PEDREGAL: The Trip Down

San Quintin Bay, Baja Norte, Mexico

When I arrived in LAX from China, Guy was there to meet me - as was Leeannette, age six, and Haven, age four.   Unfortunately my flight was two hours late, which meant Papa G had been at the helm for three hours.  I'm not lying when I tell you his hair was standing on end.  He had just located them in a gift shop after a (very brief) separation that happened while he was on his hands and knees cleaning up the Starbucks hot chocolate off the floor that one of them had spilled.

Here is Haven in the airplane watching the terrain as we make our way down to Ensenada from San Diego.

The cockpit of the Cessna 172

This is what a solid marine layer looks like in Southern California and northern Baja, Mexico from the air.  Very sunny up top, quite cool and gray underneath.

Nana has gifted the girls with a chopstick set complete with carrying case from China. They can barely wait to take off to try them out with their apple slice snack.

Coming into Ensenada to clear customs.  Looking inland over farmland.

We're turning to left base, looking at the mountains located east of the water.

El Cipres Military Base, which they share, often reluctantly, with the civilian aircraft.

We're over the town of Mandeodera,  located just south of Ensenada, and headed west toward the ocean.

We touch down and the windows open, flooding the back seat with a gale wind.

Note the water bottle, sucked in on itself from the air pressure changes.   

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El piloto.

No photos allowed on base, so we've had our papers stamped and we're off again.

One of my favorite parts of the flight is just taking off from here, and seeing this long beautiful expanse of beach with the City of Ensenada north of us.