Mexico March 12th and 13th SPRING BREAK 08!

March 12, 2008-

-Bought some Mexican car insurance in the border town Nogales and hit the road into Mexico. Customs went smooth but the traffic wasn't so smooth. Amazingly nobody hit me, I made it through town with great skill, some sweat and lots of luck. After what felt like hours we finally reached the open highway in route to Desemboque. Eventually we got to a town to fill up and as we stopped we were immediately swarmed by the local window washers and candy sellers. We managed to break free from them and with a sparkling clean windshield we filled up con la roja gasolina. 5 hours later after cresting the sand dunes we could see and smell the ocean, and the quaint town of Desemboque. Feeling very out of place we drove around the sandy streets with the whole town staring at us. Finally we pulled into a restaurante and ran towards the ocean with frisbees in hand. With no footprints on the beach and only tire tracks we were a little nervous to swim so we just wandered around and tossed the frisbee around.

Mexican open highway

Practicing my flute skills while catching a frisbee

Mary at her beach

Tire tracks and Mary throwing a frisbee at the ground

Spring Break 08

Blue jelly fish (the reason I wouldn't stick my feet in)

The original plan was to stay at Desemboque and beach it up- but after a few too many awkward stares, and a dead seal on the beach, we decided that maybe a more popular beach would have more appeal than we had originally thought. So after asking around we found a guy who was actually heading to Puerto Penasco who offered to show us the way. Little did we know that highway 37 actually means highway 003, it was a good thing we had a guide.

Driving from Desemboque to Puerto Penasco

We ended up in the Puerto Penasco after dark and started trying to find a place to stay for the night. We stumbled upon The Reef, an open campground area on sandy beach which also has a restaurant and night club. We parked our RV in the line of RVs and called it a night.

Thursday March 13th:

Camping location right on the Beach

Fellow campers on the beach- this line went on for quite a while

Spectacular catch

Another great catch

Mary hustling for the catch

Mary needs some sun

Mike marvelling at the ocean

We woke to fellow American spring breakers volleyballing and ATVing it up. It was strange being in another country and not really having any idea because we were only surrounded by fellow Americans, and dumb ones at that. One incident that really got me going was this group of guys who had been sitting around and drinking beer all morning went down to the ocean. Down there they met up with an injured seagull who had been sitting on the beach all morning waiting for the tide to come in. They figured that this bird should not be sitting in their vacation spot, so they started throwing rocks at it. I, not being too far away, witnessed this event and left Mike in confusion as I stormed down the beach. I had some choice words with them, which ended in them asking if I was an animal lover or something, and they explaining to me how they wished they had there shotgun so they could blow the little birdy up. At least they stopped throwing rocks at it. And eventually the tide did came in, and the bird swam out to sea. Other than this rather unfortunate encounter we did manage to enjoy ourselves. Some swimming and lots of frisbeeing was had.

When we tired of the ocean we figured it was time to head back to the states. We stopped in Sonoyta Mexico on the border and got lots of yummy fruits and lots of fresh tortillas. I was even brave and tried a tamale from a street vendor, luckily with no ill consequences. As we crossed the border we headed into Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where we stopped for sunset and washing of pineapple hands. It was beautiful.

Typical Mexican scenery

Organ Pipe National Monument USA

Mary and her tall friend (Mary looks as short as Emilie)

Cactus

pretty

sunset

Desert Creature

Much too soon we had to head back to Phoenix to get Mary on her plane. It was a tough night since the plane didn't leave until 1 am and we had been going to bed around 9. We passed the time by eating endless pancakes at Dennys and starting to dread my hair...pictures to come soon.

Phoenix to Nogales March 9th-11th

Sunday March 9th:

-picked Mary up from the airport at 1:30 am, and slept in a bike shop parking lot

-Drove to Tucson, thinking we would go climbing and then get the car fixed on Monday

- Arrived in Tucson, stopped at a stoplight and couldn't get the car into 1st- homeless couple pushed the car and we got it in gear

- Decided to find car shop immediatley

-Only place open on Sunday is a Firestone so drove in 2nd gear 3 miles there

-Firestone tells us it's going to be 5 hours of work to take the clutch apart and they won't be able to get to it until Monday

-we walked over to the mall to use internet to figure out what the heck to do with the car now

-Decide to drive the car to the closest vw place, and get a rental car so we don't sit in a parking lot all night

-Climbed at the Ridgeline on Mount Lemmon, which is absolutely beautiful. We were the only people there, and even though you could see the city waaay below, it felt like you were no where near civilization, a nice feeling.

The new vanagon- it was probably a good thing we got a rental- Mt Lemmon is 26 miles up, I'm not so sure we would have made it

Mary showing off her fancy moves

Me doing the same

The belayers view

Michael concentrating

Getting there

That's pretty high

View from the top

Looking down- thats Michael and Mary way down there

Rappelling down from the top

I think someone enjoyed having a little sister around to pick on

Another rental car shot

View driving down from Mt Lemmon

-After climbing we played some frisbee, and then headed South to Madera Canyon to camp for the night

Mary passed out after too much spring breaking

Tuesday March 11th:

-Did a 6.3 mile hike in Madera Canyon- home to all bird loving folk in Arizona, apparently there are a lot of them because the place was packed. Saw some birds, and tons of lizards. Also ran into a family who had lost there 2 11 year old kids. We had seen them at the bottom of the hike, and the mom thought they had gone up. To make matters worse at the top of the climb theres a memorial to 3 young teenagers who apparently died up there. Needless to say the mom was a wreck. We assured her that we had seen the girls at the bottom and they took off down the hill.

View we woke up to the next morning

Bird

Lizard

- We played some more frisbee

-Got a call from the car shop- the van was fixed, there was just air in the system, from when the shop in albuetc. had fixed it, and it was all ready to go.

-Decided to go back to the original plan and headed toward Mexico

-Slept at a rest area about 50 kms from the border

Sedona to Phoenix March 5th- March 8th

Well...it's been a while so we have a lot of catching up to do.

I believe we left off in Sedona... Here it is

Wednesday March 5th:

We showed up to the group ride at Mountain Bike Heaven ( a local Sedona bike shop) not having any idea what to expect. We were both pretty nervous, it was the closest feeling to race day that I've had in a while. Slowly people started gathering, everyone of them on 50 pound bikes with monster wide tires, with full shin guards downhill gear- we were wondering what we got ourselves into.

The ride ended up being fine- what threw us both off was the technical skill of the group was phenomenal, but they approached everything technical very slooowly, which to me makes it about 100 times harder. Momentum is my friend, so I had to get off my bike a lot. By the end of the ride we got a lot more used to it, and found ourselves being able to get over all sorts of obstacles even at slow speeds. I think it really helped out our technical riding.

There were about 12 or 15 people on the ride- all of which were really nice. There were even 2 other women, which I can't say I was expecting. One of them, Frannie, turned out to be a trail angel. By which I mean she asked us what we were doing in Arizona; found out we were just aimlessly wondering around; and offered us her home. We couldn't believe it, and were not about to refuse. We piled up on all the amenities: showers, oven usage, a washing machine, and sleeping in a bed. It was wonderful, and so is she- obviously very friendly and a great person. Unfortunately she ran off to Australia before we could get a picture with her, but I have a feeling we may see her again.

The next day (March 6th) we hooked up with a couple people from the group ride and went on an all out Sedona, cactus filled, big drop finding adventure. I took one mighty endo over the bars, but it was a surprisingly soft landing, (no cactus or big rocks) so everything was fine. This is the group- we found out that this couple actually lived out of the RV for 8 years driving around the country, so who knows how long we'll last.

Now, just to clarify the guy standing behind me is Doug, not Mike, just in case anyone is confused

Our last day in Sedona (friday march 7th) we decided to do the classic ride to Submarine Rock. We loved it- very scenic, pretty crazy, and lots of fun. The only problem was that as we drove to the trail head the car, once again, started to feel funny. Mike was having trouble getting it to shift, it felt like the clutch wasn't doing anything- not good.

Now usually we could just drive it over to the local vw shop and have them take a look at it BUT vw shops don't like to be open on the weekend, and we had already told Mary we were going to pick her up from the airport in Phoenix the next day. So we hoped the clutch would hold out- spent one more glorious night at Frannie's and headed down to Phoenix.

This turned out to be a really pretty drive, especially around Black Canyon City (? I think that was it) area. Tons of those really big classic cactus- I think they are Saguaro, but I'm not to sure. From my in depth field observations I would say they seem to like the hillsides of lower elevations, and they like to pose for sunset pictures.

Flagstaff/Sedona

After our lovely encounter, we continued to make our way through Arizona and got to Flagstaff about an hour before sunset. According to the map, the city of Flagstaff is in the National Forest, so we thought we should have no problem finding a place to camp. Apparently the land of many uses also means the land of many residential uses. We eventually happened on a pull off, on some street off of Lake Mary Road. It looked like a nice enough place, and we watched a very pretty sunset.

Unfortunately, we came to realize that we had certainly not been the first people to fine this nice spot. There was a half burned telephone book, and beer bottles everywhere. It really ruins it when you find a beautiful spot, only to realize that it has been used as a trash dump. We were discussing the rational behind this, and really can't come up with one..."don't want the old lady to know I've been drinking" ? I don't know, but it really makes me wonder about people...but anyway enough of my litter rant for now.

Next day we drove the 30 miles down Oak Creek Canyon to Sedona. It's a gorgeous town, but very strange. It seems to be full of retired people, new-agers, and people on vacation.

Example: I walked into the gas station and was told to have a glorious day, well that's nice of them I thought. Then I over hear the conversation she's having with the guy behind me which includes bailing his dad out of jail, when the next full moon will be, his beautiful necklace, and a new moon ceremony....ok...

I figure that I could deal with this mixture, I don't mind weird people, but then Mike brought up the fact that some morning I'm gonna wake up a little grumpy, walk into that gas station and that lady is gonna say something like "oo it looks like the moon has cast its shadow upon you last night" and it's gonna be the last straw.

As for now, the riding seems very different, very spiky,and pretty cool, and we have a pretty nice, free place to camp, although it's a little farther away then we were hoping.

Here are some pictures

Tomorrow we're going to try a group mountain bike ride at one of the shops... I wonder what intermediate will mean

Welcome to Arizona

Finally, we are on our way to Sedona. A funny thing happend as we entered into Arizona that had us both questioning our mission. We were getting low on gas and decided Snow Flake, AZ would be our fueling destination. We entered into the town as the speed limit dropped to a more VW friendly speed of 40 then down to 35.
I was in the left lane of a typical 4 lane city main street. And Billy Bob in a budget moving truck pulled right up to my bumper. I checked my speed and I was going 40 in a 35. I couldnt get over there were 2 cars right beside me so I maintained this speed not wanting to cause this wirey character any panic. Little did I know I had already made this gentleman hotter than a habenero in the middle of summer.
I was a bit confused but just tried to look for gas station so I could get out of this guys way. Thankfully I spotted a gas station on the left coming up. Traffic cleared to my right and this guy threw the truck over and floored it. I then heard a slight bluegrass style raspy voice twangy with some kind of obsenities. I could only laugh but deep down I thought I was about to get shot like the little piggy he killed that morning.
To my suprise he then flew by with a brigade of large trucks following and pulled into the same gas station I was planning on going to. I pulled in and minded my own buisness and started fueling the van up. After he was done yelling at the kiddos in back he walked over to me and said


"hey buddy this is Arizona. Out here the left lane is the fast lane"


I responded "I was going 5 over"


he then cleverly states again, "the left lane is the fast lane" .


So I tried to calmly explain to him that I coudn't get over in the other lane because there was a car there.

This really got him going and he told me " well you better get over next time, or i'm gonna run your a** off the road"
Meanwhile his kids learned a valuable leason in how to communicate with non arizonians that day.

I wish I had a picture of him but this one should do.

Climbing, cows, and camp fires

From Albuquerque we went on to Socorro New Mexico, where we find Box Canyon not too far down a dirt road. The van is really getting its fair share of dirt roads. We climbed a little that night, and got to have our first camp fire of the trip.

Oh, and had the most gourmet camping dinner I have ever had; A very delicious pad thai. While we were in Albetc. we went to this world market. We got double the tofu for a quarter of the price, plus a slew of other yummy cheap stuff.



We woke up to cows lurking

And then did a bunch of climbs. The rock was rhyolite, which felt very different from the sandstone we have climbed in the past. A couple of the climbs were right next to the parking area, and then the last one was quite a hike.

That's the van in the distance


The pictures are of the last climb we did, which I thought was pretty tricky. I had actually tried it the night before but couldn't finish it, but i showed that rock on the 2nd day.

So did Mike

Unfortunately the rock also showed my hands.

That night we moved on and went about 60 miles west and to a completely different climate. Instead of sand we had trees, and snow in some spots. We stayed in a campground just outside of Datil New Mexico. It was a Friday night and there was only one other car there, It only cost 5 dollars and there was FREE FIREWOOD, I had never heard of such a thing.

See Mike's happy too

The next morning, we subjected ourselves to a brain freeze, by washing our hair in the water spigot and were on our way to Arizona.

Tent Rocks

The Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument is nifty place, we just had to shed an Abe Lincoln to see it and it was well worth it. According to the tourist pamphlet the national monument is located on the Pajarito Plateau in north-central New Mexico.

The cone-shaped tent rock formations (as seen in the picture) are the products of volcanic eruptions that occurred 6 to 7 million years ago and left pumice, ash and tuff deposits over 1,000 feet thick. Explosions from the Jemez volcanic field spewed pyroclasts while hot gases blasted down slopes in a fiery avalanche called a pyroclastic flow. Small, rounded, translucent obsidian (volcanic glass) fragments created by rapid cooling. New Mexicans call these things Indian Tears from the trail of tears.




Doesn't She look so small?

Good view.



A very bad self portrait that Emilie wanted to share with everyone.





Emilie, wondering about all the geological processes that have taken place.


That night we decided to treat ourselves and stay at a campground with running water and even showers. Our smiles quickly vanished as we arrived. Pulling into the site my foot was pressed to the floor but luckily the van came to a stop. Good thing we had an oil change appointment the next morning at a VW shop. The next adventure would be getting there.

We took full advantage of the site, forgetting about the brakes until morning. We plugged in the van and immediatly started charging all our gadgets. Then we did laundry in the bucket(a multiuseful object that every van should have. We mainly use it as a trashcan and a laundry machine) and settled in for a night of watching movies on the laptop.

Success! The bucket produced clean clothes!

We took off to Albuquerque after some nice showers and made it to the shop. Another 1300 dollars later we had new brakes again, an oil change, and an air/gas mixture meter. We are now getting around 19-20 mpg fully loaded, not to bad.