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Heading North

Catch up time

June 13, 2014

And it’s Friday the 13^th. I’m not the superstitious type so will carry on.

Happy to report for all that don’t already know, Caesar has fully recovered, hair still growing out but he’s completely back to his old self.

When I left you last we were getting engine running, so will try & update for the last 2 months. We were planning on heading north for the summer and taking the bike, but after the last ride that direction decided the construction on the roads was too bad to pull the trailer with the bike on it, so scrapped that idea. As I will tell you later, was glad we made that decision. Our next project was to try & secure the boat from the pelicans, Caesar won’t be around to patrol it. Went to a grocery store to find the cheapest fishing line, 80 pound test, 60 yards, stored in the locked cabinet with the air rifles, cost 75 pesos, not bad, then to Home Depot for pvc pipe. Back to the boat, did one cut first on the 8, 8 foot long pvc to make it more manageable to transport in the dinghy, but now we have 16 pieces in the dinghy with Caesar & I. Then cut them all into 2’ pieces & start fastening each individual piece to the upright stanchions on the boat, first had to drill 3 little holes in each one to accommodate the fishing line. It was to be fastened about 6” above the rail, the idea was that the pelicans wouldn’t land on the fishing line, therefore doing their dirty business on someone else’s boat. This was a time consuming project as many of the holes had to be custom drilled to fit the stanchion where they were to be placed. Oh well lots of time! After all the fastening we were running out of fishing line, back to the grocery store, but they only had the one that I bought earlier, oh well off to a marine store, will need to spend the big bucks! Upon arrival there, discovered the same fishing line, not locked up, & only 13 pesos, oh well so much for the grocery store cheap stuff. Then finish the project, seems to be working good, except they can still land on the anchor bowsprit, lots of salt water needed on return, but mostly one spot. A couple of good friends nearby will keep an eye on the boat.

Then get the rest of the stuff ready, load the truck, plan departure date, Robin that rides with us in the Californios will travel with us to Las Vegas. She will fly out of there to her home in Port Alberni on Victoria Island. We plan on a short cut a friend has told us about to save going through Tijuana, and to save a lot of miles. He says there is only about 80 miles of good gravel road, we stop for breakfast near the turn off of BCS highway 1, someone there says it’s really only 30 miles, we are happy. At 8 am we turn on the shortcut, it’s a real bad road, much of the time we drive in the ditch as it was better. We were barely moving, much of the time under 10 mph, mostly 5. Long story short we blew the first tire about 10 miles in, of course the spare is almost flat, so we turned around to the only residence on the way, the guy was a double amputee below the knees, so he moved on knee pads. His son lived beside him, they came out, found a battery, fired up the generator then an air compressor to get us going again in fairly short order, but now we are travelling without a spare & still around 20 miles to go. We ended on pavement by 1 pm, five hours for the shortcut! We stopped for lunch, getting out of the truck I heard the other back tire leaking, it was about half down now, and no more spare. Fortunately there was a little tire repair shop, that could patch it(he had no new tires & not a used in my size)he had to patch next to another patch & that bothered me, but we had no choice but to forge on. Long story short we made it to Las Vegas the next day, and I was back in Bullhead City the following day,but by then the repaired tire was going flat again & the front tires were shot. Wore those tires out in a hurry! Now I have 4 new tires & I won’t try that “short cut” again. Love the Mexican short cuts, glad we had lots of water & a 6 pack on ice.

So now I am back in Bullhead, temperatures 100 plus, hook up the trailer & head to the mountains. My friend Tom (that does the best real estate magazine) has pulled the trailer out for me. We tow to the Hualapai’s where we have a spot reserved in the cool pines, elevation about 7500 feet, temps in the 80’s during the day & 50-60 at nights and only about 50 miles from Bullhead. We are located next to the bar and restaurant which is real handy if we don’t feel like cooking or want to watch a hockey game. We drive to Kingman about 12 miles away for provisioning, and Caesar has a blast at the doggy park there. He gets to play with dogs his own size on grass with lots of shade & water.

Yesterday we took the truck back into a remote campground (Wild Cow Springs) over a 4wd only road, seemed like a paved highway compared to our short cut! I think we will go back in and camp a couple of days there sometime later this summer, it is very quiet, have to watch Caesar though as it is cougar country.

I must watch the weather in Mexico it looks like Cristina took a turn west & is dying, but we know more will be coming. Should one take aim at La Paz we would need to make a decision whether to leave the boat on the mooring or have it hauled to a boat yard. Oh the joys of cruising.

Will try & do a sooner update on this and maybe try again to post some pictures.

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