January 22 - Not too many places to get lost on the way to Bahia de Los Angeles

The adventure today was not in the directions and turns we were required to make in our trip of 232 miles. That was the simple part.

The adventure was the road itself: two very narrow lanes, mostly paved but with a steep drop off at the fog line. Not any room at all for error or for the wind gust that catches you (moving at about 55 mph) as a fifth wheel rig (not from our group) passes you going about 70 mph. Then when that wind gust drives you outside the fog line, your wheel drops off the pavement and your wife nearly has a “coronary” while you struggle to pull the rig back up onto the pavement. I was really glad it was Gary driving as I don’t think I could have muscled it back up onto the pavement without overreacting. If I had been driving we would probably be picking gravel out of our teeth by now.

Most of the trip we traveled through mountain passes on windy roads with me calling out when I knew a sizeable rig was coming opposite us so Gary could prepare to share the road but yet stay on the pavement. Yes, it was a true adventure.

Our adventure today was not without a great deal of fascinating beauty as we traveled through several areas of literal forests of cactus. There are 800 varieties of cactus in Baja and today we saw a good sampling of that. The most unusual was the Cirio cactus also called Boojum Trees that look like carrots - slim, tall, hairy appearance. These are unique to the Baja Peninsula and the state of Sonora in particular.

As we finally approached Bahia de Los Angeles we were overcome with the blue color of the Sea of Cortez, Gulf of California. It was awesome from a distance and in contrast to the mountainous terrain. Our RV park is right on the beach along the Sea of Cortez. This is luxury RV accommodations: we have septic hookups, water faucets (but no water comes out of them) and electric (10 amp) between 7AM and 11 PM when they run their generator. We were pleasantly surprised to find a newly opened diesel/gas station in this town as we had been told there would not be one for 350 miles. We are having a good time but definitely looking forward to spending three nights here in one spot (that’s why they call this the Baja Slow N Easy tour).

Tomorrow we are going to a turtle research center and marine life museum. Should be fun.