January 4, 2008 Onward

We were in Los Angeles for a few days having our coach tinkered with before crossing into Mexico. Our friend Miguel who lives here is a champion GMC mechanic who always works on the coach before we go and when we come back. We met him the first year we had our GMC at the GMC International Rally in Las Vegas. He saved us when we had a breakdown and had to replace a ball joint, part of the front end suspension.

Miguel lives in LA (Rancho Cucamonga) and has a lot full of GMCs. We have been here for 3 sleeps, or should I say nights of little sleep. There is a train near by that toots and whistles - a lot - and there is a freeway nearby that makes continuous dull whrrring noise. Is this white noise? We are used to silence with the occasional hoot owl outside the bedroom window.

There has been/'is a rain warning for the past 2 days.... no rain yet but it finally looks like it will come today. There are warnings of heavy rain, flash flooding and mud slides, particularly in the area where the fires were last summer, which is of course right where we are heading. We will be safe, we are going to hole up at a very nice RV park at a Casino in Temecula until the rain danger passes before heading into Mexico.

On the other hand is this one of those weird panicky warnings like the one on the “s” hooks that I just bought to attach my panniers to my bike? – “Wear safety glasses when using a hammer…. Do not use where personal safety or valuable property could be endangered…. Misuse can result in serious injury or death”…. Seriously. I am quoting right from the package. Are they inciting panic strictly to get you glued to the news to hear what’s going to happen next? To sell papers? Or because they think people are just stupid and will go walking in the arroyos in the rain or will use a tiny “s” hook on their bungee jumping harness unless pumped into a panic state? I don’t know.

We went for a bike ride after arriving at the Pechanga Resort/Casino/Hotel/RV Park. When we stopped at a little store for a paper the merchant warned us to be very careful; when the rain comes down in sheets it can be very dangerous here. He recommended that we should head for shelter right away and not to ride in the rain.

Well, we made it back home safely before the rain hit. It hasn’t been too bad, there is water in the arroyos, but not much. We will not venture into Mexico until this storm passes however, as we road winds along mountain ridges with steep valleys on both sides and now there are severe wind warnings for the mountains (90 mph winds which are 135 km/h for metric people) as well as snow warnings. They have warned against driving the mountain passes in a motor home or trailer as we provide a fairly large sail.

So - tomorrow we move on to Tecate (border town) we will walk across the border, get our visas, walk back and then go camp at Potrero County Park - right in the middle of last summers burn zone and cross over the border Monday morning. This will put as far south of the border as we can drive in a day to where there is a safe campground.