Lazy Days

 I love the lazy days of Baja life!  Some days I don't do much of anything! But I did get the two windows washed which were really bad - not sure if they ever get done except when I do them!  My favorite is having coffee on the front between 9:30 and 11:00 - the sky is usually such a vivid blue color that time of day - and lately there's been rays jumping, whale sightings (pretty far out though) and yesterday I saw 4 dolphins swimming by!

This was unexpected so had to get a picture - you rarely see jet-skis here but there was one right along the shore pulling a skier!

A beautiful sunrise!

The night before the full moon - you never know if there will be clouds blocking on full moon night!

Another great sunrise!

We were up at our friends' place when the full moon came up - fun to get a different view of it from their rooftop! (and notice the paintings of famous Mexicans on the wall across the street - someone has now bought that property and rebuilding it but unable to save the paintings

And the full moon from our place!

Glenn asked me what I wanted for Valentine's Day - I said a sticky bun from Caleb's so that's what I got - yummy!

And some crazy colors for the sunset one night!

Life is good!

Baja Life

 We've settled into that "relaxing"mode and are enjoying life in Baja!  All our friends have now arrived and many days are spent just talking to people that are walking to the beach - it's a great, relaxing time down here and we're happy to just enjoy it!

Glenn has been fishing every day he can - we had an entire week of NO WIND so he was out almost every day - none of the big fish have moved in yet as the water is too cold but he's catching plenty to keep us in fish and has sent some home with friends!

I'm reading and reading and reading.....I'm on book #7 since we've arrived!  And I've done a couple of small projects like cleaning out my phone and cleaning out the computer - things that needed to be done anyway!

Glenn is also doing a couple of projects on the house in exchange for some of the rent - the roof needed some work and a column holding up the front porch needs to be rebuilt -that gives him something to do on windy days like today!  He's done quite a few "little" things around the rental since it's an older house and there's always SOMETHING to be done!

Our first happy hour with drinks and guacamole!

We tried a restaurant for breakfast that we had never ate at - food was great but the squeezed orange juice was AWESOME!!

Just had to take a picture of this mama horse with her colt - precious!

There are days when you just sit and gaze at the water for a LONG time - I've seen many whales since we've been here but they're all pretty far out!

Trigger fish - my favorite - grilled and covered with butter and roasted garlic!!  YUM!

I look forward everyday to my coffee on the front porch!

Glenn's first larger fish - a pargo or snapper - it was delicious!

The sun shining through the colors!

Such is life in Baja.......

January Photo Dump

 We had an extremely cold January back in Colorado so I'm sure most people are excited to be into February - not very many pics to finish up the month!

Evan got accepted to all the colleges he applied for but has decided that he will go to Colorado School of Mines - his choice for many years!  He'll do fantastic!

Of course I get a jury summons during the time I'm going to be gone!   I'm sure I'll get another one soon after I get home since you have to put down the date you're coming back from vacation!

I captured the full moon in January just as I was leaving the Food Pantry!  

We're always disappointed that we don't get to see Parker wrestle but Robby and Jill are great about videotaping his matches and sending them to us! Yes, he won both matches!

One of my favorite things to eat in Baja - fresh tortillas from the tortilla factory with my homemade jam! YUM YUM YUM!

And that's a wrap for January!  I will blog when needed down here but usually take a break!

And We've Arrived!!

 What a good feeling it is to drive down that palm lined drive to our "home away from home" for the next 2 1/2 months!  But it's even more amazing to see the beautiful Sea of Cortez right in front of our eyes!  The clouds were abundant when we arrived and we got the car unpacked quickly - and then the work begins again......

We woke up the next morning to this:

And the following morning to this:

It was a beautiful start to our time down here!  Lots of unpacking got done the next 2 days plus lots of cleaning!  But it's all done now and it's time to relax and enjoy the fishing and reading and friends!

We headed over to the Spa Hotel for Asada night with several friends on Thursday night - Glenn enjoyed ribs and I had my "baked potato with barilla and shrimp" and it was just as good as I remembered!  

Since I didn't have a drink, I chose to have dessert - chocolate volacano cake - it was delicious!

What a great start to our time down here!

San Ignacio/Yurts

 It felt wonderful to get out of the car!!  I guess it seemed like a long day because it WAS a long day! We got our bags in our yurt and ordered a drink!  Their pina colada was excellent!

We had a lovely meal outside - met friends of Del and Linda's who had kind of caravanned with us and also spent the night at the yurts!  About 1/2 way through the meal the electricity went off!  By this time it was dark but they do have solar wrap around lights around the palm trees so we weren't completely in the dark - a candle was brought out to the table which helped!  We sat around and talked quite a while and then decided we all needed to head to our DARK yurts!  Glad we had flashlights on our phones!  About an hour later the electricity did come back on!

Glenn and I slept great and were up for the early morning breakfast which was great!  I took a couple of pictures of the river and then it was time to head out!

I could see that ahead of us there was either fog or a very low cloud - so pretty!'

And as we got closer and closer to the mountain, it was almost completely covered!

Today was a short drive which was great!  We arrived at Truipi Hotel outside of Loreto - the 4 of us walked to the marina to have a late lunch - quite the place there with lots of fancy boats!

The back view from the 2nd story!

This bush is always in bloom when we stay here - so pretty!

Their hotel breakfast isn't served till 8:00 which is rather late for us but it's always good!  Then we hit the road on our last driving day!  We stopped in Constitution to get oranges - they're always excellent!

Glenn decided he wanted to stop in LaPaz and get a rotissiere chicken to have for dinner when we got to our place so he found a chicken place!  Linda and Glenn went in to get the chicken and Del and I stayed with the vehicles!  45 minutes later they FINALLY came out - oh my gosh - here we thought it was going to be a quick stop!  And what they ended up getting was NO WHERE CLOSE to what they thought they had ordered - Glenn had thought he ordered 2 orders of chicken breasts (no whole chickens) with french fries!  I had never seen a chicken breast look like that!!  I took a bite and it was NOT a breast - some type of breading was around a piece of ham and cheese!!!  REALLY?   Good thing the french fries were OK because the "whatever" we got was NOT good at all to me!!  So much for dinner........

We FINALLY arrived at our place in Spa Buena Vista!  Much later than we thought but we arrived and that's all that matters!

Headed To Baja

 It's a lot of work to not only get all the packing done for Baja, but to also get the house ready for a 3 month absence and get all the little things done and ready!  But I'm extremely organized with lists for EVERYTHING and it all comes together in the end!

We left on Thursday the 23rd with the temp being 15 below!!  We always pack the car the day before but since it was going to be SO COLD, Glenn set up a little heater in the car so things wouldn't freeze and that worked out great! 

Winslow, AZ is always our first nights' stop - it's kind of a long day so we're more than ready to be out of the car by late afternoon!  But first on the agenda was to wash the car - it was absolutely filthy from all the snow and slush !  We checked into our hotel and then made our way down to the Relic Brewing Company for dinner - great burgers and fries!  Our favorite place to eat there!

And of course, the mandatory pictures for "Standin On The Corner" which I always send to the girls along with the video of the Eagles song "Take It Easy"!

 

We ate a nice breakfast at the hotel and then headed out!  I always enjoy looking at these tall sand dunes as we pass by!

We met friends Del and Linda at Yuma for lunch and then travelled together over the border - it all went fine and after getting our paperwork done, we headed towards San Felipe!

The cloud cover was nice that morning so had to snap a picture of the awesome clouds!

I've always wanted to snap a picture of this insurance company as you come into San Felipe but usually forget about it - this year I didn't and had my phone ready!   What a name!!

We stopped in San Felipe at our usual place to get pesos and gas!  And then our first glimpse of the Sea of Cortez!

We knew ahead of time that the roads were in poor condition from all the reports online - so we were prepared!!  Glenn led the way as Del was pulling a small boat!  Yes, they were not great at all - not only lots of potholes but also crumbling asphalt which made for a rough ride a lot of the time!

I love seeing the cactus with the mountains in the background!

We didn't make very good time due to all the slowdowns on the highway but we rolled into San Ignacio at the yurts just in time for dinner!!

North Bound One Last Time

 Kenzie had a tournament on Sunday with her competitive volleyball team so we decided to head up early Sunday morning to watch that and to get adjustments one last time before we headed out for Baja!  It was extremely cold on Sunday morning - I believe we had 18 below but as we got closer to Divide, this was the reading!!  Yup 28 below!!!  Let me tell you, the car did NOT appreciate running at that temp!

We were headed to Co. School of Mines where the tournament was at - but Jessi texted not long after we left and said Gary had taken Kenzie there (the roads were slick and icy!) and lots of people were waiting outside the gym door but college maintenance kept telling them there was NO tournament booked!!  Who knows where the screw up was but they finally got something figured out - Jessi said to just come to their house and we could ride with her to go there as it wasn't too far from the house!  So that's what we did!

It's always fun to watch Kenzie play - she is co-captain of the team and plays so well!

We got to watch her play 3 games and she played awesome!  Her boyfriend Camden was there so we met him - what a polite and talkative guy!! And funny enough, there was a soccer practice in the back of this huge place and we found out Aleahs' new boyfriend was there!  Kenzie knew what he looked like so when he came out (Kenzie's team was not playing at the time), Jessi went over to him and asked if he was Noah and he replied yes and she introduced herself as Aleah's aunt and pointed to us sitting nearby and said we were the grandparents!  I'm sure the poor guy was completely flabbergasted!!  And Aleah was back in Ft. Collins absolutely mortified - HA!  We all got a laugh out of that!

Back to the Keppys after the game where we had a great dinner and played some games! (and had some wine!!)

We had brought Evan's birthday card and money for his birthday since we're always gone at that time so we celebrated that!

It was a quick trip up as we left early the next morning to get home and start packing!