Daddy and Sophie read the paper

Goodbye San Carlos, Adios Mexico

Well, we stretched it out as far as possible, but it's time to head north, first to Casa Grande, AZ then on to Vegas for Christmas with family and friends.

Here are some farewell pics of this beautiful place in Sonora.

See where we are

Open Google Earth

Enter:
27 56' 43.87 N
111 05' 19.01

That's where we are!

Lovely San Carlos

Well, it's been a great 8 days here, but really hard to not stay a lot longer. I've been all around the world and this is one of the prettiest places I've ever been. Prejudiced of course by speaking Spanish and Mexican being our favorite kind of food. Stiil there are always those reminders that you're in Mexico like this. This is an actual road in Guymas, and there's just a big void down there.



And of course this sign that I translate as, "Don't introduce yourself to any babes" which seems counter to much of the Norteamericano in Mexico experience.

I love this mountain. I don't know why. It changes color by the minute all day long, towering hundreds of feet above us. This could not be any less different from the Florida Keys, or coastal Miane.

The Soggy Peso

Day 58

We found the Soggy Peso Bar at the end of a long pitted dirt road that was so bad we didn't think anything viable could possibly be at the end of it. Wrong! Lisa served us a sampler of shrimp ceviche, fish ceviche and crab tostadas with avocado. Fresh from the sea and sobrosa!

Paradiso!

This is Esmeralda Beach, our own personal paradise, and a short walk from our campground. Not another soul around!

We really like San Carlos. It has none of the dirt and poverty of Puerto Penasco, and oh! come to think of it, none of the Ugly American-type tourists. The Americans here appear to be cruisers and there is a small snowbird community, although they don't seem to be here yet.

Every evening while we are enjoying the sunset over the mountains, the produce man comes by. He has everything from lobster tails to cilantro, to tamales (still warm! which we had for dinner last night), to limes. We bought lobster tails for about $4 a piece and Jeff will grill some for lunch today.

He is recovering from a cold, caught from a wheezing kid in an internet cafe in Rocky Point. I have so far gone unscathed although when he coughs at night, I have this image a la CSI of a spray of germs attaching themselves to, well gross! never mind. Suffice to say, I haven't caught it yet - knock on wood. So he slumbers on this morning and I'm going for a walk.

If you are ever in the area, San Carlos is definitely worth a visit.

Restaurante Charlie's Rock

Day 58

This is where we had lunch. The only other patron was the birdbrain (no, the one with the feathers!)

Day 47!

For some reason, I can't get my images to upload this morning but I feel I owe it to my public (hi Mom and Dad!) to post an update. Well, here I sit in the parking lot of La Mesa RV in Harvey II, waiting for Jeff to get back from Walmart (filling a prescription before we go to Mexico). We're off to south of the border this morning. We had a low key Thanksgiving. Jeff made the most awesome lasagna using Mary White's (of Snapper's fame) fabulous recipe. We left Palm Creek, home of the Stepford Seniors, on Friday and let me tell you, it was bittersweet. LOVE that place! Managed to finish all of our Christmas presents there.

We arrived at La Mesa in Tucson Saturday. Tucson has some nice pockets but basically it is a huge sprawl of chain box stores and the number of homeless in many of the parks is stunning. We saw The Mexican Homeless Park, The African American Homeless Park and even The Integrated Homeless Park. So great was his White Man's Guilt, Jeff was practically throwing money at them. Let's see . . . something positive . . . hmmmm Oh! There are tons of excellent Mexican restaurants.

Well, we took possession of Harvey II and the moving process began - took about 12 hours over two days. Exhausted! How in the world did we acquire so much STUFF? I must admit I felt some buyer's remorse while moving out of Harvey I. Jeff said, Liz, you can't anthropomorphize an RV. Excuse me??? WE named him Harvey! Hello?

By the way, if you ever want to buy an RV, come to La Mesa and see Keith. He is mahvelous! Very nice, smart and cute too. I took his pic with Sophie and I'll try to post it later. OK

Lucy and Sophie went to the vet yesterday to get their health certificates for Mexico. Scary little office in a scary part of town with boarded up windows and acres of razor wire. At one point, we were in the waiting room and the door opened and these two really really tall women covered in tattoos walked through the front door and Sophie went insane, barking and snarling, "danger! danger!" Like I said, scary. The vet had these intense staring serial killer eyes and the exam room was at least 100 degrees. It felt like that show, One Step Beyond, remember that? Anyway, they both checked out fine although he said Lucy's eyes are a bit cloudy, meaning cataracts down the road.

Jeez, get us outa here!

So, we’re here in Casa Grande, Arizona, in a “senior community” made up of a combination of 2,000 trailers of various type, from (actually very stylish) double wides, to mostly huge rigs like Harvey, known in the trade as a “class a” or motorhome.

On a tangent, here’s a tutorial of RVing, that I guess most people never know or care about. Like in sailing, there are specialized terms no one not doing it needs to know.

Class A- The classic Winnebago type, by other brands as well.
Class B- Modified van, often with a raised roof.
Class C- RV with the head of a pickup or van up front.
Travel Trailer (or TT)- a camping trailer that connect to towing vehicle with a ball hitch.
Fifth Wheel (or “Fiver”)- Trailer that attaches to the bed of the truck pulling it.
Popup- Very low profile trailers that unfold into sort of tents.
Toy Hauler- these trailer have a back wall that doubles as a ramp, so you can haul ATV’s or motorcycles, usually with drop down bunks for when the toys are removed.
Park Model- a trailer that will be hauled once to a place it will never leave.

Anyway, the amazing thing at this senior community is how totally enthused, engaged and almost rowdy the old folks are here. Across from our spot here the pickle ball (think squash with a net) players are at it from 7 am to late, with hearty banter and genuine competitive effort. In the afternoon the variety of pool volleyball players are actually really good, often keeping the ball in play for 30 or 40 volleys.

I guess I think of Tony’s mom on the Sopranos when I think of old age, yet these people are “Inspired. And inspiring.” (Dr. Malfi, anyone?- first season.)

Thoughts at the Oklahoma City National Memorial

They really did a beautiful job with this monument. It's visually stunning in a city that rarely rises much past bleak. Thoughtful and simple, it memorializes the victims with barely a mention of the zealot who caused those deaths. Something really striking occurred to me about Timothy McVeigh and April 19, 1995. I remember the time vividly as my company, UUNET Technologies, was to go public the next month, and I might end up with a dollar or two.

After the attack, there was much discussion about which particular Islamic group or what particular Muslim fanatics could have done this?

Oddly enough, it turned out that the terrorist was a white, Christian, conservative, native born, US Army veteran male. Here's where I thought it got interesting. On 9/11, 19 idiots (mostly from Saudi Arabia and none from Iraq, nor with any connection to Iraq) came here and killed 2974 people. That's a kill rate of almost 157 people per terrorist. McVeigh killed 168.

So we can conclude that the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil per capita was carried out by a native-born, white, conservative, Christian, combat-tested male US Army veteran. I'm obviously not saying there's something wrong with all native-born, white, conservative, Christian, combat-tested male US Army veterans. I'm just saying be careful about the idea that we can profile by type because obviously not all terrorists reflect the outlook of those in other ways similar to them.

Welcome to Harvey the RV

Follow us on an epic journey on and around the continent. We are Jeff, Liz, Lucy and Sophie, and this is our blog.