Well, we left Potrero County Park near the border at Tecate and had to go over a 4700' pass before getting down into some of the lower and warmer elevations around El Centro, California.
Here, my truck decided it was time for an oil change, and it was treated to same.

The historical downtown, older sections of El Centro appear too narrow for regular streetlights, so in some areas they are suspended from wires across the street.

There are a couple of interesting bits of interstate highway near the California/Arizona state line at the Colorado river. In one section, winding down out of the mountains, the two lanes of the interstate are about 5 km apart (3 miles), so there are no U-turns here.

In another section just east of Yuma, the lanes cross over, so that the lanes going the other direction are on your right, not your left. Brianna, this does not apply to you in Australia!

This highway is also close to the Mexican border and there is a very obvious presence from the Border patrol, and lots of physical barriers to keep vehicles from crossing the border unlawfully.
One of these is in the sand dunes section of highway west of Yuma.
Some areas of this barricade are even lit by flood lights at night.
There are miles of these triangular barricades chained together along the road side. It looks like a big tower cut down and laid in sections on the ground. There are also a lot of Border patrol checks on small roads as well as the Interstate. These are quite a bit more, shall we say, 'high-tech' than the ones in Mexico run by the army. No burning cans of oil here. Signs galore, rumble strips, observation towers, flashing lights, and enough lights at night to make the space shuttle pull their blinds so they can sleep.

They have trucks and vans and SUV's, buses, quads, you name it.They have portable, elevated observation posts.
This one is in the retracted position on the ground.
At every intersection, or gas station, there is at least one obvious BP vehicle or more.

I think this lady just stopped with a flat tire, but it attracted two Border Patrol vehicles to assist.

In the open areas, they have little shade shelters to park their vehicles under.
And every back road and trail has it's share! Here, I am following one of them through a gate, into a BLM camping area.
But it was a nice and peaceful place to spend a couple of days in the sun.



There had been some rain recently in this area of the desert, and even some snow I heard. The snow and rain were long gone, but the flowers were blooming everywhere.





Next: Off to Tucson, Sierra Vista, and Phoenix?

We were finally back on the road with everything working well, but the gas guage was not really as high as it should have been, fr crossing the no-gas zone.
Since the new fuel pump included a new float to record the fuel level, perhaps this was just a bit different than I was used to?
Where could the fuel have gone? Were the headwinds that bad?
Then I started to recall the driving around town, the test drives with the foot to the floor, and the revving to ensure good RPM, the fuel that had been spilled, and the full out passing of a couple of slow semi trucks. With roads as narrow as they are, you don't want to be alongside any longer than necessary.
I started to do the mental calculations of distance and remaining fuel, and I could see that it was going to be a close one. About half way, I decided that it was unlikely that I would make it all the way. I knew that I had a full gallon can for the generator, and I could dump the best part of a gallon out of the little Honda if I had to, ... but it was still going to be tough.
I started to watch out for fellow travellers with boats or quads, as I knew it was likely they would have lots of spare gas in convenient containers that they could loan me.
I pulled in to Catavina just at dusk, and noted that the Pemex station - was still 'under construction'. But there was an American guy who was in the process of giving his own truck a drink of gas from a can he had with him.
Just then I noticed a little trailer by the roadside with 20 or 30 old military style gas cans and a few gas drums as well. I pulled up alongside, and the owner of the gas came running up and was only to glad to siphon gallons into my truck for the outrageous price of $15, which was higher than the Mexican price, but still cheaper than gas in Canada! He was doing a fine business with similarly gas-challenged motorists. Harley and I breathed another big sigh of relief, and trundled off into the desert to find a camp spot.

Much to my surprise, it rained on and off most of the night, and was cool and damp in the morning. At least it got the worst of the accumulated dust splashed off the truck. Travelling that day alternated between showers, rain, and sunshine. Going through one small town, part of the highway was actually flooded!


Maybe it was just coincidence, but the army checkpoints seemed less rigorous when it was cool or raining! Most were content to pull down their balaclavas to chat with Harley and let us go without even looking in the back.

We pulled off the highway for some lunch near where I had camped on the way down. Sure enough, before long I heard a horn honking, and there was Fidel, the campground operator who had traded a night's stay for my ball cap. I'm not sure if he recognized the rig, or whether he just approaches all potential customers with a sales pitch for his campground. Since it was just lunch time, I just said Hello and carried on.

Just south of Ensenada we did a detour into a place called La Bufadora, which is a scenic little tourist area on a point of land into the Pacific ocean.
In Ensenada, some big and important looking building?



I had a feeling that arriving at the Tecate border crossing late on a Sunday afternoon was about the worst possible time to do so, but if I was going to kill time, it might as well be in the line-up.

Sure enough, the line was longer than I had ever seen it, but what better time to get on the laptop and start putting some words into the blog! Of the hudreds of cars in the lineup, I'm sure I was about the only one who turned off the engine regularly (hear that, Alex?).
And I had thought California and Californians were leading the charge to save the environment. Sure all the cars were smog-tested, but they were emitting more than mine when it was turned off.

As the line approaches, then goes along the border wall, you can see the US Border Patrol trucks parked on the hillside on the US side, and as darkness falls, the huge floodlights come on, turning night into day.
The double line of cars follows right along the wall for about half a mile, while the vendors try to sell you the chicklets you always wanted. But it also gave me time to consume the illegal carrots, kiwi fruit, and meat slices that I had in the fridge. Lots of folks just hanging around down here, and sure enough, in full view of two or three hundred cars in line, we watched 5 young males and a female climb over the wall and disappear on the US side.

When I finally reached the Customs agents after a mere 1.5 hours in line, the guy told me the group had already been caught. Maybe it is just me, but I don't think I would try to sneak across the border under big floodlights a mere 200 yards from the vehicle crossing? But, as I approached the booth, a few pedestrians cut in front of me. One guy must not have impressed the agent, as he was frisked, arrested, and walked into the main building, leaving me sitting there waiting at the untended booth. Because of the camper, I get an automatic free pass into a 'secondary' inspection, but in a marked departure from some past experiences, all the officers I talked to were very polite, friendly, and completely non-confrontational.

While looking for a suitable camp spot close to the border on the US side, I stumbled right into a very nice little campground, the Potrero Regional Park, in the county of San Diego. For $20, there was electricity, water, and hot showers that didn't wait for you to put in coins. It was a very nicely maintained and scenic spot, but at an elevation of 2300 feet, it was brutally cold at night, almost causing me to mutter the 'F' word. You know - frost! Yikes, we don't need that, C'mon Harley, lets get our butts somewhere warm.



In case you think that Mexico does not recycle much, you may be surprised to see that they are now indeed picking up and hauling away lots of scrap metal laying around. I played tag with this truck on the road one day, hoping a bicycle or washing machine didn't fall off on the road in front of me!Remember, you can click on any photo for a larger version. Be sure to check out some of the advertisers on the page. Google pays me when you do!




And if you are really bored, you can add comments at the link at the bottom of the post, or send e-mail from the link where it says "EMAIL ME HERE" (see it now, Garry?)

Sometimes irony has a way of well, flattening out the wrinkles in life! One of these just happened to me in the last day or so.

If you read carefully last year, you may recall that I was worried about my fuel pump giving out while down in Mexico. If you have traveled down there much, you will have heard stories about breakdowns where people had to wait weeks for parts to be shipped down, or have hopped on a bus or plane and gone to the US themselves to pick up the parts.

So last year, I was going to be very conservative and prepared because I had heard some weird noises from the direction of my fuel pump – which of course resides inside your fuel tank. So while in Palm Springs, California, I stopped at the local auto parts store and purchased myself some peace of mind by carrying a fuel pump with me while in Mexico.

Of course I didn’t need it and returned it to the store without any penalty when I returned to the States. Of course, that was a year ago and the pump has been happily pumping ever since. So this year, when I headed south of the line I said, “What the heck. What are the chances anything will happen in the next few weeks?”

Driving north from Mulege, it was windy, and I was sure those little pauses were just wind gusts! Until just about nightfall, when there was a complete power loss and I carefully manoeuvred to the shoulder to consider what might be the problem and what to do about it. The engine never died, but I turned it off and re-started it, and after a few minutes, it was ready to go again, and off we went into the deepening dusk, wondering what had happened. A little trail among some huge boulders, and I was parked in time to look up into the night sky and see my lucky stars.

In the morning, I had a long day planned, so I hit the road early, hoping that my previous day’s experience had been a bad dream or a one-time glitch. We cruised along nicely for 15-20 minutes at moderate speed before the jerking started again. But every time, after a bit of rest, it seemed willing to go again, but sometimes not that far, and never too fast!

And the 'check engine' light had a way of coming on sometimes, then going off again ...

There were a lot of decision points along the way. It was a Saturday morning, and we crept by a number of very small ‘towns’ that had ‘taller’s or ‘mecanico’s’. There was no cell service, not that that would have helped much, not knowing who to call. But you always feel better with a few bars on the phone anyway. Guererro Negro was the next major centre, but it was over 100 kms away.

But to make a long story longer, we eventually sputtered our way into the city and drove around hopefully, looking for a big shiny GM dealer, but no luck. So then it was try to find anyone who spoke English to ask them about a GM place. Nope. Nada.Not a chance. But everyone I spoke to was very helpful, dropping what they were doing to lead me either in their car or on foot to a ‘mecanico’ who could surely do the job, and who likely spoke English. Nada. Nope.

But after about 5 places were checked out I found myself in this dusty compound with a couple of ‘police’ tow trucks in the yard. Click on this photo for a larger view. The compound is in the middle of the photo - with about 40 old vehicles in a group!

But the big guy swinging wrenches in there could understand my sign language, and seemed keen to find what the problem was. I told him that it had only started after I had filled up with gas, and suspected either dirty gas or some water in the gas. While driving around town – and it is certainly making life easier when you can DRIVE around looking for a garage – I had purchased some gas treatment to soak up the water, but it did not seem to help. Anyway, this guy, whose name I did not get had me drive up on the big concrete ramps with the pit between them. He showed me the fuel filter that he proceeded to take off. It was plumb full of dirt and grey guck, so it was obvious what the problem had been – lack of fuel. I didn’t see any parts around, but he motioned for me to follow, and off we walked across the street and a block downtown. Here they had a good supply of parts and a new filter was soon purchased by me for 50 pesos or $4. He had lit a cigarette before beginning the re-install, and I had to stop him from going back under the vehicle with his lit smoke, where gas was still dripping from the open lines! He laughed at me and continued to complete the job with the burning cigarette dangling from his mouth! He charged me 100 pesos ($9) for the job, and I was glad to get away without the suspected fuel pump nightmare. We went for a test drive, and the truck happily accelerated and had a full complement of power. Being a weekend, and as is common in Mexico, often the ambulance will be sitting by the side of the road, cones all set up like a check stop, and the staff collect donations from driver's going by. The ambulance staff were too shy for a picture, but these two girls had their own collection going out at the immigration check just out of town. They couldn't explain what they were collecting for (grad?), but they consented to a photo!

I headed promptly out of town and visited the Pemex station and took on a full tank of gas for the isolated, no-gas zone ahead. Mexicans were beginning to travel for the Easter vacation, so there was a line-up for gas. Many of them were SUV’s with 5 or six occupants, and every one had a big rack on the roof with suitcases, coolers, kids bikes, and beach toys! In spite of an early start in the morning at 0630, now it was noon, and I had only made about 150km, but at least I was back on the road. Harley curled up on my lap, and we fought a stiff side wind – that started to impede progress. In fact, the engine light came on again (!!!!!!), and we lost all power, and had to coast again into a pull-off. Now this was not good. At all. What to do? Could I limp the 400km to the next major center, or would I have to go back and face the inevitable fuel pump nightmare? Or was there just more dirty gas that had plugged the new filter? Would I be stuck here for the weekend - or longer?

So it was back to the dusty car compound to consult my non-english speaking mechanic!

I had him pull off the filter again for a look, but it was clean as new this time L.

He pointed to the fuel tank and said “Bomba” (pump). I asked if there was any way in (heck) that there would be such a pump available in Guererro Negro on a Saturday afternoon – especially as I knew that there were two possible versions for my truck, and that it took a very specialized tool to get the lines off? He indicated ‘no problemo’, but I was not so sure. I had smugly kept a printout from the GM dealer last year when I bought the fuel pump, which showed the exact part number and had a schematic diagram of the installation. I also pointed out to him that at my earlier visit, my fuel tank had been only part full, but now it was topped right up. I looked around the dusty junk in the compound and doubted that he had any way to drain the tank or support it’s removal. He assured me that once again, it was ‘no problema’! Off we trudged, to the now-familiar auto parts store down the street. The owner, who was elbow deep in oil from a VW engine that was in pieces on the ground, went into the office and dragged out his parts book. After the usual questions about make, model, year, engine, etc., he went to his well-stocked shelves and pulled out a shiny new fuel pump that he said would fill the bill! Wow! So far so good. Price? His clerk (wife) punched the number into a COMPUTER, with even a flat screen, and came up with the princely sum of 4500 pesos. Ouch! But he would not even let his fellow friend and mecanico leave the office without the cash, and I had only 500 pesos to my name. So we walked back to the ‘garage’, and I drove off the ramps again and to the far end of town where the (only?) bank and ATM was – which I had spotted on my earlier search for the elusive dealer. There was a 10 person lineup at the one ATM that was working, but it gladly gave me enough pesos to complete the deal. So I drove back to the parts store, plunked the cash on the counter and left with the shiny new bomba. No bill, no receipt, …nothing. But the guy did assure me that there was a 3 year (month?) warranty on the pump. Back to the ‘garage’, and back up on the big concrete ramps. My mecanico rummaged around and found an assortment of big gas cans and some garden hose, and before long he had the fuel draining, tho not before spitting out a mouthful of gas. During the earlier fuel filter replacement, I was not sure that he even had a socket set in his repertoire of tools, kept in a little closet by the work bench, but with the first of a few surprises, he pulled out an air wrench and then I noticed the big fancy air compressor hiding in the corner.

Eventually, he got the tank out onto the dirty bench, but took great care to use his air hose to blow off all the dirt and debris. He got the old pump out, but I still wondered about those weird connectors and the ‘special’ tool. Well, he went to his rickety old wooden tool shed and came back with the exact, shiny little tool, still in it’s original store packaging! The connector came off fine, but he had to do most of the job with a new cigarette just inches from all the gas.

The old and new fuel pumps compared well ....

I put the lid on a 5 gallon can of gas below him – just to limit the size and intensity of the blast and inferno. But he must have watched that episode of ‘Myth Busters’, where they showed that you could not light liquid gasoline with a lit cigarette!

The pump was installed just fine and the tank was worked back into place and he proceeded to try to get all my gas into the tank, made more difficult with the camper making access to the gas hose more difficult. This involved two funnels, and him standing precariously balanced on another can of gas, putting some of the gas in the tank and some on his clothes, the ground, the side of the truck. I volunteered that we could work out a deal where he could keep my gas in payment for the work, but that was a no go! Eventually, I convinced him that the balancing act would be easier if we backed the truck off his ‘hoist’ and added the gas at ground level. We got it all back in, and the truck started and seemed to run fine ……..? How much was this going to cost? I think his price was high, but he asked for 450 pesos ($40). Once again, no bill, no signatures, just good work done, and no infernos, and no messing with mere details like disconnecting the battery like the instructions asked! Or having a fire extinguisher at the ready! It was now 5PM on Saturday, and I was at last able to head out on the road again – hoping for the best. I don’t know his name, he doesn’t know mine, there was certainly no name or sign on his workplace, not even the usual signs painted on the wall. The price for the pump was certainly higher than the one I had carried with me last year from Palm Springs, but the installation costs must have been about 4 to 5 times cheaper (and faster?) than getting it done somewhere other than Mexico. And there was much to my surprise and relief, no wait for parts to be shipped from somewhere else. And I was also pleasantly surprised to find that in my case at least, my fuel pump managed to keep me mobile for a long time after it wanted to quit, and I was able to search for parts, mechanics, garages, and banks, without ever being stranded or stuck. I didn’t have to make an appointment or wait anywhere for service (except maybe the atm line!). Compare this to the service in Pismo Beach, California, where I had to spend about 5 days waiting for parts and service, and they still sent me away with no power or heat one night.

So, at the cost of only one partial day of uncertainty and delay, and at a much reduced rate from what it would have cost me in the US, I was back on the road in fine shape and a few hours of daylight left to find a camp spot.

Now if only I had enough fuel left to make it through the gas-free zone ………?

(Stay tuned)

I quickly grabbed my coffee and ran outside in a panic, climbed to the roof of the camper to see if it was all a nightmare. Sure enough, the roof was covered in white. But it had a strange dry, rubbery feel to it. I guessed that I was going to be OK after all.

Since I was now outside – with my coffee, it only made sense to wander the 20 feet to the overnight high-tide line and check out what the morning had to offer. It was calm and you could hear the ripples as fish broke the surface just offshore as they fed or avoided enemies. The doves back in the brush called mournfully. It was morning, but I don’t know whether they are morning doves, or mourning doves (Garry?). A group of vultures huddled down the shore admiring what had washed up overnight, and the coyote who had earlier announced his presence fell silent. And the great Mexican hunting cat ventured out the camper door to see what adventures the morning held.

I had been watching the CBC news about the snow storms in Newfoundland, and the roofs collapsing in Quebec because of the snow load when the flashback occurred. I had already shovelled off the roof of the camper at home at least twice before I was granted bail, - er, vacation.

It was minus 12 in Calgary this morning, and considerably colder in the north.

Fortunately, my reality included sandals, a lawn chair with ocean view, and a still-warm bonfire from last nite, and the sun just peeking over the mountains to get things heated up for the day.

Harley faced off with a vulture spreading it’s wings from the top of a tall cactus; each wondering what the other would taste like.

It was truly serene again, having moved camp out from the relative (and I do stress relative!) hustle-bustle of the campground on the mainland of Baja to the outer peninsula where it had been so peaceful last week. This time tho, we came in a convoy of trucks, me leading the others who did not know how to get to this side of the bay. One, who had been wishing for a trip over here since 1981, made it to the light tower at the very tip on his quad. Harley and I stayed behind on the beach when the rest went back to the campground.

I felt really bad for the people of Newfoundland, battling the blizzard – as I searched out shade to kick back and relax. I was so relaxed and stressed that I pulled out a Canadian Geographic magazine to read. It helped to cool me as it had a photo of an ice-breaker and an ice flow on the cover. I guess it has been riding around in the camper for a while waiting for this moment, as it was the JanuaryFebruary 2007 edition!

I had never seen the Bahia quite so calm at mid-day, but inevitably just when I attempted a flight with the CX2, a refreshing breeze came up off the water.

It is starting to get just a touch hot at times down here, so I may have to consider migrating a bit further north soon.

But not now. It is siesta time.