Vincente Guererro (3)

20 January 2007
Vincente Guererro, Baha California, Mexico - population: rural (?)
Posado Don Diego RV Park

Dear Friends of Barbara and Charlie (B/C) ...

Humphrey here. This email covers the drive through Tijuana, Ensenada (within easy access from San Diego) to Vincente Guererro, 183 miles. We stayed here one night. As the map indicates we are on the west or Pacific Coast side of the Baha. Again this is being sent belatedly from La Paz.

A condo under construction, one of dozens along the beach south of Tijuana. Note the highway curb, the no parking sign and cell phone tower. Just about everyone has cell phones and coverage is available in most cities and towns. US cell phone contracts do not cover Mexico but Mexico coverage is available.

The extent of development through out the Baja is impressive. First because just about everything you see dates from about 1980 and second because a building boom continues. It was just retired Vincente Fox who gave priority to development of the Baha and it is coming to pass. The Baja is held as a land of opportunity like our old west and people from elsewhere in Mexico are flocking in. Capo San Lucas and La Paz have a labor shortage while the rest of Mexico has a surplus.

A fleeting glance from the highway of the Fox entertainment studios south of Tijuana at which the Titantic and Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed, among others.


Look closely and you will see large fish pens in the bay. They are not salmon pens as in the Puget Sound but tuna pens.




A small highway-side town with typical dirt shoulder. A broad set back has been reserved for highway development. Reflected in the window is a caravan “trip tic” provided by Adventure Caravans that lists by mile distance: towns, topes (speed bumps), vados (dry fords in flooding - they don‘t commonly have culverts for water to pass under the highway), pull-outs, turns, toll booths, military check points, Pemex gas stations, and landmarks and views.

The countryside is picturesque desert and limited crop land with a spine of mountains down the middle of most of the peninsula. The scenery is not unlike the US west. Note that the roadway, with 10’ lanes, doesn’t have shoulders. The roads have been engineered with a good foundation so we found little structural failure and the pavement was generally very good.

Dinner at the Posado Don Diego RV Park at the end of a long first day. Left to right: Barbara, Al Irvine and Teri Oelschlager, and Dot and Art Seaman who are in training to become a Tail Gunner. The vacant chair has my ubiquitous travel vest draped over it.

The owners of the Park and restaurant are a family from Los Angeles with one Mexican member which permitted them to buy the business some 25 years ago right after the highway was built through here. During the trip we’ve had many good group dinners (generally with a choice of entrees) which was included in the price of the caravan. The restaurants and RV parks we’ve stayed in have been well selected, the meals generally very good, the margaritas generally generous, and no one has experienced Montezuma’s Revenge. We use water from our storage tank filled with RV park water and chlorinated with Clorox. Barbara and Scout use bottled water bought along the way.

These newsletters are getting a little long, I’ll try to shorten them up but I’m trying to answer some common questions we‘ve found people have. I welcome your questions, drop us an email.

Next: on to Bahia de Los Angeles.

… Humphrey, for Charlie and Barbara

Caravan organization (2)

19 January 2007
Chula Vista, California - population: 199,000
Chula Vista Marina and RV Park

Dear Friends of Barbara and Charlie (B/C) ...

Hello again, Humphrey is back. This email gives a little background to the organization of the caravan and summarizes mishaps.

We arrived in Chula Vista, south of San Diego almost on the Mexican border, a couple days early to handle last minute details and to deliver our car to a Thousand Trails RV park east of here for storage. B/C were surprised with the number of last minutes detail for the caravan, considering that they full-time. By the way, Charlie and Barbara bought a Thousand Trails membership (see internet) for idyllic nature park settings in which to stay and relax, to slow their pace. We’ve stayed in two and really enjoy their natural setting and peace and quiet.

The caravan began with an ice cream social before a briefing. Here we sat with, left to right, Ken and Ethel Cinders from Atlantic City, NJ (he retired from newspaper publishing); and Al Irvine (retired Seabee) and Teri Oelschlager from Santa Barbara, CA. Teri had a son, a NYC fire fighter who was killed in Tower 2 on 9/11.

Getting the word from our “Wagon Master“, Jerry Barber and wife Claudia (both retired California State Patrol) and to their left our “Tail Gunner” Bill and wife Marita Mitchell. The Tail Gunner is an Adventure Caravan employee, the last vehicle in the caravan and is responsible for helping with the repair of Rvs along the way -- and running the DVD loan library. Before leaving Bill gave our 12 year old Lazy Daze a thorough inspection and described it as very chipper.

Our Lazy Daze outside the Chula Vista Marina and RV Park in the brutally cold Southern California winter -- notice the bare tree and Barbara all bundled up. Scout, in the drivers seat, has just said, “Let’s get going!”

All lined up and ready to go. We were twenty rigs with 40 people. The runners in the foreground aren't running but are a "heal and toe" club if you have ever heard of speed walkers, an event in the Olympics. The rigs are all closely lined up but later we broke up in smaller groups which proceeded at their own pace. We traveled with Ken and Ethel Cinders and Bob and Jan Eldred. We were comfortable using our speed control set between 45 and 50 mph.

There were 20 rigs at the start, mostly large “Class A” motor homes that look like busses, the remainder large “Fifth Wheel” trailers such as the one in the center of the picture that are towed with a powerful pickup with a tractor trailer type connection on the floor of the pickup bed. Everything was 30-40’ long except for our 26.5’ Lazy Daze. Only a couple other couples are “full timing” as we have for the past 5 years.

MISHAPS. RV caravanning on the Baja is not for sissies. We are still happy we’ve gone on the trip, would recommend it, and we’ve had no problem but keep us in your prayers. The highway to Cabo San Lucas is 1150 miles on narrow Mexican #1 and our return will be the same.

To this half-way point we are down 2 rigs. One man died of a very fast heart attack, for which Barbara performed her nursing best but to no avail; one woman tore ligaments in her knee getting into a fishing boat and is now in a cast; and one couple, just new to RV’ing and driving a big Class A, returned home not feeling comfortable driving Mexican roads after smashing their driver side rear view mirror on the side of an oncoming 18 wheeler. Two rigs early on ran off the highway, which doesn’t have shoulders, but fortunately they went off where it was fairly level and they didn’t turn over or sustain damage. Another rig, a class A diesel, broke an engine fuel line when they hit an unexpected pot hole. They spent a week in a small Mexican village for installing a replacement fuel line flown down from San Diego; they have rejoined us.

Last night during our evening happy hour social we were queried how many of us have fallen on the trip; 5 reported fall with no serious injury. Even given the above, everyone remaining is still game and morale is high.

Next: Vincinte Guererro (our first stop in Mexico).

… Humphrey, for Charlie and Barbara

Introduction (1)

18 January 2007
Chula Vista, CA
65 and partly cloudy

Dear Friends of Barbara and Charlie (B/C) ...

This begins a new attempt by Charlie to prod me, Humphrey, to post more frequent, shorter and less academic newsletters than in the past. Charlie has remarked pointedly that many friends have inquired about newsletters; I guess I have more of an audience than I realized.

The forthcoming newsletter series will chronicle B/C‘s 45 day “Slow ‘n Easy” Baha RV odyssey, 19 January to 4 March, 2007. The caravan is offered by Adventure Caravans (see internet) with whom they toured Copper Canyon in northern Mexico last winter.

This is a trip description that appears in their tour catalog. Click it to enlarge it.








It is a 1000 miles down the peninsula and another 1000 miles back. This you can enlarge by clicking.







NOTE, at this writing (11 February) we, in fact, are half way through the trip and in an RV park near Cabo San Lucas at the south of the Baja peninsula. See map below. From our park we have a broad view of the Pacific Ocean to the south. The weather here is warm, in the high 80’s but with low humidity and a saving breeze, and deep blue cloudless sky. Our caravan friends come from all over the country; many from places suffering the winter of ‘06 so they really appreciate the weather.

Hopefully, before we leave here next weekend I will be able to email several reports on way-points down the peninsula in our trip so far. I am able to do this because a member of our caravan has a satellite internet connection with wi-fi and graciously allows everyone to link through it. So email to us is possible and we’d like to hear from you.

UPDATE: I did get several reports prepared which are at the editors. This however was emailed at our next stop, La Paz. More later today hopefully.

… Humphrey for Charlie and Barbara