The Gift of Light

Christmas on a beach.  A beach in Mexico.  In Mexico, down the Baja.  Down the Baja on the Sea of Cortez.  On the Sea of Cortez, in Conception Bay.  In Conception Bay, down the south end.  Down the south end, along the jouncey road, around the rock, along the shore….right there.  A light.  A light in a bag…one of 250 lights…outlining the bay, at dusk... dim…and shining brighter and brighter as it gets darker and darker.  

What is that all about?  Light…into the dark…becoming brighter as the night sky gets darker…outlining a path that becomes more and more clear, the darker it gets around us?  Much to ponder. Give it all a think.

We begin the lighting at dusk.

The night sky darkens….looking south.

Looking north back up the beach.

Campfires spring up...

 As the path appears on the beach…to the north and to the south…suddenly fireworks light up the night sky….soaring high into the blackness….and bursting forth with such force…announcing:  LIGHT!

We watch our special show…provided by Coyote campers John and Lori from California.  What a gift!

Fireworks!

 After some dinner we wander over to our neighbor's campsite…pulled in by the music and, yes, the magical campfire.

Inviting stop for a song or three into the night.

Our palapa tree

Steve has a "think"?

       Christmas Eve ends quietly.  A Silent Night as we are lead toward the daylight of Christmas Day.

Searching for Santa in the morning sky!

While the fur kids are hoping for a windfall of dog biscuits from the big sleigh in the sky…we get ready to deliver surprise treat bags to our neighbors.

Treat bag production in RV!

Our three Christmas ornaments

Digging out the provisions we brought from home we load up treat bags with dried apples and hazelnuts from our trees at  Froglanding and a candy cane from the Rite Aide drugstore tree in CA.  Our turn for a gifting opportunity.  25 bags for 25 camp sites on the beach!  We have help delivering…..

I bet there are doggie treats in there SOMEWHERE!!

 It's so grandly odd to awake to a bright, sunny and WARM Christmas Day.  This is our second time to experience this and we are equally amazed this year.  Warm sand between our toes, sunglasses on, we head up and down the beach to say "Feliz Navidad" and hand out the treats.  (yes, we did wrap a few biscuits for our dog camper friends)

Christmas Day potluck fed 70 people!

We say desserts FIRST!

Santa Norm pulls the piñata 

Swinger Georgia takes a go at it!

Swinger Parker up next!

Gathering the booty!

Only five kids on the beach this year for Christmas….but lots of turns at the piñata and lots and LOTS of candy in the end.

This day ends quietly too…the new daylight and warm slipping into dusk, then dark…cool and almost cold.  Jacket weather anyway.  Lightweight jackets.  The luminaries disappear…but the campfires will remain…and the palapa and rig lights still shine into the night.

Merry Christmas everyone…as we accept the gift of light given freely by mother Earth…and the gifts of friendship, song, firelight, walking the path created by lights on a beach…in Mexico…on the Baja, on the Sea of Cortez, in Conception Bay…this Christmas Day.

Baja Bound Again….

We leave San Diego at noon and find Tijuana crossing at new El Chapperal, to be easy, except for the U.S. Border Patrol configuration on the U.S. side.  We drive easily onto the toll Mex. #1 road and zip down to Ensenada.  By 3:30 p.m. we are going through the gate to Estero Beach on the south end of Ensenada.  Sunday travel is easy.  The sunset turns out to be fantastic!

Entry gate to Estero Beach Hotel (and RV)

View from our campsite

Monday morning we are underway by 0830, soon to discover that to turn right, you must first turn left and then right and then right again.  Which means, we must unhitch our tow to get going in the right direction, which means, turn left.  Got it?  Ha ha.  So we are really underway at 0850.

The Monday traffic is ok and we head for the mountain destination of Catavinia….7 hours away.

Detour #1 which is 5km long….and narrow enough

We find three detours linked closely together….just dusty and slow.  Can't imagine this if the weather was wet!

Detour #2

We wind up at Santa Ines on top by Catavinia at 1650….almost dark!  Whew!

Next morning photo

Ralph and Lucky who is now 17 years old!

Ralph comes around in the morning to say hello and show off Lucky, who is still alive!  Miracle dog!

We head off for Guerrego Negro at 0900 and land at Malarrimos by 1330….which is suddenly 1430 due to the time change in Baja Sur.  The agricultural inspection was silly this time….ha ha…no fruitas, just these two potatoes (oh, a problemo)….and they say…"No tequila?"  Ha, ha, but actually, no.  Is that a fruita?  So, we get to save our four avocados, 5 tangerines and asparagus!

Day #4 takes us from Guerreo Negro right to the beach, with a minor stop in Santa Roselita for propane at the propana plant.  We arrive by 1430!

Downhill on the "hill from Hell"

Distant mountains

Straight eastbound section

Finally!  The Sea of Cortez!

The Breeze rounds the rock on beach road!

It's just as the sun dips below the mountain side above the beach….and we round the bend headed down the beach road!  Yay!  Friends have saved us a spot next to them!!   AND, we're just in time for Happy Hour!

The circle has 40 chairs tonight!!

Good Morning Coyote Beach!

And what to my wondering eyes, should appear????  But….

A strange sight on the roadside tree this morning…..???

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

San Diego Daze….14 of them!

Yep, that's South Carlsbad State Beach Park….looking down on the surf and beach.  It's our home for two weeks!  But oh, what to do with all the time?  Well…..

We hit up two music shops the first week…just "browsing" of course.  Here's a trick question:
     Q:  How many is too many ukes?
     A:  Just one more!

No, no more uke purchases…right now.  But then there are uke jams on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  Check.  Right on the schedule.  One Wednesday Sarah comes up from San Diego to play too.  Oh, and Sarah and Nancy also play in the surf!  (with surf boards….Nan is their photographer)

First time for picnic lunch around the rosemary Christmas tree bush!  Perfect size for the RV too!~
Then we play!

 Here's Nancy waiting for the perfect wave set!  Will she find it?  And here they both go back out again…look at that beautiful Pacific water!  They said it "wasn't that cold!"  Hum.

Then it's off to Today's Pizza place and the local uke jam in Encinitas.  We have pizza and play!

Pete and Nancy make sure we get to the Encinitas Christmas Parade, which features 3,000 children!  Yipes!  After watching and appreciating about 1,700 of the children we head for the D Street Grill for…dinner and…yes, a beer!

We must have breakfast at Panikins Coffee and Tea spot…and some greek egg scramble.  Lovely weather and dogs can join you outside under the table.

We are amazed to find a whole Saturday that is stormy and rainy…but San Diego style…so only about 55 degrees and no, the rain did not last all day.  And, better yet, the next day is sunny again.

Music seems to rule the calendar of events.  We have tunes running through our heads, even as we know it's almost time to go.  The thing about a uke jam is when you look around, everyone is smiling.  See the proof?

On Sunday we find an Episcopal Church to visit in Encinitas and guess who else is visiting this day?  I look at the procession as the service starts and what to my wondering eyes should appear?  Well, no sleigh and reindeer, but definitely St. Nicholas!  A wonderful child centered service today!  With St. Nick giving his autobiography for a sermon.

This osprey is a regular camp visitor, sometimes standing by for hours on a near by light post.  We enjoy watching…him/her……who is also watching!

Time again to load up and continue with this year's adventure.  Great times in San Diego…brewery tours and pub crawl, uke jams, uke stores, music, music, music, daily walks, final final purchases, one more trip to the grocery, Costco…I wonder if Mr./Ms. Osprey is watching as we head out ….pointed south?

Sun, South and Seventy 2013-14 Trip Launched!

Thanksgiving Day….what a perfect day to launch our southbound trip to Baja…South to the Sunny  and Seventy degree days of "winter!"

First stop is Jessica's cottage for a fabulous Thanksgiving Day dinner!  Chef Jess creates amazing bean dish, the turkey is fabulous…we bring cranberries and Steve does his mashed potatoes.  Yum!

Jess, Chef for the day!

Untangle the lights….

String the lights….

We have some fun decorating her little cottage and the weather cooperates!  A fantastic sunny day in Seattle for Thanksgiving 2013.  By dark it's time for us to be "on the road"….and so we are.  We make it almost to Oregon before it's time for sleep.

The trip down "The 5" is uneventful…the kind we like.  A stop at the top of the pass as we head across the California - Oregon border for sleep and then all the way to Harris Ranch which is about two hours north of "The Grapevine."  The next day we are over the top and down into LA…a Sunday morning which is perfect.  Even though there are 8 lanes of traffic, it's not bad traffic and no jams.  We are sitting at South Carlsbad Beach Camp by Sunday afternoon!

One of many outstanding sunsets from beach campground in Carlsbad, CA

We are camped right next to Pete and Nancy, our buddies from Friday Harbor.  They are camp hosts here and have spent several winters in this spot.  We take advantage of the local knowledge and company.

We go on our first craft brewery pub crawl with them on a Thursday afternoon.  Here we are at The Iron Fist Brewery.  They welcome dogs in the tasting room, so Skipper and Sparky get to pub crawl too!  I learn that a "double pale ale" has TWICE the alcohol content of a regular pale ale!  That would be 12%!  Yikes!  And it's only afternoon!

Photo op at The Iron Fist Tasting Room

This same afternoon we head over to the Stone Brewery and get there just in time for the tour!  Pink hair lady is actually a great tour guide and she seems to know a lot about beer and beer making.  We end in….yes, the tasting room….with four taste glasses of beer…and score!  We get to keep the mini glass!

Our tour guide at Stone

Steve, Pete, Nancy and Nan…."It's 5 o'clock Somewhere!"

Then it's to the Thursday night uke jam in Carlsbad…one of the reasons we're staying two weeks!
But more on that in the next post!