January 21 - NOW we know why they call the group "Adventure Caravans"

CAUTION – READ AT YOUR OWN RISK: The following dialogue may have a tendency to either induce motion sickness (if you are so inclined) or put you to sleep. Feel free to fast forward if necessary. For others…come along on our first day of the big adventure.

We had spent yesterday with last minute RV accessory shopping, orientation meetings, dinner and socials…getting to know the people we would be traveling with. They also lined out our procedure for this morning (our first morning) departure from the San Diego KOA.

Our lead motor home would move into the beginning of the line at 7 AM and we were to all form up behind him in anticipation of a 7:30 departure. We set our alarm early so we would be up and ready but have since found out that an alarm is not necessary when you have “Thumper” in the group. Thumper is the nickname for the man who drives the “tail gunner” (last) rig in the caravan. The nickname he earned because of his morning ritual of walking around in the wee hours of the morning (about 6 AM this morning) with a golf club “thumping” all the tires on your motor home to make sure no one has a flat tire. If so they would like to discover it BEFORE you get out in the middle of traffic. This noise as he checks your tires is much more effective than any alarm clock ever thought of being.

When the lead motor home started his motor to move over into line it was akin to a Chinese fire drill as we all revved up and began moving to jockey for a place in line. This was complicated by the myriad of roads throughout the park and also the fact that most of us had vehicles to be hooked up behind our motor home and our rigs were too long to be able to do it until we got into the middle of the park roads…thereby blocking access to others trying to get into line as well…you kind of get the picture. Miraculously we were all in line and ready by the appointed 7:30 departure time.

Initially this looked easy and simple…just keep the motor home in front of you in view and follow them down the freeway. We also had written directions that explained to us each intersection, turn or lane change to be made. We zipped on down the 11 miles to the border and drove right on through. A piece of cake…right ? wrong !

So far we were just “caravanning”…next comes the “ADVENTURE caravanning”. It seems that once you cross the border into Mexico, anything can and will happen. Today the new thing since the last group had come this direction was a change of roads, lanes and also, oh yes…the signage.

Well we think Gary and I set a new record as we were less than 1 mile south of the border…heck, probably more like a half mile…and we got lost. We made a wrong turn when the signs did not match our instructions…Gary saw a “bus” up ahead, thought it was a motor home and followed it the wrong way. Only problem was we had about five other motor homes that were following us and so we were lost together. First we ended up half pulled into the parking lot at a hospital looking for a way to get turned around. A young man who works at the hospital and spoke very little English was generous enough to hop into our motor home and help us negotiate the streets to get headed the right direction. He hopped back out along the freeway with $3 US in his hand and a big smile on his face. He was proud to have helped us and did not mind walking back to his work place.

Well, great but no sooner did we get moving again but we took yet another wrong turn. This time Gary just decided we needed to get off the road and check in on the radio. With three coaches following us this time, I spotted a very large Costco parking lot and we all circled our “wagons” inside there to scratch our heads together. (The joke later was that we purposely stopped off for a few last minute shopping.)

The others were out of radio range so we were on our own. Finally I looked up and could see the highway sign for where we needed to go but not how to get there. One other fearless driver volunteered to “lead” us out. As we followed him we realized quickly that a concrete median prevented us from making the left turn we needed to and we were forced to make a middle of the road U-turn with motor homes and cars in tow. What a relief it was when we rounded that turn and got onto the correct road. We soon passed the “tail gunner” rig waiting along the roadside to make sure we survived and fell back into the “caravan” again after our little sight seeing venture.

As we drove south toward Ensenada we saw large bull rings and lots of new construction along the coast line. It is obvious that lots of Americans purchase condos and residences in the area as many had American sounding names and motifs that the average Mexican could not afford.

We also passed the Fox studio movie set and specifically the set for the movie Titanic. The scenery changed so fast from poverty to pockets of fame and fortune that it was a kind of sensory overload.

Most of the road in this area is toll road but we were glad to pay the price (760 pesos = $7.50 every 10 miles or so) as they were very nice roads to travel on…which we appreciated more and more as we later traveled on their regular “highways”. We learned several things in our adventure today:

**It is not important to be at the head of the caravan when you leave in the morning…things change as the day rolls on and your position changes anyway.
**Don’t assume the motor home ahead of you knows where they are going…even if they do have an “Adventure Caravans” sticker on their backside.
**Stay on the road and do not try to do a courtesy pull off the side of the road to let other vehicles pass you. Most times there is a substantial drop off at the edge of the road and things will fly out of your upper cabinets when you hit a bump that hard.
**After hitting bumps during your adventure, open you upper cabinets carefully or the special coffee mug you purchased in Washington DC might crash onto the counter below and break into a thousand pieces.
**If you pull off the road, you cannot always negotiate the steep grade or slant of the approach to get back on the road…hence you visit with non-English speaking old lady who gives you a toothless grin and encourages you to go around many dusty dirt blocks finding a good road to pull back onto the highway.
**When you get lost, it is not a good idea to just guess and make a turn off the main road onto a small side street or you will end up on steep, narrow residential roads with locals just shaking their heads at your plight.
**If you sit at dinner with the “Wagon Master” and his wife, it is not a good time to confess to how soon and how many times you got lost that day or you may end up wearing a silly two brimmed hat that says “I’m Their Leader, Which Way Did They Go” (yes, Gary got his picture taken wearing it).

All in all Day One was truly an adventure with much more to come !