Halperin & Christ

2.25.08 Playa tesoro, la paz

we finally found it! the perfect beach, a quiet cove, a group of palapas with tables and chairs to protect you from the sun, a lovely restaurant that serves fabulous drinks and seafood, and no behemoths! not a single one. in fact we are the only campers and they are charging us $50 pesos a night (+/-$5.00 usd). it’s not really a campground but there are flush toilets, a sink and plenty of parking. this is what we imagined baja to be. we had shrimp cocktail, guacamole and chips (not as good as barb’s) and fruity drinks (margarita for eric, pina colada for fran) as we watched the sun go down. the last of the tourists had left so we were the only ones in the open air restaurant besides the waiters and cooks. right now their children are playing soccer by the light of the car beams. we can finally hear the lap of the water as the parade of trucks coming from the nearby port has ceased.¬† we are so happy to be away from the r.v.er’s. not that they aren’t friendly, but somehow that was not how we imagined camping to be. something about microwaving your premade frozen dinners takes the romance out of the whole camping experience. maybe we are old fashioned. apparently we are un-american.

2.26.08¬† el tesoro, la paz: not as restful as we might have imagined. ferrel dogs kept up a constant cacophonious concerto of bothersome barking all night long. let’s just say the intermissions lasted not more than 15 minutes and there were damned few of those. when they finally called a halt to the concert (just after dawn) a busload of local middleschoolers jubilantly arrived. it was time for us to move on.¬†

2.27.08 cabo san lucas: after a luscious night of delicious slumber at our friend coleen’s lovely abode. she prepared a typically wonderful coleen meal last night and presented us with latte’s this morning. we had a relaxing day at the beach, watching for whales (of which we saw many) and lazing in the sun. more of the same tomorrow….

today we are staying at a lovely little rv park right outside of ciudad constitucion¬†called manfred’s. it is a tiny piece of paradise on a very loud dusty road. tomorrow we will check out the city which apparently is not a tourist destination. it is however the seat of agriculture for baja california. that was apparent on the drive here from loreto. about 50 km back we switched from treacherous, windy mountain roads to long straight flat roads lined on either side with agricultural crops. it was a bit of a relief to be off the mountain roads even though they are quite beautiful. the roads are only 9.5 feet wide and the oncoming trucks and behemoths (r.v. trailers) take up about 8.5 of that width, most of it from the centerline over. we can’t imagine what it must be like to be driving one of those rigs although there are plenty of folks doing it. to date we have seen about 6 vw campers which is about 6 more than we have seen on the whole trip!

speaking of vw’s, for those of you worried¬†about hank, he is just fine. he didn’t tip over, he was just precariously leaning. a good gust of wind or a firm push would have landed him on his side but fortunately that did not happen.

we went to a flea market in loreto this morning which reminded us of the san rafael farmer’s market on thursday nights. most of the items for sale were new things: clothing, toiletries, tools, housewares, etc. but there was a good bit of produce and some prepared food. we stocked up on veggies that all looked fresh and delicious and sampled some of the local delicacies including a flan that was much tastier than the one we attempted to make for our friends.

this afternoon after our drive from loreto we read by the pool, chatted with some canadian rv’ers, drank margaritas (2 for the price of 1!) and generally took it easy. the weather has warmed up considerably.

we sadly drove to loreto, had our last lunch and said goodbye to the gang yesterday. it already feels so quiet and sad without them……but it was a fabulous week!

we had a near tipping experience just south of loreto on a rocky patch of road that made us turn around and head back to loreto for the evening. eight mexican angels showed up just as we were desperately trying to figure out what to do. they pulled hank with a rope and pushed him into an upright position. we were wondering what we were going to do with all the leftover beer from the week!

loreto is a lovely town perched right on the sea of cortez. we walked the promenade, visited the mission and very quickly toured the touristy shopping area where we finally purchased the mexican bag we have been looking for.

a not so quiet night at a cute but crowded camp ground made sleeping a bit difficult but we are much more comfortable now that we have situated ourselves in the loft. laura liked it so much up there we decided to try it.

our fabulous week in mulege (moo lay HEY)¬†is winding down (as is our journey, but we don’t want to talk about that).

our aforementioned friends are leaving us tomorrow after a week full of kayaking, walking, birdwatching, eating, reading, eating, reading, eating, reading, some rug buying and generally having big fun.

we have dined at some of the local restaurants, but still prefer to cook here at the casita with the incredible array of fresh ingredients that often arrive right at our door. there have been vegetable salesman, bakers, and fishmongers that have come by selling their goods. the vegetables are organic and the fish usually caught within the last few hours. there is also a fish camp a short walk from here where we have purchased whole fish as well as freshly cut fillets. the one restaurant we have frequented at least 4 times is¬†danny’s¬†asado for their delicious fish tacos, saturday features roast pork, cooked for several hours Friday night.

we attempted clamming the other day, but were quite unsuccessful in our attempts. apparently we were at the wrong spot at the right beach. who knew?  sununu knew?we did see some lovely sea shells and waded in warm shallow water at the end of a perfect day, so all was not lost.

we have been on a few kayak adventures. it is lovely on the water, and the bay of conception has been mostly glassy and still. the birdwatchers and photographers among us have had a most satisfying show of birds flying, swooping, feeding and generally¬†carrying on. they frequent the fishing camp¬†where fish guts and heads are to be found in abundance….a symbiotic relationship if there ever was one.

we will be sorry to leave this lovely town, the weather has been warm and sunny during the days and cool at night, perfect sleeping weather. we even saw the lunar eclipse the other evening, a beautiful sight surrounded by a sky full of stars!

let’s just say that we haven’t come up with a good reason to go home.

maybe it’s eric’s margaritas,

maybe it’s david’s fish,

maybe it’s the fabulous weather and beautiful sea…………………………..

maybe it’s the guys that come out on the beach and sell you fish and organic veggies and mexican blankets and silver earrings.

beyond a doubt it is chocolate with chili, yes some things actually exist and all the fishes come ashore to see what all the music is, they being more familiar with the low, slow sonorous sounds of the right whales in the night and jean and laura have lost their memory sticks. So they come onto land and the hujmans eat them a fine howdeedoo. imagine if bill gates was in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by and he stopped by to say hello…and you ate him. You see the fish’s plight, I think. This is bedlam folks and paradise has plastic ceiling lights and puppies–there are always puppies–crapping outside the gate. The cats do what they damn well please, of course. In the morning we had breakfast at a little place in town that birds rioting in the latillas and they put your fried eggs on top of refried beans and tortillas and these people have no respect for boundaries, sort of like Eric, a pure Indianan in the mold of¬†Kurt Vonnegut¬†and John Dillinger and¬†Hoagie Carmichael, ¬†hell, Eric makes the¬†margaritas and drinks it¬†both and survives and now it’s devolved to a discusssion of men’s thighs and how we men struggle to find flattering bathing suits. Ah, hard(lard) is the fortune of all men-men kind. David’s west Indian fish that swam to West Africa, in tune with Eddie Vetter’s “Into the Wild.” i tell you bros and sssies in blog-land, it was transformational fish, a jesus fish, a dish fish that could bring cultures together. And a well dressed fish, that brings cultures together. onan. Fred has a loaded dreidel, it always falls to bad luck.

okay, since everyone is probably curious, this blog was written by a professional….name to be undisclosed………………………..

we made it! crossed the border, registered ourselves and hank,  drove a difficult 5 and a half hours in howling winds, navigated through pinball machine towns, made the ferry on time and survived the 10 hour ferry ride among a cacaphony of snorers and mexican t.v. eric did a superb job of driving as we were rattled along the highway by huge trucks and the tremendous winds.

we arrived in mulege a day before our friends with enough time to scope out the town, spend the night in a campground (where we met our first westie travelers, dave and anna from b.c.), hang out with our host¬†cliff’s¬†many dogs and cats (4 grown dogs, 2 cats and 2 puppies), shop for saturday night dinner and promised margaritas and have a fabulous pork asado lunch. mulege is a sleepy little town full of one way streets and interesting nooks and crannies well worth further exploration.

to back up a bit we must update you on our journey to get from colombus, new mexico to mulege. first of all please rest assured that our borders are secure. we confirmed it. at what we figure must cost about $100,000 a piece there are border patrol cars posted at regular intervals along the new mexico and arizona desert. each car has a small tent encampment and special heat detecting equipment. this all would be fine except for the fact that when you get to a border town such as el paso, douglas or nogales you realize one side of the street is in the united states and the other is in mexico. there must be a better solution.

going backwards¬†a bit¬†we spent the night previous to our border crossing at lake patagonia, arizona. the story goes that in the sixties some ranchers decided to damn up a river and make a lake. (apparently there weren’t regulations about this sort of activity back then) after a few years of hassling with the maintenance they decided to deed the lake and surrounding property to the state. the park has become a bird sanctuary and thanks to laura our birding companion we were able to identify several species. we arrived at the campground early enough to walk around in daylight and prepare dinner with a gorgeous sunset as our backdrop.

we also spent an hour or so in bisbee, arizona. the town was full of tourists and galleries, not the interesting art we saw in marfa but a lot of kitschy, cutsy “stuff”. there was one very interesting gallery, sam-poe,a husband/wife artist team.

we are glad to be in mexico and so happy to see our friends barb, david, jeanne and mike! everyone is quietly reading after a morning of walks, breakfast and sleeping in…….it’s easy to see why so many gringos move to mexico!

new state! we left texas after about a week and a half of crossing the widest part of the state (with a slight side trip to dallas).

hank had some lifter problems again so we spent two extra days in el paso. we were checking the city out for hilary. apparently she arrived in EP about an hour after we left.

el paso is a dry dusty city with some interesting surprises. one of them is the art museum which is just lovely. we saw a great marsden hartley exhibit.

before reaching el paso we drove through marfa. we would have loved to spend more time there. it is quite an unusual town out in the middle of nowhere. not only was “giant” filmed there but the town is filled with art galleries and there are mysterious lights that flash there in the evenings. (we missed those as we were happily¬†asleep in our hotel room).

while eric played golf at the scruffiest 9 hole course in the world (at least they don’t water the greens here in the desert) laura and fran perused the various art galleries in town. everyone was infectiously friendly and there was certainly interesting art to see.

since we hooked back up with route 10 in texas we have been hugging the mexican border. there are border patrol cars, helicopters and people in military gear everywhere. el paso bleeds right into ciudad juarez, the only line is the skinny, dry rio grande. as we drive along this endless border we continue to realize how absurd a wall would be between the two countries.

we are behind in blogging due to lack of internet access, very busy evenings and generally having way too much fun…..so we will try to summarize briefly what we have been up to the last several days. these are the stops we have made since we arrived in dallas on monday:

1. dallas: museum of modern art, nasher sculpture museum, deely plaza museum on the sixth floor (with views of the grassy knoll and the window where the alleged shot(s) were fired), texas star golf course (laura and fran were not there) and a fabulous stay at fred’s including delectable meals cooked by fred himself.

2. fort worth: the kimbell art museum and modern art museum, two must see architectural pilgrimages

3. austin: the world’s largest whole foods, the mexican art museum, the south austin museum of popular culture, musical venues everywhere (chuggin monkey included),¬†hut’s hamburgers, a fabulous walk through downtown.

4. guadalupe river state park

5. san antonio: the toilet seat museum (an absolute must see, one of our favorite travels with hank stops to date), the alamo, the river walk (just did a drive by)

6. del rio(not much to report)

7. lake amistead (lots of birds and first $4 camp site!)

8. langtry: the judge roy bean courthouse, saloon and residence, the cactus garden museum

9. west texas landscape (lots of it)

10. marfa (yet to be explored)

hank now has a new passenger, laura has joined us for the next leg of our travels. hank has also been properly adorned and now sports a springing monk (who likes to go betwee 55-60 mph) laura is in the penthouse apartment in hank’s loft. she loves it!

we have filled our days with driving and interesting stops but the best stop to date has been the toilet seat museum.¬† the owner and artist, barney smith, retired master plumber,¬†is a delightful 86 year old, twinkle in the eye man who has created eight hundred and something toilet seats to date. he’d like to get to 1,000 and we have no doubt that will happen. he has toilet seats commemorating every event possible, all professions, and almost everyone he crosses paths with. we signed two toilet seats, gave him some mardi gras beads and have promised to send a care package for him to decorate our toilet seat with. he has seats covered with dental tools, dog tags, pez dispensers, corks, swizel sticks, sign language, superbowl memorabilia, barbie dolls, his wife’s gall bladder operation equipment, beads, shells, stones, glasses and much much more.

you have to call barney ahead to schedule a visit but it is well worth your time.

another interesting visit was to the original whole foods in austin, texas. that was an overwelming experience and it took about 2 hours to get through the store. our san rafael whole foods could fit into the austin version at least four times. we are a bit discouraged about whole foods as we are reading “the omnivores dilemna” by michael pollan but it still was an amazing experience. the prepared food department was about as large as downtown macy’s and you could buy anything from pizza to smoked tuna, gelato to satay, rice bowls to truffles or gourmet sandwiches to any kind of prepared salad known to mankind.

today we enjoyed langtry, texas. definitely off the beaten track but also worth visiting.¬†the visitor center is quite well equipped and will give you maps and brochures on any and all things texan. it is interesting to see judge roy bean’s “courthouse”¬†as well as his residence. there is a beautiful cactus garden next door with labels and descriptions of all the various cacti which describe all the medicinal and practical uses of cactus.

tonight we have opted for a hotel. the two campgrounds in marfa looked very sketchy. let’s just say that only one had bathrooms and a shower and that the shower¬†surpassed the shrimp shack shower in grunge factor.

now we are happily ensconced directly across from the first cowboy church in marfa and tomorrow is sunday morning!

 

we made it to texas……..a long bleak drive through eastern texas ended with a wonderful welcome by our friends fred and laura. a trip to one of the original whole foods (multiple veggies, foreign cheeses, organic food galore, a feast for the eyes!) and a delicious dinner and we are happily settled in for the evening.¬†

the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity and we have had minimal internet access so there is a lot of catching up to do. since we missed the thursday night parades in new orleans we decided to stay another night. we later discovered we were lucky to even get a room, especially for a reasonable price. people pay exorbitant prices for rooms during mardi gras, particularly on the parade route. we were right on st. charles avenue, in front of the robert e. lee circle.

friday we spent walking all over new orleans…..for about 3 hours we walked, through the garden district, arts and warehouse district and uptown. we saw a funeral, ate at mother’s (definitely a tourist spot) and took the trolley. after a late lunch we napped in preparation for the big evening. all of new orleans was in a party mood and everyone was getting dressed up. (hank is sporting new beads and a rhinestone sticker on his console).

we parked our camping chairs right outside the hotel and waited. we ended up watching about six and a half hours of parades: hermes, d’etat,¬†morpheus and the muses. hermes had awesome floats but the muses by far had the best throws. throws for all of you not in the know (which we certainly were not until friday night) are beads, cups, frisbees, anything the krewe members decide to throw off their floats.¬† in the beginning we grabbed at anything and everything¬†but by the end of the evening we were¬†very picky about the throws. apparently so was everyone else.¬†by about 10:00 the streets were littered with cast off beads,¬†and all sorts of trash. it was a huge party, blocks and blocks long with thousands of people participating. we had never seen anything like it before. apparently it gets more and more intense as the days go on until the finale of mardi gras on fat¬†tuesday. we were¬†so happy to have the mardi gras experience¬†but certainly ready to move after one evening.¬† our parade mates natasha, rainbow and kathy were already staking out their spots the next morning at 6:00.¬† this is their¬†8th mardi gras experience and they go to all four days. people take mardi gras very seriously.

saturday morning we breakfasted in the garden district at slim goodies a recommendation by a guy on the trolley. it was fabuous! we recommend the jewish coonass, two potato latkes covered with steamed spinach, shrimp etouffe and eggs. delicious!

after breakfast we met with our friend jason’s aunt and grandma to look at grandma’s house. she had several feet of water stay in her house for a week. huge patches of mold grew on the walls. all the sheetrock, cabinets and floors had to be removed. even though she paid for both flood and regular insurance,¬†the insurance company has decided that they are only willing to give her $17,000. we have heard this story over and over again or some¬†variation on the theme.¬† the whole insurance situation¬†on the gulf coast is disgusting. not only are people not getting settlements but those who do rebuild are facing incredible hikes in¬†their premiums.¬† new orleans is incredibly far from being rebuilt. there are definitely two cities, the tourist areas are bustling with activity and the rest of the city waits to be rebuilt…..depending on charitable organizations and volunteer labor. it is a depressing situation.

we left new orleans and drove to lake charles. after a tasty gulf coast dinner (gumbo and low country boil) we camped at the sam houston state park, a lovely well appointed campground.

the next day we searched unsuccessfully for an auduban golf course and headed north to texas. that’s where the bleakness¬†started. empty towns with closed¬†down shops and battered trailers and mobile homes. we stopped to do laundry in luftkin and were appalled at the prices ($2.50 a load to wash and 25 cents for 10 minutes of dry time). the laundry was crowded with people and there was a line waiting to use the dryers. we amused several children by passing out mardi gras beads. (hank is decorated with¬†several strands but we still are lugging around a huge bag of booty.)

we are so happy to be in dallas with our dear friends!

we have heard that patty’s house is moving along well in our absense. the link to see her progress is ¬†http://vbaudoin.wordpress.com/tag/145-rosetti/¬†. looks like the gang is doing a great job! we wish we were there!!!!!! careful on those high beams¬†baby girl!

 

scenes from mardi gras……………