December '06 Newsletter

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Fall socializing started out with a bang when we joined a large group of friends for the annual silent auction fundraiser at our local steakhouse. They had quite a nice crowd and the bidding got a bit raucous, in a few cases even contentious. We are still using gift certificates we won and Susan is hanging onto 3 massage coupons waiting for just the right occasion. Quite a bit of money was garnered for our Veterans' Day fireworks and everyone had a great time.

Bob's campaign for our local water board took a lot of time. Although a local election, he was on the REAL ballot with all of the Arizona state candidates for state and national offices. To make it even more exciting he was running against a couple of well known community activists who support incorporating our town and who were supported by all the powers that want to be. The goal of these people seemed to be to gain control of the revenue generating capabilities of the district and stifle anti-incorporation dissent. Though Bob had served on the water board for 14 months, success initially seemed improbable since he hardly knew the names of anyone in town.

Two months before the election he and Mary took the offensive by mailing all the voters a postcard stating the good works accomplished by the Board while they were in office and asking for campaign donations. Realizing from the last election that the town was 3:1 against incorporation, he then generated a tri-fold flyer that reviewed all of the candidate's positions on issues that might interest voters. We wallpapered the town with these flyers, visiting every one of the thousand houses in the water district. This alone took several man-days to accomplish. A bulletin board war then broke out with us posting several times a day at the 5-6 boards in town and those who favored the opposition tearing the flyers down within a few hours.

After a candidates' night that went very well for him, a local newspaper reporter jumped into the fray attacking both Bob and his running mate. One of the opposition candidates attacked Bob in the same issue's letters to the editor claiming he was suffering from a "mental collapse" and accusing him of deceitful activities. More bulletin board postings occurred, windshields were plastered with a new flyer, Bob's responding letters to the editor were printed and . . . On election day all the candidates were at the single polling place seeking votes. To aid our cause, we set up a table with coffee and muffins outside the 75 foot zone. Bob shook hands like crazy and handed out small note cards saying vote #1 Brown and and #4 Marley. Those seemed to be effective and caused quite a stir with the election workers because voters kept leaving them in the polling booths and all over the floor. Our efforts finally paid off when Bob and his running mate Mary Brown won by a landslide, burying the two opposition candidates by two to one. See the election results, search on "Marley". He takes office January first and has already begun planning projects.

Susan has always been inclined to dress up at the slightest urging and has clowned at several past Halloween events but she was flabbergasted when Bob decided to join her uptown for the Trick or Treat Trail this year. He wore a tie-die shirt, fake cornrows, and his Bob Marley hat. Camera in hand, he documented much of our local color while Susan passed out candy with several other members of High Desert Helpers. Bob enjoyed himself enough that he agreed to dress up again and drive the Quad in the Veterans Day parade.

The Canyon Country Cut-ups, our new BCC clown troupe that Susan has put together won the 3rd place trophy in the parade this year. They had a total of nine clowns performing, three for the first time and several for the second. Bob wore his Halloween outfit but with dreadlocks in place of the cornrows. He pulled our trailer full of clowns with the Quad. This weekend some of Susan's clowns will be entertaining the kids at the VFW's annual Breakfast with Santa.

All is well on the family front. We popped up to White River in September to camp with Scott and Tennille for a night. They are enjoying their new house and jobs in Albuquerque and will be visiting with us a couple of days around Christmas. Bob's mom spent a week in the hospital with pneumonia last month but is back at her group home and doing well again. In January, Susan's younger sister Laurie and her teenage daughter Leah are flying out for a week. We are hoping that it is warm and sunny for their visit so Susan can run them ragged.

Many of you are aware that we have a historic stage stop in our front yard. This fall a pioneer cemetery douser contacted us wanting to douse the yard for graves. He has been out a couple of times and marked five gravesites near the cabin. Today he and a few others returned to install grave markers on the sites. Neal claims he can tell by the feel of the rods whether the internment is male or female and adult or child. We are skeptical but it has been interesting and fun. There are several confirmed burials near our historic 1870's frontier cabin, both adult and child, but we are wondering where the previous owners planted their beloved pets.

Finally having suffered enough and unable to reduce the swelling, Bob decided to have arthroscopic surgery on his left knee last month. Since both he and the physician had gone through the process before with the right knee, they knew what to expect so the MRI was skipped and he proceeded directly to surgery. The surgeon found more damage than expected in the joint, some bone on bone, but he is still optimistic that replacement won't be necessary for some time. Currently Bob's good knee is worse than the one recently operated on. Two many hours behind the wheel in Baja has made both knees swollen and a bit cranky but they are coming around after re-establishing the biking and regular activity routine.

Meals on Wheels added a once a month Soup Supper to their fund raising ventures a few months ago. Susan made 50 servings of Bean w/ Ham for the second one and has been burning up the phone lines organizing a call list of bakers to donate desserts. Attention hog that she is, she runs the raffle for them at every opportunity.

Our herd of cows has moved across the freeway to a new neighborhood but Susan has found other pets to take their place. Two injured Javelina have been visiting several times a day for the past two months. Both have hurt feet and were hiding out under our spa deck while recuperating. We also had a grey fox visit a few weeks back.

It has been a whirlwind autumn and of course there is no end in sight with the holidays upon us. We erected our bedraggled, 40-year-old, artificial tree a few days ago but have yet to get any other decorations put out. Perhaps we'll shine that on and focus more on making Christmas a little brighter for those around us.

Blessed holidays to you!

Baja Scout (11/20/06-11/30/06):

A late afternoon start from home launched us down to a Pilot gas station 12 miles north of Nogales for our first night crashing in the back of our truck. We didn't want to cross the border after dark and have to scramble for a place to camp in Mexico. Up at first light, we chose the truck route across rather than the busy downtown crossing. That proved to be a wise decision, though we weren't exactly confident until we finally reached the immigration checkpoint several miles into Mexico.

Crossing with a vehicle is more complicated than without one but we were through the formalities and lines within an hour and on our way south. Although somewhat expensive, the four lane toll roads are much smoother and faster than the ones we used to encounter. We made it to Topolobampo without incident and in record time. The only slow spots were passing through the towns of Hermosillo, Obregon, and part of Los Mochis. Unfortunately, it was a Mexican national holiday and the ferry hadn't run that day so it was making up hours trying to return to schedule. Instead of a late evening leave and a pre-dawn arrival, the guard rousted us at 1:00 AM to line up for a 4:00 AM loading and a 6:00 AM leave. The good side of this was that we got to make much of the trip in daylight. The not so good side was being really pooped when we reached the Pichilingue terminal north of La Paz around noon.

Since we were so close to beaches we had read about, we elected to cruise further north before going into town. We found enough foreign campers at Playa El Tecolote that we were comfortable beach camping our first evening in Baja. El Tecolote is a long sandy arc that stays shallow for quite a ways out. Susan started her seashell collection immediately. A constant breeze kept away the no-see-ums that occasionally infest beaches with mangrove swamps behind them. Small shoreline palapas offered welcome shade from the tropical hot afternoon sun. The gentle surf was warm and pleasant for swimming and the crashing waves lulled us to sleep that night. Isla Espíritu Santo hovered invitingly on the horizon 5 miles away.

We hated to leave the lazy comfort of the beach but had trip details to investigate in La Paz, so off we went the next morning. It was Thanksgiving Day and we found a few of the American outfitters busy with family dinners and such. A Welsh/Mexican couple owns the company we had been corresponding with. We found their place readily and took a tour of their facility, looking at the gear and food packing operation. Pleased and impressed, we confirmed our arrangements and went on to reserving a hotel for the group. A hop, skip and a holler from the outfitter is the Club El Moro, a lovely Moorish hotel with beautiful foliage, several pools, and a hot tub. Carlos patiently showed us all styles of rooms and we nailed down that detail. Other projects were finding the best grocery store, an icehouse, a tortillaria, a bread store, and checking on rental vehicles. We never did find a liquor store but feel confidant that someone in our group will clear up that small detail fairly quickly.

The high-walled, secure, and clean Casa Blanca RV Park became home our two nights in La Paz. Bob was thrilled to find an Internet connection at a reasonable price in their little coffee bar. It wasn't fast but it worked, once he found the @ symbol on the Spanish keyboard that is. They had a nice pool and tennis court and though we used neither, we enjoyed watching some of the tennis enthusiasts on several occasions. Our second night there was amazingly quiet, even though a "Caravan" with about 20 huge RV's pulled in. A crown had come off one of Susan's back molars, so we had a local dentist cement it back on for her before we blew town for the long drive up the Baja Peninsula.

We decided to spend the rest of our scout time north of La Paz, saving explorations south for late February before the March group trip. We especially wanted to inspect the camping accommodations and whale watching operations at Magdalena Bay. Since the season for sighting whales runs from January through March, both the ports of San Carlos and López Mateos were pretty sleepy fishing villages. Canneries support both communities in the off-season and neither looked like a great place to beach camp. There was evidence of lots of camper use during the prime season but since there were no whales to see in November, no tourists were to be seen either.

We backed off to Manfred's RV Park in Ciudad Constitución for the night. The Austrian owner's Mexican wife spoke impeccable English and was very friendly. She had a high-speed DSL Internet connection and allowed Bob to use it for as long as he wished at no cost. In the lobby of the park, she had a wonderful long bench made of wood from a Cardón cactus. The Cardón is much like our Sonoran Desert Saguaro. A local furniture maker was crafting an entire set for her and Susan was drooling over it. Abundant shade, good bathroom facilities including showers, proximity of services including a great super market, and only 30-40 minute drives to both of the whale watching sites makes it highly likely we will be using Manfred's as our camping home base during our March trip.

A young British Columbia resident we met in La Paz had mentioned Playa El Requesón, a sand spit beach, to us in passing and we were delighted to spend a night there. Even though the government allows beach camping, locals claim the access to most good beach camping areas and fees are required to spend the night. Many beaches have no services or perhaps a drop toilet. Fees are usually around $5-6. With a thousand miles to go to the border, we purposefully limited the number of miles covered each day, stopping to look at whatever we ran across along the way. Baja #1 is still a pretty rudimentary highway. The road surface is narrow by our standards and a good shoulder to pull onto is very unusual. If one drops a wheel off the road surface while traveling at 60 miles per hour they should expect to roll their vehicle down into a several foot lower ditch, which might be pretty nasty. This danger coupled with huge trucks and tourist camper vehicles headed south passing with inches to spare can make for a nerve-wracking day, even when limiting your driving to a couple of hundred miles.

Our next night just south of Santa Rosalía was at Playa Camacho, another beautiful beach. We were able to park the truck within inches of the high tide and had a palapa beside us. We placed our foldup picnic table under the palapa and got out our river chairs, making it comfortable. A small fleet of pangas was at the end of the beach and we were treated to watching the comings and goings of the local fishermen and their families. Most of the fishing seemed to be done at night with late evening launches, two men to a panga, and a very early morning return that we managed to sleep right through. The seagulls and pelicans entertained us and made for some interesting pictures. When not diving for fish they seemed to enjoy perching on the hulls of the beached pangas.

As one might expect, each day we traveled north was a bit colder but we were totally unprepared for ice on the picnic table when we awoke at the Natural Desert RV Park in the granite boulder strewn oasis of Cataviña. We had been driving through beautiful forests of Cardón, Boojum, and Yucca for much of the day and decided it was too pretty to leave. We don't know what the elevation was but it was definitely a two-dog night. Oddly, that is exactly how many pups adopted us on a late afternoon walk we took through the boulder fields.

Though we didn't spend a night there, one of our favorite stops was in the palm oasis of San Ignacio. It is a fairly small colonial village that resists change. Its tree covered central plaza, a beautiful 18th century mission church, and the small cave painting museum are well worth an hour's stretch time. It seemed very quiet and tourist friendly. A couple of tour operators had shops there, leading tours to either the government protected cave painting sites or longer trips to Laguna San Ignacio during the spring whale watching season.

Originally we intended to return home by December 5th but long, cold nights and tepid showers got old and we decided to make a run for the border. Our last night's camp just south of Ensenada near Punta Banda at Playa La Jolla was our first opportunity to have a blessedly HOT shower and we enjoyed it immensely. Susan picked up a few more shells, we finished the fiction books we'd been working on and had a pleasant sleep listening to the tide come in. It was a bit warmer because of the lower elevation but we were dreaming of home and our fireplaces.

We expected Tecate to be in the low desert and were surprised to find it at what seemed to be closer to 4000' elevation. While it was still clear, a cold front had moved in and the locals pronounced it the coldest morning they could remember for this time of year. After a bit of fruitless shopping we crossed the border there so easily we had trouble believing we were actually in California. When we declared our one lime to the US Customs agent, he gave us a dissertation on ascertaining the difference between a sweet lime and a sour one. Apparently one is legal to import and the other is not. He was decidedly friendly and sent us quickly on our way. Unsure of which way to exit, we asked if we should proceed straight ahead into a check lane, to which he replied "Oh no, you DEFINITELY don't want to go there". We quickly realized it was probably the "tear your vehicle apart" secondary search lane, made the suggested abrupt right, and proceeded cautiously into the good old US of A.

Since Tecate had no tourist goods to speak of, we crossed back over on foot at Algodones near Yuma to make some purchases. Susan had been there with a friend a few months ago for prescriptions. There was virtually no Mexican check on entry and they had flashed through American immigration on their return. We accomplished our shopping fairly quickly but with the return of the snowbirds to Yuma and Christmas coming, the line to cross back over went all of the way around the corner and down the street. We waited in line for close to an hour but breezed through the checkpoint when we finally reached it and were headed home.

The cold snap had visited Black Canyon City as well. Daytime temperatures in the mid-50's coupled with nights near freezing caused our unheated home to reach 53 degrees in the ten days we were away. Naturally the fireplaces were roaring in short order and we're happy to report that the hot tub has reached temp and is being enjoyed tremendously.

Participants:

Bob & Susan Marley.

2007 River Permits and Trips:

It's time to begin thinking about river permit applications again. Some have already been asking what trips we will have time to join next year. We're certain most of you realize that a river trip is impossible without a permit and that the dynamics of obtaining a non-commercial permit for a launch date require active participation by all. Most of these lotteries require interested parties to submit an application during December or as late as the first couple of weeks of January. You can find the lottery application specifics on our website.

Since we will be traveling in Mexico in early March and coming home directly afterwards, we may have Salt River rafting time during the optimum late-March and early April flows. However a trip there depends on whether the river flows and things become so last minute that organizing a group trip including anyone other than locals is almost impossible. The change from a waitlist to a lottery at Grand Canyon resulted in some friends of ours acquiring an eight-person permit for May of 2007. While that will put us on the river, it offers little hope for others since the space is already taken by the four permit holders, ourselves, and people with equipment. We want to do an early June trip on the San Juan, if someone can get a permit, and would certainly commit to a two week Middle Fork-Main Salmon River trip in late June if one became available.

As usual the key missing item for rafting trips is the necessary permit, which is usually awarded through a heavily subscribed lottery. If you want to join us on a trip next summer, PLEASE assist with the permit situation by entering the San Juan and Middle Fork lotteries.

If any of you have questions or suggestions about any of this, we would enjoy talking to you about one of our favorite outdoor activities.

2007 MG Trip Plans:

Start	Finish	Trip Name	Group Size	Comments
3/4/07	3/10/07	Baja Van and Sea Kayaking	14 Full	We will meet in La Paz for a four day guided sea-kayaking trip around Espíritu Santo Island with a local outfitter. We will then travel in rental vehicles to Magdelena Bay for a couple of days of whale watching and some beach combing.
5/7/07	5/23/07	Grand Canyon Raft Trip	8	Some friends of ours were granted a permit in Phase two of the conversion from waitlist to annual lottery. To be successful, four waitlisted people had to pool together and be willing to accept an 8-person trip. Unless there is a cancellation we have all the gear and boatmen we need. We have one space left and want to fill it with someone who is VERY familiar with managing coolers and supplies for extended trips in Grand Canyon.
June	June	San Juan Raft Trip June 1-10 start date applications needed for the 2007 San Juan lottery.	12	If you wish to join this seven day trip, we'll need your help during December and January applying for a San Juan permit. Spectacular Colorado plateau scenary, Indian Ruins, petroglyphs, and great hiking. Organized for individuals with rafts and some without.
June	June	Idaho Raft Trips June 25-26 start date applications needed for the 2007 Middle Fork lottery.	16	If you wish to join this trip, we'll need your help during December and January applying for a Middle Fork permit. At least eight days for the Middle Fork trip and if we are successful in getting a Main Salmon cancellation permit we would boat Boundary Creek to near Riggins for a total of two weeks. Organized for individuals with rafts and some without.
8/4/07	8/11/07	Boundary Waters Canoe Trip	9 Full	We will meet in Ely, Minnesota. Transportation will be arranged to and from the area of interest by the outfitter. Physical fitness is manditory, since 50 pound packs and canoes must be portaged multiple times on most loops.
8/17/07	8/24/07	Isle Royale Van and Basecamp	10	We'll meet in Duluth, camp in excellent State Park campgrounds along the North Shore and on Isle Royale. Travel will be in a rental van with a trailer and commercial boat to and around Isle Royale. Expect lots of dayhiking and unexcelled photo opportunities. Gear will need to be in backpacks because we plan to camp one night on a 10 mile cross-island hike.

If you need more specific information on any trip we have planned, please contact us. We always generate a trip description with itineraries and all of the information one would need to help make a travel decision.

• Additional information, including our reservation and cancellation policy, is available upon request.
• Pre-trip information is mailed to all participants approximately a month prior to the trip.