Chaos Leaves Town

So, the next morning I went out and about to see how Mazatlan was doing. Take a look at the empty streets. It’s looking like a ghost town. But the city administration isn’t helping because they haven’t made it very attractive for cruise ships to keep coming here. I don’t remember the details but a story I read in the local English newspaper really blasted their hard-assed attempt to wring too much money out of the cruise lines, and they simply stopped coming as often. Really cuts the crowds down. Which is good for me because it was a bitch jostling with the crowds here six years ago. Now, I could browse without getting pushed along with the crowds. And of course there is a lot of tourists that are just deciding to go somewhere that there isn’t a drug gang war.

Nearly empty beach.

Breakfast...for $4US.

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Got into Mazatlan around 3pm and headed right for my favorite RV park, California Trailer Park, which is just a block from the ocean and the malecon and right on the  south edge of the ‘Golden Zone’. I’ve been here many times before so I’m use to the place. It too was less then half full. There were only 8 RVs and on inspection, only one of them had US plates. All the rest were from Canada.

All settled in at California Trailer Park in Mazatlan.

See my neighbor there? They were having some touch up painting done to their rig when I arrived. With the same crew I wanted to use. Didn’t take me long to wander over there and talk to Juan about painting my rig. But I did make a mistake and mention I’d be there in Maz until May. He quoted me $10,000 pesos about 20 minutes after I’d asked him and told him what I wanted done. I checked and the quote was only $776 USD. So I jumped on it. He thought he’d be able to start in 2-3 weeks. Fair enough. At least I was on the schedule.

The weather, as always, was perfect. Around 75°F days, with a cool breeze off the ocean starting up around 4pm. Then a nice cool night.

The peaceful Pacific.

And there's that cool looking bar/restaurant/dance club.

That club is pretty cool. Has a grand piano bar, sweeping stair cases, etc. But with tourist traffic down so much here, like all over Mexico, it’s probably struggling to stay open. Sad, I like it there.

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After three nights at San Carlos, I headed south on Mex 15d towards Mazatlan. I’d planned my trip so I would be able to stop at a RV park right on the coast in a town and area with impossible to pronounce name…El Mirador RV Park at Playa Huatabampito Km 15, Huatabampito, Sonora. It’s a 7 & 1/2 hour trip from San Carlos to Mazatlan, but only 4 hours to the El Mirador RV Park, so I didn’t need to leave the Tontonaka RV Park until around 11am. The El Mirador is around 33 miles off the freeway via a shortcut but the route is a main road to a rather large village, plus there was plenty of traffic so I wasn’t worried about a hijacking or anything. I was still short of pesos so I kept my eyes open for a bank but didn’t see any on the route through the village of Huatabampito. After that village the road is still good, but you’re into farm country so the traffic was light. Then you pass through a one street village and then you’re along the coast. The road is remote with few buildings the last 5 miles of so and for a time I was a little worried that the RV park might be closed…what with all the drug related murders in Mexico in the last 5 years there aren’t many RV’ers these days.

Finally spotted the RV park as I drove right by their gate…there was a wire rope strung across the entrance for some reason, probably lack of business so they were getting sloppy. Had to turn the rig around and backtrack, then jump out of the RV and drop the rope so I could get in. There wasn’t any ‘Closed’ sign so I figured they just hadn’t gotten around to dropping the rope themselves that morning. Sure enough, when I went into the office, they were happy to see me. But the gal that owned the place was very morose. When I asked about business this year, she said it was bad, bad, bad. When I’d driven up to the office, I could see the campground, but there wasn’t a single RV. Hmm, not looking to good for their business. I paid using the few pesos I had left, with a little left over for dinner. I parked right at the sea wall with a spectacular view of the Pacific.

Miles of empty beach...

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It’s a one day trip from Amado, NM to San Carlos, Mexico. I cross at Nogales because it’s not to crowded and there is a city bypass, SR-189, which I missed. Damnit. Well, no place to turn a 37′ RV around so I continued on to the downtown Nogales crossing. There wasn’t a vehicle there but me. Allot of foot traffic but no vehicles. The border guard had me stop, backup, and turn into a special lane for some reason. It looks like the Mexican side hasn’t been upgraded since the ’60’s and it was tight for my RV but the guard helped guide me into the correct lane. Which seemed just like all the other empty lanes. Anyway, he was nice and gave my rig a walk though without saying anything about anything. So, I’m off down the road into downtown Nogales. Tight streets and all. Back into Mexico after being gone for two years. I was very careful, drove slowly and didn’t have to make any turns. Soon I was on the outskirts of town and stopped at a Pemex for a fill up. Inexpensive fuel! Then a short 21 KM drive to the Import station. Since there is no visa needed in Mexico along the US border, they put these stations at 21 KM.

A quick visa app and I’m off down the road to San Carlos. The weather was fine, lots of sunshine and since this was January, it was nice and cool. Low 70’s.

On the road in Mexico...

It does seem a little strange these days in Mexico. When I first started coming down in my RV six years ago, the crossing was usually crowded with RVs, this time, none. None at the import station either. And I’d see the occasional RV on the road. This trip I could drive for days and not see a RV anywhere except near RV parks. And most of those would have Canadian license plates. I was wondering as I drove, how many of my favorite RV parks would be closed down.

Later in the day, Guaymas harbor.

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So, in January, I was still staying at my bothers and he and his son had gone to watch the Oregon Ducks in the bowl game. I didn’t have tickets but I was able to watch it on the computer. Anyway, after spending the day drinking & enjoying the game, my brother and nephew were driving back to Paul’s hotel in Dan’s Toyota Prius. Well, Dan was talking to his son, not paying attention, and POW, runs right into the back of someone. Even he is surprised the cop didn’t give him a field sobriety test. No one was injured but the Prius was totaled. Dan had spent many hours on-line trying to find a new car and had found a piece-of-crap Honda he wanted so we headed down to a local dealer and spent hours doing all the paper work, etc. He did, I just wandered around and goofed off.

I couldn’t talk him out of getting a horrible Honda,  and a couple weeks later we drove down to the wrecking yard. Poor, poor, Prius. We hardly knew ye.

Doh!

Can’t remember for sure, but I think Dan said that he was going slow enough that the air bags didn’t deploy.

To bad. Liked that car. And 49MPG, too.

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A few weeks ago, my long time site parking partner had to retire the server that was holding my blog. That caused us to move to a new parking provider. During that transition, some items of import were lost or misplaced. One of the many important items lost was the list of my subscribers.

If you have not been getting emails telling you that there is a new post, and you’d like to re-subscribe, please click on the ‘Subscribe to Chaos Leaves Town’ link at the bottom of the ‘Pages’ sidebar and re-enter your email address.

Meanwhile I’ll continue to hunt for that missing subscription list.

Thanks for staying with me.

Jim@HiTek

After the trip to Bodie, and resting for a week, Dan took me to Edwards AFB where he works. Wanted to show me some of the equipment they used when the shuttle landed here in California. Funny, I’ve been visiting my brother since ’04 and this is the first time I’ve taken a tour. Turns out that the base that hosted the space shuttle when it couldn’t land in Florida is starting to look a little sad and abandoned. At least those portions of the base that were used exclusively by the shuttle. The date of these pictures is 12-22-11. First we toured Dan’s office, he works for NASA as an environmental Engineer, making sure that the properties remain unpolluted or mitigating areas that were previously polluted. Containment in some areas, clean up in others, prevention in still others…you know the drill. Then we checked out a cart and drove around visiting buildings. Finally, after picking up some hard hats, and finding someone with a key to the gate, we made our way out to the towering gantry where the space shuttle was serviced after landing. Several days after a landing, and the craft had cooled off from the re-entry, and the toxic gases and fluids had been reclaimed, the shuttle would be stood on it’s tail while technicians, engineers, scientists, and the like would inspect it nose to tail. Repairs, maintenance, and modifications were done, as well as getting the shuttle ready for it’s flight back to Florida on the back of a jumbo jet.

One of the display aircraft on the base. Most of them have some sort of history. This is at the front gate.

More historical aircraft...

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After the visit at Mono Lake we headed north to a fairly well known State Historical Park at Bodie. It’s fairly popular with Californians but not many people outside of California have heard of it.  It has been a historical park since 1962 and though only 5% of the buildings remain since it’s heyday in the 1880’s, it is truly a ‘ghost town’ of the old west. It’s being maintained in a state of ‘arrested decay’ by the park service. Mining was what made it a bustling, bawdy, dangerous town of 10,000 at it’s peak. Back in the day, murders occurred with monotonous regularity.

After driving a typical modern freeway for a hour and a half, we turned off onto a windy, narrow road leading back up into the hills. Then the road turned to gravel and dirt. The weather up here is unpredictable much of the year, but when we arrived, Dec. 10th, 2011, it was fine, if a little coolish. The sun was uncluttered with clouds and though you needed a jacket, overall it was fine.

A plaque!

We drove right through the parking lot at first trying to find a place to park the RV, and following the ‘RV Parking’ signs. But those signs just lead us down to a dumpy area with snow on the side of the road. Thinking that must be wrong, we found a place to turn around and headed back up to the nearly empty parking lot, and parked across 3-4 regular spaces out of the way. Of course the Park Ranger wandered over and told us that, yep, we were suppose to park down the hill…along side of the road. Oh, well, could have been worse I suppose.

Head Frame and machinery.

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Those of you who have been following this blog might remember that I stopped at Mono Lake back in ’06 and took pictures of the lake as it was the year that the people here had finally convinced the legislature of California to stop the ruination of Mono Lake by LA. The city of LA had strong armed the region back in the 1940’s and grabbed water rights to the area, including the several creeks that fed the lake. Even building huge water works to redirect water. As a result, the lake’s water level had dropped so precipitously that this incredible area of unique wildlife and bird life was dying. One result of this wholesale theft of water was that an island in the middle of Mono had become a peninsula with a land bridge…allowing foxes to decimate the nesting birds on the island. So much so that the birds had deserted the island.

“The primary lake life is composed of algae, brine shrimp, and alkali flies, and is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Nesting birds consist of California Gulls (50,000, 85% of California’s breeding population and second largest colony in the world after the Great Salt Lake in Utah) and Snowy Plovers (400, 11% of the state’s breeding population). Migratory birds include Eared Grebes (1.5-2 million, 30% of the North American population), Wilson’s Phalaropes (80,000, 10% of the world population), Red-necked Phalaropes (60,000, 2-3% of the world population), and 79 other species of waterbirds.” – From the Mono Lake Committee web site link above.

We stayed in Bishop the first night of this mini trip at a nice RV park just 60 or so miles from Mono.

Thought I'd show you Dan's rig.

The rig drives nice, and it’s an adequate size…for one. The slides help make it reasonable for two, but it’s not really big enough for two adults, IMO. The cab over section doesn’t have the traditional bed that so many with Class C’s enjoy as it’s filled with a wide screen TV and all the associated electronics. What I can’t stand about it is that damn doghouse right in the way. It’s just uncomfortable to have to jockey around it whenever you move from the front to the rear of the rig. But, it’s not mine so…

And the rear.

You can see from the wet spot under the rig that the city water connection leaked all night. It had been frosty the night before and I had trouble getting the hose screwed onto the inlet. It’s design is not very robust.

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The weekend after I arrived at my brothers in Rosamond, CA, we decided to get Dan’s RV ready for a trip, not only to exercise the rig, but to see some interesting things up north of Rosamond. His (Class C)  RV has been sitting for a few months so we had to stock up on foods, supplies, LP fuel, and check all the regular stuff. After that was all done we headed on up the road.

Painted rocks outside of Bishop, California.

Dan lets me drive.

The desert is interesting in this area and some of the hills we top allow a clear view of huge desert valleys. Often with development, small or large communities, but just as often, nothing as far as the eye can see. There was one valley where they’d been mining borax for many decades and one area where they were mining salt.

Ancient cinder cone.

It’s much easier to see geological highlights in the desert, compared to treed areas of the mountains. Maybe not as large or spectacular but interesting.

Mostly empty valley.

We purposely left Rosamond late in the day because we weren’t in any hurry and the trip to Bishop and The Highlands RV Park was only a couple hours. The park is comfortable and we enjoyed the evening making our own dinner (need the practice), checking the internet and watching TV. Even watched a SciFi movie.