Those words, from one of my favorite songs, is an apt description of much of our life and wanderings. A season ending in Baja transforms into a season beginning at camp. Now, as the leaves begin a color kaleidoscope transformation all their own, our seasons will soon recycle and renew as well.
Back at camp in Idaho, the idea of “home” has been on our minds of late. Jim’s parents still ask when we’re “coming home”. We frequently find ourselves in conversations with strangers where they ask where home is. There is no real clear-cut answer. Our official residency, for now, is Portland. We live half of the year in Idaho and half elsewhere. The majority of those we meet simply can not comprehend the idea of a semi-nomadic existence.
It’s official. The time has come to say goodbye to Tequila, our much-loved truck camper. As reported last fall, when we made a commitment to Camp CDA for the next few years we decided to move into trailer life with Taco, our Lance travel trailer. Tequila spent the winter cozy and safe undercover in town but now has once again emerged in order to move onto a new home.
Joshua Tree National Park is a treasure. From our first visit two years ago the memories of the spectacular scenery has stayed with us. As the plan for our route north diverged, as they tend to do, the parks of Utah were not to be this time around but that didn’t mean we were going to miss out on Joshua Tree.
It all started with an ottoman. A broken brake fiasco south of Mulege had us pulling into Playa Santispac rather than our beloved Playa Coyote beach. We generally think of Santispac as a place for “big rigs” and all of those who want easy access to Mexico 1 rather than those seeking a bit of peace and quiet. No matter. A night on any one of the scenic beaches of Bahia Concepcion is a dream.
We decided to leave the brake fix until the next morning and then I saw it. The tall blond woman in the RV just down from us had an ottoman. A real life, straight out of a living room, ottoman that she was resting her feet on while reading her book next to the sea. A wave of envy washed over me.
As we prepared to leave Los Barriles northbound we started asking THE question that was a concern for all of us who wintered south of the border; Return to the United States on Mexico1 – that narrow hell of potholes the size of VW Bugs, speeding truck drivers, and winding miles, or take on the as of yet still unfinished Mexico 5 where 22 miles can take hours?
I think I’ve lost track of how many such posts I’ve done. These past 27 months have found us in dozens and dozens of campgrounds across Mexico and the Western United States and feature everything from boondocking beach camps to $100/night RV parks.
We had planned on heading north via Arizona and Utah. Well, plans changed and Oregon was on the radar but we knew what we didn’t want to do was repeat the same route that we have traveled too many times over the last couple of years. By taking the border at Mexicali and heading down some back roads we effectively missed all of the dreaded San Diego/ LA/ San Francisco traffic. We also made a point of trying out some new spots along the way. Camp CDA research and all 🙂
We crossed the border recently~ a 3-hour soul-crushing grind before arriving back in the good old USA in what was our longest, and yet least invasive border crossing in over two years. Los Barrile’s winter entered the history books. As always, it was incredibly bittersweet.
Life in Los Barriles is moving along as expected. We chose this spot for our winter adventures in part because we were looking to decompress after a lively and evolving 2017. As we have continued to morph into our best lives, we understand that we require our work and play to interact, becoming simply joint elements of a single life lived well.
For the last three winters, we have driven past, through really, the tiny town of El Triunfo nearly a dozen times. We have stopped exactly once and that was only to buy a bag of veggies from the ladies on the street corner and snap a quick photo of their church. We always said, “we’ll stop next time”. Well, next time finally happened as we headed there for our Photo Field Trip of the week.
