Cruising ~ The Cat’s Meow Style ~ October, 2009

Completion of the trip

We made it! Our little RV did very well, after we spent some time and mooola on her in Texas, and we covered about 13 thousand miles during our Summer Adventure! Lotsa gasoline, lotsa miles under those tires, lotsa new sights, and many great reunions with family and good friends. What a grand way to spend about three months! The last few weeks were spent in southern California, sort of trying to finish up some business, get boat parts repaired, work on the RV for the hard trek down the Baja, and some awesome provisioning Stateside.

Finally, on or about October 5^th, we were ready to cross the border. We made the crossing at the small village of Tecate – yes, the home of the Tecate brewery. This is a nice place to cross the border because it is soooo small and usually has very little border traffic, in either direction. Since we were in a RV, after we got the green light to cross, the border guy on the Mexico side waved us over to the side. He just wanted to see the RV, we are purrrrty sure!

The road from Tecate to Ensenada is a nice easy drive, through the wine country (yes…Mexico does in fact make some nice wines, and this is a tasty little wine-country-road to explore the small boutique wines). Right now, however, the road is under some heavy construction. It will be very nice when finished.

We decided to take our time driving the Baja road. It is only a two-lane road, with a number of large busses and large trucks that travel this, the only north-south road the length of the peninsula. It is slightly wider than in earlier years, and more of it has been recently re-paved, but it is still quite hilly and twisty in many places. So…we decided to take our time and make it a three-day trip to Puerto Escondido.

A long, lonely, straight portion of the desert Baja road Desert scenery ~ not the cerios cactus with the tassle on top

Hurricane Jimena had made land-fall on the Pacific coast of the Baja, near Magdelena Bay. The storm crossed the width of the peninsula before hitting the Pto. Escondido, Loreto, Mulege, and Santa Rosalia areas on the eastern coast of the Baja. It was as if a line had been drawn in the desert: with one side of the line dry and brown, the other side of the line very lush and green! It is gorgeous when the desert is green! The different cacti just love to show off, and there are lots of red, yellow, and purple flowers. What a sight!

This is how the desert looks after a hurricane blows (and rains) through

Some other sights seen along the way:

A roadside café….. …one way to move a horse….

Aaaaahhhh yes…….. we finally did make it home, to our wonderful floating oasis, The Cat’s Meow. She was waiting for us, on the mooring in Cocktail Cove, part of Puerto Escondido. She had been checked and looked after by some people in the harbor, and she was just fine when we climbed aboard. We have never been away from our home for so long….and that made it even sweeter to return to her after such a long absence.

We are home. We are settled…..although it took about three days to move everything from the RV to the boat!! O my, we had bought quite a few things along the way…… J Eventually, it all was stowed somewhere, and we still have a place to sleep! The RV is in the parking lot of the Singlar buildings, we are once again enjoying the company of many good boating & community friends. All is well.

The “gorillas” look after us, here in Puerto Escondido, every day

We hope that you feel as good being in your home, wherever it is, as we do in ours. We wish for you many fun excursions, and we hope you will come back soon to see what else comes up with us…….Cruising ~ The Cat’s Meow Style…….