Getting Out of Bahia And Heading To Washington State For The Summer

Dave and Murray went to Guerrero Negro this morning. Dave to get meds for me; a toilet seat and money. He was looking forward to not driving this time. Murray needed diesel and money. Our town is out of Diesel. There is only one station in town that carries it and they are out. Word is they may have it on Friday of this week, the 7th. The guys left about 10:00am and didn’t get back until around 6:00pm. During the day I was busy and it was a really good day. I put coats of lacquer on the turtle I am making, I did cross stitch, dug up an annoying plant in the yard (a wild Mexican tobacco plant). I blackened Anaheim chilies on the stove and put them in a plastic zip lock bag so later when they cool I can peel the skin off. When they had cooled and were peeled I took the seeds and veins out and cut them up to make a Ranchero Sauce. If you have ever had Huevos Ranchero in a restaurant, that is the sauce they put on top. If you aren’t familiar with Huevos Ranchero, it is what the Mexican people call ranch eggs. A tortilla is heated, an egg is cooked sunny side up and placed on the tortilla and the sauce is added. It is very good. I have never made it before but Dave loves them so I thought I would make this sauce (first time) and that dish for breakfast one morning. Around 5:00pm I started preparing dinner. I am trying a new recipe out of the Bahia cookbook the ladies here put together. I have a couple recipes in it too. I am making Chicken Piccata which is flattened chicken breasts cooked in olive oil in a pan and browned. Then a sauce of lemon juice, capers, chicken broth and wine is made to pour on top of the chicken. I also made a side dish of noodles Romanoff. It was 5:30pm and the guys still weren’t back yet. I called Penny to see if she had heard from them and she said no but expected them anytime. A few minutes later they showed up at Murray and Penny’s. Dave got home close to 7:00pm and dinner was ready. I fixed him a drink so he could relax and then we ate dinner. He said he had a good time and we finally got a new toilet seat!!! We were sitting lopsided on the existing one. Ha!! He could only get one box of the cholesterol medicine so I will end up trying to stretch it out until we get to the boat where the rest of my pills are. It was a good day for both of us.

I had such a good day yesterday that I actually think I am out of my mental slump. I am feeling good today and was busy washing the sliding glass doors of the bamboo room and put another coat of lacquer on the turtle. One more coat and I will be finished with it.

We went to Phil and Creela’s the other night for dinner. Our other neighbors, Tom and Lynn were there too. We had chicken fajitas. They were good and we had a good time.

I am setting up a neighborhood potluck at our house on Sunday so I have to do some cleaning of the bamboo room. I decided to have everyone down there so they don’t have to climb the steps to the house. Because the steps are so steep and narrow I worry about people going down them after they have had a bit to drink. So I will alleviate the worry factor by having it on grown level. It should be fun. Everyone is to bring something to BBQ and a side dish. Everyone was able to make it except our gate guard. He has been helping the Museum gal with not only working the museum but other projects too. Right now we have people from the Monterey Aquarium here trying to collect some large manta rays for the aquarium. So Ramon has been helping with that. The other day we heard there were some Mexican men from La Paz with the aquarium group in a panga looking for rays and came upon a school of yellowtail. The La Paz men asked if they could net them and the aquarium guys said yes. So the La Paz men proceeded to net about 100 yellowtail to sell in town. It is illegal to net fish here but unfortunately the law isn’t enforced so our fish numbers are being depleted. Our landlord Larry and his neighbor Elwyn live on the shore where these guys were netting so they helped and when it was all done they each got a nice fish for their efforts. I was very unhappy about this as the fishermen in town and the gringos here have been going out almost every day to try and catch some yellowtail and come up with nothing. Then to have them netted just yards away from where we live made us upset. The other thing too was them wanting to sell the fish in town. That doesn’t go over well with the fishermen here. So I think it was a bad thing but I don’t have a say as to what happens so we just live with it. After all-----we are in another country!!

Dave and Phil did get 3 nice yellowtail a couple days ago so that was cool. They were very nice size and we were able to put some in our freezer. The rest will get smoked. Phil doesn’t eat fish unless it is smoked so that is what he does with his. Here are pictures of the fish and the fishermen!!!!

They have gone out a couple times since and nothing. It is feast or famine sometimes. We got enough fillets and smoked fish to enjoy and also take some smoked fish to Washington to share with Ron and Noreen.

The BBQ gathering at our house was nice. It was warm so we sat outside and those who brought something to BBQ threw their stuff on the grill. We sat around and drank, ate and got to know each other more. It was a fun time and before it got dark everyone went home. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

People are starting to pack and head to the states. Lois and Larry will be leaving soon so they had a bacon wrapped BBQ at their place to celebrate summer. It was a great party and there were a lot of people there. Dave didn’t go with me as he was having some intestinal problems. He actually had it for 3 days. I looked in our Marine Medical kit to see what we had and we did have some Imodium AD which he took right away. The next day he was doing better. We were suppose to go to Santa Rosalia on Friday but Dave still wasn’t doing well enough to drive for 5 hours so we gave it another day and left on Saturday. All we had to do was go to the boat and get the screens and bimini off to take up with us when we go to Washington. Mike, our canvas guy said he would make us a new bimini and put new zippers in for us free!!!! He owes us so thousands of dollars worth of work we sent his way last summer. It was so hot and humid in Santa Rosalia it was awful. You could just stand still and you would just drip with sweat that’s how hot and humid it was. We didn’t start taking the screens off until the sun went down and it got cooler. We got them all off and rolled them up and put them in bags. Now we have to pay moorage for the summer and we can go home. We left the next morning.

Now we are back at the house and packing for Washington. Our plan is to leave on Thursday the 27th. The Monday before leaving we were invited to Creela and Phil’s house for dinner. Phil’s nephew and his wife were visiting so we had them, our neighbors Smiley and John and us. We had meatballs and spaghetti and salad. It was a wonderful dinner and it was great to get together again. In another week or so everyone will be heading north to their homes in the states.

We are packed and ready to go. The truck is in the garage and the jeep is outside so all we need to do is put our stuff in and go. We asked the guard to water our plants and so that will be taken care of.

JUNE 27-Left Bahia at around 4:30am. Crossed the border from Tecate Mexico, to San Diego around 3:30pm. It was a long drive and it was a real pleasure to see there were only a handful of cars waiting to cross. It took us about 20-25 minutes until we were through customs. The guys were kind of bored so they had us go through secondary. It was more like a practice for the guy. It didn’t take long and we had a nice conversation with the guy doing the search and his boss. His boss graduated from Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. What a small world. We drove to La Mesa in San Diego and stayed in the Holiday Inn that night. We were really tired. After checking in we walked across the street to Costco to get a couple of things and then went back to our room to change for dinner. Afterwards we went back to our room and tried watching T.V. and ended up falling asleep. We got a good night sleep!!! In the morning we were up at 4:00am again and on the road to get through L.A. before rush hour traffic. We made it through L.A. smoothly and in record time. We treated ourselves to breakfast at Denny’s and then hit the road again. It was a very long day but we made it to Hayward, California and stopped for the night. We are relaxing and catching up with emails and then we are heading to McDonald’s for dinner. Milkshake here I come!!!! It is around 95 degrees but it is a hot dry heat so it doesn’t really bother us. Not like the hot and humid Bahia we came from!!! I think we got out of Bahia just in time as it was getting pretty hot.

Tomorrow we will be in Oregon. We left the hotel before around 7:00am. I still had breakfast bars for us for breakfast. So we didn’t wait around for the breakfast room to open as we wanted to get on the road before it got hot. The temperatures are suppose to be in the 100’s so we are heading to Brookings Oregon.

We had a good drive and we are out of the heat. It is 80 degrees, but it is breezy so I got cold!! We stopped in Eureka for lunch at Applebee’s. We had good sandwiches. We left there and headed for the Oregon border. Robert told us about a liquor place where you can save a lot of money before crossing the border so we found it and stopped. I had spoken to Ron before that and got his list so we went shopping. Then it was on to Brookings. We found Robert and Kristi’s house (which belonged to her parents) and it is lovely with beach access. After we were shown to our room and shown downstairs where they are piling all their stuff from the house they sold, we sat on the deck. They had some friends visiting, Kathy and Ted from Medford, and were camping in their front yard in their camper. They were on the beach when we arrived so Krisiti and Robert visited with us for a while then Kathy came up from the beach. She said Ted was still down there trying to catch fish. The salmon are running so he was hoping to catch one. After talking to Kathy for a bit, we decided to go down to the beach and see how Ted was doing. Well he didn’t catch any fish but he was having fun. There was a cool breeze at the house but when we got down on the beach it was rather warm and pleasant. Robert told us that yesterday they had grey whales scratching the rocks just off shore and they could watch them from their deck. How cool!!!! They didn’t show up today unfortunately. Ted packed up and we headed back to the house and started preparing dinner. We had white fish, sweet potatoes and salad. For dessert we had brownies. Everything was really good. After dinner when the table was cleared and dishes put in the dishwasher, we sat in the living room with the gas fireplace lit. The wind came up this afternoon and cooled things down considerably. We ate outside but it got cold after we finished so we came inside and refreshed our drinks and sat in the living room and got warm and talked. It was a good day. We will leave tomorrow and go up the Oregon coast and stay somewhere for the night then get to Washington the next day. We are so acclimated to Bahia that I am actually cold here!!! That’s o.k. I packed warm clothes. I am actually wearing socks right now!!!! We have thoroughly enjoyed out visit!!!! They are very nice people.

The next morning we were rested and after visited with everyone at breakfast we decided it was time to head out. It was close to 10:00am. We had a wonderful time and Robert said he would buy the boat. Things won’t happen until toward the end of September. But it is going to happen!!!!! We drove Hwy 101 north and went through the little towns and had a nice drive. The weather is beautiful and breezy. We decided to try and find a place to stay for the night, maybe even two. We kept looking for a place as we entered the towns but nothing looked worth staying in. We finally ended up at the Best Western Agate Beach hotel in Newport, Oregon. We stayed there last year and enjoyed our visit. We decided to stay 2 nights so Dave could have a break from driving and me sitting and navigating!!! The sun was shining and it was around 80 degrees. It was comfortable outside. Once we checked in and got all our stuff in the room I changed clothes and headed for the exercise room. I worked some weights then walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes. After that I stretched and returned to the room. I grabbed my computer and went to the lobby to type a letter to my eldest son and check emails. Around 6 or so Dave came down to ask how much longer and I wasn’t finished yet but it was already after 6 so I quit. I will finish tomorrow. When I got back to the room I changed my clothes and we headed downstairs for dinner. We sat in the sport bar and had ordered sandwiches for dinner. I had a vegetarian wrap which was delicious and hit the spot and Dave had a deli sandwich of shredded prime rib and cheese. Then it was back to the room to watch T.V. and bed. I was able to get a few pictures of the sunset and the light house on the point. It was a beautiful day!!!!!