Neal Johns - 12-9-2006 at 03:03 AM
December 23, 2000
Met son Dave Cox, friends Ken and Diane Sears, and Dave McFarland at 11:00 a.m. in the mini-mall (very) parking lot just left of the Tecate border
crossing. Tecate is the only way to go; no crowds, no wait, no hassle. We asked permission to park in the few custom inspection spots and received it
with two of us sent to park across the street in the reserved spots. Dave McFarland inadvertently parked on a gardener's hose and quickly moved when
the gardener complained. The upset gardener told him $25 dollars or he would report his license plate number to the authorities. No deal said Dave M.
So far Dave M. is still a free man but who knows who the gardener knows?
. We took the free route east on Hwy. 2 and tried to top off the gas at Rumarosa. No gasolina! We were going to do a lot of canyon exploring so we
went to the outskirts of Mexicali and topped off, then back to take the road south toward Guadalupe Canyon (hot springs). We turned right in a few
miles on a faint track seeking the Canyon de la Palmas Azules (blue palms - Erythea Armata). Blue palms are bluish green and are less common than the
regular Washingtonia Filifera fan palms. Oops, wrong road. We found ourselves in a nice little cove/playa which would make a great campsite.
Sharp-eyed wife Marian said, "Stop!" and walked over to a rock in the middle of the playa which had been used by Indians as a metate for grinding
mesquite beans into flour. As usual, there was no mano (the hand held grinding rock) around. It's always a thrill to find the artifacts of an ancient
people lying around. We left it there to bask in the sun, returned to the racecourse road parallel to the Guadalupe road and whooped further south.
Finding another track, we tried again and found ourselves on the right route. Palm logs had been washed down miles from the mouth of the canyon so
because it was getting dark we camped for the night.
Oh boy! I'm looking forward to this.
Skipjack Joe - 12-9-2006 at 09:14 AM
My two favorite threads on this board are travel stories and photographs of baja. And you know the country about as well as anyone.
David K - 12-9-2006 at 09:27 AM
Yes indeed... go Neal go!
