Back To The USA

As the sun was just starting to rise, we headed out!  The roads seem very familiar now and not quite as narrow as the first time we drove the Baja!

Lunch (served out of the ice chest) was at this beautiful cove!

Our stop for the night was in San Ignacio at the "yurts".  We had tried to stay last year but didn't have reservations and it was already full!  This year it wasn't as busy but I had reservations anyway!!  We stayed in the "Howard Johnson" yurt and it was pretty cool!  It was round of course with a large opening at the top which was covered by a screen and a "lid" that you could open!  An attached bath was added onto one side through a doorway!

The place looks just like an oasis!!  It was gorgeous with all the palm trees which I later found out are date palms!  There's a little place to sit by the river with benches so I took my book and relaxed while Glenn napped!

We went into town that evening and ate at this cute Mexican place right on the square called Rancho Grande - there was even live music which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Here's a picture of the mission church although it was too late to go in.

Breakfast was included with our lodging price and although we should have skipped it and headed out, we decided to stay for it!  It was served inside with a brightly decorated Mexican theme and our meal was ham, bacon, eggs cooked to order, fresh new potatoes with herbs, homemade bread and homemade jam - the best part was the freshly squeezed orange juice - YUM!!!!

So we got a later start and paid for it!!  There were 4 more checkpoints (which all went fast) but the 21 miles of gravel took us an hour and 15 min. (that's a record for us) - we also have the "small" detours, 9 of them and the LONG detour took 40 min!  After all this, there is a long stretch of solid potholes on the pavement which was exhausting for Glenn!!

Glenn wanted to cross at a different border and come out at Yuma!  Luckily our GPS worked as we would have NEVER found the border without it!!  After going through town we ended up out in the country for quite a while and I thought for sure we were lost!  But after checking with a couple of people who spoke limited English, we discovered we WERE on the right track and finally ended up in the town of Algodones - this is the place where my dad used to take us to "walk" across the border into Mexico when he stayed down around Phoenix!

The streets there are VERY narrow and after lefts and rights, we finally got into the line at the border and it only took about 15 min!  When checking into our hotel at Yuma, the gal asked how long we had to wait at the border and when I told her 15 min she said she crossed on the Sunday before and was in line for 3 hours!!

So it ended up being a 13 1/2 hour day drive that day which was just TOO much for Glenn - we've decided that next year we MUST spend another night on the Baja if none of the detours and roads are done (which I'm sure they won't be!!).

Our final night was at Winslow, AZ again and the only bad weather we hit was outside of Pueblo, CO going into Co. Springs where we hit some bad snow!!  We were home by 6:00 Saturday night and what a great feeling to walk into our house!  An awesome trip!!