Mexico Vacation 2007

So....it's been six weeks since we've been back...but things have been BUSY!!
At long last, here are our pictures and a chronicle of our adventures in Baja.


We hope you enjoy.



*********************************************************************************





This year we vacationed in Baja Mexico, in a little town called Mulege (pronounced MOO-leh-hey). We carpooled down with Daryl's best friend Chris and Chris' family. We also brought some "extra" kids with us, Alexander's friend Nick and Ryan's friend Nathan. Oh...and of course...we brought HOOCH!

Before we left Yuma, we attended to the long standing family tradition of the "Wal-Mart Pogey- Bait Run". Each person gets five bucks and they get whatever they want for road munchies. Nathan and Nick were new to this idea, but I'd say they took to it rather well. Both of them exclaimed (especially Nathan), "My Dad NEVER lets me go crazy like this!!".

So...laden with donuts, 2-litres of pop, chips and assorted other garbage we headed out of Yuma.














Nick with his dozen donuts.






Nick proudly displays one of the after affects of said Pogey Run.


On the first night we went to Chris and Carey's house in Santee (suburb of San Diego), with the idea that we would set out for Mexico bright and early the next morning. We spent the evening letting the kids get acquainted with each other and watching Hooch learn about screen doors through the efficient process of repeated head-on collision.




The next day we set off...AFTER we hit Starbucks of course. Our clan spent several good creative moments coming up with artistic headwear to thrill the other south bounders on the highway, especially Chris and Carey’s clan. Crossing into Tijuana, Mexico is virtually trouble free...unless of course you need SIGNS to know where you're going. We navigated our way through Tijuana on sheer will power and then on to the first long day of driving.






Here we have the friendly Jesus...he's REALLY big and up on a hill overlooking construction on the beach north of Ensenada.







Thus, we traveled down together, using VHF Radios to chat the whole way, and so that we could tell Chris and Carey useful tidbits and insightful thoughts about what we were seeing as we drove. Follow this link to the story of the “Boojum Tree”…(for non-believers...ahem...who could THAT be???).

We ALSO used the radios to be completely dorky...."Come in Woodchuck...this is Grey Squirrel"!

Ahhhh road trips.

We stopped to eat lunch at this lovely (and VERY Americanized) restaurant south of Ensenada. There was a wonderful little playground outside, and after we ate, the boys all went outside and took turns spinning themselves silly on the TINY Merry-Go-Round until they sicked up their first Mexican meal. Sigh.



We spent our first night in Guerrero Negro, which basically marks the boundary between North and South Baja. It's on the Pacific Coast and so there was a lovey breeze and it was a comfortable 75 degrees outside.

However, that night we had our first mishap. We had Hooch in the restaurant with us (yes…it’s Mexico), and after the kids had finished eating, Chris' son Carson came around the corner of our table and right towards the dog. Hooch was stressed out and startled, and he bit Carson on the arm.

Of course, all hell broke loose...Hooch was disciplined by Daryl, I helped get Carson's arm cleaned and dressed, and we all just felt awful. We got everyone bundled off to bed after that and tried to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning we began the trip across the peninsula towards Santa Rosalia. Carson was doing better, and except for admonishing us about keeping Hooch away from him, he seemed to be in good spirits.

We arrived in Santa Rosalia and took a few minutes to visit the bank and the famous church and bakery that are in that city. Then we loaded up and headed south for the final 40 miles of the trip.

Well...we arrived in Mulege, finally, and found our host without too much difficulty, and began unpacking and settling in. We stayed at a "B&B" called Clementine's.


To our delight our host was owned by two lovely little gatos. Here is one of them relaxing on the window sill in between forrays into our little hacienda.



Over the next several days we fished, we swam, we dug for clams, we snorkelled, we kayaked, we shopped, we ate, we played games and we had a really nice family vacation.



















The highlight of the trip for Daryl was the panga trip he took with the 4 boys. They had a good, seasoned Captain and they caught 10 dorado, and 1 marlin. They had an amazing time and Ryan got some fantastic shots of the fish and the fishermen. We brought a LOT of fish home with us...ten 30+lb fish...is a lot.

As we got down to our last day, we all agreed that in spite of the long drive, we wanted to stay one more day in Mulege, and we decided to make that long drive back to the US in one day. That...was a LONG day...let me tell you. But we made it.

Another great vacation in Mexico.
And thank you to Nick, Nathan, Chris and Carey, Cyd and Carson for joining us!!

It was all the better to share it with friends. =)

Hasta luego!