Well it’s Saturday morning about 10:30, and we are sort of preparing to return home. We’ll leave here tomorrow (Sunday about 9:45 am. PST, and catch a plane in San Diego at 6:45 pm. We get back to Raleigh sometime Monday morning. Yesterday, we went down to San Felipe and spent several hours shopping and bartering with the locals. We also dropped by The Taco Factory for a little food and some more giant margaritas. Last night we cooked the clams we had harvested the other day, and dipped them in a little garlic butter. They were great and we had all we could eat. This morning we went to the weekly Flea Market. It happens every Saturday on the Ranch, and there are vendors there with all sorts of things. Two different fellows had some of the most beautiful produce I have seen in a long time. There were stands selling all sorts of Mexican and American breakfast items. There were local artists selling all manner of art, painted roof tiles, water colors, hand blown glass, hand made furniture, various ceramic stuff, and even a velvet Elvis. Local fishing guys had giant shrimp and clams. There were dune buggies for sale, pastries and canned goods from some of the Ranch residents, and an old guy from New York playing the electric piano and singing for tips. All in all your basic mish mash of folks, Mexican, Anglo, Locals, and Tourists. Noticed that many of the folks that now call this place home are a little on the eccentric side. (Plenty of long white hair and beards) Now for the news: as of 9:45 PST today (03/04/06) we are now the proud owners of Vista del Sol, Section 7750, Lot 90-3. It is 4.6 miles back in the desert from Mexico Route 5 and 5.8 miles from the beach. We are not certain if we will eventually build a winter home down here or just hold the land for speculation, but we are leaning toward eventually building and becoming eccentric old Mexicans-part of the year living in Mexico and the other part of the year in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A great piece of the whole thing is, with the new Mexican Laws, we can renew the trust that holds the land every 50 years in perpetuity. This means, the place can stay in the family as our legacy if we choose to build. Now all we have to do is come up with a catchy name like, Casa de Jorge (pronounced or’hey) or Baja del Elvis. We are going out with our new friends from California this afternoon to see their construction. They told us their builder has been great to work with. They also have been very helpful pointing out the plusses and minuses of this place. I know one thing, before we try to build here or live here, Spanish fluency is a must. Bickie and I will probably be signing up for a Spanish class somewhere. And finally, since we are now land owners, we have the option to come here and stay at their newly remodeled hotel in San Felipe, or rent a house somewhere on the ranch at much lower member rates. They plan to have service from one of the feeder airlines directly to San Felipe in the next year or so. But even now you can fly to El Centro California, and it’s only about a 2 hr trip down here.
Bye for now,
Wes and Bickie
Monday, March 06, 2006
El Dorado Ranch #6
Thursday at the Baja….
After a fine breakfast of Mexican bacon (which comes from the butcher in a handful in a plastic bag), eggs with bright orange yolks, and toast from the finest Bimbo Bread (which is probably the Mexican equivalent of Wonder Bread) Bickie left to exchange dirty towels for clean ones and came back with new friends and a clam rake. We then set out on a clamming expedition. At low tide there are 300 to 400 yds of a cross between mud and sand. Basically what you do (we finally figured out) is rake on the sandiest portions of the mud flat nearest the remaining rivulets of water. The clams are 1-2 inches below the surface in the ooze. A distinctive clink transmitted through the rake handle lets you know you have struck clam. What we discovered is that clamming requires extensive manual labor (a lot of bending and digging). But we persevered and improved our technique to the point where we managed to capture approximately 12 dozen of the wily little critters. They are currently in their new home which is the bathroom trashcan converted to a clam bucket. They are immersed in a solution of water and surplus pancake mix which theoretically should cause them to ingest the pancake flour and expel their unpalatable sand. According to local experts several changes of this water over the next 24 hrs will yield fine and tasty morsels of clams when steamed in beer. We’ll see tomorrow….. After our expedition of clamming it was necessary to wash the sand and mud combination off me, Bickie, our clothes, the rake, the car, the porch, and the clams. The clams we uncovered are similar to cherry stone clams in the states. The majority are about a big as a fifty cent piece. Some are larger and we call them prize winners. Tomorrow we will utilize our creativity to steam them with our limited culinary equipment (a small Teflon skillet and a pot).
This afternoon Bickie’s new friends (with the clam rake) turned out to be lot owners with a house three weeks away from completion on their lot here at El Dorado Ranch. We spent a lot of time chatting with them about traveling and also all the details about purchasing and owning land at El Dorado. Tomorrow morning we are going to go to see their land and house. They are a very interesting couple from California.
At sunset the Sea of Cortez looked bright blue with a large pink band between the sea and the sky. Just cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. Took many many pictures but as you know pictures just can’t capture the true beauty of it all.
Wes & Bickie
After a fine breakfast of Mexican bacon (which comes from the butcher in a handful in a plastic bag), eggs with bright orange yolks, and toast from the finest Bimbo Bread (which is probably the Mexican equivalent of Wonder Bread) Bickie left to exchange dirty towels for clean ones and came back with new friends and a clam rake. We then set out on a clamming expedition. At low tide there are 300 to 400 yds of a cross between mud and sand. Basically what you do (we finally figured out) is rake on the sandiest portions of the mud flat nearest the remaining rivulets of water. The clams are 1-2 inches below the surface in the ooze. A distinctive clink transmitted through the rake handle lets you know you have struck clam. What we discovered is that clamming requires extensive manual labor (a lot of bending and digging). But we persevered and improved our technique to the point where we managed to capture approximately 12 dozen of the wily little critters. They are currently in their new home which is the bathroom trashcan converted to a clam bucket. They are immersed in a solution of water and surplus pancake mix which theoretically should cause them to ingest the pancake flour and expel their unpalatable sand. According to local experts several changes of this water over the next 24 hrs will yield fine and tasty morsels of clams when steamed in beer. We’ll see tomorrow….. After our expedition of clamming it was necessary to wash the sand and mud combination off me, Bickie, our clothes, the rake, the car, the porch, and the clams. The clams we uncovered are similar to cherry stone clams in the states. The majority are about a big as a fifty cent piece. Some are larger and we call them prize winners. Tomorrow we will utilize our creativity to steam them with our limited culinary equipment (a small Teflon skillet and a pot).
This afternoon Bickie’s new friends (with the clam rake) turned out to be lot owners with a house three weeks away from completion on their lot here at El Dorado Ranch. We spent a lot of time chatting with them about traveling and also all the details about purchasing and owning land at El Dorado. Tomorrow morning we are going to go to see their land and house. They are a very interesting couple from California.
At sunset the Sea of Cortez looked bright blue with a large pink band between the sea and the sky. Just cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. Took many many pictures but as you know pictures just can’t capture the true beauty of it all.
Wes & Bickie
Friday, March 03, 2006
El Dorado Ranch #5
Wednesday at the Baja.
Today was quite eventful. As you have probably already figured out, we went back to the golf club, and found out we could in fact get on the Internet. They actually have wireless, so all we had to do was sit down at a table and turn it on. We sent out all our Emails, and got back in touch with the world. After we did that, we went on a quest to find the lot we had looked at in the desert. Probably if the guy that rented us this car knew we were going exploring in the desert with his new Toyota, he wouldn’t have rented it to us. But that’s why they call them rental cars. You take them where you would never take your real car. Several times, the wheels were going way faster than the actual speed of the car. But, I used my proven method of traversing snow (or sand), as long as you keep up the momentum, it doesn’t matter if the wheels are spinning. We rode way out in the desert, and figured out, we were certainly going the wrong way. We turned around, and went back to the beginning. The second time we were much more successful. We got on a road (well sort of a road) and got headed in the right direction. Pretty soon we started seeing familiar sights, and pretty soon we found the old 90 lot 3. We spent some time taking pictures and movies, then headed back to the main road. Then we went down to San Felipe. Up to this point, we hadn’t really checked out the local scene because of the crowds associated with the local Fat Tuesday parade. Today, San Felipe was back to its normal sleepy fishing village self. We wandered around, and had a pretty good time. We stopped at the Taco Factory and had two GIANT margaritas, which improved the ambiance of the place significantly. We found Vickie a copper bracelet that almost exactly matched the one I bought 2 years ago on the mountain in Utah. We also found a good shooter glass for the souvenir case at home. They had some great go to hell hats that I may have to go back and get one of. The shooter glass was only $3.00 which is the cheapest shooter glass I have ever found for my collection. We came back to the old Casita, and got ready for dinner. Tonight the Baja Boys were playing at Juanito’s Café which is the local restaurant and watering hole). The Baja Boys are three guys about my age that have a little band and play 50’s and 60’s music. We had two free passes for dinner, and drank about 100 Margaritas. (Vickie is currently groaning on the couch). Entire bill came to $13.00. I had a piece of local fish that was beyond good. Vickie had Tostadas that came on a platter about the size of an Oldsmobile hubcap. We danced to the Baja Boys, drank Margaritas, and ate till we couldn’t move. Now we are currently planning out retreat to the bed and it’s only around 9:30. (I like to think it’s cause we are still on East Coast time, but in reality, we’ve been sleeping 8+ hours per night, which is wonderful.
Today was quite eventful. As you have probably already figured out, we went back to the golf club, and found out we could in fact get on the Internet. They actually have wireless, so all we had to do was sit down at a table and turn it on. We sent out all our Emails, and got back in touch with the world. After we did that, we went on a quest to find the lot we had looked at in the desert. Probably if the guy that rented us this car knew we were going exploring in the desert with his new Toyota, he wouldn’t have rented it to us. But that’s why they call them rental cars. You take them where you would never take your real car. Several times, the wheels were going way faster than the actual speed of the car. But, I used my proven method of traversing snow (or sand), as long as you keep up the momentum, it doesn’t matter if the wheels are spinning. We rode way out in the desert, and figured out, we were certainly going the wrong way. We turned around, and went back to the beginning. The second time we were much more successful. We got on a road (well sort of a road) and got headed in the right direction. Pretty soon we started seeing familiar sights, and pretty soon we found the old 90 lot 3. We spent some time taking pictures and movies, then headed back to the main road. Then we went down to San Felipe. Up to this point, we hadn’t really checked out the local scene because of the crowds associated with the local Fat Tuesday parade. Today, San Felipe was back to its normal sleepy fishing village self. We wandered around, and had a pretty good time. We stopped at the Taco Factory and had two GIANT margaritas, which improved the ambiance of the place significantly. We found Vickie a copper bracelet that almost exactly matched the one I bought 2 years ago on the mountain in Utah. We also found a good shooter glass for the souvenir case at home. They had some great go to hell hats that I may have to go back and get one of. The shooter glass was only $3.00 which is the cheapest shooter glass I have ever found for my collection. We came back to the old Casita, and got ready for dinner. Tonight the Baja Boys were playing at Juanito’s Café which is the local restaurant and watering hole). The Baja Boys are three guys about my age that have a little band and play 50’s and 60’s music. We had two free passes for dinner, and drank about 100 Margaritas. (Vickie is currently groaning on the couch). Entire bill came to $13.00. I had a piece of local fish that was beyond good. Vickie had Tostadas that came on a platter about the size of an Oldsmobile hubcap. We danced to the Baja Boys, drank Margaritas, and ate till we couldn’t move. Now we are currently planning out retreat to the bed and it’s only around 9:30. (I like to think it’s cause we are still on East Coast time, but in reality, we’ve been sleeping 8+ hours per night, which is wonderful.
El Dorado Ranch #4
Tuesday at the Baja.
Last night we had a great meal of Mexican hamburger, (never know exactly what might be ground up in it), baked potatoes and sliced radishes all cooked in our Casita kitchen. This morning we had eggs with Mexican cheese and toast, overlooking the beautiful Sea of Cortez. We had an appointment this morning for our tour of El Dorado with Jim. Turned out Jim was an OK guy and very low key. He filled us in on all the details of what The Ranch was all about, and then we went out for the physical tour. As we all suspected, the land I “won” 17 years ago was completely inaccessible on the side of a mountain. What the deal ended up being was, I got so much credit for my land toward the purchase of one of their parcels of land. As it turns out, this place is booming. Folks from Southern California with hundreds of thousands of equity in their homes, and fed up with the crush of city life, are buying up land in Baja like it’s going out of style. In 1993 the Mexican Constitution was amended to allow foreign ownership of land closer than 30 kilometers to the water or the border. El Dorado Ranch is one of the largest and oldest developments in this part of Baja. The ranch is 250,000+ acres stretching from the Sea of Cortez to the Mountains. They just finished selling 250 condos ranging from $250,000 to $400,000 in 7 weeks. They had a lottery of current land owners, who had the first shot at buying, and sold them all. They are well under construction. We spent from 10:00 to about 2:00 looking at various parcels of land. We were looking for the perfect combination of mountain view, desert view, and Sea view. Anyone who knows Bickie knows how difficult she can be to satisfy (which is one of the reasons I love her). She just kept looking at the map and saying “how about this one”. But working together we found a prime piece of property in one of their older developments that was a perimeter lot (nothing blocking your view of the desert, mountains, or Sea). The price was SIGNIFANTLY below what some of their newer development perimeter lots were selling for. At this writing we are contemplating whether we want to invest in “Some Desert Land in Baja”. (Sounds like an old joke) We tried to get on the Internet today, to send out our previous Emails, do some research, and to contact our CPA friend Phil. The folks at The Ranch office said “just go up to the golf club and you can do it”. We went to the golf club, laptop in hand, and were greeted by a lot of blank stares. The one set of guys told us to check in the pro shop, and the guy in the pro shop, who spoke a little English, told us “we never let customers use the company system for anything”. (Of course there was an Ethernet plug on the wall exactly where we were told to hook up) So back to the Ranch office and they then sent us to the “Little Internet Café” down the road. Of coarse it was open from 07:00 to 3:00 and we got there at 3:18. So no Internet, no research, no deal. Considering this, I think we have raised the motivation of the staff to help us get on the internet. Tomorrow we plan to see if we can find the lot again, and take some pictures. We are seriously considering buying the land strictly for speculation. We looked at lots with inferior orientation and views for $50,000 more than the one we found. Construction costs here are quite reasonable, and they have some interesting construction methods. They use some type of foam system I have seen on Discovery or Home Improvement. Basically it is interlocking foam blocks they stack around rebar and then pump full of concrete. Final result is skim coated with concrete and ends up giving you and R30-35 insulation factor wall. Most of the homes have a lot of ceramic tile in the floors and walls. Also most are built with a roof deck where you can really see the views. Weather here is really desert, has not rained in a year. All the houses use electricity and septic tanks, but water is delivered for about $10.00 a month. They have 3500 gallon cistern that supplies water for the house. The architecture is very Southwest with outdoor verandas and kitchens quite prevalent. One draw back for living here is the road conditions would not be compatible with a Vette. However, one could substitute a hot off road pick up or sand rail with a hot Chevy crate motor. Off roading down here is like a religion. Well that’s it for today. Bickie is out clamming or looking for shells, and I’m working on some nice rib eyes and asparagus we bought yesterday. Bye for now.
Wes and Vickie
Last night we had a great meal of Mexican hamburger, (never know exactly what might be ground up in it), baked potatoes and sliced radishes all cooked in our Casita kitchen. This morning we had eggs with Mexican cheese and toast, overlooking the beautiful Sea of Cortez. We had an appointment this morning for our tour of El Dorado with Jim. Turned out Jim was an OK guy and very low key. He filled us in on all the details of what The Ranch was all about, and then we went out for the physical tour. As we all suspected, the land I “won” 17 years ago was completely inaccessible on the side of a mountain. What the deal ended up being was, I got so much credit for my land toward the purchase of one of their parcels of land. As it turns out, this place is booming. Folks from Southern California with hundreds of thousands of equity in their homes, and fed up with the crush of city life, are buying up land in Baja like it’s going out of style. In 1993 the Mexican Constitution was amended to allow foreign ownership of land closer than 30 kilometers to the water or the border. El Dorado Ranch is one of the largest and oldest developments in this part of Baja. The ranch is 250,000+ acres stretching from the Sea of Cortez to the Mountains. They just finished selling 250 condos ranging from $250,000 to $400,000 in 7 weeks. They had a lottery of current land owners, who had the first shot at buying, and sold them all. They are well under construction. We spent from 10:00 to about 2:00 looking at various parcels of land. We were looking for the perfect combination of mountain view, desert view, and Sea view. Anyone who knows Bickie knows how difficult she can be to satisfy (which is one of the reasons I love her). She just kept looking at the map and saying “how about this one”. But working together we found a prime piece of property in one of their older developments that was a perimeter lot (nothing blocking your view of the desert, mountains, or Sea). The price was SIGNIFANTLY below what some of their newer development perimeter lots were selling for. At this writing we are contemplating whether we want to invest in “Some Desert Land in Baja”. (Sounds like an old joke) We tried to get on the Internet today, to send out our previous Emails, do some research, and to contact our CPA friend Phil. The folks at The Ranch office said “just go up to the golf club and you can do it”. We went to the golf club, laptop in hand, and were greeted by a lot of blank stares. The one set of guys told us to check in the pro shop, and the guy in the pro shop, who spoke a little English, told us “we never let customers use the company system for anything”. (Of course there was an Ethernet plug on the wall exactly where we were told to hook up) So back to the Ranch office and they then sent us to the “Little Internet Café” down the road. Of coarse it was open from 07:00 to 3:00 and we got there at 3:18. So no Internet, no research, no deal. Considering this, I think we have raised the motivation of the staff to help us get on the internet. Tomorrow we plan to see if we can find the lot again, and take some pictures. We are seriously considering buying the land strictly for speculation. We looked at lots with inferior orientation and views for $50,000 more than the one we found. Construction costs here are quite reasonable, and they have some interesting construction methods. They use some type of foam system I have seen on Discovery or Home Improvement. Basically it is interlocking foam blocks they stack around rebar and then pump full of concrete. Final result is skim coated with concrete and ends up giving you and R30-35 insulation factor wall. Most of the homes have a lot of ceramic tile in the floors and walls. Also most are built with a roof deck where you can really see the views. Weather here is really desert, has not rained in a year. All the houses use electricity and septic tanks, but water is delivered for about $10.00 a month. They have 3500 gallon cistern that supplies water for the house. The architecture is very Southwest with outdoor verandas and kitchens quite prevalent. One draw back for living here is the road conditions would not be compatible with a Vette. However, one could substitute a hot off road pick up or sand rail with a hot Chevy crate motor. Off roading down here is like a religion. Well that’s it for today. Bickie is out clamming or looking for shells, and I’m working on some nice rib eyes and asparagus we bought yesterday. Bye for now.
Wes and Vickie
El Dorado Ranch #3
Afternoon in Baja……
It was a most interesting afternoon at the old Casita. Watched the changing of the guard at the adjoining RV Park. Diesel pickups are king. Everyone came in with their 5th wheel trailers in tow. Little Mexican boy in his helmet on a 4 wheeler directed them as to where to park. These guys can really drive this stuff. Watched a guy slide a 50 foot motor home into a little slot (with Jimmy Buffett playing in the background). Four Tecates and three Quervos later parking trailers was extremely entertaining. Bickie was down to the beach collecting sea shells. The breeze shifted to on shore and was a little cool on our deck. (Bickie doesn’t think so) Our deck is completely shaded in the afternoon. Jimmy Buffett seems most appropriate for these surroundings. On the Sea of Cortez overlooking the view to die for it’s a glorious afternoon.
It was a most interesting afternoon at the old Casita. Watched the changing of the guard at the adjoining RV Park. Diesel pickups are king. Everyone came in with their 5th wheel trailers in tow. Little Mexican boy in his helmet on a 4 wheeler directed them as to where to park. These guys can really drive this stuff. Watched a guy slide a 50 foot motor home into a little slot (with Jimmy Buffett playing in the background). Four Tecates and three Quervos later parking trailers was extremely entertaining. Bickie was down to the beach collecting sea shells. The breeze shifted to on shore and was a little cool on our deck. (Bickie doesn’t think so) Our deck is completely shaded in the afternoon. Jimmy Buffett seems most appropriate for these surroundings. On the Sea of Cortez overlooking the view to die for it’s a glorious afternoon.
El Dorado Ranch #2
Here it is later, and Bickie and I have just returned from our latest adventure. I call it, finding the grocery store in a Mexican town where no one speaks English and we don’t speak Spanish. We went to San Felipe, seeking groceries, mixers, and beer. However after wandering around the scarier sections of town, we decided it was time to try and ask someone. First try was at an auto parts store, we thought was a grocery store. We asked the guys in front but no one spoke English. Then I came up with the bright idea of asking for pollo (which I think is Spanish for chicken). The one guy seemed to understand and pointed back toward town and indicated 4 blocks. Well that didn’t work, so we went into one of the ubiquitous PEMEX gas stations that seem to be on every corner. Bickie had an uproarious time doing Spanish charades with the attendants. They seemed to understand food, and pointed to the various food stands around. But then Bickie said Me Casa and made cooking motions with her hands. That did it. The one fellow understood, and made a drawing of a D and J in the palm of his hand. He then pointed up the street and made motions like 1 cross road. Low and behold we found the D and J Market, just up the street. Problem solved, well not exactly. Food is pretty much food everywhere, and with the exchange rate being approximately 10.5 pesos to the dollar, something that cost 23.00 was a little less than $2.30. Only problem was, all the signs for produce and meat were in Spanish, and everything was sold by the Kilo instead of Pound. Luckily I remembered my metric stuff and realized a kilo is about 2.2 pounds. However, that didn’t help me with the fact that I had no idea what the Spanish word for Onion, Potato, or Asparagus was. So all the signs said such and such was 11.56 per kilo but I had no idea what sign went with what. Finally Vickie in her infinite wisdom said, why don’t you just get what you want and quit worrying about how much a pound it is. Turns out, things were pretty cheap when we finally got to pay for it all, but it was quite a challenge figuring out what was what to buy it. So here we sit with something that looks like Squirt or Fresca, in a 2 liter bottle, that shows this cool diagram of how rain turns into mineral water on the side, and a picture of some non descript citrus fruit on the front. The label reads something like Agua Mineral de Manantial then Nuevo then the name Penafiel followed by sabor, Toronja. Hopefully one of my more bilingual friends will be able to translate this for me when I get home. One more cool thing. Turns out that at low tide, which is currently in the morning and late afternoon, you can walk miles out on the exposed sand, and dig up something called butter clams. Bickie said she is going to harvest our hor de orves for dinner one night.
More later,
Wes and Bickie
More later,
Wes and Bickie
El Dorado Ranch #1
Well here we are sitting on the deck of our Casita (which I’ve decided means very small castle with good view) overlooking the Sea of Cortez. We had a great day yesterday getting here. It was very interesting traveling down from San Diego. We also had a good time in San Diego. We went on the 2 hour harbor cruise, and saw all kinds of stuff. (The nuclear carrier Nimitz, dozens of other naval ships and submarines, the shipyard where the Exxon Valdez was built, then rebuilt after the big oil spill, one of the new largest oil tankers under construction, a nuclear fast attack sub in dry-dock, and all manner of other sights) Then we drove north along the coast, ate lunch at this cool place called The Shack, and returned down through Coronado and Imperial Beach. We got going yesterday (Sunday) pretty early, and took route 94 out of San Diego, which drops south toward the Mexican border through the mountains. The scenery was unbelievable, sort of what I’d picture seeing on an alien planet. Most of the time we were driving through literally nowhere, and hadn’t had breakfast yet. We finally came to a little crossroads that had a sign on the fence that said “Potero Diner Now Open. We turned off and went about 2 miles down the road and found the Twin Lakes Campground Diner, once again, literally in the middle of nowhere. It had an A sanitation rating, so we stopped. Food was great, friendly folks, and an owner with what Vickie called “a good shape”. She was part Indian and part Hispanic, and I’d have paid money to watch her put her jeans on. We then continued on toward our intended border crossing at Calexico CA. We had to get off 94 and onto I-8 for about 15 miles, but then we got back off onto 92 to finish our trip to Calexico. The whole route turned out to be one of the more scenic drives we have been on. We passed a fruit stand that said 10 Haas avocados for $1.50 and at home it’s a $1.69 for 1 avocado. We gassed up in Calexico (a good thing, cause there was literally nothing on our trip south) and the little Toyota got about 28 mpg which was including 85 miles of stop and go city driving the day before. (The car we have is a little 4 door 06 Corolla, with only 750 miles on it when we picked it up. Drives well, is relatively quick, speedometer only goes to 110 and will bury that, and is pretty comfortable.) We then proceeded to the border crossing with all our documentation in hand only to have the Mexican border guards cheerfully wave us through. I guess they don’t care much about Americans coming to Mexico, as long as they are bringing plenty of US Dollars. The character of the traffic changed immediately after we crossed the border. What I’d read was true—the Mexican drivers are quite aggressive, and seem to have interesting new uses for stuff we have not heard about. The horn is actually a driving tool having secret codes that I’m not yet privy to. Also to them the accelerator is used in alternation with the brake, with either one used only in a range of 90 to 100%. As we drove South through Mexicali, which is the Capital city of Baja, we were amazed at the poverty and devastation. Often it looked like pictures I have seen of a war, but there wasn’t one going on. Falling down abandoned buildings were everywhere and the trash lying around, almost universally, was unbelievable. As we left the city, abruptly we were on a road through the desert with nothing, as far as the eye could see. The scenery here was quite different than we had seen earlier that day. Most of the route travels in and out of a dry lake bed that is dead flat for miles. Also here were very jagged black mountains which looked quite young. (as mountains go) As I said before, there was nothing between leaving Mexicali and San Felipe. The side of the road was heavily littered with trash the whole way, and often the abandoned car, usually upside down and stripped. Along the way we discovered an unusual Mexican truck driver custom. The truck would move over into the left lane (two lane road) which is the indication for you to pass him on the right. Thinking about it, it is a quite practical process much safer than me trying to see around them then flying by. When we got to Eldorado Ranch, we were pleasantly surprised. It is a cool place. We were a little early for check in so we asked for directions to the closest bar. After an hour or so of “attitude adjustment” we were ready to check in. Once again we were pleasantly surprised. Our little Casita was the best of the lot, and has everything we need. We have a deck overlooking the beach, and facing the sunrise. We watched it this morning, and it was really great. Don’t know when I’ll be able to send this—not sure about where there might be Internet service here. But, got it down and will send it when I can.
Wes and Vickie (or Bickie as the Mexicans call her)
Wes and Vickie (or Bickie as the Mexicans call her)
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