December 11/2012

We've been here in Los Barriles about 6-1/2 weeks now.  We are well settled into our casa with lights on the deck and our very own Mexican Christmas tree.  We've found a dental hygentist and I've visited my favorite 'beauty shop'.  Weather was very warm and often kind of humid when we first arrived but now it is generally very pleasant.  The kite boarders and sail boarders are often on the water and make for our entertainment.  Last Sunday we went to the Arts Fair and did a little shopping and had lunch. l Saturday market has also started.  Both of these events combine 'gringo' and local artistans who bring everything from jewelery, paintings, textiles, food, wood furniture and more.  I've also been painting with varying results.  Our deck is a fine place to paint, with a great view of the water, town, and mountains.  The other big event in the last couple of weeks is that we bought a quad and are really enjoying the ride!  Roger has ordered a 'back seat' for it so we wont feel so 'tippy' when riding in second position!  His brother Mike will be bringing it down when they come in January (we hope).  I'm sure all of you are getting ready for the holidays.  We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and safe and prosperous New Year!  Feliz Navidad... happy trails .....

Sunday Nov. 25 2012

 It's been a fun week here in Los Barriles.  Tuesday was the big Independence Day parade in town.  It was so fun to see all the kids dressed up like Revolutionists! There were so many parents walking along with their kids that I could hardly get a few shots of them.  On the Friday night before, there was the crowning of the Queen in the new local park.  We went at about 8 pm. when things were supposed to get started.  Well, we Gringos forgot that 'time' is Mexico is somewhat different than 'time' in USA.  The carnival booths were set up and there were a few other 'gringos' walking around or eating, but nothing else was happening.  The music and events didn't really get started until about 9pm.  The same thing happened for the parade.  This time tho, we took our chairs, sat on the sidewalk and had a frappe'.!  The parade that was supposed to start at 8 a.m started about 9 am..  The other big event this week happened on Thanksgiving morning - Roger picked up his quadrunner.  It's a bright red Polaris  and has only 500 miles on it!  The shot in front of the houses at the beach was taken the day he got it.  The shot on the beach  at sunrise was taken today.  Too much Fun!!  I am also including a photo of the front of 'our' house.,  Our covered driveway is on the right and you can barely see the top floor palapa deck on the right.  The side opposite the front door faces the sea and town.  We had a great Thanksgiving with friends in an rv park just outside of town.  Danny and Linda Peterson came down with us on the first rv caravan trip.  They bought a site in a nice park and we enjoyed the day very much.  Well, that wraps up this week.  We hope you all are feeling good and having a good time!  we are.... happy trails.....

A Long Trip!

Roger tells me we have travelled some 2781  miles since leaving Enumclaw to arrive here in Los Barriles, Baja.  When we left Casa Grande summer of 2012, we headed to South Dakota to get our drivers license renewed, and see our "home town" of Madison, SD.  From there we headed north, visited Glacier Nat'l Park, stopped at Little Diamond Thousand Trails park, heading west to Enumclaw to visit family and friends.  Course we had all the usual visits to our fav docs too!  My sister Nancy and her husband Lon moved to WA from CA this summer so we got a visit in with them before we headed south.  We also got to do a camp out with our golf buddies in Raymond, WA as well as a great potluck with the same group.  Hard as it was to do, leaving all these good folks, we headed south to Casa Grande to open our park model for the season.  Again, so fun to see all our AZ friends and neighbors!  Our goal was to dump everything we would need in Baja on the deck, put the motor home in storage, toss what we could (always trying to pare out "stuff"!) load up the Jeep and leave on 10/29/12 for the Baja....One night in Yuma to cross to Algodones for visas and pesos, then 2 more nights, pulling into Los Barriles on Nov 1,2012...  4 days early as it turns out!  Oh we'll, it's Mexico and it was fine.  Seems we need to check our notes more carefully when making long range plans!  We are happy in our casa and settled in pretty well. I've posted photos of friends and family, Kevin's birthday party, Roger's birthday party, wet scoccer games, our 9 & Dine campout, and views from our casa decks here in LB.  We have some happy trails....

In the States and on the Road

We stopped in Casa Grande after we left Baja, closed up the park model and then headed for S. Dakota.  We needed to get new drivers licenses, our mail and other business taken care of.  This was our first 'visit' to our 'home town'.  Leaving SD we headed west to Glacier Nat'l Park, east and west sides.  We also stopped at Devils Tower.  We didn't have a 'close encounter' but it is an amazing place.  The tower can be seen for miles and miles.  We spent several days at E. Glacier; The Road to the Sun was only open for the first 14 miles, but we made that trip.  It's true we were in long pants and jackets, but the scenery was worth it and Glacier is one of the places on our 'bucket list'.  Moving on to W. Glacier, the scenery was very different.  The Red Coach tour buses were busy with tourists and a nice part of historic park memory.  Much wetter on the west side, water flowing everywhere.  We did see a bear, a moose, eagle, osprey, and many beaver homes.  We also had rain and were driven out early by it.  Now we are in Little Diamond Thousand Trails park which is really charming.  The lake is very nice, the open spaces generous; we have good internet connection and with the satellite on the roof, good dish reception.  We are coming back here in Aug and I think it will be a great place to kayak.  We've had thunder, lightening, and heavy rain several times here - we knew it was summer time in the NW!  We look forward to seeing friends and family again from our Enumclaw base at Jason's.  We hope you are enjoying the beginning of summer and on a Happy trails!

Baja 5/5/2012, last full moon this season

We are on our countdown days now in Los Barriels.  I worked on another mural - this one is in the second bedroom of Onda Rocks.  The owner had drawn the design and painted in the background.  She suggested I could work on it if I chose and of course, I couldn't pass that up!  I did not have the necessary black paint to put on the finishing touches to the bridle, ropes etc., was able to pretty much finish the rest of it.  This mural is probably 6 ft tall and 6 ft wide.  Very fun project.  It is May, the wind has pretty much gone away for the season and so have the kite boarders and most of the winter  tourists.  The "free beach" (free for camping) was quite full all winter with some pretty elaborate rigs and palm 'homes.  I've put up some photos of the empty beach now.  What a difference... now mostly cows are walking the arroyo roads and beaches.  The fishermen are coming in now and there are many more boats moored in the bay.  Mike and Elaine, our room mates this winter, left last Friday for points north.  We are winding up our last week here, leaving on Tues for the border.  We went out on the beach this evening to watch the full moon come up.  While we were watching the rays jump out in the bay, we caught sight of two whales moving south, showing off w/ tails and flukes every once in awhile.  Really amazing and that full moon just made it perfect.  It is getting very warm here now and we are missing the breezes.  Time to head north and another world.  Hope you are enjoying your world, where ever that may be... happy trails...

Baja wall mural 4/12

Today's posting is about the mural Danny and Linda Peterson asked me to paint on the wall of their casita in Los Barriles, Baja Sur this winter. We talked about what they had in mind and I did a small watercolor after measuring the wall. Danny particularly wanted a tall coco palm and Linda loves Bird of Paradise flowers. Mexican style pots were part of the plan. After we agreed upon the basic design Linda and I went to town to pick up the paint. We wanted 5 cans and the store had enough base for 3. They promised to have more base in two days and they did. This is a small town! I made "patterns' of the vases to be sure we had a visually pleasing size that fit together. I painted the big vase first, then added the Bird of Paradise. Next I did the middle vase and leaves for the flowers. Filling the small pot with flowers was a fun effort, using red and yellow for the flowers and adding little leaves in green. The end pot was a challenge because we wanted a mottled look... a big sponge did the trick and I added some painted walking sticks to complete the total vase part of the mural. I was able to paint the trunk of the coco tree while standing on the floor under the palapa. However, to finish the fronds, Danny found a tall ladder for me to stand on. It worked great and gave me great access to the span of wall. This was my first big outdoor wall mural and I had a great time doing it. Murals are common here in Los Barriles; there is only one neon sign in the whole town that I can think of. The Petersons mural is under their palapa and not in direct sunlight. It should last a long time! One of my goals for this winter was to do much more painting than I have winters passed. And I have done a lot of paintings this winter; this project, while a different medium (acrylic waterbased paints) and much bigger, was still painting in it's best sense of the word. To make a plan, a drawing and execute it is the basis of any painting - well, I think it is most of the time anyway. I hope you are planning and executing your own plan for fun and satisfaction! Happy Trails.....

Baja current events 4/7/12

Well, in the last few weeks we have just been enjoying the 'everyday' here in Los Barriles. We've been trying out the various "hot dog" stands which only open up after dark. One is at "Three Dog Corner"; a more elaborate affair that also serves stuffed potatoes, gigantic burritos and barbq steak. The photo here shows a stand in the person's yard; nice hot dogs, w/ cooked onions, peppers and the usual condiments. We also tried a stand that parks in a space across the street from the local grammer school. He had hot dogs wrapped in bacon, with good toppings too. We stood on the curb that night. April 1st was a big art show on the grounds of the Hotel Las Palmas. We started out early as we knew it was going to be a very warm day and managed to get in some good shopping! In the center of the show was a large stage where a young lady performed with guitar while we were there. There was also a large food pavillion for the weary shoppers so they could refuel and carry on. I have included a shot of Roger on "our" beach; we have kayaked from this beach as well as further south on the 'sandier' beaches. Wave action has really erroded much of the beach we used last year. Rocks have appeared where we never saw them before. Last night (Friday 4/6) the Petersons and Roger and I took a free shuttle to El Cardonal, about 20 miles, to the Mar & Tierra restaurant for their seafood buffet. So glad someone else was driving that road! The food was great, lobster, scallops, shrimp in a creamy cheese sauce, steamed veggies, salad and dessert. A huge orange moon came up over the water while we finished our desserts; as you can see from the photos, we were outside and the evening was perfect. I have been working on a mural at the Petersons casita and will have a blog with photos when it is finished. Danny is working on some sort of contraption so I can reach the top of the wall! More to come... another great week in Los Barrilesl, Baja Sur. Happy trails....

P.S, I have put up my paintings on the website www.Pinterest.com if you'd like to take a look.

Baja week of 3/13/12

We've had a busy week at the ol Onda Rocks casa! Tues night we held a "Murder Mystery dinner with Mike, Elaine, Danny and Linda Peterson, and Roger and myself. Turned out I was the 'murder' and no one 'caught' me! But it was fun and we will try to do one more before we leave. Thursday I painted while the rest of the Koehns were off for an off-road Jeep ride. Saturday was market day with folk dancers, lots of local vendors with good food and produce. We bought tickets for next weekend's play. We also enjoyed some fresh bakery treats! That night we went to dinner at Tio Pablo's with some Irish entertainment added to the evening. Yesterday, Sunday, we travelled to El Triunfo, a village of about 400 people for their annual Arts Festival. Lots of people poured into the little town - they were not disappointed! Music, food, arts and crafts as well as exhibitions of dancing and puppetry. We also visited a local home that is 200 years old. It was so beautiful inside and we could see the conservation work being done to keep it in wonderful condition. The dining room table was one solid piece of granite and long enough for at least 12 people. The family was extremely proud of the home, as well they should be... it is wonderful. The Petersons went along for the day. Later we met them at a local restaurant for a quiet dinner. One of the usual (unusual for us) things that happened the night of the 17th was that the power went out all over town and stayed that way until early the next morning. No mochas or latte's for us the morning of the 18th! Roger and I went into town to have our usual coffee fix, BUT the local spot was without power and only had coffee-pot coffee, so we made do with coffee and scones... that's life in Baja! Happy trails...