It is that time of year where I have to wait for the sun to go behind the mountain before I go for a walk. I walked the beach a couple mornings when the tide was low and had a good walk but when I got home I was exhausted and had no energy for the rest of the day. Even with a cool breeze it still managed to be too hot for a walk. I don’t just walk a little, I walk to get exercise and that ends up to be about 4 miles round trip. So I will have to curtail that until the weather cools in the fall. I am now trying to walk on the beach after dinner when the sun is behind the mountains and it is a wee bit cooler. Even though I don’t walk the 4 miles, I am at least moving and getting some exercise to loosen up the back and get my heart rate up. The tide at the time I walk in the evening isn’t really low but there is a sufficient amount of beach to get a nice walk and find treasures.
My neighbor Creela had a Mexican train game at her house on her breezy patio. It was nice but every once in a while you got a hot breeze. Spring was short lived as summer has moved in like a vengeance! Outside temperatures have been hitting close to 100 and we are starting to get some humidity. Inside the house the temperatures are in the mid to upper 90’s. Our refrigerator is having a hard time keeping up. The last few days the temperature in the house has been in the upper 80’s when getting up in the morning and the refrigerator temp has been pushing 50. Oh boy!!!! June here is usually warm but not hot until this year. It is going to be a long hot humid summer!!!! Ugh!!! I am glad we are heading north to cooler temperatures. Anyway-----there were 11 of us playing with 5 at one table and 6 at the other. I was at the one with 6. We were playing and all of a sudden there were a bunch of bees coming in on the patio. The gals at the other table were jumping up and one was swatting at them with a fly swatter and one of the gals managed to get stung on the thigh where it went up her shorts. She is allergic so Creela gave her a Benadryl and an ice pack to put on the sting area. She never swelled up so that was a good thing. We had a couple bees come visit us but most of them were by the other table. The reason was the one gal was killing them and leaving them on the ground near their table and it drew others to that spot. Bees when they are killed give off a pheromone that draws other bees and pretty soon you have a several of them coming to the aid of the dead bee(s). The gal was carrying around the fly swatter and had bees following her every where she went. I yelled at her to get rid of the fly swatter and get the bee carcasses away from the patio. She wasn’t listening and then pretty soon she tossed the fly swatter away from her and Creela swept up the dead bees and got them away from the house. Phil, her husband, put a bucket of water way out in the yard to try and draw them out there which after a while it worked. After the gal quit killing bees and the dead bees were gone, the bees went away and we went back to playing our game. After the game was over I came back home and had a cold beer and sat outside on the deck where there was a breeze, sometimes cool, sometimes not.
What a night we had last night. There wasn’t much of a breeze so we ran the big fan above the bed. It was alright but was pushing warm air around. Then around 12:30am we got a really hot west wind and had to shut the windows facing the west. Then shortly after that we got a blast of hot south wind that was around 29 knots. So we had all the windows and skylights closed with just the fan over the bed on. I ended up turning the big fan off as it wasn’t really giving much relief and I put my small battery operated fan on the bed between Dave and I and that was much better. We were up and down all night as when the wind picked up it was blowing things around on the deck and when things calmed down Dave was hoping to open up some of the windows and skylights but couldn’t. The hot air lasted into early morning and finally around 6-6:30am a cool breeze from the north started up. So we opened the windows and skylights and let the cool air in. We are seriously thinking about running the generator tonight and turning on the A/C unit by the bed. We will have to wait and see how it goes. It has been staying pretty warm at night but last night was the first time we didn’t get any sleep. We could see our neighbors around us get up and start their generators to run their A/C’s.
Dave went over to a neighbor to help fix her radio (VHF). Joanne said something about Dave needing to come over to fix her radio yesterday at the train game because he had just fixed another gals radio and she was thanking me for his help. He must have fixed it because he stopped by the house, said hello and said he was going over to Phil’s to smoke more fish!! The guys had plans to go fishing this morning but no one got much sleep so they settled with smoking the rest of the fish they had already caught.
The road grader came back with 2 or 3 earth moving trucks full of dirt, dumping it on our road. They started in town where the road comes out past our house, and it took them a few days to dump the dirt and grade it but now it is all done and I can make it into town within 20 minutes as opposed to 45 or longer. It is really nice to be able to go one speed all the way and not have to worry about slowing down for large rocks. You still have to watch for sharp rocks but the rest of the road is fairly smooth for a dirt road. All of us love it!!!
When I woke this morning at around 5 the temperature in the house was 73 degrees!!!!! Oh My Gosh!!!!! It hasn’t been THAT cool for a long time!!!!! I loved it. We finally got a cool breeze all night and it continued all day today. It is only 87 in the house now as opposed to 97+.
The guys went fishing this morning and I went to town to do grocery shopping and have brunch with the girls. People are starting to pack up and leave for the summer. One is leaving Monday, another Wednesday, and shortly after that another one is leaving. So there won’t be many left here. By the end of June most if not all the gringos will be gone until the fall. I had a great Mexican omelet and a Margarita!!! It was good! I had done most of my grocery shopping before the gals arrived in town. It was around 11:00am before we got together. There were some tour buses in town with loads of young students from out of town and the restaurant we had planned on going to was full of these students so we went to a different one that ended up with just us there. It was nice. I met a new person that has just moved here and we had a nice conversation. Her and her husband live in San Diego and come down when she can get off work. After breakfast I said goodbye and finished my shopping and came home. As I was putting groceries away the guys came home from fishing. They caught 6 Bonita so they will be smoking fish tomorrow. They were hoping to get some yellowtail but couldn’t find them.
Today is the 8th and it is my eldest Sister’s birthday!!!!! I know she isn’t counting anymore, but she is still alive and kicking and I like that!!!
The guys went fishing again and this time they caught a couple small yellowtails. Once the bonita disappear then the yellowtail will be more plentiful but time is running out for us and Phil as we all will be heading back to the states for the rest of the summer.
It has remained hot and humid and the majority of the people don’t like that. Most of the evenings we get a cool breeze over the bed but lately it has been few and far between. Last night, June 16, we slept on the deck. It had been hot all day and humid and there was hardly a breeze in the house but on the deck there was one so in the afternoon we brought up 2 thick foamed mattresses from the trailer and put them on the deck and we slept there all night. It was warm at times but mostly a cool breeze was blowing. We both woke before sunrise and I went back in the house and laid on the bed until about 7:30am. Dave laid down for a while and then got up. He and Phil are fishing this morning so he wants to be ready when Phil calls. This is their last fishing trip this season as Phil is heading home on Tuesday of next week. We will head north either Monday or Tuesday as well. They caught enough Bonita to fill the smoker and that was it. I went down to the beach to help them bring in their equipment and Dave pointed out all the Humboldt squid that beached themselves. There were a lot. The tide is bringing them on shore and unfortunately when the tide goes out it will leave several of them behind on the beach to decay and smell!!! Oh yay!!!! Here are some pictures.
Every beach in Bahia had tons of humbolt squid on the beaches. It smelled like a fish plant. Ugh!!!!! We did sleep on the deck again as the odor wasn’t bad as long as the north wind was blowing. That next morning we said we would not sleep outside anymore as the sun was baking those squid!!!!! Fortunately it got a little cooler and we had an evening breeze across the bed which made sleeping easier that night. The smell was pretty strong there for a while as we needed to keep all the windows and doors open for a breeze. It was almost bad enough we seriously thought of putting vicks under our noses. But we survived!!!!
I was in the kitchen rinsing clothes and looking out the windows one morning, and spotted a roadrunner in the arroyo. It was going from bush to bush looking for food. I have never seen one move so slow. It was awesome. We have had some resident ravens that have been making a home at the house next store to us and one is very vocal. He clicks and squawks and makes all kind of noises. Some are pretty comical. The whale sharks have arrived and the tour boats have been heading out with people every morning. It is nice to have the whales back. We are very blessed with the wildlife here. We are seeing young coyotes play on the beach and fight. There have been more turtles and seals being washed ashore due to them getting caught in nets. Very unfortunate!!
We are packing to go north. We can’t wait to get to cooler weather as the humidity is starting to appear.
Well all things are taken care of for closing up the house for the summer and our bags are packed and we will be leaving on Monday the 23rd. Saturday we and a few other people were invited to our neighbors place for a last time get together before we all left Bahia for the summer. We had a nice time and good visit. Next week just about everyone will be gone, only to return in October. We will come back in September as we need to check on the boat and pay the moorage. Creela and Phil didn’t wait until Tuesday to leave. They left Sunday morning. They couldn’t take it anymore.
Well today is the day we left Bahia. We stopped at Penny and Murray’s place on the way to Ensenada. We had a great visit and it was good to get caught up in what is going on in our lives. The next morning we went to Costco in Ensenada to renew our Costco cards then we headed for Tecate and the boarder. We were half way to Tecate, when we came upon a bunch of stopped vehicles. Not a good sign. Shortly after we stopped a car had turned around and was telling everyone we couldn’t get through. There had been a roll over. Probably a semi. So this put a huge damper on travel time. We turned around and headed for Otay Mesa border crossing. We are not familiar with the road to Otay so we made a couple wrong turns and it was frustrating but once we got to the border we were the 4th car in line and breezed through. So that was really cool. We were heading to Encinitas to stay at Annie and Elywn’s place. We got there around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and had a nice visit and stay. They also come down to Bahia and have a house there so it is nice to get to know them better.
We left Annie and Elywn’s a little after 9:00am. Annie wanted to fix breakfast for us and we didn’t want to leave too early because we wanted to get through San Diego an L.A. traffic after the morning rush hour. So Annie made waffles and had some fruit and then we had to say goodbye. We made it through Otay Mesa with no problems and headed toward Santa Cruz to visit with another couple from Bahia. We arrived at their house after 6:00pm. It had been a long drive. We had to go through the grapevine and it was really windy so our gas mileage was poor and we couldn’t keep the full speed. But we made it and that is all that matters. We are enjoying our visit and Friday I get to go to a Flea Market!!!! I haven’t been to one of those since I was a young woman. I love them!!!! The weather is definitely cooler but nice. Rainy went golfing this morning and Dennis and us watched the U.S. play Germany in the World Cup. Well Germany won but the U.S. is still in the Cup. Yippie!!! Rainy got home in the afternoon but she had some things to do so Dave hung out with Dennis and I read my book and did some crocheting. Dennis and Rainy had another couple coming for dinner. We had Dungeness crab and chicken shish kabobs and salad. It was fun. The company didn’t stay too late.
It is flea market day!!! We got up between 6:30am and 7:00am, had breakfast and coffee and by 7:30am we were on the road. Dennis likes to get there at the moment they open and walks through at least twice to give all the venders’ time to set up. It was fun and Dennis found a couple really good deals and some really fresh vegetables. Dave got a genuine leather wallet and I got a lighted 4.5 foot Christmas tree for the November show to display my ornaments and have it in the house for Christmas!!!!! Dave’s wallet was only $5.00 and my Christmas tree was $2.00. Awesome!!!! It was the deal of the day. After the flea market we went to Dennis’ sons’ house for a short time and then Dennis drove us around Santa Cruz as I have never seen it before. I had an aunt who lived in Santa Cruz but we came down to visit and never went anywhere so that is all I knew of Santa Cruz. So it was really cool to see the surfers and the boardwalk and the beautiful houses and where he grew up. Fun! Fun! Then we went to a great burger place and after that we stopped at the store to get ingredients for Dave to make Carbonara for dinner tonight, then home. When we got back to the house we had cocktails and sat and talked in their garden and then Dave was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Rainy watched and also made a small salad and when Dave was finished we sat down and enjoyed!!!! Dennis and Rainy hadn’t had that before and they are Italian!!! They loved it!! We had a great evening. It was a wonderful visit and they are fun people.
We said our goodbyes this morning to Rainy and Dennis and headed north. We are driving on Hwy 1 so we will see how far we get. The weather is beautiful but windy and the scenery is gorgeous!!! We had some slow drivers in front of us for most of the trip and so it was a long drive!!!! It was 4:00pm when we finally found a motel to stay in just south of Fort Bragg. We were seeing a lot of No Vacancy signs!!! It is the weekend just before the 4th of July!!! Tomorrow night it looks like we will be staying with Kristi and Robert in Brookings, Oregon so we won’t have to worry about lodging!!!! It is cool here, as we suspected so tomorrow I will be packing my shorts and get my Capri’s out. We will probably walk across the street to McD’s for dinner. It’s cheap, love the fries, and I can eat fairly healthy with a grilled chicken sandwich. Any place else will cost us too much money. We found a chilled wine in our refrigerator so we will be drinking it tonight. I hope it is good. We walked to McD’s for dinner. Afterward we went back in our room and while Dave watched T.V. I went for a walk to the park. It was a nice park and a beautiful ocean view!!! I watched a couple commercial boats come into the harbor and saw 4 deer in the field. There was a mom with her 2 babies which was priceless. They were watching me while I was watching them!!!! When I got back to the room I opened that chilled Rosé and enjoyed it.
We headed for Brookings in the morning. We had lunch in Crescent City then before crossing into Oregon we stopped at the liquor store and bought booze for Ron and his neighbor Fleeta and of course us too!!! We got to Kristi and Roberts house early afternoon and visited for a little bit and then they both had things they had to do so Dave and I relaxed on the deck and listened to the ocean and read my book. Dave spotted two whales off the coast! It was a beautiful day and warm. Crescent City was chilly but Brookings was warmer. We all got together for cocktails and had a great visit then a wonderful dinner with ice cream for dessert!!!! Yummmm!!! We had some good conversation then it was time for bed.
We slept well with the sound of the waves crashing to shore. It is so peaceful! In the morning we had coffee and enjoyed the sunrise and the ocean view. Kristi went for a walk and Robert and us had fruit and toast for breakfast. When Kristi came back we talked with her for a little bit and then we packed up and got ready to go. Kristi needed to go to Gold Beach to work so we didn’t want to hold her up. We said our thanks and goodbyes and headed out. We will see them in the fall. It is another beautiful but cool day and the traffic is light so we made good time on Hwy 1. We stopped for lunch in Newport at a restaurant named Flashbacks. We had eaten at a restaurant named that close to the marina when we came down the coast in 2008 and got delayed for 2 weeks due to weather. However, the place was closed so we continued on and found it on the left side of the street up from where they use to be so we stopped. Well it took 1-1/2 to get our food. They were minus 3 workers, one being a cook, so they were short staffed. They hustled and did the best job they could. The food was good and after we left we went to the Best Western Inn down the street. We have stopped there the last 3 years now since traveling north for the summer. It was now about 2:30pm and time to stop. It was good timing as the place was filling up. We got a wonderful room on the 6th floor with a king size bed and an ocean view!!!! Can’t beat that!!! We will have a beautiful sunset tonight! We will be in Bremerton tomorrow at Ron and Noreen’s boat!!! Then the fun begins!!!!!
