Back to Mexico 2014

Back to Mexico 2014

This year, we decided to drive our car down to Mexico so that we could bring some large items that you can’t get on an airplane.  Including a lot of flammable paint and stuff that is very expensive in Mexico, if you can even find the right kind.  We drove down following our friends Rick and Marilyn in their car as they have made the trip many times and knew the best places to stop.  After driving through the Mojave Desert, we spent the first night in Laughlin Nevada.  This is a small town like a mini Las Vegas that sits on the Colorado River.  The casino that we stayed at even had a beach.  The rooms were $19 per night, and they had a giant dinner buffet for $15.  We didn’t gamble a cent, and left there early the next morning for our friend’s house in Green Valley, Arizona.

Double rainbow from Jack and Alice's patio

We would spend two days with our friends Jack and Alice in their beautiful home in the desert.  Green Valley is a retirement community about a half hour north of the Mexican border.  There are several large developments of condos and single family homes with many community centers and lots of things to do.  We drove through the remnants of a hurricane that came up from Mexico.  They said they got 8 inches of rain the day we arrived.  We believe it, it was like driving through a lake for 5 hours.

The card game that Cathy kept winning

The final day we went from Green Valley to San Carlos where the boat had already been taken out of the storage yard.  We stopped first to check into our hotel as reservations in Mexico are sort of a fluid thing.  Next it was off to the boat yard to put some stuff onto the boat, and lighten the car up a bit. The boat was waiting for us in perfect condition at the work yard.  Because of all the recent rains, it was very clean and ready for us to start working on it.  Our plan was to install the new batteries, the new watermaker, and sand and paint the bottom with two coats of bottom paint.

The majestic Adlai hotel pool

The sanding turned out to be quite a bit harder than we had planned.  We were wearing paper paint suits to keep the toxic dust off of us.  The problem was the temperature was in the high 80s.  We did get the sanding and painting done in 4 days which we thought was pretty good.  After getting the 4 new 75 pound batteries hauled up onto the boat, we had the boat put back in the water in the marina for a few days to get everything else ready to go.

We did it! It was not easy though.

It turned out that the company we got the watermaker from forgot to install some parts inside the unit.  We spent an extra week in the marina waiting for the parts to be shipped to us from San Diego.  This was very disappointing for us, as our friends had already left for Baja, and they were enjoying snorkeling and the warm water this time of year.  Our whole reason for coming down early was to get over to Baja in the fall to enjoy the weather, and now we had missed much of it again!

Hanging out the Soggy Peso restaurant

It was a little windy, so we wouldn't have left anyway

We took advantage of the extra time here because this time we had our car.  We made several  trips to nearby Guaymas and many different local restaurants.