It just gets greener and greener

The further south we go the less it looks like a desert!  Remember if you double click on a photo you can see them larger and as a slide show.

There are so many butterflies it defies description except to say there are a multitude of kinds, many different colors, and sizes of butterflies fluttering constantly in our view.  This one was stuck on our windshield wipers.  One year we drove through migrating monarchs.  This is different.  These butterflies are milling about, fluttering around doing what butterflies do, not going in any particular direction.

This weekend is the Baja 1000.  It will end up in La Paz.  Amazing vehicles are towed from all over the US and Mexico to participate in this incredible race through the desert.  These vehicles clearly cost much to build and maintain and I don't know that the prize money really amounts to much.

There is always another spectacular view of the Sierra Gigantes!

and another one.

The cardon forest is dwarfed by the competing undergrowth of other cactus and vines.

More....

and still more....

This hardly looks like a desert...

A lovely spot for a house but what about that water?

A beautiful bay

the white at the bottom of the picture is the edge of the road, I am taking this out the window of the motor home as we drive over the Gigantes.  You can see the road we have traveled below.  It is very steep and twisty - and a long ways down.  Taking pictures out the side window helps me to not startle Lorne by gasping at how close we come to the edge of the road if I look ahead and pay attention to him driving.

flashes of colorful flowers bloom by the side of the road.

its so blurry because we are driving and I am pointing the camera down beside us.  

One of many shrines beside the highway.

   Just pretty...

and more colorful flowers..

Tomorrow (November 9) we will be in Los Barriles....  then I will post some pictures of the house.

Happy New Year!

Yes today is January 1, 2013 and I still have not caught up on my notes and musings from the trip down the Baja.... so I must continue and no its not a New Years Resolution.  I must say though we had a most delightful evening last night with Brenda and Randy, friends from Astoria.  We danced to classic rock and roll under a palapa at Otra Vez with the band called Needlefish.  They are great.  We really enjoy them, they are all excellent musicians and the place was hopping fun!  Tonight we met Jenny and Joe for drinks and then walked down to Tio Pablo's; a great restaurant here for their New Years day specials.  We  enjoyed excellent food for little money, got to like that.

Ok, now where were we....  day two or three driving down the Baja ....

This is the Bay of Conception, south of Mulege on the Sea of Cortez side.  The color of the water is spectacular.  Beautiful.  Its so warm I am longing to just leap in that water.  But no, we keep on driving...

More Sea of Cortez - Conception Bay

The desert is beautiful and green

Driving down the hill to one of the most spectacular beaches where you can camp for about $5 a night.  This beach used to be lined with grass houses - truly.  Some of them very elaborate two story jobs.  But the Ejido (Indigenous collective) decided they had to go.  One story is that they thought they had a deal for a big hotel to go in here - but that hasn't happened and now the Ejido doesn't have the income from the Gringos' rent for their little patch of sand to build their grass houses on.

Peaceful flat water.  You can see the green flush on the rock island in the bay,

This is El Burro, another beach were there is cheap camping and quite a few grass houses. There are some stone houses here too.  A very picturesque spot to spend some time.

The cardon are surrounded by very tall undergrowth.

The beautiful and rugged Sierre Gigante mountains.

It happened one morning when.....

we were just south of Vincente Guerro at Don Diego's, our first night into Baja.  I was waiting for Lorne to get the motor home all organized to leave and decided to quickly photograph a few interesting plants we found on our walk the night before...

I have no idea what this is....

but it has an interesting flower and interesting fruit!  Not that I tasted it.....

This is some kind of fairy duster flower and its seed pods.

a treasure of a reflective/meditation/religious service place....





and then I spied some......

CHICKENS!  BEAUTIFUL CHICKENS!

Now who knows why these became a delight to me but I took off in hot pursuit to photograph them.  As you can see, they were very large and colorful plus there were two roosters with fabulous plumage!

They didn't much want to be photographed,

I think they were a bit shy....

Which way?  Which way?

Then they marched off into the brush and I realized that I had been gone awhile...... Lorne will be looking for me..... I neglected to tell him what I was doing..... oops....

by the way, if you double click on a photo you should be able to have them come up to a larger size as a slide show.  I know chickens are endlessly fascinating....

On a Roll Now.... Into Baja November 5, 2012

Beauty of the Desert

The agriculture development in Northern Baja is quite spectacular.  Since the US decided they should get rid of the illegal Mexican labor force the change in development in Baja is quite outstanding.  There are many successful farming operations; likely some US companies have come to start up large scale farming.  There are greenhouses, shade houses, miles of vegetables, particularly tomatoes, and much housing development   in the agricultural area south of  Ensenada.  This action of the US government appears to be good for the Mexican economy.  In addition, more people don’t have to leave their homes and families to work as illegal immigrants, fearful of being discovered and deported. 

These are shade houses, with their tops down....

Now there is real machinery in the fields!











There has been a good deal of rainfall over this past summer, and the change in the desert is certainly apparent the further south we drive.

The cows are happy, water in the ground....

I never get tired of these vistas.

Don;t be alarmed.  Its just a truck.  I know, its over the line and he doesn't have much room on the other size.  In fact, we don't either.  It is a bit unnerving and reason to slow down and pass carefully.  Lorne usually needs my direction to be careful and to slow down and to not go over the edge.... For the most part the truckers are very good drivers and can maneuver those big trucks around hairpin curves and pass little motor homes like ours with a breeze - except for the ones like Hector who have a little memorial shrine by the side of the road.

Its difficult to capture the beautiful color of the desert through the dirty windshield of a moving vehicle. However, it is truly spectacular.

The cactus to the right of the cardon is a small boojum tree(cirio) up close in full foliage   These cactus get get up to a height of 18 meters (60 feet) with a trunk of up to 5 decimeters (about 20 inches)  in diameter at the base.  They often have a topnot of yellow flowers.  They are very unusual trees that have no large branches.  Their leaves form within 72 hours after a rain on very short branches (visible in this picture).  When its dry the leaves yellow and fall off and the plant, like many other desert plants, becomes dormant.  I have hundreds of pictures of them.

   The cardon plant next to the boojum is the tallest plant on Baja, growing upwards of 79 feet in height.

This is an unusual site on the Baja - a line painting truck.  The first we have ever encountered.

The distant haze is merely cloud cover - there is no air pollution as there are no people for hundreds of miles.

This is red volcanic rock from the volcanoes shown below - the Three Virgins.

The Three Virgins.   These volcanoes erupted last in the 1700s.  There is some kind of geo-thermo electric plant here.  Apparently you can drive in and check it out, we never have.

The Sea of Cortez.  This is El Requeson Beach, one of the most spectacular places to camp.  Great swimming, kayaking and snorkeling is found here.  There is a sand spit that leads over to a very interesting island where there is a lot of evidence of early Native settlement including shell middens and what appears to be the remains of small stone shelters.

The Sierra Gigante mountains.  These mountains are rugged and beautiful.  The change of light reflecting on them over the course of the day begs to be painted, photographed, or just admired.

More Shopping! November 3, 2012

More Shopping!

We found a great shopping area in San Diego (Furniture Row in San Marcos) and were very fortunate to find a very nice sofa and chair, yes with inclinators on the sofa of course!  Lorne’s favorite (not that I don’t enjoy curling up on the sofa with a good book……).  Just down the road from the sofa store we found a great deal on a memory foam mattress that seemed perfect. We made arrangements to send them on to the importer that we discovered in San Diego - ACV Logistics LLC.  They take care of all the customs/duty paperwork and transport, delivering the goods right inside the door.  Can't get much better than that.  

Our job is done!  Well almost, I had been searching for a stainless rice cooker and thought it would be ever so easy to find one on our way south.  Not true!  I finally ended up on the phone chasing one down at Bed Bath and Beyond in San Diego – at one particular store which was fortunately on our way.  Well, since I’m the navigator it was definitely on our way.  The internet is a wonderful thing.  I called the online store and they helped me to find one in one of their stores.  Hopefully it will be all we want it to be. 

On Schedule!

We are ready to cross into Baja at Tecate on Monday morning November 5.  We are actually ahead of schedule and should arrive in Los Barriles on Friday.  That will be some fast travelling for us. 

Lorne's great idea:  he removed the sofa from the motor home and we have filled up the space with stuff for the new house, all held together with a cargo net!  Hopefully that will keep it from shifting on these twisty roads.

At Last - Some Time to Write October 26 2012 Departure

We left Victoria October 26 this year.  Its so hard to leave the kids and grand-kids behind. We will miss them all very much.  The grandchildren grow and change so much while we are away.  Skype is good for staying in contact but it’s not the same.  Lindsay likes to chat and play her fiddle for us but Tristan is just a streak running by.  He is not keen on chatting on the phone or Skype.

Some sunrises we left at home:

An eagle has come to say goodbye:

Traveling:

We took the Anacortes Ferry.  It is so much easier than the BC Ferries – it gets us a little further south, and crossing the border is a breeze – no lineup other than the ferry lineup.  So – easy. 

We spent the better part of two days at Ikea in Portland (Oregon has no tax) – well it’s a very big store, we had a long list, and there were a lot of decisions to be made.  We didn’t get there till late in the afternoon so we shopped till dinner, cashed out and had dinner in the motor home, returning to shop till they closed.  They wouldn’t let us stay in their lot overnight so we had to go search out a Wal-Mart that would let us stay.  The first one we went to didn’t own the lot so they couldn’t allow as the owner of the mall had security on patrol and they wouldn’t permit it.  Another few miles drive down the road to another Wal-Mart was successful, and we had a good sleep in their parking lot.  We returned to Ikea in the a.m. and shopped some more!  Trying to get the essentials for a new house is daunting, many things in Baja Sur are more expensive and of poor quality, or simply not available.  It seems to vary from one year to the next, however, each year brings another new store, box store, and a larger variety of gringo friendly merchandise, including gluten free foods for Lorne. 

Coming down the grapevine into Los Angeles, in the daylight!  This has got to be a first!  Plus there is no snow; it’s a beautiful warm, very warm day!  We will be at Miguel’s tonight so hopefully he will fix whatever needs fixing on the motor home tomorrow and then we will be free to – do more shopping, visit friends and Goddaughter Megan and her family.