People paintings 5/3/11

It's been very quiet here in Casa Grande. Most of the 'winter visitors' have gone home. I have had sometime to do some painting and think about some paintings I would like to do. The first painting is my most recent. It is of the flower vendors at the Puyallup outdooor market. I took photos last summer at the market. The flowers were spectacular. I have been trying to put 'people' in my paintings recently. Faces are much harder than trees or water etc. The second painting is of a different market. This one is an outdoor market in Los Barriles, Baja where we spent this last winter. The farmer and his wife would pull up every Saturday noon in their SUV and trailer and then unload the most wonderful fresh, organic food. Everyone is our RV park would gather round, pick out their treasures, and line up to pay. We would have discussions about what we were going to make with the fresh veggies, share recipes and catch up on what was happening in town. This big tree gave us shade when it was warm and even gave us a little protection the one! time we had sprinkles. The third photo is from my sketch book. This young man is hauling back a surf kite to the starting grounds after his 'flyer' has landed. This happened during the big Lord of the Winds contest on the beaches of Los Barriles. I think this would make a good painting. At least I think I will give it a try. The last painting was done while we were still in Baja. I found the flowers at another kind of market. We were in La Conner last summer and stopped at several local farms for fresh fruit. The "Schuh" farm had wonderful berries for sale as well as a coffee stand and a beautiful side flower garden. Since we have friends by the name of Schuh in Fiesta Grande in AZ and have visited their farm in Ill. we had to stop! We really enjoyed the berries, the clever Schuh mailbox, and we got some nice photos to boot. Other news for us; the coach is now in the hands of the repair shop for the awning (finally), our new floor is installed, and Roger is STILL waiting on his new coffee machine. We will be leaving Casa Grande in another couple of weeks. We have plans for stops in California and Oregon on the way back to Washington state. So time to pull out my brushes again and see if I can bring the young man and his kite to the paper! Happy trails....

Big Day.. Hullavators installed!

Today Roger installed the hullavators for the kayaks! Whooeee! Very excited. I've put a video of how they work on this page. They have a hydraulic system to lift the kayaks to the top of the Jeep. Then with a gentle push, the cradle eases down to the Jeep roof top, holding the kayak snugly in place. We use tie down at both ends as well as the middle 'body' straps. This way, we can take a day trip and easily kayak for a day and return home without the heavy lifting/struggle to load the boats. I am not really tall enough (or strong enough) to be much help to Roger with the process. The kayaks weigh about 50 lbs. apiece and raising them above my head to the top of the Jeep without standing on ladder or something is pretty much out of the question. This is going to make our excusions so much easier! With my new, longer paddle and these hullavators,we are good to go! Roger's brother Mike and his wife got their hullavators installede earlier in the week and have been exploring lakes in the area around Phoenix. We are looking forward to getting out there and trying them ourselves. I am waiting for call about the installation of floor for the park model. We are moving right along on the 'to-do' list! Hopefully my next blog will be about a kayaking trip! Happy trails...

Rainy day in AZ

Roger took me for a ride this morning to check out the water in the park. It has been raining since last night. I think if it keeps up, we can take our kayaks out right here in the park! We don't have the usual Lake Burrito in front of our park model, but in other parts of the park, the water is more than puddles. Roger and I only brought one pair of long pants each from the motorhome to the park model. After all, it's April! He turned the furnace on this morning as it was quite chilly. Reminds me of summers in Washington. We know the weatherman has predicted temps in the low 80s for next week, so it's all good. Hope you are warm and dry, where ever you are. Happy trails....

Baja end of the trip

We spent 6 nights dry camping at Santispac bay on the way home. The weather was perfect and we kayaked almost every day. I tried out Mike Koehn"s kayak as it is a "sit in" style; rather than our "sit_upons". Guess we will all stick with our own styles but it's all fun. After our last paddle, we loaded up and headed north. I'm including just some general photos of the trip north. Cattle crossing the road can happen anywhere in Baja and everyone always needs to be watching for them. One of the places we dry camped on the way north was at St. Ynez, or "the Ranch" as it is called. A caravan came in later in the afternoon and circled just like the old time wagon trains. This "ranch" is a huge flat area, with a small restaurant at the east end. There are huge bolders and tall palms in the arroyo adjacent to the parking area. The photo of Roger in the arroyo at The Ranch shows him in a jacket and long pants! Boy, did we all complain about the change in the weather, though of course, we were heading North! The orange building is near the beach at Pabillon RV. We didn't pickup water at this park as we were warned it would be salty that close to the Pacific ocean. The top photo of our coach was at Rancho Sardo Mudo on Mex 3, about 60 miles from the Tecate' border. This was a new park for us. We were the only rigs there, out of season for the area I guess. However, this is a good road (at this point) and in a 'wine route' area. We crossed the border on March 25 and spent one night at Portrero State Park. Mike and Elaine have headed to Az. for a stay before heading north. We are in Pio Pico Thousand Trails park until 4/1 when we will head to Casa Grande. We have a long list to 'to-do's" while there. So it will probably be May before we start heading north. This has been a wonderful adventure. We have talked about going back to Baja again -how and when yet to be decided. We are looking forward to seeing our family and friends to the north, maybe finding more places to kayak on our travels. We look forward to seeing Mike and Elaine at Chelan in September, kayaking on the lake. We hope you are having an adventure of your own! Happy trails....

Baja 3/20/11 Santispac

Well, on our way north. After our long stay in Los Barriles, we boondocked at Santispac for 6 nights. The weather was perfect; we took over our own palapa; we kayaked about every day; we named our own special island, "Pelican Island"; entertained the beach vendors and even bought stuff!; too much fun, so sad to leave! I think the photos are pretty self explanatory... we are having fun in a very beautiful place. One photo shows Roger and Mike putting up the kayaks at the end of our stay. Needless to say, Hullivators are on our purchase list when we return to the states. I am just not tall enough to be much good in helping Roger load the kayaks on top of the Jeep. Hullivators are a marvel and supposedly even a 90 lb. weakling (not me) can load a kayak by him/herself! We shall see. We used our propane 'fire' on the beach which made for a lovely evening. We have all improved our kayaking skills since this trip started. We can paddle much further and even launch ourselves now. Of course, this beach is the perfect place to do it all. You can see, I've also been painting. We are in Guerro Negro tonight and heading north again tomorrow to Catavinia, "The Ranch"boondocking for a night. Having the internet today has been nice. We hear tulips are beginning to bloom back home... spring must be in the air! Happy trails...

3/5/2011 road trip

On March 4th we took a road trip to Punta Pescadero, a large hotel complex north of Los Barriles. There is paved road and about 15 km. of dirt road to get there. I understand it has a landing field for fishing clients who fly in for the fishing and the works. One photo is taken on the dirt part of the road, looking down on the Sea of Cortez. The pile of dirt along side the road gives a pretty good idea of what the road is like! I've also posted a photo of the arroyo, which as Roger pointed out, would be called a valley in other places. There is one of these arroyos to the north and one to the south of our park. When the monsoons/hurricanes come in late summer, these arroyos can be awash in water. It is amazing how close to their edges some people build there homes and palapas We also took a road trip yesterday to the village of El Triumfo for lunch with the 'baja buddies', Danny and Linda Peterson, Mike and Elaine Koehn, Roger and I. We had a great lunch at the restaurant there. I had to get a photo of the tree growing out of a stone wall. I've taken photos of this same kind of tree growing out of rocks in the arroyos, but this one is growing out of a wall! Somehow the tree starts growing somewhere on the wall, then sends more roots down to the ground, through the wall and where ever it can find a spot to wedge itself. How the wall holds up to this, is another question. I couldn't tell if the second root growth was from the same tree or another. The photos of the road down to Las Barriles is a good shot of the arroyo and Sea of Cortez. We are on our countdown now, planning to leave Los Barriles on 3/13. We are supposed to have calm winds and perfect kayaking weather for next several days. Hard to believe how fast the time has gone. I personally am having a hard time even thinking about leaving. Baja is beautiful! happy trails.... remember you can click on any photo to enlarge it.....

Todos Santos holiday

Roger and I, Mike and Elaine Koehn (Roger's brother and his wife) took a 3 day trip to the Pacific side of Baja to Todos Santos. They were having a Historic Homes tour and we wanted to see the town and area. Roger and I made a stop here on our trip last year, but it was more of a drive through, than a real visit. I am sending along some photos of the homes and their decor. We stayed at the Serendipity B & B outside Todos Santos. It took a full page of directions to get us there and the road was a real 'off-road' experience! However, it is a beautiful facility and the full breakfasts were great. The owner Sharon Morris was also involved in the home tour so we got some of the inside scoop on that. Along with the pool, they have a beautiful hot tub, which we did take advantage of. We did some shopping while seeing the pueblo; Mike got nice leather sandals, and I found a beautiful bracelet and some cotton pieces that I really like. Of course, we also found some wonderful places to eat; don't we always? The pictures of the four of us as well as the photo of Roger and I were taken at the B& B. There are a couple of different buildings included in the B& B. You can see a couple of the towers with their palapa roofs. This gave us a great view of the ocean, where we spent some time looking for whales. I included a shot of an outdoor kitchen and bath at one of the homes on the tour. Folks live outdoors here a good part of the time. The weather is so perfect alot of the time. We took the northern route enroute to Todos Santos and on leaving we continued south to Cabo and around the point of Baja and back north to Los Barrieles. We made several attemps to get to some of the beaches just south of TD, but nothing is marked and we were only slightly successful. I am putting up one video of the Pacific just to show we did make it! We are back in Los Barriles now and thinking we will depart about 3/13 for places north, making the states about 4/1 or so... not very definite yet. Too much sunshine to enjoy yet to think too seriously about leaving... Happy Trails.....