Snowbirds Getting Ready to Roost

We left Utah bright and early yesterday morning. Our destination was Parker, AZ, where we had left our Suzuki Samurai in the hands of Rod, a Suzuki mechanic wizard, after the 4 WD drive rally in Kingman. The goal was for him to figure out why the Samurai was such a dog on the highway--maximum speed was 60 mph, and that was downhill with a tailwind. No, I'm not exaggerating. When we left it there after the initial consultation, Rod had several guesses about what it would take to fix it; they ranged wildly in price--from replacing some do-hickeys in the carberator for around $200 to redoing all the gears for $1000. We were holding our breath, until word came that it was carberator thingeys and that the final bill would be $350 dollars. Whew! Funny how a $350 repair can sound cheap.

After Steve's back had been protesting for several hours, we decided to stop and spend the night in Needles, CA, about 70 miles from Parker. Needles isn't exactly a major tourist attraction, and we didn't think we'd have trouble finding a cheap motel, even with two dogs. Wrong! The two Best Westerns we tried first wanted $100 a night, even with the AARP discount. We then pulled into the Needles Inn, a little private place that didn't look too bad. They wanted $53, which seemed about $20 too high, but Steve's back was telling him that he needed to get out of the car NOW. The place was a dump. A clean dump, at least, but definitely in the "dump" category. They didn't bother even bolting the pictures to the wall--they knew nobody would want them. The place was under new management and had been recently repainted by what looked like a couple of junior high students. But at least it was clean, and close to a pretty good Mexican restaurant, which made Steve happy.

We picked up the Samurai in Parker this morning, and it got a true road test on the way to Prescott. True to Rod's word, it went 65 on the highway, only dropped to 60 when there was a headwind, and actually made it up a steep, curvy mountain road at a reasonable speed. We got to Prescott at around 3 p.m anfd transferred all the stuff we had brought from home from the Honda into the RV. We had a nice supper of corn chowder and spinach salad with my sister-in-law, Dawn,m and niece, Arin, and then just relaxed until bedtime. Tomorrow I'll make a Costco run and we'll head down to Sun City West to visit my folks and drop off the Honda.

The Rest of the Mexico Story

I'm writing this a month later, back in Salt lake city. It's 17 degrees outside, snow is on the ground, and we are heading off this morning for Arizona and Baja. We enjoyed our little jaunt to San Carlos a lot. I took the dogs for daily long walks on the beach, and came home with a bagful of perfect seashells for my son Ted's aquarium and an even bigger (and heavier!) bag full of rocks for my other son Chris's aquarium, which covers almost an entire wall of his living room. They were both pretty excited when they opened them up Christmas morning.

The ketch we went to look at was a disaster. Even Steve was nonplussed at how run down it was and how much work and money it would need to get it into any kind of shape to sail. Pretty much everything in it was either broken, torn, dirty, or worn out. Steve figured it would take another $10,000 and several months of intensive labor to get it, well, shipshape. Neither of us were interested in that. Still, it was fun to be in Mexico again, and the trip made us eager to go back to Baja and hang out on the beach. We'll be doing that for the month of February, so stay tuned.

Mexico!!

After we left Kingman, we dropped off all our extra vehicles at my brother Jeff's house in Dewey and headed south. We spent a nice Sunday with our son, Chris, and his girlfriend, Sharon. Sharon cooked an amazing beef tenderloin dinner for us, and an equally fabulous breakfast, which I was unable to eat because I was sick with what turned out to be (I think) a weird migraine. After breakfast, Steve bundled me out to the Royal Palms, and I sipped chamomile tea (thoughtfully provided by Sharon) and felt sorry for myself all day while we drove to Patagonia State Park, which is near Nogales, AZ. This is a place I'd like to go back to, when we have the time and I'm feeling better. A pretty campground right on the lake. It's a prime birdwatching area, and the rangers lead birdwatching hikes around the lake all year round. There are moonlight hikes too, which sound cool, and poontoon boat tours of the lake. It would be fun to paddle our kayaks here. Maybe this winter.

This morning, after an Imitrex wiped out the last of my headache, we set out for San Carlos, Mexico. We crossed into Nogales, Mexico, without any trouble, and picked up our tourist visas. My Spanish isn't what it used to be (not that it was ever very good) and the immigration guy's
English wasn't much better than my Spanish. I tried to explain to him that even though we were only going to be in San Carlos a few days, we were coming back to Mexico in February and wanted the 6 month visa. He didn't understand, and we ended up with the (free) 7 day visa instead of the $26 six month one. Not a huge deal, but it means that we'll have to get another one when we go to San Felippe in February.

The drive to San Carlos was longer than we had expected (took 7 hours), but was also much prettier. We had expected the dry desert country of Baja; Sonora, at least the part we are in, is greener and more scenic, with rolling hills. The highway is better too.However, the few towns we did go through reminded us of how much we dislike the topes (speed bumps). San Carlos itself is a pretty little town on Bahia (bay) de San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez. You can see Guaymas, a larger town, farther down the bay. Totanaka RV park, where we are staying, is right across the street from the beach. I took the dogs for a long walk by the sea late this afternoon. The sun was setting over on side of the bay as a huge full moom was rising over the other side. It was gorgeous. Later, Steve and I walked to a restaurant and sat at a table outside, overlooking the bay. We feasted on shrimp tacos and sipped margaritas while a mariachi band serenaded us at our table. Your'e supposed to tip them if they sing to you; I wasn't sure how much to give them so I gave them a $5 bill. They were pretty impressed--passed it around, saying"Muy Bueno," so I guess I overtipped. Did I mention that the weather is warm and sunny here and people are walking around in shorts and T shirts? I'm never coming home.