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well or any campers.
But this flowering plant which the campground is
named seemed to capture the desert for us. It
thrives on little water, and sandy desert soil its
spindly, and has this pretty bright red-orange
flower. It’s an Occitilla plant.
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Further along we also came across the ‘Century’
plant. Usually, only a non-descript long leafed
plant one and a half feet tall. But, once every
hundred years it sprouts a flower. What’s so
amazing is the flower grows on a stalk over 6 feet
tall. It grows in a hurry, reaching that height in
several days. Storing that amount of energy over
that long you might think it would be like Jack-
in-the-Bean- Stalk’s magic beans, and grow into
the clouds.
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The Butterfield Stage
Actually, we could be on one of the trails of the
famous Overland or Butterfield Stage. They
th
traveled in the 19 century. The stages left St
Louis to cross the west and arrive in San
Francisco. (Our photo is a Wellsfargo Model by
a man named Ford.)
Imagine a 2000 mile trip across Missouri,
Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, through
Arizona into Yuma and parts of Mexico then up
along the San Andreas fault to San Francisco.
That’s mostly desert and every 20 miles or so
they would stop to water and change the horses.
The stage coach was a wooden box spring
wagon with padded horse hair cushions and open
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windows. Richard, as a youngster slept on
mattresses made of hay and horse hair. He
thinks they are both lumpy, and very
uncomfortable.
Temperatures during these summer crossings
were often in the 100s. To add to the speed of
the trip the coaches would follow along the dusty
roads, find the few bridges or ferries, and search
out dry wash creek beds. The stage wheels would
sink in to the sand where ruts could develop 3 or
4 feet deep. The poor horses would pull them
through it for miles before they reached another
station.
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Here is one of the few Stage Stations left. The
plaque commemorates one of the last stations,
and a stage line that began September 15, 1856.
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The station was pretty large, used for room and
board of the passengers, drivers, and help. There
wasn’t a barn, but a ramada to coral the horses
and protect them from the sun.
Amazingly, there was a Station master and host
on site for the summer. They told us lots about
the stage history, but also had a story of their .
own.
David and Marjorie Boice from Seattle were
really interesting and friendly. In their late 60’s
they exhibited many of the attributes we hold
ourselves. They retired early, and developed a
two year rule. Never to stay in one spot for more
than two years. There last two year period was in
the Baja desert.
Each year they return to Seattle, where they have
sold their home, and given away a Time Share,
but kept their sloop, a 29 foot C&C. That’s a
really nice boat capable of blue water sailing,
which they have taken up the west coast to
Alaska several times. Next year they were headed
for Ireland.
How could we resist a picture of our 29 ft Sloop,
Citizen, a Cal 29, on the high seas. It’s so easy to
forget those wonderful days. Arlene and I are
peeking our heads over the dog house probably
on our way to a weekend at Shelter Island, NY.
We too had given away our Bermuda Time Share,
and sold our Connecticut home.
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Doesn’t that sound like we had something in
common? We spent several hours with them
before taking the dusty trail back to camp. It was
a good day.
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This is a view of the Anza-Borrego desert as we
climbed up and over into another climate, to the
town of Julian.
Notice how crumbly the mountain side is, and far
off on the horizon is the Salton Sea. We’re
headed over to San Diego and down into Baja,
also known as lower California, but of course is
Mexico.
Julian is known far and wide for their pies. Fruit
pies are our favorite, even though no one could
make a better cherry pie than Richard’s mother.
Arlene had a Bumbleberry pie, while Richard
had….You guessed it.
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6 MEXICO: SOUTH OF THE BORDER
San Diego
Mexico
South of the Border
Cantamar
Ensenada
Booz
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San Diego
Years ago we sat in Doug and Irene’s family
room in Miramar talking about things to see and
where to go in San Diego. There were lots of
places. They rattled off a few: The Zoo, Old
Town, The Naval Shipyard, Coronado Beach,
The Harbor, Christies Place and Balboa Park to
name some. We also thought we were so close to
Mexico, and Tijuana, that we could go there.
It would be difficult to decide where we might go
in the short time we had, two weeks.
Richard had an AAA book of Mexico, and during
our conversation he came across the scariest of
all messages. The book said.
‘YOU ARE GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN
INNOCENT.’
Really!! That’s going to whittle down our choices
quickly. Mexico was off limits, and out of the
question.
Doug had no problem about where we might go
or when. He said: anywhere in San Diego was
only 30 minutes away.
For instance, we wanted to go to an early Costco.
which we knew was along the Pacific Coast. We
had recently joined Costco and loved it so much
we wanted to visit all of them.
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Doug said it was no problem, 30 minutes away.
He had been a member since before Costco
existed, back in New Haven, Connecticut when it
was known as Price Club, and then in 1993
Price/Costco. Boy! Were we impressed.
During this first visit we stayed in San Diego.
We went to the world famous Zoo where saw the
only Snow Leopard in captivity.
This amazing cat had only been photographed in
the past few years in Asia. Those pictures, by
National Geographic, in the wild showed how
naturally camouflaged they were in the mountains
and snow. Check it’s amazingly fluffy tail.
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The Zoo has many other cats, including this
leopard.
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Irene and Doug started, and ran a center for
women with Aids. It is one of the earliest and
few programs that target, and support women
specifically. Christies Place is named after their
adopted daughter, and family that died with HIV.
We visit there every time we’re in the city. It’s
amazing the work they have done.
Just around the corner from Christies Place is
Balboa Park. It’s equivalent to Central Park in
New York. A large park in the middle of the city.
We walked around for a while and visited their
Art Museum. Doug reached out to touch one of
the famous oils. We caught him just in time, and
decided it was time to leave.
San Diego is the home of the Pacific Fleet, and
filled with Navy ships, cranes and elevators
repairing and performing maintenance. It’s also
home to the Pacific Fleet’s submarines, and
Naval Air. Thousands of service men and
women live, and retire here in the most moderate
of climates. It’s always a balmy 72 degrees, day in
day out year after year. There is so little rain that
a ½ inch causes slippery conditions like an ice
storm in Atlanta, Georgia.
We had hamburgers and milkshakes at one of the
hot spots on the Base. Children were
everywhere. It was noisy but great fun.
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We couldn’t finish our first tour of San Diego
without going to Coronado Beach. It’s near the
Naval Base, so after lunch we headed over there.
Just look at how long ago that must have been as
both of us are much slimmer and have sandy
hair.
Old Town is both a tourist trap, and a historical
view of the beginnings of San Diego so many
years ago. We met with Dan there once, when he
was in the city training Navy personnel. That
was a treat as we seldom saw him unless we’d go
to Hawaii.
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Mexico
Mexico is a foreign country and it’s
unbelievablely difficult for us to understand how
a line in the sand can make such a difference. On
one side grass grows, there’s sanitation and a
working legal system. There’s a working
government, and a sound economy for most. On
the other side the government is weak, sanitation
is poor, the legal system, and the economy is split
between the haves and have not, poverty is
everywhere.
But, after a few visits to San Diego our paranoia
softened and we’ve headed south, to Doug’s get-
away across the border. South of Tijuana, along
the Pacific ocean beyond Rosarita to a small
community called Cantamar.
We have many pictures of the poverty and the
crowded countryside in Mexico . Plenty of
pictures of soldiers, police and security guards
carrying rifles and machine guns. We’ve been
stopped over and over again by what we think,
and hoped were federal soldiers.
We recognized that we had little or no control
over how we would be treated. If we got into
trouble we were never sure how we’d get out.
Hopefully, if it was so serious the United States
diplomatic corp would help us; maybe!
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We did try to follow a couple of rules. Be polite,
we’re visitors. Try to blend in. Try not to be like
too many Americans, loud, and obnoxious. And,
try to speak Spanish; as best we could.
Crossing the border may be one of the easiest
things you can do in America. Thousands of
folks cross back and forth through Tijuana daily.
On the way into Mexico it’s easy. Just follow the
traffic, and wait your turn. It’s always crowded
so it could take an hour or more.
On the way out we usually waited in a walk-
through line. It seldom was less than 2 miles
long or a three to four hour wait. A very long
line. Doug and Irene had passes so they drive
through, both ways. They know all the crossing
points so on the way back they seldom wait
longer than 30 minutes to an hour.
Tijuana is huge. It’s probably the same size as
San Diego, but will soon be larger. There is a
huge amount of poverty. Hill sides are covered
with homes that are mostly cement block, but
could be little more than cardboard and tar paper.
Outside of downtown few side roads are paved,
and those are in desperate need of repair.
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The road ways are jammed with traffic.
Homes are built on the crumbling hill sides.
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Business is booming. Manufacturing companies
are moving into Tijuana as fast as they can. It
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creates lots of low paying jobs, and export
income for the State and Country.
Big box stores, Wal Mart, Costco, are beginning
to push out smaller stores and turning retailing
into something more like America, malls and the
internet.
It’s not uncommon to be stopped by Federal
road blocks on the highways outside of Tijuana.
We’ve been stopped time and again. Although
we never get over it; we usually are treated
politely and seldom searched.
Once we were downtown in heavy traffic headed
back into San Diego, when pulled over. Doug
spoke to the policeman, explaining he was going
home, and had no dinaro. Gesturing by empting
his pockets and pulling them inside out.
Everyone else in the car shook their head and
repeated ‘no dinaro’.
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We were in stop and go traffic, where there was
no choice as to our speed, other than to keep
crawling along. Doug saved us that day, and the
policeman let us go.
We were always greeted in Cantamar by security
guards who opened the gate. They were very
friendly with big smiles, but always one hand for
their rifle and one for the gate.
It’s tough getting use to guns everywhere, despite
NRA’s wishes. If all of our experiences here in
Mexico were as grim as they’re portrayed our
media we probably would have gone once and
never returned. They are not, and every trip has
been exciting and enjoyable.
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It has been surprising for us to review the many
pictures we’ve taken. Guess what? There’s no
place we’ve been that’s so much fun and filled
with relaxed days. We have over the years visited
with Doug and Irene and always stayed beyond
any reasonable period of time. Days beyond.
We might stay up to two weeks, when we believe
3 nights should be the limit for any visit
anywhere.
Our visits to Mexico have been truly remarkable.
We want to say ‘How could we have so much.
Never want for anything.’ And yet, see so many
people with so little, and being so happy.
Families walk down dusty streets, holding hands.
They go shopping in small shops laughing and
talking to each other.
South of the Border
‘South of the Border, Down Mexico way.
‘That’s where I fell in love when the stars came
out to play.’
‘And now as I wonder my thoughts ever stray,
South of the Border, Down Mexico way.’
‘Ay,Ay,Ay,Ay Ay,Ay,Ay,Ay’
‘Ay,Ay,Ay,Ay Ay,Ay,Ay,Ay.’
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Here we go, South of San Diego on super
highways, past many advertisements for Mexican
insurance, and direction signs to get in line to
cross the border. Under the last pedestrian
bridge and onto a curving ramp. The road gets
bumpy; we’ve arrived in Tijuana. Through the
streets and up a long hill where we can look
across several tall fences to the other side. Over
one hill then another, heading west until we get
our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.
We’re headed south on a toll road, passed a
number of communities.
We’re told that Americans can rent these villas
and homes, but never own them. There is a 25
mile limit between the ocean and the mountains
where only Mexicans can own. Rentals may be
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up to 99 years. This law wasn’t strange to us as
we’d seen it in Bermuda, and other countries.
Our first stop was in Rosarita, for lunch. It’s a
bustling town full of life, plenty of night life, and
a pretty large American population. We did most
of our shopping there, and often had breakfast.
Gay and happy colors are everywhere, the
buildings, on the streets, and how everyone
dresses.
Here’s a gang of us, Doug, Irene, a couple of
their older Grand-children Frankie, and Erik.
Our waitress, the bar maid, is bilingual, worked
three jobs; seemingly typical. Everyone we met
had several jobs.
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Cantamar
Further south we arrived in Cantamar. It’s a
small village 40 miles south of Tijuana along the
Pacific. The main street is lined with stores. Side
streets were often dirt.
Doug and Irene live in a gated community on the
outskirts. They had originally vacationed along
the sea shore south of Cantamar, but once they
found this community they fell in love with it.
Mostly, like so many of the communities along
the shore line they are filled with Americans who
first vacationed here, and then built or bought,
and moved to Mexico. They are a happy group.
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We were greeted at the gate by a friendly security
guard.
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Their first home was this 2 ½ story, ‘Casa
Milton’. The weather is so marvelous every
chance is taken to enjoy it. Behind the cement
walls and gate is a small patio, and on each floor,
a fenced deck. The roof is a late evening spot
where we could see around the entire
community.
Inside, the first floor is a small cozy, kitchen,
bath, laundry, and bedroom. The second has a
family room, and bathroom.
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Life is slow and easy. Here, Arlene in here solar
shirt and summer hat, takes a few minutes from
lounging to water the flowers.
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Meanwhile I’ve taken the time to wonder around
the cobble stone streets, stopping at the
community center and swimming pool.
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After a few years, they decided to buy/lease, the
lot next door. They planned to build a larger
home on it.
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It takes a long time to build, because of the
workers. Often they are Mexican with American
bosses. Work goes along at a leisurely pace. Like
in America when a small contractor is hired.
Never-the-less in two years they had moved in.
There’s still the railing and finishing of the patios,
but mostly everything else is finished.
It’s an open design, with two floors. On the first
is the kitchen, dining, bath, and living room.
Upstairs, a lounge, bedroom, bath, and veranda.
Between the two homes is a patio, where Doug,
Irene and Arlene share the morning newspaper
and coffee.
Every home in the community was built in a
similar manner. Each is different. It’s an
appealing way to build. Here are a few of their
neighbors homes.
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On sunny days, we are often drawn to the beach.
As much fun as that is neither Arlene nor I are
beachcombers. This is about as far as I get.
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It is beautiful, and we’d sit for hours under a
shady ramada.
Meanwhile it seems that every evening there’s a
fiesta. Here we are at the restaurant next door.
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It’s a single price buffet, with refills of
Champagne Mimosas. Truly it doesn’t take long
to get into a cheerful mode.
And of course there’s Spanish dancing where we
all joined.
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On some days we’d drive around. Maybe to the
hill top in Cantamar, overlooking the Pacific.
Or around the back, southern side of Tijuana.
Or a longer trip down the coast to Ensenada.
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Every mile is a dream. Along the way we
stopped at a bar where we bought two tickets to
cross the border without standing in line. With
them we could ride with Doug and Irene.
Keeping my camera ready for all the different
things that were going on was worth it. Here is a
truck load of folks headed somewhere, maybe the
beach. It wasn’t uncommon to see people riding
in the back of their trucks. These were
particularly happy.
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Ensenada is at the end of the four lane highway.
It’s a popular, crowed, and busy city.
But once you get downtown, and find a parking
place. Then the fun begins. You can bargain
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shop for everything. Want a silver necklace, a
wool sweater, wool mats, a leather purse, or
wallet? It’s all here and at a price you’d like to
pay, if you ask for it, and stick to your guns. We
were told once that because one of the sweater
arms was longer than the other, it was worth
more, because there was more wool.
We shopped and wandered around. Here we
found a place for a cup of coffee. It didn’t take
long before we Americans were spotted and
serenaded.
This wasn’t New York or San Diego with their
marvelous street vendors, no it was a full blown
Mariachi Band. They sang and played their
hearts out, just for us.
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With their good cheer we sauntered away, and
left Ensenada.
Booz
In Mexico we can buy a number of things not
available in America. Two such items are Cuban.
If either of us smoked we could buy Cuban
Cigars. That I suppose would be a treat. But we
didn’t and have never tried smuggling them
across the border for some who might like them.
The other is Cuban Rum. We have from time to
time brought a bottle across.
There’s a limit to the amount of booz you can
bring across the border. Maybe 750 ml each.
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One year we traveled back and forth across the
border several times. Each time I’d bought a
couple of bottles of Tequila. So we carried two
each time we crossed.
It’s true that neither of us know much about
booz, or Rum, or Tequila. I do have an eye for
neat bottles however. That was our guiding light,
and here are a few that we brought across.
All of them have neat shapes, rectangular, bases
with rounded tops, large colorful caps, and many
with designs molded into the glass. Sun bursts,
or Mexicans in Agava fields during harvest, or a
couple of fighting cocks all labeling is in Spanish.
This fellow is molded into the glass on the back
of the El Ultimo Agave bottle.
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One of our favorites is the Tequila Anejo from
Casta. It is a wavy tall glass bottle with a large
wooden cap, a dried Agava leaf around it’s neck,
and inside a grand green glass agave plant.
That’s pretty cool.
The Casta story is that Avelino Ruiz’s father had
a secret formula that he used exclusively at his
hacienda to manufacture Tequila. During one of
the wars, around 1920 a brave Mexican General
saved the Ruiz’s family and was given the
formula, which became Casta Tequila.
That’s a pretty neat bottle and if its ever emptied
we’re sure to replace it with an equally fine juice.
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Best of all is this bottle, The Bull. We’ll never
know what it tastes like nor do we care. But,
look at it. That’s really something.
It’s time to leave Mexico, gather our Van and
Trailer from storage and head north back into the
Sonaran Desert.
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After the first time into Mexico we have returned
again and again. Each time we go with some
trepidation, yet end up having such a good time
and never feeling afraid, except for all the guns. It
will be hard to say if we will return. We’ll just
have to wait and see.
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
‘South of the Border, maybe we’ll return some
day.’
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7 CALIFORNIA: #2 SIERRA NEVADA
Palomar Mountain
Palomar Observatory
Californios
Joshua Tree
Cowboy Boulders
Teddy Bears
Sequoia National Park
Giants
Tokopah Valley Falls
Litchfield
Mono Lake
Yosemite National Park
The Valley
Tanaya Lake
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Palomar Mountain
It hasn’t been easy finding a camp in Southern
California. After several days of searching
through our maps, AAA books and other things
we found most places were poor choices and had
few facilities. One spot seemed interesting. It
was Mt. Palomar. At the top of a 5,000 foot
mountain where the famous Observatory was,
and a State Park.
It was Easter weekend as we started up the long
winding narrow road, hoping that there would be
room for us. There wasn’t, so many people had
made reservations that the camp was full, except
for one site. We took the site unseen, and signed
up on the waiting list for the next day.
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It was on a steep slope overlooking the rest of
the campground. It was apparent that we needed
to level our RV. All RV’ers carry levelers, either
automatic, or wooden boards they can drive up
on to level their rig. We had the latter and piled
all of them in two layers on the down slope of
our site. Arlene then directed me to back up on
to them.
It helped, but we still couldn’t get our refrigerator
running. They run off of what’s available, either
shore electricity, gas or battery. There was no
electricity, and we value our battery like there’s
no tomorrow, so would never use it. It was
propane for us. But it likes the fridge to be level,
and we hadn’t quite made it. Our refrigerator was
off. Never-the-less we had a place for the night.
We had batted small flies all the time we were
balancing the rig. They were annoying, but,
couldn’t get through our window screens. Tired
and grumpy we still went out for a short walk to
check out the campground.
Being on top of the mountain was a great place
for the observatory. For us it was a really
different than we’d expected or previously
experienced. At 5,000 feet we were above the
clouds. The mountain seemed to be like a
volcano’s crator, as we were camped inside a
bowl, with pastures and forests at a temperate
zone much lower than the elevation.
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There were lots of pines and cedars as well as
hardwoods. During the mornings we’d wake to
fog, and haze that would lift by noon. Then by
evening, camp fires would fill the camp with
smoke and haze again. Even so there was snow
lingering from the week before.
Temperatures during the day were in the low 70’s
by night in the 60’s, and 40’s in the morning. We
usually slept like hibernating bears.
Our walk took us around Doan’s Pond, the
fellow who lived here a century ago. He’d
planted Apple Trees that still grew, and had
blossoms on them.
We were getting familiar with the camp. It was
filled with signs that warned us of all the
creatures in our heavenly world.
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‘Beware of the Plague’. Fleas with plague are
carried by the rodents. Rodents are all those
mice that want to climb into our RV, rats around
the pond, the cute little chip monks, and
squirrels, which Arlene hates with a vengeance.
Another Sign: ‘Raccoons maybe rabid.’ Stay
away from them if seen during the day and call a
Ranger.
Another: ‘Rattlesnakes only attack in defense.’
Excuse me but does that mean that Arlene who
walks behind me will be bitten because I first
scared the snake. How comforting.
And Finally: ‘Beware of Mountain Lions’ Also
known as Panthers or Pumas. This must be a
good habitat for them. We’ve never encountered
one, but like so many issues in the woods we
have listened to experts. In this case one should
react differently than encountering a bear, or
moose. Some suggestions were:
Make a lot of noise. Throw things at it, rocks,
and sticks. Make yourself as large as possible.
Retreat!! Never expect to come out on the top of
a mano-y-mano with a cat. Get the Hell out of
There!!
The signs weren’t very reassuring. After dinner
we drank another glass of wine and climbed into
bed. We were really tired, and needed the rest.
By morning our disposition would change.
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Arlene has an ear for things that go bump in the
night. This night it was a light scratching. She
bolted up, and alerted me in the same motion. It
was of course a mouse in the pantry or
somewhere in the RV. I don’t know how I was
always appointed to the search and destroy team.
My mother had that job, not me.
But, poorly prepared, still asleep, I began
searching with a flashlight and fly swatter inside
the rig. Then outside into each basement storage
unit. No mouse; nothing.
Arlene had another view of what happened. She
says she chased the mouse out the door.
We went back to bed and slept. No more mice.
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