Clammy Clammy Clammy

The kids tired of digging much sooner than Jamie and I but getting them into dry clothes and feeding them helped give us more time to dig.  With the kids clamoring to go, our stomachs groaning with hunger (Jamie and I didn’t have time for breakfast and the kids ate all the food I’d brought), Jamie and I agreed on "one more" and then headed back.  I was astonished to find, when we got in the car, that three hours had passed.  I guess we’ve got the clamming fever.  Tata and Papa graciously added their stash to ours and now we have more than I imagined we’d need.  Pic above is Papa doing "rake" technique.

Pics and more later; Jamie is sleeping off a (shhhhh…hangover) and I’m racing to post before Papa’s wireless crashes on me.

old fogies

Last night was a spectacle on very many fronts.  It was a warm night; the second which we’ve left our windows open and down comforters off and an extreme low tide.  According to Dad, it was -4ft (shouldn’t that be meters?) at 7:29pm.  The rumour mill, operating from a number of VERY drunk Canadians (British Columbians, to be specific ) was that 100 kilos of shrimp had been caught.  A shrimp frenzy took over; people were getting progressively drunker and pushing rye, red wine and beer on those of us content with our level of alcohol already taken in, and people milled about at the boat ramp ready to pounce with fistfulls of $20’s on the poor shrimpermen as they arrived.  We watched pangas run to and from the shrimp boats and marina and tried to guess what panga was going where and what truck would be pulling which panga up on the shore.  Tide was WAY out, it was dark, trucks were way out on the beach, music blared from one of the drunk BC’ers trailer and everyone dreamed of the shrimp to come.  It was a shock to me; I’ve always been worried when we pull into a campsite that people we shrink away in horror at the noise and commotion which must accompany a family with small children, but these "old fogies" were dedicated to partying the night away and from my observations, they partied pretty hearty.

We heard this morning that they took 380 kilos to the Coop - this doesn’t include the "keys" sold to the very drunk, very raucous, very desperate to purchase Canadians and Americans lining the ramp throwing fistfulls of $20 at the shrimpermen when they came in at 10:30pm.  Mike figures they brought in 400 kilos of shrimp.  It was quite a night.

Morning dawned warm and bright (hot and bright for some) and the tide was WAY out again.  We took the kids out and we walked the beach and combed for "roadkill" - we found 2 crabs and one large clam.  It is lunchtime and Ellen is still not ready to cook her clam.  Soon after the tide started coming back in a fog came in with it and we’ve been socked in all day.  Tide is high now and fog has finally receded.  The day seems upside down; tide was out in the morning and it is way in this afternoon.  We have two shrimp boats in the bay and they are so fascinating with their nets spread wide.  They look like something you’d find in the South Seas.  As I type this, my back is baked by the sun, waves are crashing no more than 10ft away, my feet are covered in sweet sand and the kids are frolicking on the beach.  If that isn’t enough to hate me, I’m not sure what is. 

Life’s a Beach part duex

There is a scent that comes with the sea.  Living on The Pacific, you don’t enjoy it much as the winds are a constant assault, but here on the Sea of Cortes, it is always wafting along the breeze.

We heard the waves last night; crashing upon the beach but the morning shows no such sign of storm.  It is warm with little to no breeze and we are glad for the occasional clouds to give us a little relief from the sun. Soon after waking (we must be the last ones in camp to wake), I heard the much anticipated call of "tamales" and rushed to dress and catch the vendedora.  I caught up with her as she was selling to dad and brought a sample of 5 tamales back to the trailer.  Sissy and Ellen enjoyed them so much that i went in search of her to buy more.  I ended up with 11 tamales and 4 empanadas.  The empanadas reminded me of a mix between a chillean and an argentinian empanada.  The Argentinian ones are tiny and deep fried.  The Chilean are large (they can fill an entire 1/2 plate) and baked and filled with olives, eggs, meat and papas.  These were fried and filled with meat and papas.  I should have bought more.  The kids LOVED them.

If there was any doubt as to why we are here, these pictures of the girls tell the story.  I know those of you surrounded by cold and snow were rooting for another cold day for us, but unfortunately the day has continued warm and bright.  No sign of the storm intended for Alta California. 

I finally took some pictures of SOME of the shells the kids collected.  If you’d like one, simply drop an email or comment and I’ll send one (or more) off.  Also, lmk if you’d like some sand.
Oh My Gawd we are full of debauchery.  We are drunk on shrimp and garlic.  Tata sent a chocolate donut and other pastries which arrived right after dinner.  Like Romans, we would need to purge to finish off the remains of the garlic/cilantro shrimp….  Poor, poor, pitiful us.  I’m sure you can spare SOME sympathy.  No? 

Mike, the resident San Felipe sea god, just alerted us to the fact that jumbo prawns have arrived fresh off the boat.  I went to check them out, and they were so fresh that the legs were still wiggling on one or two (heads were off).  Grey blue and absolutely ENORMOUS, I got a kilo (shhhh…at $18).  I promise to take a picture when they stop wriggling.    Jamie has taken to eating the very fresh ones raw, so I’m hoping that some will be left by morning.  Hopefully our dinner engorgement will keep him out of the fridge.  I wonder if we’ll ever tire of shrimp?  Jesse is the only one who doesn’t like shrimp and Ellen more than eats his share.

Life’s a Beach

I’ve been suitably admonished for taking a break in updating and would like to offer my sincerest apologies to my freaking SISTER, who doesn’t quite understand how stressful it is to have to keep updating whilst kicking back on the beach watching the kids cavort about on the sand and pods of dolphins doing the same off our beach.

It was cold yesterday; I actually needed a long sleeved shirt.  And right now, the sun is so blazing here on the beach that I am typing blind and am unable to correct typos.  Poor, poor pitiful me…
Honestly, I can’t be bothered to put thoughts to laptop; watching the kids running along the sand and skipping in the water; the birds and pelicans dipping into the sea; the sunlight dancing on the water; it consumes all of my attention.

There are camp dogs here - dogs who belong to everyone and no-one in the camp.  The kids are completely unfazed by them and seem to have totally lost their fear of dogs. They play with them on the beach; they chase them.

Ellen is very concerned about beach wear etiquette.  She puts on sandals, changes them for ballet shoes, then puts on socks and ballet shoes, then runs about in socks only, then attempts to remove all sand from the ballet shoes and the dance begins anew.  I don’t understand her qualms; everyone else is barefoot or in boots.  Sissy LOVES wearing her rainboots in the sand.

I am constantly cleaning up $1 bills in the trailer and the sand.  Tata and Papa gave each kid $100 in $1 bills as a Christmas present.  I am finding them all over the trailer (though jesse and pike have stored most of theirs in ziplock bags) and just picked four of them off the beach. What a terrible burden this is. 

Life just kind of flows here - a shrimp fisherman hit camp yesterday and I bought 2 kilos (I’m SO proud of my use of the metric system) for $25USD.  We had 1 kilo last night.  They were very large shrimp but apparently not the most gigantic ones.  We’ve just spent the last hour watching boats coming in from shrimping; the fisherman (shrimpermen?) clean up, the pelicans feast and they anchor the boat and wait for another.  Looks like fresh shrimp again tonight. 

Paradisio Found

How to describe the past two days?  This is a picture of the fishing boats moored in the "downtown" area of San Felipe.  We managed to get a LOT of errands done after leaving the Hot Springs RV park (which we loathed to leave and actually considered staying at longer) and hit the border by 11:30.  My cutoff was 12pm so we just squeaked in.  Border crossing was amazingly easy except for the obligatory backup into incoming traffic because I tried to use the "nothing to declare" line instead of "motorhome inspection" lane.  Dad had emailed me and suggested I try the "nothing to declare".  (so obviously this was NOT *my* fault.  )  Border guys were really nice and buttoned up well in sweaters and turtlenecks.  It was cold for them.  We were amazed by the sheer volume of garbage by the roadside which continued 50 kilometers past Mexacali. 

Sissy and the boys, being the kids that they are, were amazed and continually enthralled with the junked cars; rusting carcasses flipped or sitting all along the roadside.  Jamie and I were more amazed and enthralled with the mountains jutting out of the desert - some ranges began at the roadside and retaining walls kept them from taking over the road.  (Pike, as I write this, is singing along with the "Lion King" soundtrack, English accent intact) 

Thanks to Dad’s perfect directions, we rolled into Kiki’s RV park without incident.  We brought in an unseasonal rain and it only took about 3 hours to park the trailer into the space.  I am about 1/2 inch from one side of the palapa and about 2 inches from the other side.  The palapas are interesting; definitely not built for the RV community, but the vacationers (from Mexicali) that come in the summer.  Still, it might be nice for the boys to have an outside playspace.  Here is a view of Mom and Dad’s RV (far left) and the ocean (yes, I know it is a gulf, but the kids call it the ocean) from the top of our palapa.  The roof you see at the bottom of the picture is our neighbor’s Class A.

Today, mom and dad took us to an American Cafe for eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes and coffee.  The bread (bagels and loaves) are all made in the panaderia (bakery) next door and are REALLY good.  We had a nice walk through the souvenir part of town back to the park. We were shortly then off to "shell beach".  The pictures which follow are all from "shell beach".  I think the kids left some shells on the beach, but rest assured, they managed to bring home about 7000lb of shells.  We figure on being here for two weeks before we can tear ourselves away.  I’m also not very excited about getting this rig out of here; I’m going to have to back all the way out…  (did I mention how I’m loathe to move this thing?)  We were the sensation of the camp as I brought the trailer in.  Everyone came out of their rigs; milling about, watching the endeavor. 

Chocolate Mountains

Well, here’s a surprise.  We STILL haven’t left the states!    We mismanaged our days and thought today was Saturday (or Monday; who knows ) and we’d be able to post our packages.  Course, it doesn’t hurt that we’re right up against the Chocolate Mountains (which we can’t hike because the military is BOMBING them!!??!?!) with a view of the Salton Sea. All of us are absolutely enthralled with the mineral springs; the lovely slippery water and the location.  It is an RV park but only a couple paved roads; they have dry camping locations, people are tenting here and, OH YEAH! they have lovely mineral springs!!!  I found a gorge that the OHV/ATV/ORV people have turned into a cyclecross area and the boys enjoyed that a bit.  I’ve done 3 loads of laundry (yet another luxury) and only have one more that we may or may not do.  The sun is shining, it is shorts and t-shirt weather (it was COLD at Calico) but some people are wearing jackets and we have hookups. 

Life is good.  We just got back from the pool and are having lunch; then we head to El Centro and Costco to pick up some crap we don’t need.  I’ve got Internet access via a pay phone (I’ve GOT to get a photo of that!) and just posted a bunch of pictures.  I only have about 5000 more pictures to post! Here’s a pic out our "living/dining room" and out our door. 

Well, like good Americans, we dumped money into the local economy.  The $200 store (Costco) lived up to its name and we managed to spend $100 at Target.  We got Jamie a new espresso machine (electric) to replace the stove top that didn’t work (which I’m shipping back tomorrow).  Tomorrow we only need to get up at the butt-crack of dawn (that’s for you, Andrew), dump our tanks, feed the kids, try to keep Jamie’s new espresso machine from burning down the trailer (which he played with while I did dishes, loaded the van with bikes and extra food and cleaned out the car, but hey; *I’m* not complaining…), hitch up the van (unless I do that tonight - it’s only 11:30pm and all the kids are awake - should be a cinch), buy car parts, hit the Post Office and buy a new trailer brake cable.  Did I tell the story of how the girls absconded with the cable?  No?  It will have to wait til my blood settles…  The coyotes howl and I’m dialed up via a pay phone.

It only took us FIVE days to get to LA!!!

We awoke this morning to blazing sunshine; the first of our trip.  Sunlight streamed through my windows (Jamie likes to pull the shades everywhere else) but the real waker-upper was the LP alarm.  We exhausted our batteries, so to the rescue came the generator.  Jamie was in his glory; reminding me how shit-out-of-luck we’d be if we hadn’t purchased the amazing and wonderful, miracle generator.

No-one wants to leave today, but we know that PaPa and Tata are probably getting worried about us so today we head for El Centro and some way to get online and send them a massage.
I took a shower this morning after my lovely hike and while it sounds refreshing, a shower goes like this:  I get my stuff together after cleaning the entire trailer; putting all the teeny tiny Polly Pockets crap in its place and picking up around the campsite.  Then Sissy and Ellen clamor to come along and Jamie tries to dissuade them; never works.  We get THEIR stuff, my stuff and always forget at least one thing.  We finally get to the shower house and they find a shower that meets their high standards (though I’m never sure what their standards consist of as they seem to change with the wind).  I then run back and forth between their shower and my shower (because they have to have their own) adjusting the temperature.  Sounds relaxing, no? 

We are absolute HEDONISTS.  We were headed to a State Rec area on the Salton Sea, but all the hookup sites were full and Jamie and I spent last night worrying about the state of the batteries and he didn’t think he’d get any sleep tonight if we didn’t hook up.  We think that perhaps we need a couple more batteries…  So, we bypassed the Salton Sea and decided to try to find a motel in El Cajon.  Jamie started reading 3 of our 4 camping/RV guides and saw a hot springs north of Niland along the road we were on.  It was difficult finding it in the dark (due to non-lighted signs) and I was cursing all I could because I HATE pulling into a campsite in the dark, but it all melted away while I was staring at black sky punctuated with bright stars whilst floating in hot mineral springs.  We are absolute hedonists.  I can’t wait to see this place in the daylight.