Here it is, the launch of our Maiden Paddle!! Well, after trying for an hour our connection is just not fast enough to let me post pictures ... not even one! I will see what we can do to speed it up later.
(written Friday January 26, 2007)
Ahh, kayaking – I think we have found a wonderful sport! I’m a born-again-kayaker! We were a bit discouraged when we first arrived as Santispac had a very brisk offshore wind. The next day was better and we enjoyed a short few hours on the water, however it was quite windy returning to shore, requiring a bit of muscle to paddle in. It felt a bit choppy too, on this our maiden paddle. My little mystic is wonderful; it is quite narrow and has a small cockpit but sits very comfortably for me. It does feel pretty tippy but I think I will get used to it quite quickly. I didn’t have any trouble keeping up to Lorne, in fact it was the reverse!, especially when I was using his much bigger paddle! Ha ha! I do like to zip along! Lorne is happy with his kayak but I would not be surprised if we buy another one for him fairly soon. Not sure yet what one it would be, have to do some more research.
Thursday was beautiful! We paddled for the whole morning and paddled over to another little gringo village on the beach just south of Santispac (complete with tennis court). (Posada Concepcion or Bahia Tordillo) This whole area has a lot of hot seeps and this village has made several attractive stone surrounds to make pools so you can sit in them. There is a large one right in the center of the village and several small ones along the shore. Santispac has its own little muddy hot spring that doesn’t look that appealing to me but our neighbors enjoyed it when the tide was high.
There was just a light off shore breeze which of course picks up as the morning wears on, so the trip home took a little more effort than going out. I went out for a late afternoon paddle too, the water was like glass and so crystal clear you could see down into that enchanting world of fish and sea creatures. These beaches are shallow for quite a ways out so much sea life was visible.
No cell service here or internet unless you carry your own satellite. Already being 800 lbs overweight that’s one essential item we do not carry! Sometimes there is someone who has an open WiFi we can hook into but this year, with all the changes on the beach, there was no one. However, Lorne found one over in the little village we had visited by kayak, and with his handy dandy new USB WiFi adaptor we were able to pirate into Jim’s satellite service if we walked way down to the end of beach where we had a clear site line over to the village. If we had brought a headset the signal was strong enough to use Skype. Thank you Jim whoever you are!
There have been many changes on this beach this year. For years gringos have enjoyed the freedom to build little beach front grass houses and last year there were many lining the shore, including some not so little, very elaborate two story ones complete with air conditioning. These houses were framed with wood and the walls were made of a grass or palm matting. They had to pay the Ejido a nominal fee, something like $10 per day for the pleasure. This year they were given notice they had to remove their houses and move off the beach as of the end of January. There were many sad people who were busy packing up their belongings and tearing down their houses to rebuild them at other beaches near by. Rays restaurant, also a palapa style building – sand floor, grass mat walls and palm palapa roof was burnt to the ground, rumour has it the Ejido offered to let him stay if he paid. He refused to pay and it is suspected that they played a hand in this fire while Ray was away on the mainland over Christmas. But, who knows, there are many stories in Baja and many mysteries yet unsolved.
There are three permanent houses built way down at the end of the beach. These are quite beautiful stone and adobe houses with elaborate stone walls around them. Apparently they were offered to buy the approximately ½ acre their houses are on for $120 thousand. This, in our opinion, is a reasonable price as these beautiful homes are worth at least ½ million or more. One family agreed to this and the other still has not! They are trying to sell the house at the moment. Interested? You might get a real deal! It will be interesting to see what happens to this beach in the future. There is much speculation as to what the Ejido have planned for it.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
More Pics.
Oh yes, I remember this road! Overlooking Bahia de Los Angeles, yes it is beautiful. Cactus forest, mostly datillilo and cardon.
Hopefully some warmth . . .
Here are some of the camerone at the Black Market in Ensenada. There were several booths with piles of various sizes.
See the snow we left behind? This is our RV site outside Mercy Hospital in Roseburg southern Oregon. Notice my Mystic (kayak) on the roof, Lorne's is on the other side.
I tried to post some pictures to the blog yesterday but no luck, as the connection was so slow. Better tonight, although it does take some time.
Well, so much for Bahia de Los Angeles. Nothing but wind, and very cold. Not as windy as it could be but too much for us to make our maiden kayak voyage. The problem was the wind was mostly blowing off shore and during the course of the day it just gets stronger, not less. If I have to struggle with wind I really would prefer to fight going out rather than struggle coming back in. And since we have only paddled in a pool…..
So we are on our way to Guerro Negro where they will take away all our fruits and vegetables at the agricultural inspection station north of town. We can buy new ones in town. We will stay the night and tomorrow make our way to San Lucas Cove and our next chance to get in the water. Hopefully we will see our old friend John there.
They have made some real headway on running the telephone wires up Baja; they are now almost at the turn off for Bahia de Los Angeles, or at least the poles are, and the wires are on their way. We passed a work crew of about 10 guys, two to each pole, one to climb up and the other to help sort out the wires and ropes the other guy was carrying up. No cherry pickers for these guys; and no harnesses or spurs either. They had to shinny up the pole using a heavy rope fashioned into a double loop. I was truly too stunned to take a picture! More than a bit scary – our friend Lois would have been impressed – she could have shown them a thing or two I am sure.
A great deal of the coastal agave is in bloom along this route. The desert changes frequently; from Bahia de Los Angeles it was predominately boojum, then for quite awhile it was elephant trees together with yucca, along with the boojum; then it turned to predominately datilillo (tree yucca). This is a most useful tree – according to the Baja California Plant Field Guide: A tea from the flower buds is used to treat diabetes and rheumatism. The buds can be eaten like bananas. The flowers are cooked and ground for candy, the rootstock is used for soap and softening cowhides. The fibers are used to make sandals. The stalk is shredded for mattress material. The trunk is often used by ranchers as a living fence around a home garden or corral. Much of the barbed wire fences along here use the datillo, apparently you can just cut off a piece of it dig it in like a post, and it will usually reroot itself. The black ripened fruits were harvested and eaten by the natives after boiling or roasting.
Lorne’s cold is still hanging on. Now it is in his larynx and he sounds very croaky. He is eating Baja honey.
I tried posting a number of pictures last time but our internet speed was so slow it just didn’t work, hopefully we have a faster link tonight. It varies, I forgot about that…
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Into Mexico January 18
We crossed at Tecate without seeing anyone at the inspection booth, however, we got the green light so drove on through. Drove around and around looking for a parking place so we could go back to the border and get our Visa. Our usual method getting it ahead of time through Vagabundos (Mexico RV club) didn’t work this year for some unknown reason so we needed to get them ourselves at the border. Only trouble was no one was home. Really, no one knew where the Immigration guy was (or more importantly when he would be back). We were directed to Tijuana or Mexicalie but they said we could get them at Ensenada so we continued on our way. Turned out we had to pay a $7 fine and it took at least an hour, have to go one place to buy the forms (in triplicate), another to get the form stamped, over to the bank to pay and get another stamp, back to Immigration to get another form filed out and get them all stamped and to pay our fine. Oh my! Next year they tell us, we will not be able to get a Visa in Ensenada, it must be at the border.
Onward to the Black Market (that is the name of the Fish Market) on the Malecon to pick up some #1 camerone, about 4” long without the heads on (1kg for $14) and some beautiful crab claws (2 kg $10). I’m sure others dicker to get a better price but we were so thrilled to have it that we didn’t bother and paid what they asked. The crab looks a lot like the stone crab from Florida but its not the same, don’t know what kind it is, certainly not Dungeness. A great dinner! We love Mexico! And Ensenada is a great city.
Down the highway we motored and turned in at Las Canadas Campamento – a beautiful park with three swimming pools, water slides, mountain bike trails, fishing and boating lake and lots more. We were the only ones there – I think they cater to Mexicans in the summer time. They were very pleasant.
Tonight we are in El Rosario and off to the internet café, which was closed!
January 20, 2007
Onward to Santa Inis and Bahia de Los Angeles today– at last some water to get the kayaks in! I can hardly wait! Hope for no wind! It can really blow there, sometimes for weeks at a time. They also have an internet café within cycling distance of where we camped last year at the turtle beach.
This is a very twisty road and much of it on the ridges of the high hills. Lorne the engineer is busy redesigning the road as we drive along. I am trying hard not to look at it, paying attention to the cactus and the terrain is enough for me. Lorne is not fond of my gasping as the wheels practically go off the road – particularly when we meet an oncoming semi.
This is the area of huge cardon cactus and the tall strange blooming boojum (cirio) trees. In spite of all the rain we heard the Baja had this year the desert looks quite dry and not as green as last year. So far the roads are no worse than last year. This is quite extreme desert, far from any major town, there are occasional small pueblos and ranches. It’s a puzzle what the people do here to survive. There doesn’t appear to be any veg. gardening going on and not many cattle around.
The further we drive along the road gets somewhat straighter and less extreme up and down; the cardon and boojum grow taller and thicker and stretch on for miles in all directions, and the larger and more numerous the boulders become; until they are as big our motor home. It is a very strange and beautiful area called the Catavina Boulder Field.
Once a bit south of Catavina the boulders thin out and the desert is much more desolate. This section of the road has a yellow line, not in the center of the road but a yellow line none the less. Have I mentioned that the lanes are 9 ½ feet wide and the motor home is 8 ½ feet wide? On the Baja And there are no shoulders, there are more consistently white lines on the edge of the road that our first trip down two years ago, but truly that is where the road ends. Usually dropping off to a sheer cliff that is frequently decorated with the skeletal remains of a vehicle below. It could be that the height and width of our motor home makes this road much more scary than it would be in a small car. Lorne is getting so casual at driving he drives along with one hand on the steering wheel and the other with a glass a coke, and this is gong around corners with a semi coming at us. I try not to look/gasp/shriek for fear of distracting him…..
Heading for Bahia de Los Angeles, great road barely any traffic (one car passed us), mostly flat and straight comparatively. Lots of diverse vegetation, boojum, datilillo, ocotillo, some blooming its orange flowers, cholla, elephant trees, cardon cactus, brittle bush blooming its daisy like yellow flowers, lots of the agave is flowering. There was one section where the boojum were covered with ball moss (gallito). It is a flowering plant related to the pineapple family.
There was a group of turkey vultures feasting on a dead cow. As we drove by the all flew up and away except for...Ooops, we came very close to having a turkey vulture on the windshield!! Yuk – that would be quite disgusting!
Arrived at Bahia de Los Angeles. Now, if only the wind would stop blowing we could make our maiden voyage in our new kayaks!
Onward to the Black Market (that is the name of the Fish Market) on the Malecon to pick up some #1 camerone, about 4” long without the heads on (1kg for $14) and some beautiful crab claws (2 kg $10). I’m sure others dicker to get a better price but we were so thrilled to have it that we didn’t bother and paid what they asked. The crab looks a lot like the stone crab from Florida but its not the same, don’t know what kind it is, certainly not Dungeness. A great dinner! We love Mexico! And Ensenada is a great city.
Down the highway we motored and turned in at Las Canadas Campamento – a beautiful park with three swimming pools, water slides, mountain bike trails, fishing and boating lake and lots more. We were the only ones there – I think they cater to Mexicans in the summer time. They were very pleasant.
Tonight we are in El Rosario and off to the internet café, which was closed!
January 20, 2007
Onward to Santa Inis and Bahia de Los Angeles today– at last some water to get the kayaks in! I can hardly wait! Hope for no wind! It can really blow there, sometimes for weeks at a time. They also have an internet café within cycling distance of where we camped last year at the turtle beach.
This is a very twisty road and much of it on the ridges of the high hills. Lorne the engineer is busy redesigning the road as we drive along. I am trying hard not to look at it, paying attention to the cactus and the terrain is enough for me. Lorne is not fond of my gasping as the wheels practically go off the road – particularly when we meet an oncoming semi.
This is the area of huge cardon cactus and the tall strange blooming boojum (cirio) trees. In spite of all the rain we heard the Baja had this year the desert looks quite dry and not as green as last year. So far the roads are no worse than last year. This is quite extreme desert, far from any major town, there are occasional small pueblos and ranches. It’s a puzzle what the people do here to survive. There doesn’t appear to be any veg. gardening going on and not many cattle around.
The further we drive along the road gets somewhat straighter and less extreme up and down; the cardon and boojum grow taller and thicker and stretch on for miles in all directions, and the larger and more numerous the boulders become; until they are as big our motor home. It is a very strange and beautiful area called the Catavina Boulder Field.
Once a bit south of Catavina the boulders thin out and the desert is much more desolate. This section of the road has a yellow line, not in the center of the road but a yellow line none the less. Have I mentioned that the lanes are 9 ½ feet wide and the motor home is 8 ½ feet wide? On the Baja And there are no shoulders, there are more consistently white lines on the edge of the road that our first trip down two years ago, but truly that is where the road ends. Usually dropping off to a sheer cliff that is frequently decorated with the skeletal remains of a vehicle below. It could be that the height and width of our motor home makes this road much more scary than it would be in a small car. Lorne is getting so casual at driving he drives along with one hand on the steering wheel and the other with a glass a coke, and this is gong around corners with a semi coming at us. I try not to look/gasp/shriek for fear of distracting him…..
Heading for Bahia de Los Angeles, great road barely any traffic (one car passed us), mostly flat and straight comparatively. Lots of diverse vegetation, boojum, datilillo, ocotillo, some blooming its orange flowers, cholla, elephant trees, cardon cactus, brittle bush blooming its daisy like yellow flowers, lots of the agave is flowering. There was one section where the boojum were covered with ball moss (gallito). It is a flowering plant related to the pineapple family.
There was a group of turkey vultures feasting on a dead cow. As we drove by the all flew up and away except for...Ooops, we came very close to having a turkey vulture on the windshield!! Yuk – that would be quite disgusting!
Arrived at Bahia de Los Angeles. Now, if only the wind would stop blowing we could make our maiden voyage in our new kayaks!
Snow
Here we are in snowy Roseburg (southern Oregon
) in our RV spot outside Mercy Hospital. Note my new kayak! Lorne's is on the other side.
) in our RV spot outside Mercy Hospital. Note my new kayak! Lorne's is on the other side.
Two Breakdowns Later
Taking the coast road was beautiful, especially the redwood forest we passed through (mostly when it was dark). The local cappuccino was almost as good as Jim’s. Timewise it saved us none and cost us more but at least we were not driving through a blizzard. Much of the road was twisty so slow going. Oh well. We will get there when we get there. Our master mechanic Miguel in Uplands (a city that seems to be part of Los Angeles) is scheduled to go to a big GMC rally in Quartzite on Monday the 15th so he wanted us to arrive on Friday the 12th. It will be the 12th but just barely at this rate!
As we were zipping merrily up the Grapevine – 4 lanes of heavy traffic (in one direction) all going at least 120 km/hr (and that is the speed limit) and climbing at least 4,000 feet; we were congratulating ourselves on how well the motor home has been running! – ohhhh yes, we know that is a mistake, especially going up a steep grade at 11:00 at night. Suddenly the motor started belching smoke into the cab releasing a horrible stench – I start shouting directions – we pull over to the side of the road onto the narrow shoulder – and :
a) we both leap out
b) only I leap out while Lorne sticks his head into the motor inside the motor home
Oh yes and what would you pick? What do you think happened? The answer dear friends is b. Truly! There is an access to the motor between the driver’s and the passenger’s seats and he had opened this up and had stuck his head right in there! Meanwhile this smoke and stench was filling the motor home. I was thinking - What is he? - nuts? I thought we were on fire and was waiting for it to blow up like in the movies.
He mutters something like – It’s steam… It smelled like smoke to me and was certainly black!
Did I mention it was very cold? Winter coat cold! After trying a number of things in the freezing cold that didn’t work we managed to pull the motor home over to a side road that we were lucky enough to be close to and spent the night. Of course in the morning Lorne knew exactly what was wrong and fixed it. It was the thermostat – it had stuck shut so the motor overheated – he took it out so the water could circulate.
A thermostat for the GMC is a $6 item so it was easily replaced once we got to Miguel’s the next morning.
Miguel worked tirelessly and by Monday we were on our way – that is until we were about 20 km down the road at a Walmart parking lot picking up last supplies before Mexico. Lorne went to start up and it would not go. Miguel had left already for the rally but we called him on his cell to get a recommendation of where to get help and he sent his son who arrived in about 15 minutes! It turned out to be the starter so we now have a new starter too.
So while it was bad luck to have these breakdowns at all it was very good luck that they were so easily fixed; were close to Miguel; and they did not occur in some remote area in the Baja. So – now we are truly on our way.
As we were zipping merrily up the Grapevine – 4 lanes of heavy traffic (in one direction) all going at least 120 km/hr (and that is the speed limit) and climbing at least 4,000 feet; we were congratulating ourselves on how well the motor home has been running! – ohhhh yes, we know that is a mistake, especially going up a steep grade at 11:00 at night. Suddenly the motor started belching smoke into the cab releasing a horrible stench – I start shouting directions – we pull over to the side of the road onto the narrow shoulder – and :
a) we both leap out
b) only I leap out while Lorne sticks his head into the motor inside the motor home
Oh yes and what would you pick? What do you think happened? The answer dear friends is b. Truly! There is an access to the motor between the driver’s and the passenger’s seats and he had opened this up and had stuck his head right in there! Meanwhile this smoke and stench was filling the motor home. I was thinking - What is he? - nuts? I thought we were on fire and was waiting for it to blow up like in the movies.
He mutters something like – It’s steam… It smelled like smoke to me and was certainly black!
Did I mention it was very cold? Winter coat cold! After trying a number of things in the freezing cold that didn’t work we managed to pull the motor home over to a side road that we were lucky enough to be close to and spent the night. Of course in the morning Lorne knew exactly what was wrong and fixed it. It was the thermostat – it had stuck shut so the motor overheated – he took it out so the water could circulate.
A thermostat for the GMC is a $6 item so it was easily replaced once we got to Miguel’s the next morning.
Miguel worked tirelessly and by Monday we were on our way – that is until we were about 20 km down the road at a Walmart parking lot picking up last supplies before Mexico. Lorne went to start up and it would not go. Miguel had left already for the rally but we called him on his cell to get a recommendation of where to get help and he sent his son who arrived in about 15 minutes! It turned out to be the starter so we now have a new starter too.
So while it was bad luck to have these breakdowns at all it was very good luck that they were so easily fixed; were close to Miguel; and they did not occur in some remote area in the Baja. So – now we are truly on our way.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Meanwhile back at home . . .
As I said previously the propane generator broke Monday night when Lorne was changing the oil. He took the head off and Bruce (our generator mechanic) picked it up the day we left – he will return it fixed, hopefully very soon. The night we left (Tuesday) about a foot of snow fell so Natasha had a challenge ahead of her getting to and from work. Relying on the gas generator till Bruce returns to fix the generator, she only had one or two tanks of gas and would have to pick up more at the gas station and hopefully be able to get the car up the hill to transport the needed gas. Hauling it up the hill is a daunting task!
Needless to say, when she returned from work the power was down – ie off – so it didn’t get charged up enough. She had to get the generator running, restart the power to the house and charge up the batteries, even though she charged it for a good length of time, the house went down again. Meanwhile more snow fell making it even more difficult for her to get up and down. She had to walk up and down so she could get to work, that’s two km of steep walking, and slippery and cold. Putting the chains (real ones) on the car is difficult and time consuming at best. So, we are currently worrying about her, hoping she has managed to get safely up and down, get the needed gasoline for the generator, get the batteries charged up and above all she is safe and warm. We have no cell service on this road and were unable to reach her this morning from a land line. So much for Natasha enjoying some time in our home – nothing but work and inconvenience for her so far! Plus she (and we) have the worry of our house freezing with the power going down resulting in serious damage to the heating/plumbing system. Sorry about all this Natasha! The joys of having an off-the-grid house!
Needless to say, when she returned from work the power was down – ie off – so it didn’t get charged up enough. She had to get the generator running, restart the power to the house and charge up the batteries, even though she charged it for a good length of time, the house went down again. Meanwhile more snow fell making it even more difficult for her to get up and down. She had to walk up and down so she could get to work, that’s two km of steep walking, and slippery and cold. Putting the chains (real ones) on the car is difficult and time consuming at best. So, we are currently worrying about her, hoping she has managed to get safely up and down, get the needed gasoline for the generator, get the batteries charged up and above all she is safe and warm. We have no cell service on this road and were unable to reach her this morning from a land line. So much for Natasha enjoying some time in our home – nothing but work and inconvenience for her so far! Plus she (and we) have the worry of our house freezing with the power going down resulting in serious damage to the heating/plumbing system. Sorry about all this Natasha! The joys of having an off-the-grid house!
The Butter Hasn't Melted Yet
January 11 we are on our way across 42 from Roseberg (southern Oregon) to the Coast. The snow caught up with us so at the recommendation of the locals we decided not to risk the passes and head for the coast where hopefully, it will be warmer and less likely to have black ice and snow.
We had a great nights sleep in the parking lot of the Alder Creek Kayak store (on an island in the middle of the Columbia River outside Portland, under the flight path of the Portland airport and yes, somewhere nearby was a train). Yesterday morning we picked up my beautiful new kayak – an Impex Mystic from Alder Creek in Portland. We got a great deal on it and I am very happy. It’s a Canadian made boat and I got a better deal in the US than I could in Canada – partly because it was a demo (used once they say) so has a few marks on the hull. It fits me perfectly, can’t wait to get it on the water! A bit chilly to kayak here tho without the proper gear. We spent about an hour in the store purchasing all the necessary paraphernalia for kayaking on the Baja. Brian, from Alder Creek Kayaks was a great help and I think we are good to go – once we get further south. He had many great suggestions and was an all-round good guy.
With a late start we headed south only to have me develop severe pain in my right leg while driving. It was so severe that we stopped at the hospital in Roseberg to ensure it wasn’t a blood clot. They were fabulous to us; and no, thankfully it wasn’t a blood clot – likely muscular skeletal, so I will have to take more care with getting up, walking, and stretching during this trip. They provided travel advice and insisted that we drive no further due to the snow and black ice conditions on the I-5 passes, and to consider going over to the coast the next day after it warmed up a bit. They also provided us with free RV parking complete with plug-ins! In the morning they insisted on checking the road reports for us and provided the same advice – head for the coast! So, here we are. As we near the coast the sky is turning blue and the snow on the ground is much lighter, so hopefully we can pick up some time.
We had some very sad news, our friend Kenyan, husband of my dear friend Jayne, has passed away. In spite of all his efforts and those of his doctors his cancer returned for the third time and this time it took him away. He was only 48 years of age and Jayne and he were so very happy together.
We had a great nights sleep in the parking lot of the Alder Creek Kayak store (on an island in the middle of the Columbia River outside Portland, under the flight path of the Portland airport and yes, somewhere nearby was a train). Yesterday morning we picked up my beautiful new kayak – an Impex Mystic from Alder Creek in Portland. We got a great deal on it and I am very happy. It’s a Canadian made boat and I got a better deal in the US than I could in Canada – partly because it was a demo (used once they say) so has a few marks on the hull. It fits me perfectly, can’t wait to get it on the water! A bit chilly to kayak here tho without the proper gear. We spent about an hour in the store purchasing all the necessary paraphernalia for kayaking on the Baja. Brian, from Alder Creek Kayaks was a great help and I think we are good to go – once we get further south. He had many great suggestions and was an all-round good guy.
With a late start we headed south only to have me develop severe pain in my right leg while driving. It was so severe that we stopped at the hospital in Roseberg to ensure it wasn’t a blood clot. They were fabulous to us; and no, thankfully it wasn’t a blood clot – likely muscular skeletal, so I will have to take more care with getting up, walking, and stretching during this trip. They provided travel advice and insisted that we drive no further due to the snow and black ice conditions on the I-5 passes, and to consider going over to the coast the next day after it warmed up a bit. They also provided us with free RV parking complete with plug-ins! In the morning they insisted on checking the road reports for us and provided the same advice – head for the coast! So, here we are. As we near the coast the sky is turning blue and the snow on the ground is much lighter, so hopefully we can pick up some time.
We had some very sad news, our friend Kenyan, husband of my dear friend Jayne, has passed away. In spite of all his efforts and those of his doctors his cancer returned for the third time and this time it took him away. He was only 48 years of age and Jayne and he were so very happy together.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
We're Off! January 9, 2007
This first picture on the left is a view of our driveway going down the hill, the picture on the top right is a view of our house from thedriveway, the bottom left is what happened to just part of the grove of trees near our house with our much increased view of the harbour in the distance. We were lucky.
In our predictable fashion we left only about 24 hours behind our idealized schedule with (hopefully) nothing left undone. With the motor home stuffed with heaping boxes of unrelated and highly necessary stuff - we rushed off for the 11:00 am ferry, only to arrive at 11:08….. So, we had breakfast in the parking lot, sorted out the inside somewhat and caught the 1:00 ferry. Such a crossing! Much wind; waves sloshing on deck, as we lurched about in the dark caverns of the deepest part of the ferry, sandwiched tightly between the wall and huge tanker trucks with inches to spare. I had several rushes of claustrophobia trying to find navigate between these huge trucks to get upstairs and down. We will be in Portland to sleep tonight as we travel south trying to get ahead of this storm.
In our predictable fashion we left only about 24 hours behind our idealized schedule with (hopefully) nothing left undone. With the motor home stuffed with heaping boxes of unrelated and highly necessary stuff - we rushed off for the 11:00 am ferry, only to arrive at 11:08….. So, we had breakfast in the parking lot, sorted out the inside somewhat and caught the 1:00 ferry. Such a crossing! Much wind; waves sloshing on deck, as we lurched about in the dark caverns of the deepest part of the ferry, sandwiched tightly between the wall and huge tanker trucks with inches to spare. I had several rushes of claustrophobia trying to find navigate between these huge trucks to get upstairs and down. We will be in Portland to sleep tonight as we travel south trying to get ahead of this storm.
Lorne arrived home late Sunday night – I had been entrusted with getting us all packed and ready to go – except for Lorne’s personal things and his idea of necessary items for the motor home (bits of rope and rubber and metal things much of them greasy and dirty and taking up a lot of space – the price one pays for being married to a handy guy!). So we were ready. All that was left to do was put all the extra stuff away into the nooks and crannies of the motor home that I can’t get to - like the handy storage under the bed – one day we will install those hydraulic lifters so I can lift the bed up to access these storage areas myself, and making it a one person job. Then there was Lorne’s last minute to do things and to pack the fridge….. Well – he had to fall a very large tree that had been threatening to topple over since the big wind storm. Then he had to replace the thermostat for the furnace, change the oil in the generator – oops it broke – so then he had to take the head off and the back-up gasoline generator had to be put into action.
Oh yes, I am responsible for the bike maintenance – Lorne’s chain needed serious attention having commandeered some rust – so thinking there surely must be some great new product on the market – I chose to consult with none other than a Wal-Mart guy who recommended WD40 – now I know better than to use that so I got a second opinion from a Canadian Tire guy who with absolute certainty assured me that he had just the stuff for me. Well – when will I ever learn that guys don’t necessarily have more expertise than me when it comes to bikes and that there really are no short cuts. Both chains are now a HUGE mess. The stuff I put on is like heavy duty lube with the consistency of slug goop – a cloth sticks to it and when you try to pull it off the goop clings to the cloth somewhat like very thick sticky chewing gum. Oh oh dear. With no more time to spend on the bikes we strap them on and hope that the rain and snow we go through on the highway will somehow “melt” this stuff off.
It’s sort of been like this for the past month or so . . . Broken hot water tank, tank replaced on warranty with a malfunctioning thermostat requiring three call backs by the repair guy – the water heater replaced on warranty cost us $700 – for labor and shipping, the tank was free but nothing else was! A huge tree fell down on our water line down the mountain, taking Lorne more than a day to find the spot and fix it in the pouring rain and not much in the cistern until he was able to do that. Then there was the snow which kept us trapped at home for a week, then the devastating wind storm that bombed so many of our beautiful trees. (see pictures above)
It has been quite the winter so far. Hopefully we are leaving all the problems behind us as we wheel down the highway for our third year on the Baja. This time with two kayaks strapped to the roof, well one so far, we pick up mine in Portland.
Monday, January 1, 2007
And the wind blew and blew . . . .
Whew! You may have heard that we have had hurricane force winds here on the West Coast. Well it is true – they were as high as 100 – 150 km/hour. They were certainly the highest winds we have ever experienced. With windows the size of ours and no curtains I lay in bed watching the huge trees swinging around till I couldn’t stand it any longer and about 2:30 am we moved downstairs to sleep on the floor next to the stone fireplace. We had the grandbabies over so we moved them onto a mattress on the floor next to the fireplace too, well away from any windows. The wind howled and screamed all night. Needless to say while the children slept on undisturbed I didn’t sleep at all, and Lorne had a short nap. I was busy planning what we would do if one of the windows blew in or a tree came down on the house. Of course the kids were up at the crack of dawn – yawn.
The devastation outside was shocking. We were so fortunate that no trees hit our house or vehicles or the cabin, although some came very close! The tree with the lightning rod on it next to the big deck snapped in half, falling about 2 feet from the generator shed. One tree fell directly in front of one of our cars yet it remained undamaged. Branches big and small carpeted all the decks and the roofs. The roadway was completely green with branches and needles and huge trees.
Speaking of the road – there were 6 very large Douglas firs and Lodge Pole pine across the driveway right in front of the house. Once Lorne cut these away and we cleared them off the road so we could drive down the first part of the hill we rounded the corner to find another 5 trees on the next part of the hill! Two of these had fallen down in the middle of the roadway so he had to cut all the branches, carry them off the road AND buck up the trees before we could move the car down any further.
It was at this point that the grandbabies lost interest in hauling branches. At age 2 and 4 they did very well to have lasted that long. So while the kids and I trundled back to the warmth of the house, Lorne continued cutting trees off the road until past dark, by the headlights of the car! This only brought us down the first km of our road and the next km which is shared with our neighbors was also covered with trees down on their power lines. They were very busy for days clearing these trees off. The snow from the previous week had knocked several trees down and they had just had their power and telephone restored. This wind damage was very discouraging and an expensive proposition for them as they have about 2 km of power poles that they are responsible for.
We are very glad that we are off the grid!
Lorne has been busy every day since the storm cleaning up the debris. I have been helping too, as has Mike and Kate, and our friends Ian and Debi. We are very concerned about fire with all the trees down in the forest around us. As Lorne says, it looks like a bomb has gone off the way so many trees have fallen. We are not talking about small trees either! Some of them are so big around that both of us together can’t put our arms around their trunks. We used to have a thick forest view, now we can see right through the trees to the hills and water beyond.
We have done as much as we can for now, the rest will have to wait till we return from Mexico in the spring. We plan on leaving the 8th, 9th or 10th of January, after Lorne returns from helping his dad move into a seniors’ center. Hopefully this blog will work for my travel journal. Looking forward to receiving some feedback from you dear readers……
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