A Road Trip To Mesquite

We usually don't travel at night. If we leave home to go somewhere, it is usually early in the morning. So, when we decided to go on a road trip to Mesquite, Nevada on Friday after work, we knew we would be doing part of the driving for that trip in the late evening and after dark. 

  

You can tell from the long shadows that the day was ending. We have never seen the desert of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah in this light before. 

 

 

I love the bigness of the sky out here. It seems like you can see for a hundred miles.  This is looking east towards the Vermillion Cliffs. It is another place where I just can't see it enough.

 

This was taken on Arizona Hwy 89A going north towards Fredonia, Arizona. It is a pretty good photo, but it still does not capture all the color that was there on Friday afternoon.

 

 

Along about sunset, we were driving through Colorado City, Arizona.  Colorado City is a fundamentalist Mormon settlement just to the east of the Utah border.  The colors of the cliffs at sunset are gorgeous!

 

That sunset was awesome! Like I said, the sky just seems bigger out here. 

Our destination for the weekend was the Casa Blanca Casino. We stayed two nights, and had a fun time. Besides the obvious reason for going, the restaurant there was really good, and really cheap. Can you believe a 16 oz porterhouse steak, baked potato, salad, and steamed green beans for $10.99? Or a humongous fresh fruit platter with cantaloupe, honeydew melon, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, and cottage cheese, for $6.99? So much that I could not eat it all. 

But OMG! Did you know it was over 110 degrees in Nevada yesterday???  I'm just glad we didn't have to go outside for anything.

 

 
 

 

Cactus Ranch Trailer Court

As soon as we got back from vacation, we hooked up the trailer and moved about 80 miles east to Morristown, Arizona. We had been looking at campgrounds in the area for a couple of months, and we liked the looks of this one. The fact that it only costs $185 per month and they only charge 11 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity made it that much more appealing. The tiny little office is cute, but no one is ever in there. The manager and his wife live in a mobile home in the back, and transact business there.


Our site is pretty flat, and has a nice concrete pad. There are no trees, but there are not many trees here at all. There is a large tree-like yucca plant in between our site and the one next door.

There are lots of native plants nicely landscaped around the park including saguaros and other cactii that I don't know the names of. There is actually a Cactus Nursery right next door to the campground that has seven acres of different species of cactus. Some of them are quite unusual.


These small cacti are in bloom all over the park. The flowers are about three inches in diameter, and there are lots of them.

Here is a picture of the yucca--those things get pretty big out here.

And as usual, the desert sunsets are gorgeous!

Vacation IV: The Last Day

On the last day of our vacation, we headed over to the Tijuana Estuary National Wildlife Refuge. It is the slough, or wetlands, formed where the Tijuana River flows into the Pacific Ocean. The Tijuana River is the border between California and Mexico.


When FabGrandpa was a kid, he and his brothers and friends would go there hunting for bait for fishing off the pier. It wasn't a park then. He said they learned where they could gently step their feet up and down, to make shrimp like creatures come up out of the mud. Those things, according to him, were the best bait around. They would also swim across the river to the Mexico side to body surf because the waves were better there.



Now there is a fence there, so you can't get to the other side. At the refuge, there are trails, and picnic area. The place is run by a co-operative of the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and California State Parks department. We couldn't go very far on the day we were there because there had been some damage to the roads and trails from a storm, but we did enjoy some fabulous views from the visitor center area.


All the flowers growing here are native to the area. The little white ones smelled sooo good!



Because of the variable wetness of the area due to the tides and scarce rain, there is quite a mix of vegetation.


After we left the estuary, we decided to drive over to Mission Valley to go to Best Buy. FabGrandpa has been wanting to buy the game Left for Dead, and they didn't have it at the National City store. They told us there were 20 copies of it at the other store. I wish I had taken some pictures of that area! Where I-8 goes through Mission Valley, the bridges are awesome! They are so high off the ground it is amazing. But, I am not a very good passenger when we are going fast in lots of traffic. I was so busy watching the traffic that I didn't have time to get the photos.


Since we were already on I-8, when we left the store, we kept going west on I-8 until we got to the end, and wound up driving through downtown San Diego. It is really a very lovely city. I did get a shot of one of the highway bridges there. I guess I am just weird that I like bridges.



Here is a shot of the downtown San Diego skyline as seen across the harbor. I love the contrast of all the boats against the tall buildings.



We saw Border Patrol EVERYWHERE! They seemed to be more of them than San Diego police cars. When we were on California 94, we passed one almost every mile.



Another picture of downtown San Diego. I just love this one because of the palm trees.


Every time we come to San Diego, we have to drive over the Coronado Bridge.

It is one of the longest, tallest bridges I have ever been on. This next picture is the view from the top of the bridge:

Looking back:

Looking ahead:

We drove through Coronado and past the Silver Strand State Park, and back into Imperial Beach. We ate a late lunch at El Tapatio, where I had shrimp that was stuffed with crab, wrapped with bacon, and baked. Very good!


This was the last sunset of the vacation. I hope we get to go back next year.

Vacation III: Uncle Jr., Mexico and The Pier

The first order of business on Wednesday was to drive through the streets of Imperial Beach, going past the places where FabGrandpa lived and played. This picture shows the entrance to the trailer park where he lived for several years with his parents and brothers. If you look closely, you may see The Wing sticking up there on the hill. The official name for it is the John J. Montgomery Memorial Park.

We went by Mar Vista High School, Emory Elementary School, the drive-in theater that has a flea market during the day. The water tank where there used to be a grove of eucalyptus trees, and past the place where he used to hide in a fig tree and eat until he was sticky all over. It was great to see him so happy that he could see this place again, and that so many of the places were still recognizable to him.


We also went by to visit Uncle Junior, as he is called by everyone in the family. He has lived here since 1979. His wife, Terry, died last year so he is living there alone now. He told us he is trying to get things in order so he can sell the house and move back to Georgia. He's looking pretty good for 82 years old. We had a nice visit with him, then left on our way to Mexico, less than 10 miles away.


We parked at a lot on the U.S. side of the border, and walked across the bridge to Tijuana. It was a pretty long walk compared to other places where I have crossed into Mexico. There were lots of people walking over that day. In the picture below are cars at the border stop going into Mexico:


After we crossed the bridge, and went through that revolving gate, we stopped to take my picture with this cow statue. Just because I thought it was pretty. There was also an information booth here where we were able to find directions to the places we wanted to go.


We didn't stay very long--we only wanted to go and get my prescription for metformin ($6.00 for 100 tablets, for my diabetes type II), some amoxicillian ($7.00 for 100 capsules, we like to keep some on hand) and a couple of Z-packs($6.00 each). I know when I get an ear infection that is the only thing that will knock it out. We also got a 5th of Herra Dura Reposado Tequila. It was $32 in Mexico, and unaffordable here. That 5th will last me 2 years.

Then we walked back over the bridge, showed our passport cards, and went home. Easy peasy, and no gunshots were heard. All the cars in the picture below are people entering the United States through Tijuana. There are armed border agents down there inspecting the cars and checking passports and other documents. It looked like a pretty long wait.


We got back to the inn just around lunch time. FabGrandpa was wanting to walk over to the pier, which was good news to me because he hadn't wanted to do anything until that day. So we walked over there, and went to the Tin Fish Restaurant at the end of the pier for lunch.


He had a fried fish and shrimp combo, I ordered grilled shrimp. I could eat shrimp every day, and I did while I was on vacation. It was really good, and the atmosphere on the pier was excellent.


Yep, here I am in my signature orange traveling shirt. It is not the same one I usually wear, I have three, but still, it IS orange.


These guys were out there surfing every day, from morning til sunset. Mostly they just sat on their surfboards waiting for 'the wave', but when they did get a good wave they rode it all the way in.


This picture shows just how close to Mexico we were. If you click on the picture to make it larger, you will see that the top arrow is pointing to the bullring in Tijuana, and bottom one is pointing to the end of Seacoast Boulevard in Imperial Beach.


After lunch we walked back over to the inn, and just relaxed on the deck for the afternoon. This sea bird just sat there posing for me.



More of the beautiful flowers. These were actually growing on the sand dune below the deck of the inn, and climbed over the railing.


Another one by the pool. I don't know the names of these but they are gorgeous.



And again, the sun sets on the Pacific Ocean, bringing us the end of another day.



The lights on the pier seen from the deck outside our room:

Vacation I: Signs Of Imperial Beach, California

While Imperial Beach, California is a great vacation destination, the main reason we go there is because it is where FabGrandpa grew up. His Dad was in the Navy and was stationed in the San Diego area for many years. One of the things I love about going there is that while we are driving down I-5 to Palm Avenue, there is a subtle transformation going on over there on FabGrandpa's face. The closer we get, the happier he seems to become. By the time we see this sign, he is grinning from ear to ear. I can almost see his brain whirling with memories.


He is always shocked at first to see how much the area has grown and changed since he was a kid here.


He has a running narrative about how that place used to be a Piggly Wiggly store, and that place over there was where they went to the movies, and how it is hard to remember exactly where such and such was. But, it is still Palm Avenue, and Lydia's Mexican Restaurant is still there.


The biggest grin of all is when we see this sign. It is the one where the road forks, and if you go to the right, you wind up in Coronado, and if you go to the left, you wind up on Seacoast Boulevard, at the beach. He loves this sign, because to him it means he is home.

I love to see this sign, because it means we are at our destination. We found this little motel the first time he brought me here in 1994. I do not know when it was built, but it was not there when FabGrandpa was growing up here. It was built on the beach where he used to play with his brothers and friends, about a hundred yards from the pier where they spent many days and nights fishing. It is the only motel in Imperial Beach that is right on the beach. We love it, and hope the new they build will be a place we love as much as we love this one.



This is the park at the entrance to the Imperial Beach Pier. I don't know who designed it, but it always looks sort of like McDonald's arches to me. There are several arches in different colors that light up at night. On warm nights we usually walk over to the pier and go all the way to the end. There are always a lot of people on the pier, fishing, strolling, walking, hanging out. It is the place to be in Imperial Beach.

Welcome home, FabGrandpa.

A Preview: Sunset at Imperial Beach

A Walk In The Desert

I was restless today, after having done little but sit or sleep for the past week. We had both been sick again, just a general "blah" feeling and no energy. Our trip to Parker yesterday included a visit to the pharmacist at CVS, who suggested some Claritin and a cool mist vaporizer. She explained that even though we had spent the spring, summer, and fall here in Arizona, we were still in a very dry climate, with winter being the driest. Some allergies are aggravted by the dry climate.

We brought the vaporizer home and plugged it in. It brought the humidity in the trailer up from around 26% to 51%, and we are both feeling much better. That lady really knew what she was talking about.

So, in the afternoon, I set out for a walk in the desert. Like most people, I always thought there was not much life going on in the desert. But I found lots of animal tracks, and other evidence that they had been there. The plants are turning green quickly from the little bit of rain we got this week.

I walked out about a 1/4 of a mile off the road. This picture was looking to the northeast of the campground:


This one is looking west:


I walked back over to the dirt road that goes past the campground, and walked about 1/4 of a mile to the south. There was a smaller, narrower dirt road that went off to the west, so I took that one for a way:



There were lots of animal tracks here, probably cows and javelinas. I found some seashells in a wash area, and a pretty rock, and brought them home to examine more closely.


It was getting late when I got home, so I made some dinner. Actually, I heated up leftover eggplant parmesean. After dinner, I went outside again, to get some shots of the sunset. I never get tired of seeing it:




It was a grand end to a great day: