On the USA side, we could see big fancy houses, greenery and no people at all - just the border guard vehicles driving along the road.  There were no problems, no issues, no incidents at all.  We did not have long to wait, about 30 minutes, before we were ushered forward and handed over our passports, driver's license and me my green card.  We were duly waved into the secondary inspection site where a very nice lady who was about to leave for the day, put us totally at ease and came inside to do her inspection.  We lost our last lone orange, the spam (thank God!), three eggs and the cactus wood we had found.  All in all a great deal.

They did not ask about the doglets, they did not ask about all my shells or Bea's sand, they did not ask about the guavas, they did not ask about the tequila............and I did not tell.

So after winding our way through a beautiful and gentle narrow road where I proved to myself that I am truly over my NRS (narrow road syndrome), through the Imperial Dunes Recreational Area  of California where hundreds of rv's with their four-wheeler toys were parked and having fun, we find ourselves somewhere along the highway at a campground alongside the Colorado River that has the most glorious hot showers with unlimited water!  Oh how awesome it is to get the grit out from under our fingernails and from inside our ears.....  The things we take for granted.....  Now for a bath for the rv tomorrow morning.

And so we are back in the USA again in beautiful sunny weather and not quite ready to head home yet where Katie tells me its really going to be cold.....  It was another lovely day, especially as I got to speak to my three 'kids' again, catching up on their many exciting happenings and doings.  And "Mo-Crow" stood on a huge boulder just north of the border and welcomed us back home again and then flapped off east bound  - guess he does not do Mexico, boy did he miss lots!

love and light
Annie

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