Feb 18th to the 28th. Carrots Turtles and Whales

West coast Baja to East coast Baja and back to the West coast.

We drove across the high plain of the central Baja down to the bay of Angels. Leaving El Rosario, we made sure we are full of fuel because there are no petrol stations for 200 miles. The tarmac road is narrow and really scary when a big rig with the driver on bonus and wakey wakey pills barrels past. The old gravel track which was the only way south till recently runs alongside the new road for long stretches and is a magnet for off road racers.

The climate and growing conditions favour a really bizarre cactus, called cirios or boojum trees. It was described to us as a giant upside down carrot. When I saw the first one I thought “Yup, carrot!” However these warm dry conditions were replaced by a wet, cold, windy and foggy day as we climbed to the abandoned camp site we planned to stop at.

We drove through the Catavinia region next day. A giant jumble of boulders with the an amazing variety and concentration of cactus before hitting a dryer desert as we rolled down to the Bahia De Los Angeles. Our first glimpse of The Sea of Cortez was a pristine vision of clean islands and blue sky, then the reality of Mexico returned, abandoned enterprises, shacky dwellings and everywhere litter and rust.


We enjoyed most of what was there but the turtle rescue operation left me with mixed feelings I am sure this guy just wanted out.










Carol’s bit

Went whale watching in the Scammon’s lagoon near Guerrero Negro. We were out for about an hour and could see them from a distance, spouting and breaching the water. Looked like we were stuck with long distance filming. Then from nowhere appeared mother and baby Californian grey whales. They stayed for about an hour whilst we stroked them and took pictures.
Every now and them they would spray us for fun or roll on their backs to be stroked. Whales carry parasites, which could be seen clearly. They are like little mouths that kept opening and closing to breathe, quite sci-fi and very unpleasant.



The whales will rub them off on any available surface, which happened to be the bottom of the boat we were in. Quite unnerving, if she had misjudged the pressure.

They were completely non aggressive, and very calming. It would be easy to slide over the side of the boat and swim with them, without feeling threatened.
When it was time for us to go, they seemed to know and backed off from the boat, they gave us a final bow and drifted away.
When we got back to shore the tide was out, so the boat couldn’t tie up at the jetty.
So it was shoes off, trouser legs rolled up and over the side to walk back to shore in the sea. Wasn’t very deep and the water is very salty as the lagoon is situated in salt flats, so it was a very healthy wade back to shore.
It was a privilege for these beings to allow us to make friends with them, they are under no threat from humans here and hopefully never will be.

CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO CLIP.

John's bit

"Life history: Unlike other large whales, gray whales concentrate in shallow protected lagoons to have their young. The most famous of these is Scammon's Lagoon, named after the whaling captain who first discovered the calving areas. Breeding occurs mainly in late November and early December on the southward migration. A single calf is born in late December to early February of the following year, after a gestation period of about 13 months. Most females bear calves once every two years. Newborn calves are about 16 feet (4.9 m) long and weigh about 1,500 pounds (680 kg).

Gray whale calves grow very rapidly on their mother's milk (which is over 50 percent fat) and are about 28 feet (8.6 m) long by August when they are weaned. Growth slows as the whales reach sexual maturity at about age 8 but continues until the age of 40. Adult whales are about 36 to 50 feet (10-15 m) long and may weigh 16 to 45 tons (15-41 metric tons); females are larger than males at any given age. Although some may live as long as 70 years, 40 or 50 years is the usual lifespan." Author Kathy Frost

Our female looked to be one of the larger ones there and was a lot longer than our speedboat.

Charro’s bit.

Now where can I bury this lot?

Bufadora in the Baja

Carol’s bit

Got to Mexico yesterday, Tecate, went through as fast as possible, you don’t drive at night here or park in vulnerable places. Parked at a nice little RV park, and we found GRASS the real stuff, so Charro had lots of smells this morning. We had a frost too, I thought we were coming to the warm sun.
Went into Encinada today , quite a nice shopping precinct very clean and guess what !
I know where C & A went.
Got down to Bufadora, a peninsula off the main road. There was a nice little market there,
and the market traders are genuinely friendly and there were some nice things on sale. We try not to buy stuff because there is nowhere to put it and we don’t need it. We sold most of our stuff before we came, no sense in collecting more. We are personalising the RV though, so we got a small wall plaque that depicts the Mayan calendar and put it over the door. We bought some Churros for breakfast ( sugared doughnut sticks ) very healthy. The ground is rough here on the Peninsula but we managed to park for the night next to a field in the market car park, and managed to collect some nice wild flowers. There are some very attractive plants here, but we dare not keep any permanently in the RV they will be taken from us at the US boarder.
Someone was selling Bassett pups, one of them was just wandering around the shop. I gave him a cuddle and he wouldn’t let go, I don’t think Mexican dogs get too much affection, they bark , therefore they are useful for guarding what little the people have.
There are packs wandering around, but I think they belong to different people, they are fed and have to find there own bed somewhere on the property, and it the law of the fittest and smartest.

John’s Bit

Bufadora was good with the blowhole being pretty spectacular.
We only had a 5 foot surf yet we were getting 50 foot plus blows, just like a giant breating.

We have a free to air satellite system but it has been really hard to get it to set up and working. We are at the limit of our dish’s ability to capture the signals so anytime we move around or a butterfly flaps it’s wings we lose the signal. That plus some software issues has had me tearing my hair out and picking wildflowers to mellow out from the stress of working out from a badly written handbook what to do next.

Still last night was a breakthrough, we got 400 channels [and still nothing to watch]

San Diego to Mexico

Santa Ana Mountains It has been SNOWING!

San Diego; We had to go there to pick up a box for our satellite system and made a few other stops but we are both glad to get out.

Too many clones/people/cars/shopping malls and almost everybody was rude or disinterested. It was quite a shock after the excellent service we had had through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and the south east corner of California. There were exceptions, the staff in Vons a branch of Safeways were first rate as were the ladies in WalMarts Tyre and Lube department who diagnosed a fault in our house batteries and produced a replacement while dealing with a customer who had had her purse stolen and was in full, Hollywood, nervous breakdown mode.

Portero State Park As we drove up to the Mexican border we could see the effects of the wildfires that have ravaged this area in the last few years. Even the park itself had not escaped.


Some trees showing fire damage but with new growth and others were just cinders and blackened shards.

Mexico

Carol’s bit

Got to Mexico yesterday, Tecate, went through as fast as possible, you don’t drive at night here or park in vulnerable places. Parked at a nice little RV park, and we found GRASS the real stuff, so Charro had lots of smells this morning. We had a frost too, I thought we were coming to the warm sun.


Went into Encinada today , quite a nice shopping precinct very clean and guess what !





I know where C & A went.








Charro's Bit
I want to know where the grass has gone. We are here in gravel again.

The fat one said it is nice and safe here but I think it is just because it does not cost much. He is sooooo cheap.


OK it is quite funky here but I want my grass! The view might be good and the local house a bit different but there is NO GRASS.

Carol’s bit.

The wolf reserve was disappointing, I have been to better in England.

There are five young males kept together in one, not big enough compound. They are all related, as they are different generations of the original alpha pair. Born in captivity, they will never leave the compound. The reasoning behind this is to keep them as wild and natural as possible. There is nothing natural about captive breeding, or keeping wild animals in a dog compound. There are females here but are mixed with the males when convenient, in other words to use as incubators. One of the Rangers admitted that this “pack” was for educational purposes for the public.
The first thing that we were shown, was the pelt of the original Alpha male, who to my mind deserved to be buried intact, out of respect. The public can see a pelt moving around if they look at the wolves that are still alive.
We will be going to Yellowstone , where there are a wild packs running free, if we see them , they will not be behind chain link fencing.

The reserves in England include Whipsnade Zoo. The compound that the wolves are kept in goes back quite a long way from the public view, the wolves will often disappear to the back when the public turn up. I have been to the back of the compound with one of the keepers, and there is a lot more hiding places at Whipsnade than here.

Another place is Reading. The keepers are also mostly volunteers also. These wolves are usually rescue wolves, and they too will never be released. The difference here is that they go out for walks in Reading woods. The public can go too in pre-arranged
groups. No-one can wear leather or suede ( the wolves will tear it off) and they are walked on chains by experienced handlers, a dog lead won’t hold them, they are incredibly strong. Once members are used to going they can also handle the wolves.
The difference with taking wolves for a walk, is that you don’t, they go where they want to go and you follow on the end of the chain. People walking their dogs in the woods are warned to keep away. Wolves will kill dogs. In the wild they see them as a source of food, and apparently have learned to send in a female on heat to lure the unsuspecting pet into the jaws of the waiting pack.
I told the handler here about the Reading pack going for walks, and he said it wasn’t natural to do that, and they wanted to keep their wolves wild. Something wrong with that picture, at least the Reading wolves have some freedom, they interact with people to a point and have fun and stimulation pulling clods of earth out of the pond, and finding different smells . If they were to be released it would be entirely different. The wolves from this pack are taken to agricultural shows where the public are allowed to handle them under supervision. It is a very effective way of educating people about them.
Wolves have a raw deal, always have had. They have wonderful pack laws, which humans could take lessons from. It’s a pity they are used as target practice by people accusing them of “trespassing” on their ! land.
Wolves have a right to be here, as does everything else.

Quartzsite to Julian

We are waking up in Joshua Tree National Park in southern California this morning. It is crisp. It is clear. It is completely quiet. But best of all it is California sunshine on our backs as we take our old boy for his morning amble. We drove down from Arizona last night leaving the dust of Quartzsite behind us.

QUARTZSITE

This was one of the places that came up over and over again when I was researching where to go and what to do while in the USA. It is a phenomenon; a tiny town of 3,500 people in August which becomes Arizona’s fourth biggest city in January. There are RVs parked cheek to jowl for miles and miles. There are tent cities supplying every possible need. There are areas where you can park for free and others where it is a dollar a day. People set up camp with the friends they have been meeting here for 10 years and create ephemeral desert gardens others join jam sessions or line dancing groups across the expanded mobile metropolis.

It was dusty, a bit scruffy but surprisingly free of litter. We were able to park close to the “Big Tent Show “ and went to see the custom cars and hot rods on show. There were no parking charges or admittance charges, no officious little people waving pointing and holding things up. No policemen were on traffic duty. We did see a Quartzsite police car, which comes with a spectacular paint job that would suit an American stock car, but it was parked outside a doughnut stand. Everything seemed self policing, good natured and it just worked.






The hot rods were spectacular and I have included pics. of some of my favourites.


We came across a potential replacement for the Trek, at least in Carol’s mind. These are available in kit form, sleep two and have a cooker and sink in the back. Who needs anything more. [ ME!]

Many of the stands concentrated on stones for jewellery and the ancillary components for that was the original purpose of the gathering. You could buy a giant sectioned geode for 15,000$ or a polished stone egg for 50 cents. Some traders were only there for the weekend, others arrived in November and would leave in May.

As a result of Carol’s hard work we now have customised semi precious stone key fobs hanging on our rack.

We are staying some nights on BLM [Bureau of Land Management ] land. They have so much low grade land here that the government stepped in and took over ownership. People are allowed to use it for free or a peppercorn rent. We have spent some really peaceful nights out in the lonely desert.

Joshua Tree National Park is about 20 miles wide and 40 miles long. We could spend a week here and still have stuff to see. We walked down into the Cottonwood Oasis and thought of how many thirsty people and animals over the centuries would have been relieved to get here and find that the wells still ran clear and cool.

We drove across the park which takes you up about 2000 feet in altitude and this changes the type of desert from Mohabe to Colorado. The vegetation changes were very evident especially in the spectacular Cholla garden. We walked around the garden and marvelled at how a tiny change in elevation and exposure could bring about a total domination by one species. We have a piece of Cholla skeleton as decoration in the Trek.

Salton Sea We drove down from the Park to this accidental sea. In 1905 a section of a canal bank gave way and over the next two years the Colorado river flowed into this long dry lake bed 250 feet below sea level. They fixed the bank but the water has hung around being replenished by the run off from local farms who irrigate very extensively. The level is dropping, the lake is getting saltier but it still supports huge barnacle, fish and bird populations It was great but we had a date with some wolves in a small town called Julian.

KQ Ranch Campground Friday the 8th of February. We arrived in Julian to see snow on the roadside and then at the campground snow beside our site. There had been 8 inches last week. The campground is next to the wolf refuge and it seemed OK when we looked at it on the Internet but it does not look so good on the ground.

California Wolf Refuge We visited the wolf refuge and came away with mixed feelings. The centre is certainly doing good work in providing a home for the remnants of the Mexican Wolf population. Their education program must be doing some good but our heart went out to the group of wolves living in a small enclosure with little room to roam. A couple of them were strikingly like Charro.





We will look around Julian tomorrow then head down to the border.

We are hoping to cross over into Mexico Tuesday or Wednesday and head down the Baja with Ensenada as our first town and first chance to find an internet connection.

Jan 24th to Feb 1st

Carol’s bit.

Went to Tombstone, the home of Wyatt Earp





I studied frontier history at school and often wondered what was fact and what was fiction. This is all fact.
The centre piece is the Birdcage saloon,
which was a theatre, bar, and bordello..
This is the only surviving building that is still intact, the rest of Tombstone main street has been reconstructed and turned into a shopping parade and tourist attraction.
The Birdcage has been turned into a museum, with a lot of original artefacts still there.
Lilley Langtrey performed here. (Apparently she is related to my ancesters from Scotland ,the McCallum clan.)






It was here that a famous poker game took place, it lasted 8 years, went on for 24hrs a day.




The woodwork is full of bullet holes and some of the bullets are still in the wood. One of the pictures (Little Egypt). also suffered the same fate, one of the punters decided to relocate her navel.
Further down the road is the house that Wyatt Earp and his long time girlfriend Sadie Jo lived in, she was one of the licenced working girls at the birdcage. This meant that she could only walk on the shaded side of the street by law. Hence the phrase " A shady lady".


The house has been renovated and is a showpiece with information about the couple and the history of Tombstone.
The main street has cowboys walking up and down, or riding,


and several stage coaches can be hired for a ride around the town.









There is a gun fight at the O.K corral
several times a day, and a tour to the silver mine. Several of the shops have historical information and artefacts, others are souvenir shops with a difference.
It was worth going to, and we will probably go back next year.

I have spoken to several people that have kept hybrid wolves, or pure bred wolves as pets, they all say the same, that they make very loyal and gentle pets. I suspect that the male wolves may not be predictable enough to keep, as at about two years old when they mature, they could become aggressive ,from what I gather from wolf conservation experts in England that run wolf conservation programmes. The people that I have spoken to over here, have had female wolves, although Shadow the hybrid Malamute was male, Huskies are more domesticated and he had a beautiful temperament, given the opportunity would love to be a lap dog.

John’s bit. We rumbled across southern New Mexico on the I-10 before getting into Arizona. After staying a night in a new State park called Kartchner we went to Tombstone as an afterthought because of Carol’s interest in frontier history and it was a great day out. We also visited Bisbee, just south of Tombstone and spent a happy morning wandering around the narrow twisting streets filled with antique shops and crafty little coffee houses before returning to Tombstone for another look at the shady ladies and the gunmen who paid 25 dollars a night for their company. That is the equivalent of 800 dollars today. Some one was making big bucks.

On Tuesday, I had a morning flying at the Catalina club in Tucson and am starting to dial in my new 3D model, the Yak. One thing that is hard to get used to with model clubs over here is that they are in the habit of flying early in the day to avoid the heat. It is OK just now but in summer when it is 100+F by midday, they will be at the field by 6.00am and gone by 10.30. We boondocked locally and were there early for us but people were already packing up as we arrived at 10.00am.

We had a quick tour of Saguaro National Park to see the famous cacti, which can be 200 years old, before heading to Colossal Cave Park run by Pima County. This park was an odd mix,
ranch, cave, campground, cafe and historical museum



















It is hard to see how they could justify keeping it open as there was almost no one staying there and when we got to the campgrounds we saw why. The only space allocated to 20 feet plus was up a very narrow twisty track which led to tiny sloping area with the promised water supply blocked off by boulders. Anyone needing water would have needed a very, very long hose.

We made it over to Quartzsite today and are off to explore the gem shows, craft shows and a custom car exhibition over the next few days. We are boondocking tonight in the Hi Jolly, Bureau of Land Management, free camping area. Charro has already been accosted by a local who wanted to know about his hips and his limp. Despite his limp he was pulling us along on his evening walk, obviously on the trail of something interesting and perhaps female. There is a 10 year old Akita a few campers away from us.

So far Arizona has impressed us and we are thinking about spending some or most of next winter here.