Chaos Leaves Town

Adventure in Fairbanks…

Posted on August 4, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

I was able to do a tour of the local Pioneer Park and then visit downtown, so the following pictures are from my two visits to the park and during my bike ride into town. I found the bike path along the river to be interesting too. And the town itself is small enough that you can easily tour downtown in an hour. The population of the town is 32,000 and the surrounding area has a population of 56,000, which accounts for the WalMart, Sam’s Club, Fred Meyer stores (2!), etc. And they also get up to 425,000 summer visitors. It’s an interesting place with lots of things to do. When my brother gets here next week, we’ll be taking a van ride up to the arctic circle just to say we’ve been there. It’s $90 (but I’m free since I work here at the park and it’s complimentary), takes all day and late into the night and has plenty to see and do along the way. We could also take a bush plane up to the circle and then a van back but that starts at $285 so we’ll probably just take the van.

Then there are hot springs all around the area, river rafting or canoeing, animal watching, etc., etc. I’ve been to lot’s of places in the last three years but I’ve got to say that this place really is a tourists mecca, but it doesn’t seem crowded at all. And I’ve met people from all over the world here so I guess the word is out.

I’m planning on staying here for the entire winter and expect to take thousands of beautiful pictures of snow and winter fun and ice sculptures as they are created here in the park in February and March. I’ve reached an agreement with the staff and they are happy to put me up for the 8 months I’ll be here. And pay me a salary. The park itself closes on Sept. 15th, and doesn’t get busy again until November so that gives me lots of time to roam around and look at the sites…albeit with poor weather, but, so what.

Then in February, it’s gets real busy and thick with artists from all over the world. And on Feb. 26th, the kids park opens with lots of kid sized sculptures just for them. Designed to be climbed on and played in for hours. I’ll be taking pictures of all these things for you guys when it happens. Then the single block ice art for the grown ups is finished by Feb. 29th. And the double block follows shortly. The major sculptures are finished on March 9th.

Meanwhile, I’ve just arrived in Fairbanks (in Blog time), got settled into a RV park within 250 yards of Pioneer park, and the next morning I jumped on my bike and rode over there. Here are a few pictures:

These buildings are all original as far as I know. They were built during and shortly after the gold rush so the flavor is 1880’s and into the 1920’s. Nearly all of them were moved here in the ’70s and ’80s when this land was donated by the strip mining company that owned the land.

Here’s one of many log cabins built by original pioneers:

This paddlewheel plied the river for many decades, bringing many gold hunters up river:

It’s drydocked for the rest of it’s life, you can tour the thing if you want:

This train car was used by one of our presidents back in the 1800’s to come up and visit (or something like that):

Another shot of the paddlewheel:

There’s the train that runs around the park…it’s touted as being the most northerly steam engine still in operation:

One pioneers cabin, built very early during the gold rush:

Here’s where they stored their food to keep it away from vermin and beasts:

Then this is the home of a local lawyer, the kitchen reminded me of when I was a kid, the winter we spent in a log cabin in the mountains of Montana. Lot’s of fun for us, not so much for our folks:

These following pictures are all of that same house, it’s a museum now, but real people lived and died here, the addition was added after the lawyer that owned it married. I think he became a judge or something:

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The park has tons of flowers. The people that live here are so sick of winter when spring arrives that they go nuts and put flowers everywhere:

Some of restored equipment that was used way back when:

One of the few two story buildings, this one was a bath house. The original floors and staircase are still used:

A shot of some more flowers just outside the museum:

And in the museum, an old vehicle used in parades for decades:

Posted in Fairbanks Alaska \'07 | 2 Comments

Tok to Fairbanks…

Posted on July 28, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

While in Tok, I worked at a campground as a handyman for a week. After I got fired from that job, I headed to Fairbanks. I’d made the mistake of telling the bosses son that I’d gotten food poisoning from their food, and since that was the only place I’d eaten in days, and I’m old enough to know the symptoms, I felt comfortable teasing the kid about washing his hands. But they didn’t get the joke…to bad that I’d fixed two of their gas dryers and saved them $800 to $1600 in repair costs, should have unfixed them I guess.

It’s only a two hour drive from Tok and the roads are fine. The scenery is interesting but not noteworthy.

When I got to North Pole, a small town just east of Fairbanks, I pulled into a campground and took the opportunity to finally rest. I spend most of the next day on the couch drifting in and out of sleep. Later in the day, refreshed, I clean the rig, then wander around the nearby area on my bike. The park is right next door to ‘Santa’s House’. Which is a huge christmas store. With Santa there! It’s mid-June but the poor guy was all dressed up in the traditional red suit, and sweating like you would expect. The box fan didn’t seem to be helping. It wasn’t helping Mrs. Claus much either. I was wandering around the store for 30-40 minutes and people did come in and talk to Santa, but I didn’t see any kids while I was there. Outside were a couple raindeer. Looking a little scruffy because they were shedding. After wasting a bunch of time there, I rode my bike much farther around the neighborhood and didn’t find much to keep me there. So the next day, I head into Fairbanks, looking for a more interesting place to stay. Luckily, I have a nice map of the area that lists the RV parks and after I wander around town for a few hours, shopping here and there, I stop at the Ice Park RV and Campground. It’s just north of Pioneer Park and I thought that visiting the park might be interesting plus the price was pretty good for the area…$18 per night…so I settled in. I told the owner the next day that I would be interested in workamping and after nearly two weeks of hanging around, she asks me to watch the place for her for a day while she’s off doing something. A few days later and I’m checking people in, fixing electrical problems, working on the computer system and other stuff. Now my space is free and I’m getting free dinners. This will help out allot since I’ve got that $3700 in RV costs to cover. And if I’m not spending money, I’m saving money.

I’ve got lots of pictures of the Fairbanks area, I’ll get them up soon.

Thanks for reading!

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On the road to Alaska…

Posted on July 25, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

I lost a bunch of pictures somewhere so I can’t show you the pictures of my trip through Canada and into Alaska. They’re on my computer somewhere but I haven’t found them yet. (Update: They are NOT on my computer. I guess I screwed up and deleted them off of my camera before downloading them to the computer.)

After spending the night in the mountains NE of Vancouver, at Whistler, I headed off north easterly on highway 99 into the hinterland of British Columbia. The first day was all up and down travel over hills and dales. Good workout for the RV and the work that had been done on it the week before. I missed a couple road signs so had to backtrack a little but overall it was interesting to be on the ‘Sea to Sky’ highway. I spent the night up on a high plain at an Indian owned campground named ‘Will Yum’ or something, across the road from Williams Lake. The night was eventful because I backed into a tree and dented and bent my RV. Not to bad but certainly noticeable. I’ll have to get it fixed when I get back to Mexico. Then after I got settled in for the night, I went to do my laundry and fed $4 into two dryers with no luck. None of the three machines were working. Went down to the office and asked for them to be fixed or looked at or something. All they could do was call the guy and he wouldn’t be there until the morning. Long after I’d be gone. The office refused to refund my money. Neither did they have any power with the fix it guy. So I took all my wet laundry home and dried it in the bathroom. Next morning everything was dry so not a big deal…except I was out $4.

Next day I drove north and then east, again with fair weather and bright skies. Passed through Prince George and stopped for LP, paid too much because of the ‘liters to gallons’ confusion. Couldn’t think of any other reason to stay there so headed on. Arrived at Dawson Creek the same afternoon, where the AlCan highway starts, known as Mile Zero, and stayed at a totally unremarkable but nice little campground that had WiFi.

Next morning I go down early to Mile Zero and take some pictures. It was pretty quiet because of the lack of tourists on the highway this year (fuel prices). I head on up the road and stop for diesel at the best price in town only to discover that BC allows cities to rip off tourists with a fuel tax that’s added on AFTER the pumping is done and you go into the office to get your printed receipt. So they advertise one price on the big street signs but actually charge another. Ass holes. I don’t mind that tax, it’s the nearly insane attempt by the owner of the station to pretend that it doesn’t exist by advertising a lower then real price. It’s actually a ‘bait and switch’ scheme. They advertise one price and then tack on other charges, like city taxes. The tax was nearly 9%. Quite a hit for someone buying $150 worth of fuel. Wasn’t anything I could do about it except complain, of course, and that station had the lowest price in town (I think).

Now heading northwest, the road is nice and flat with a few hills with what’s left of the Rockies. It’s a large plain here so there are the typical farms along the way. There are mountains here and there off in the distance with snow capped peaks.

Eventually, after 400 miles heading north west, the road enters a mountainous area. But still, not to bad. Then it does get into a stretch where it’s all mountainous road. But there are a couple bright spots, I come upon a forest fire that has just started. There is one cop there, in civilian clothes (must have been off duty), and a helicopter with some officials aboard. The flames are leaping perhaps 100 feet into the air and nearly 100 acres are on fire. I was there early enough that they hadn’t closed the road yet so I got a close up look at a real forest fire. A few miles later and I pass Summit Lake. There is still ice all over the lake but it’s pretty broken up. Surprisingly, there are several homes right near the lake. I saw one very old lady sitting on her porch all bundled up watching the traffic go by. The lake drains into a creek heading due west and the road follows that down. Summit Lake was one of the more difficult sections of the road for those that built it but I’m glad they built here as the views are spectacular. There were many mountain sheep wandering around blocking the road too. As I headed down this mountain pass, the creek turned into a stream, then a river. Then, all of a sudden, I noticed the water going the wrong way. It seemed to be going the opposite direction. And I didn’t see where two or more rivers had joined. Strange. Uphill flowing rivers. Weird stuff here in Canada.

Late in the day, I’m exhausted from all the mountain driving and pull into a provincial park right along Muncho Lake. It was $18 per night for dry camping and the spaces were right there next to the water. Unfortunately, all the deeper sites were filled. So I moved on down the road and spent the night at a hotel. A mistake because the hotel owner is an asshole. I spend the night anyway and it’s here that I first discover that it is staying light out very late. It’s still ‘daylight’ at 11pm. So I could have driven a few more miles to try and find a better RV campground, durnit.

Next day, I drive due west and stop to do some shopping in Whitehorse. Naturally, my debit card doesn’t work so I spend 40 minutes getting information like phone numbers and waiting for the damn payphone to be available, calling the card fraud office several times trying to reach a human, etc. Finally got someone at the fraud desk, told them that, “Yes, it is me, I am in Canada, and trying to use the card”, so they turn it back on for me. Now I can buy fuel.

After fill up, it’s still pretty early so I head Northwest. The travel is easy the next 100 miles and the road wide. The weather was, again, very nice. The road eventually gets into mountainous country and after a while, I’m up at elevation. The towns around here are few and far between so I don’t see many people. The roads are lightly traveled and stores nearly non-existent. There are around 50 miles between settlements. And in some places 100 miles. I do enjoy the solitude and the quiet in the rig, except for the usual road noise. After several hours, I find a roadside campground at Haines Junction. Before settling in, I drive around the area a little and find that the town is little more then a wide spot in the road. A few buildings here and there and then two different campgrounds. I didn’t see any interesting bars so I just stayed in for the evening. My bedroom has nice heavy curtains so the midnight sun is kept at bay and I’m able to get a restful nights sleep, even though it’s daylight outside at midnight.

Next morning, I head on toward the Alaskan border. At Kluane Lake, the road is all torn up and replaced with gravel. I’m familiar with this type of feature of the roadway so I’m prepared when I see the flags along side the roadway that indicate a ‘frost heave’ so I’m slowing down every 100 yards or so. But at the lake, it’s several miles of gravel roadway instead of the usual 50 feet to 100 yards. The major work going on here will really improve the roadway which hasn’t been worked on in nearly 30 years. It’s being widened and strengthened, all the while the engineers and road crews are trying to do as little damage to the ecosystem as possible. After several miles of gravel road, followed by numerous frost heaves, I finally get to the Alaskan border and am greeted by a very nice border guard…who doesn’t even ask to come into my rig. He just asks me a couple questions and then waves me through into the good ol’ USA. I’d been worried about that because when I came into the US from Mexico, I had to make sure I didn’t have anything in my refer that they might throw away. Here, they didn’t ask, and didn’t look.

The roads instantly became better. It seems that more tax money is used for roads in the US then in Canada. Who knew? A few hours later, and I arrive in Tok, Alaska. I stop at one of the small stores in town and buy myself a quart of milk for an outrageous price, but I’m happy to have it.

I arrive at the Sourdough Campground just a couple miles from town, introduce myself to the owner since I came here to ‘work camp’ and then, since I’d made the trip in 5 days instead of the expected 7 days, plopped down to rest…

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Memorial Weekend at the Races…

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

My friend Bud had a race to go to up near Seattle with Joe and family. So I asked for and received an invitation to run up there and be a ‘go-fer’ (go fer this, go fer that) for them. The track was right on my way to Alaska, just off of I-5 and south of Seattle. Bud and Joe both have race cars and spend much of the racing season entering as many races as they can. Jonathan came along to help, he’s working on his own race car. Also, Joe’s wife Kathy and two sons came along.

Here’s a shot of Mt. Rainier as I headed towards the racetrack:

It’s very close to Mt. St. Helens and is a volcano that’s been rumbling slightly for years. The people around the base are in deep do-do if the thing comes back to life. There are lot’s of escape plans already in place and they have stopped some building plans that put houses in danger zones, but for the most part, we get use to living near to volcano’s. Tacoma and many small towns is/are right in the path of mud flows and there is history that it’s happened before. But that doesn’t prevent people from living there. Seattle is pretty close too, but would probably just get a huge dose of ash if Rainier blew it’s top:

The track wasn’t that crowded. There were very few spectators, most of the people in the stands, what few there were, were friends and relatives of the racers. It is pretty early in the season, folks are testing out the improvements that have been made during the winter, and getting their driving ‘chops’ back. It was fun helping get the cars ready for each race, timing Bud each lap, and cheering when they passed another car on the race course. Joe’s car is faster and he’s a pretty accomplished racer. Finishing high up in the ratings year after year. He gets some sponsorship and free goodies to try out on his car. This time he installed some new racing shocks to see how good they were.

Here’s where I parked, it’s a dry camp but I didn’t spend much time in the rig anyway so it didn’t matter that much:

The cars shown below are in a different class then Bud’s car. His is a road racer, these cars are dragsters. This track is a SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) track, not a Nascar track. SCCA was in operation years before Nascar. It hosts 2,000 races a year at tracks like this one all over the US. The Andretti’s would race at a track like this. The track itself is 4 miles long and snakes around out in the woods. The SCCA people consider Nascar to be ‘Toilet bowl racing’ and not much of a challenge to a ‘real’ race car driver. That’s the way most European drivers think about Nascar too.

These drag cars parked right in front of me so I felt compelled to get some pictures for you. You wouldn’t believe how LOUD these cars are. Whenever they were on the track I’d run get my earplugs. Late in the afternoon and on into the evening, these cars would use the straight track in front of the grandstands for drag racing. The first part of the day the track is reserved for road racing:

Here’s a shot of the grandstands. They stayed pretty much empty the entire weekend. Like I said, it’s early in the racing season so this isn’t that unusual. The weather was mild but mostly overcast:

This is a look back into the staging area where people stay the weekend in their RV’s and work on their cars. There were some pretty fancy rigs back in there. One racing team had a huge semi truck trailer with tool boxes, tons of tires, even electric lifts so they could park several race cars on the upper floor. La-dee-da. Bud and Joe prefer to stay where we stayed because it’s usually less crowded and not as much traffic:

Here’s a shot of Joe’s race car:

And Joe at the door of Bud’s shop, garage, and tire store:

Here’s Jonathan getting ready to go out and time a race:

And Bud just before a race (but before he’s put on his flame proof bunny suit):

There is always something to do on these cars:

Kathy was working on this ‘Racers Quilt’. It was quite the piece of handiwork. She has reason to be proud of her effort:

A shot of Joe’s car heading out to the track:

And the power plant:

Some of the safety devices:

Here’s Colin just hangin’:

This is Bud’s car all ready to get going:

And the restraints. The car is street legal but not very comfortable for more then one:

Here’s where their camp was, across the road from mine, they drove into town to a motel to sleep:

Bud’s all suited up and ready to head out:

The net keeps his head in, in case it falls off:

A shot of the track. The starting area is waaaay off there in the distance:

Bud zips by:

And another lap. Kind of hard to get good shots of the guys on the track, I think that’s Joe’s car there just coming into the frame and Bud’s car leaving it. Bud use to run a shop where racers would bring him there cars and he’d modify them for racing. He’s still doing that today, but not as actively. Joe is one of his old customers:

Looking out over the RV parking area. Lot’s of avid race fans out there:

After a race, the cars have to be inspected and weighed to be sure they are all legal and such. If a racer needs to, they can register a protest against another driver, here’s where it’s all hashed out. Bud’s just hanging out waiting for his inspection:

Checking out Bud’s car:

Kathy, Colin and Michael come over to visit:

Here’s where they weigh the cars:

We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday here, racing and working on the cars. During that time, I tested my rig and found that the belt was still squealing. Real loud too. So I messed with that allot but never came to any conclusion about what was wrong. When we left on Monday, Bud and party headed back to Portland, and for a while, I went that way too, listening to the engine and expecting to have to drive all the way back to the shop and cuss them out for not fixing the squealing problem. About 10 miles south of the freeway entrance, I decided, ‘What the hell’ and turned north again. My guess is that there was a little oil on the new belt and when the new alternator was under heavy load…like when it had to charge both the starting battery and the house batteries, that it was slowing down and the oil on the belt would start the squealing. To stop the squeal, I’d either slow down or pull over and just idle the engine, or a couple times I just waited it out. But it does suggest that the shop sold me a new alternator for nothing. They did some tests but I’m not sure they meant anything since I still have the squeal and the new alternator was suppose to fix that.

Anyway, I was on my way to Alaska and since the race track is only a couple hundred miles from the Canadian boarder, and it took over an hour to get inspected and approved to travel through Canada. Long lines and irrate people were everywhere. There were at least two arrests while I was there…that took resources so the rest of us had to cool our heels.

I made it to and through Vancouver in one day. But there weren’t any places that I could pull over and take pictures of the city. You’ll have to visit it yourself, and when you do, you’ll find it is a spectacular city. Beautiful. I was lucky to drive through when there was sunshine…which doesn’t happen there often. It is a little strange in that there aren’t many freeways. There are expressways with lots of traffic lights but no freeways around the city like in the US. I stopped once at an ATM and got some cash but that’s all I did in Vancouver.

Then I got lost somehow and ended up on Marine Drive along the coast heading north. Eventually, I passed an expressway and jumped on it heading north. Two, three hours later I’m in the boondocks and found a remote RV park with a spectacular view of a 300 foot waterfall. I’ll put up a picture tomorrow…

Posted in At the races... | 1 Comment

On to Oregon…

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

After I left Dan’s place, I drove up the I-5 freeway into Oregon. Last year and the year before, I was leaving from Lake Tahoe about this time of year and took different routes for the adventure. I’ve been up and down the I-5 corridor hundreds of times and it has lost much of it’s appeal for me. After a day’s drive, I reached the border between California and Oregon near 5pm and start looking for a RV park. As I passed through the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument, I stopped at a rest stop for lunch. While I was eating my ham sandwich at a picnic table, I left my sandwich covered and wandered over to the cliff edge to take some pictures. When I turned around, there was a blue bird there standing on the table, hovering over my sandwich and tugging on the wrapper, opening it. Little thief. I yelled at him and he flew off, but not without getting a bite first.

I’m now out of the desert, as you can see, and into the ‘Evergreen’ area of the northwest. The desert has it’s charm, and makes up most of the west, but being able to come back to the evergreen forests makes the place livable.

Here’s a lake, water storage behind a dam:

Later that afternoon, I settled in at a nice little campground:

They had a small man made pond where ducks hang out:

There’s some over there:

The swampy bit:

More ducks:

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Back in California…

Posted on June 25, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

After I visited Pipe Cactus NP, I headed to Quartzsite, AZ and made it there from the park in a few hours. I spent the night on BLM land and the next morning fueled up and headed to my brothers place in Rosamond, CA. It’s outside of Edwards AFB where my brother works for NASA. His house is on this steep hill. So steep that I can’t park my RV there and keep the refer running (they need to be close to level to work properly). So I park 100 yards down the hill on a flat side street.

Anyway, while I’m there, I worked on cleaning out his pool. It was hot enough that I was hoping I’d be able to take a swim, or we could have a party or something around the pool. So I spend 3 days running and cleaning the pool filter several times while pouring all these chemicals in there to try to clear it up. The pool filter helped remove the green stuff, but we could never get the water clear. It did have a pretty color, emerald green, but it wasn’t very inviting for swimming. And then the weather got cool and windy so I never got a swim. Then one day, there was a dead kangaroo rat in the pool. Seems that this area of California has been in a drought for 7 years and lots of wildlife is dying off. The rat was trying to get a drink from the pool and lost it’s footing or something. Or it was a suicide.

We never got the pool water to look any better then this. It’s suppose to be crystal clear:

There’s the rat:

There’s the pool filter, that white thing at the end of the walk:

Dan has bunches of cactus plants waiting to be planted, many of them dead because of neglect:

Here’s Dan planting another tree in the yard, I refused to be a party to his method of plant husbandry – neglect, basically a method of planticide. And because of my moral indignation, I didn’t have to work in the dirt 🙂

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Mazatlan to California…

Posted on June 17, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

After I left Maz, I spent two days on roads I’d been on the previous year so there is nothing new to report as the trip to the border was uneventful. So, I didn’t take any pictures so as to not bore you guys. Also, my attention was distracted by the new propane injection system I’d just permanently installed and I was concentrating on learning the best way to use it. Read more in the ‘RV Repair’ section of my blog.

It took two days to get to the border from Mazatlan and I arrived Nogales near 2 pm on a weekday. The US border guard directed me to a parking area and soon another guard knocked on my door and while I waited in the drivers seat, he looked around. I’d timed my food purchases in such a way that I didn’t have anything the guy could complain about and in less then 10 minutes he was done. I have my bedroom door closed while I travel with a bungie cord holding it shut and he didn’t even open it. Didn’t look under the couch, or any of the basement compartments either. So, off I went into Arizona. I spent the night at the same RV park I stayed at last year and relaxed a bit for the evening. Only difference was that this year I wasn’t fighting food poisoning. The next morning, I decided to take a ‘short cut’ because I wanted to visit the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. My brother has been mentioning the Monument as a cool place to visit for years so I thought I’d check it out. I turned onto my shortcut route at Amado, Arizona, and headed west.

I passed through a couple small towns but this area of Arizona is not very populated and I went for miles at a time without passing a vehicle. The two lane road here is a little like a roller coaster, but the area has it’s charm. When I arrived in Arivaca, I noticed a small grocery store and since I was out of nearly everything, I stopped to shop. Turns out that this little town is an artist colony and the store had large selections of wine and cheese. They even had my favorite cheese, Tillimook Cheddar, at the same price that I paid for it in Portland. I grabbed a brick of cheese, found several packages of meat that were on sale and grabbed those too. Then on to the Monument.

When I turned south at Why, Arizona, the flora and fauna had changed a little from just 50 miles back. It was more of a desert with shorter scrub bushes and few trees. And there were many more cactus, larger and taller then what I had been seeing. Heading south to the Monument, I began to see many of those towering cactus along the road.

Just inside the boundary of the Monument, I thought this was an interesting view:

Can’t remember why this caught my attention:

Here’s the best pipe cactus I found along the road where I could actually pull over and park to get a picture, they are actually very tall:

There’s my rig, over there along the road, note that on the other side of the road are several cactus that are taller then my rig (13 feet):

Just an example of the area:

Another view of the area as I drove north:

I stopped at the park office and toured the building looking at all the stuff they sell, also perused the information about the geologic history and such. It was pretty quiet there that day with just a few tourists, for a while I was the only visitor. I checked on the campground prices and facilities and wasn’t impressed. And I have been in many deserts where there are both better views and more interesting flora. But the final straw was, NO WIFI. So, I just left and headed north. I had planned on spending the night, but couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to do so.

Posted in Heading back home \'07 | 4 Comments

Bikers in Mazatlan…

Posted on June 11, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

This town also plays host to a gathering of bikers every year about 3 weeks after Carnival. It’s said that 5,000 bikers from all over Mexico and the US show up for a week of festivities, rallys, and parades. The parade, as luck would have it, goes right by the campground I was staying in after the La Posta park finally closed. It’s called the California RV Park and is closer to the beach then La Posta was. So it’s a short bike ride, less then a block, over to the seashore. The bikers parade started over in old town and went right by here. There were probably 1,000 bikes in the parade and since the street was nice and straight right here, we were treated to bike tricks all day. Donuts, wheelies, high speed runs, and people balancing on drivers shoulders. The parade was sort of intermittent and I usually turned off the camera between shots so some pictures here were hurried as I struggled with the camera’s ‘ON’ delay and managing the battery.

The news media was doing fly overs:

The crowd loves this sort of thing, lots of shiny bikes, 4-wheelers, etc:

This went on for 2-3 hours into the night. There were lots of kids riding with their parents and some pretty girls showing off:

Next time some shots of the park where I stayed.

Posted in Mexico \'07 | 1 Comment

Sailing In Mazatlan…

Posted on May 3, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

There are many activities in Maz, and one day while riding my bike on the beach I arranged to take a sail on a Hobie Cat a couple days later. The fee was $300 pesos for four people. Back at the RV park, I found a couple people that wanted to go. Two of them bailed out on us so it was just me and another guy. But we ended up being out on the water for an hour and a half, we could cover more ground with just two of us and the captain. We left the beach after the crew screwed around with the equipment for a half hour trying to get the sail up…we switched to another cat. The sea was warm, it was around 75F air temperature and there was a fresh breeze. We headed north along the coast, then turned west between two large islands. Then we skirted Deer and Goat islands (really a single island unless the seas are large, then a small land bridge between them can be swamped, creating for a time, two islands). All in all, a pleasant way to spend a couple hours. Other ways to spend fun time here are the Seadoos, 4 wheelers, parasailing, dune buggies, motorcycles, bikes, etc. Everything you can think of is available to rent here.

The beach was a little quiet at 10AM:

The crew trying to get the sail to hoist correctly:

Someone already out there and we’re still waiting for a working cat!:

Finally:

Looking back to hotel row:

One of those crazy parasailers, I was always hearing stories of people getting into trouble while flying in one of those and bouncing off buildings while trying to land, but no one I heard of was injured:

Looking off to the north:

The island we could have gone to if we’d paid for 3 hours instead of 1:

Deer Island…right off of hotel row. They have daily excursions over there. Not much to it other then a small resturant so I never went:

Our intrepid captain. He owns the boat and sails nearly every day all year round. This time of year there are few tourists so we got a free extra half hour out on the ocean:

Here we are approaching one of the islands:

Here’s where the ocean can split the island, our captain told us that you can get through there but best it’s tried at high tide and with a power boat:

Saw several of these birds dive into the ocean, sometimes right in front of us, but this is the only good picture I could get:

Did get this shot of one of the birds diving:

Posted in Mexico \'07 | 1 Comment

Rosa’s Party ‘07…

Posted on April 11, 2007 by Jim@HiTek

It was at the middle of March, Rosa, the La Posta RV park manager, decided to have her birthday party at the park, so she invited nearly all those that were still there for a little get together. I got lucky and was invited. I went out with Ismeal, her husband, to buy a floral arrangement for the party the morning of the party. Since I’d asked him to drive me to the flower shop a few days before, he knew what I was getting her so he went out early and got her a HUGE arrangement. Bigger then the one I got her. Twice as big. Of course he didn’t say anything about it until we got back to the park. Then he told me mine was so small I should throw it away in the garbage. Harumph. Well, it’s his wife, so I suppose it’s OK. Anyway, they provided liquor, beer, music, and food so it was a great time. We all tried to avoid asking her how old she was, and I was successful, I don’t know her age.

Here’s a shot of where I’m parked now, just behind the party area and pool, nice shade in the afternoon:

The party being set up and all:

Some people start showing up:

Chelsea looks ready to pout:

Chelsea was very sad since she was leaving the next day, she was Rosa’s shadow for weeks, months, and Rosa seemed to love having a temporary daughter helping her around the park since her children are both boys. Well, young men, really. Chelsea helped out so much and was around so much that most of us called her the Assistant Manager. Many of us also thought that she needed a few months hanging around kids her own age. No one at the park near her age at all.

Anyway, as the night wore on everyone danced and carried on, we pounded down the free tequilla and beer, the food was great, and the music flowed…great time.

Ismeal and Rosa: