Buenos Noches from Loreto, BCS, Mexico...Yes, we actually saw a sunrise. Haven't seen many sunsets, and this we set our alarm clock for and what a show! Then went fishing the next day, and do I have a fish story...My new friends, Yvonne, Bud, Rick and I wanted to deep sea fish, so we hired a boat, which never showed up, so there were a couple Mexicans standing around on the beach, and Bud (who speaks pretty good Spanish) struck up a conversation, got us a boat for less than we were prepared to spend ($220 for 1/2 day), and told him we did not want to fish for Marlin, we wanted Dorado (mahi-mahi for you yankees), and this guy took us about 10 miles out into the Sea of Cortez. Well we figured out pretty quick that he was searching for Marlin anyway, because he was trolling way too fast. Anyway, we saw 2 stick-like things sticking out of the water, the first mate threw in 2 lines with bait fish on them, and within 2-3 minutes, both "sticks" went for them...he had them both hooked, and handed off the poles to us. Bud & Rick each grabbed one...long story short...Rick halled his in alone, and Bud, Yvonnne & I reeled the other one in. 45 minutes later, the captain asked if we wanted to keep them. We all said no, but he talked us into splitting one of them, and releasing the other. Who would have thought Marlin would taste so good, and is apparently an approdesiac as well:) We all felt pretty bad about keeping him. They were so beautiful and majestic and put up a hell of a fight! We figured the one we kept was about 8 ft. long and weighed about 160 #. We split about 50# of fish between the 4 of us and grilled some of it for the rest of the caravan that night, and the next day had reports of many people getting lucky:) We were a little angry about the whole thing at first (we didn't want to fish for Marlin; we wanted Dorado!), but later heard that many people spend thousands of dollars flying here, renting boats daily for a week or two and never see a Marlin. We were pretty lucky I suppose:)
It was pretty fun! We dry camped on a beautiful beach for 2 days, got some sun, relaxed, kayaked in the bay, Cheyenne got to swim and swim and swim. It was a very good stop. Then this am, Rick (my fishing buddy) and his wife Pati and Bob & I split off from the caravan to come back to Loreto (I think I wrote about this town on the way down; it's beautiful and we wanted to come back here, and the caravan wasn't stopping here). We had a great dinner and drinks tonite. Even though this trip hasn't been what we expected, we've made some good friends, and it's definately been an adventure.
Bob's obviously all better; he's still working on getting rid of his cold, and I think he's given it to me:( We'll be leaving here tomorrow to head for

another beach camping adventure with the rest of the group for 2 days, then 150-200 miles a day heading for San Diego, with a break in there for the Super Bowl (go Colts!)
For those of you that haven't heard, Ralph's dog Floyd passed away last Sunday:(

Another sunny day in Cabo. Our caravan left without us this morning. Bob had an encounter with montezuma last night, and is in no shape to drive today. I offered, but he said that would make him even more sick. So he's sleeping it off (up all night vomiting, diarrhea,...he's wiped). I know how he feels, and it's ok. I get to spend a quiet day reading and sunning. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I had to come inside for a few minutes...it's too hot outside! The thermometer reads 89 degrees:))))) Don't worry...I'll go back out and soak it in in a little bit. I'll deal with the skin cancer later. Hopefully Bob will feel up to driving tomorrow and we'll catch up with the caravan in the next town, or maybe that wouldn't be so great!!!
Buenes tardes

Life is oh so much better when the sun comes out:) Yesterday it hit mid 70's and sunny and Cabo is much more beautiful when it's warm! We met up with Ross & Jo Lemoine who are spending their anniversary in Cabo; Spent some time at Cabo Wabo and various other bars. Prior to that, we went on a glass bottom boat; spent most of the trip on the upper deck just to get some vitamin D, but saw lots of fish from there, as well as a beautiful landscape where the pacific ocean meets the sea of cortez. Very cool! As usual, we took tons of pictures, but can't post them all on the site. Bob caught a cold and has sun poisening on his forehead (thus the bandana), and is generally feeling like crap, which sucks, the weather is finally nice and he isn't enjoying it much. Took a trip to San Jose del Cabo today down the street. It's beautiful as well. Chey got to swim in the sea again and had a blast! So far haven't had any health problems with her (no rat poisening or anything). Tomarrow we start back up the penninsula:( I like it here now, and could spend more time if we could, but we need to get home too. The highway isn't as bad as we had thought it might be, but still a little hairy in spots.(if ya like 8.5 foot lanes with no shoulder and sometines a 2 foot dropoff past the white line) All in all, this has been a good trip; not the trip of a lifetime, but mostly fun and adventurous. Looking forward to getting home, not to the weather, but to all of you.

Hasta luego for now...

Buenes Dias from Cabo San Lucas, finally. We arrived 2 days ago, and I've been too crabby to write:( As you can see from some of the photos, it's not been warm and sunny yet, until today. But I need to digress...last week We spent 2 days on the beach at Santispac, drycamping. I and 2 of my new friends chartered a fishing boat & captain to take us out in the bay. That sounds more glamourous than it really was...we were on a 15 foot rowboat type with a motor. It was great fun tho, even tho we froze. We caught red snapper, a triggerfish, a flounder, several sand bass, and an octupus! (The captain kept it, none of us wanted it). And before he killed it, he threw it in the bottom of the boat and it kept suctioning it's way up the sides of the boat after me, inking all over the boat! We ate those fish just last night, and they were delicious. That was 4-5 days ago, I forget... Then we spent a night in Loreto, a very charming little village that we can't show you because none of our night pictures came out. We hope to go back there on the way home, even though the caravan doesn't stop there. Which brings me to the reason's I've been crabby...15 RV's is way too many in a group, down the Baja Highway, trying to pull on and off for lunch, gas, breaks, whatever, so a few of us have jumped ship and gone ahead on our own, meeting up with the group in the campgrounds. There are 4-5 rigs along that need to be hand held and spoon fed, and the rest of us are frustrated and done with it. We'll never do another caravan again, and we'll never come back to Baja again. Reason #2: this is a very poor, filthy, baren country, which I knew, but 1000 miles of it is way too much. The litter is out of control, very few places have sewer/water, everyone wants to sell you something, and reason #3...the weather SUCKS!!! Today is the first day I've been able to wear shorts and a t shirt. All that coupled with the rest of the trip has made most of us usually optimistic folks ready to declare mutiny!Oh yes, We golfed with the Illinois folks in one of the stops, it was only $40.00/person/9 holes, and the majority of the course was under construction, with the green and the tee being "grass", and the rest of the course mud, literally, no grass! We had the worst game, on the worst course and paid the most money to golf ever!But today it's sunny and currently 72 degrees:)))))) We're going out in a glass bottom boat, then to meet up with Ross & Jo who are here celebrating their wedding anniversary, and we're going to attempt to drink Cabo dry!The picture of the water you see is out our back door at the current campground. It's really very lovely, but very far away. Cabo is a pretty cool town, pretty typical mexican tourist town. Our spanish is getting pretty good too.So we have high hopes for better things to come, and the trip back should be better, now that we know what we're doing:)Hopefully this will make all you guys freezing at home feel a little better!We miss you all, we miss our phones (a little), and we'll write soon.We have internet for the next 2 days...

Hola from Mulege, Baja California Sur. It's finally getting warm & sunny! Went whale watching yesterday...very cool. We had a mama & baby (approx. 1 day old) swim under our very small boat, and were almost able to pet them. Wow! She was huge (45' long, and about 40 tons!). Tomorrow we finally stop driving every day, and spend 2 days on the sea of cortez. Hopefully will be warm & sunny. The baja continues to be very primitive, with very little for supplies, very trashy& graffiti filled. We still have no phone service, so probably won't, maybe in Cabo. Gotta run...we only have 1/2 hour of internet!

Hope all is well with everyone...

We've been in the Baja for 4 days now, and it's very desolate and poor here. It looks alot like the southwest states, only uglier...lot's of cacti and graffiti and trash. It's odd to see the desert leading to the ocean. I've got lots of pictures, but can only put a few on the site, so you'll all have to wait til we get home. And it's cold! We're currently about halfway down, and at the same latitude as Galveston, TX. Today was about 60 degrees and sunny, but has been cold, rainy, cloudy, and very disappointing. But we've made a lot of new friends; the group is fun. And it has to get warmer! Electricity is few and far between, and we have no phone service at all. So we hope all is well with everyone. We found a cantina in a small town yesterday, looking for the playoff games. Well their electricity was down from 2-4pm, and when it came on, there was no American football! So we were able to get a satellite beam at the campground, and had half the caravan in our camper watching the games! Good thing we got a bigger camper! Our spanish is coming along...I was able to have a small conversation with a shopkeeper this am. Was pretty proud of that!

Will update again when we can.

Keep emailing...we'll answer when we're able...

Today was spent running around and gathering items in preparation for our border crossing on Thursday. Not too exciting but the weather is wonderful. I spent some time putzing on the camper while Becky and Chey walked the beach and the area around the campground. The day finished off with a visit from one of my dearest friends, Wayne Seichter of Fond Du Lac. We don't get together all that much anymore, but when we do, it's just as it always was. We live 30 some miles from each other, but seem to always meet up in different locations, far from home. Wayne is in San Diego on business, so we had a few beers and a campfire. We hope to see him again tomorrow night for some cold ones in the lamplight district of San Diego...

We finally made it to San Diego, well Chula Vista to me more accurate. It seems as though we've been gone much longer than 2 weeks. It's beautiful here...warm, sunny, tropical:) Cheyenne got to swim in the ocean today, and loved it, as usual. Our last night in Cottonwood was memorable...I got ahold of a bad chili rellano and became acquainted with the famed Montezuma and his revenge:( That was ugly, and now I'm a bit timid about mexican food. Not good. All better now, mostly, but I think I may have sprained my stomach! Went to Yuma, AZ from there and camped at a casino...not necessarily free...it actually cost $160.00 at the Pai Gow poker table:( It was fun tho. We met up with Dan & Bev and Von & Ferris, our Illinois friends. From there we stopped in El Centro, CA last night. Found a campground with a 9 hole golf course on it, and for $31.00 Bob & I golfed 18 holes. The new golf clubs worked beautifully. I actually beat Bob by 1 stroke!We're here until Thursday, then into Mexico, finally:)

We're still in Cottonwood, stayed one more day, Randy took a half day to show us around. We had such a great day...we saw another ruins, Palatki, saw some petrogliphs, it was very cool, and what a gorgeous day. It really doesn't rain here very much. Then we hiked up by Sedona; it was a pretty good climb, and Cheyenne had a blast. The picture of Bob & Randy & Chey is on a natural bridge at the top of the hike. I couldn't walk out there...it was a pretty hefty drop! I was nauseous just seeing them out there! We stopped out to see Randy's horse Snow. What a gorgeous girl. Then we had dinner with Randy and Tammy. It was great to spend a couple days with them. We'll definitely come back here.

Spent the day around Cottonwood today...checked out Jerome...it's a "hippy" community nestled in the side of a mountain just out of town. The houses are mostly built on the side of the mountain, and some have slid down the mountain! There's lots of artsy shops, a few bars, and some old buildings waiting to be renovated. Very hard to take pictures, because we couldn't get far away from or close enough to anything to get a good shot; so we didn't get any good photos. It was very cool. Also checked out Tuzigoot National Monument, built prior to 1400 by the local indian tribes, also pretty cool. Chey enjoyed both places. Then we had Randy & Tammy over to the camper for dinner and a campfire, but the campfire didn't happen, because even tho it's 65 degrees during the day, the minute the sun sinks below the mountain range, it cools off a lot. It was fun having company in our house!

Cottonwood, AZ

We took the drive north through Phoenix and up to Cottonwood to see the sights and hang with our friends Randy and Tammy. The campground, Dead Horse State Park, we are staying at is beautiful and has a great view of Cottonwood and Jerome. I tried some night time photos but they don't do the view justice. I'll get some daytime pics tomorrow. We had dinner and then some drinks with Randy and Tammy and called it a night. It's always so fun to catch up with old friends. Tomorrow we will do laundry, then out to see Jerome and some indian ruins then we hope to meet Randy's horse, Snow. Maybe some golf, wash the camper, truck,...oh there's so much to do!

Happy New Year! This campground is gorgeous. We decided to stay another day, hit the driving range (the new golf clubs make a HUGE difference!), and go see my brother. That's always bittersweet. Good to see him, sad to see him and his way of life. But he's alive, and he's happy. That's all that counts. It was t-shirt weather today, but chilly at night. We can live with that. Cheyenne enjoyed exploring today, and doesn't understand why we keep pulling her away from the pretty picky flowers all the time! And my brother's friends said the rattlesnakes are out in full force with this warmth:( Hopefully we won't be able to determine whether or not this is true. On to Cottonwood, AZ tomorrow to check in with Rockin Randy...