PEDREGAL: Ten days with the munchkins

San Quintin Bay, Baja Norte, Mexico

Brain Cupcakes.  We also made Edible Eyeballs and were on track for making Night of the Living Bread but couldn't find hummus down here.

Prepared for any emergency.

Are we still "Off the grid" if we truck our water in?

An old box of Christmas cookie mix and decos they found the pantry.  Thanks to whoever brought this down last year!

Papa G and Haven demonstrating the scuba diving signal for "all is well".

Papa G and the girls.

I did not know you could eat, um, drink? watermelon through straws.  Children are our greatest teachers. Of really important stuff.

A pizza joint at the Globas, the weekend market in Cardenes.  Haven, Leeannette, Pizza dude and Nanny.  NANNY?? Hell yes I hired some help for their stay - do you think I'm an idiot? (Don't answer that...)

The Globas, where you can find anything you want. If you look hard enough. And if you don't mind second hand. (Lots of new stuff too)

Lupe shows off her very excellent cake decorating skills.  Just returned from one of her classes with cupcakes for the girls. Well and me.

 

The Circus! The Circus! I'm more excited than the girls. I do so love Mexican circuses.

                              

This circus was more safety conscious than most - they've erected a barrier that at least makes us FEEL safe.

I'm taking votes.  Is this irresponsible grandparenting? Yes, we touched their tails. No, there was nothing between us and them. Yes, it was totally awesome!

Leeannette and Princess Candy, whose feet never touched the ground the ten days Lea was here.

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.

PEDREGAL: Coming home to Pedregal, Mexico

San Quintin Bay, Baja Norte, Mexico

From Chongqing, population 32 million, 379 people per square meter,  reputed to be the largest city on the planet, and established as the fastest growing city in the world, to...

...Pedregal, population 0 to 50, density, one rabbit, snake or coyote per square kilometer, occasionally a dog or a human, very possibly the slowest growing settlement in the world, going from 10 houses to 25 in thirty years,

Oh, I do so love the contrast.

We're two hundred miles south of the U.S./Mexico boarder.  We take off from Brown Field, San Diego, where the plane lives.  From there we land in Ensenada, a port of entry.  After take off from there, it's forty-five minutes to home.

This trip most of the ground is obscured by a thick marine layer, not an unusual occurrence, until we 

pop out of the marine layer over the nearest town to us, Chapala, a pueblo that sits at the north end of the San Quintin Bay.  

Beyond the extinct volcanos is Falsa Bay, and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean.

We continue south over the bay.

Below us is Lorenzo Camp, a settlement a little north of us, across the bay - here you can see the end of his runway by the water.

We've turned west and here's the beginning of our homes - this is from the left side of the plane, and here is the north end of our little band of homes. The runway is to the right, looking like a dirt road, beginning with the touchdown pad of white cement by the water.

Our home has the white dock extending out over the water.  The runway is now to the left.

Now gaining some altitude as we bank to the left to make our approach over the bay.

We've completed our turn and are now descending toward the airstrip.  Our dock center photo.

This still looking out the left side, dock and home and beach almost level to the plane.

And we're seconds from touchdown.

Two of our four dogs come to greet us, but more importantly, sniff to see whose been peeing on the tires.

Our neighbor and good friend Jenny comes to greet us.  She does not care whose been peeing on the tire.

Chokie waits in front of the hangar for us to do our unloading and to "put the plane to bed" before following us back to the compound.

Cessna 172

The pilot, and husband Guy, waiting patiently for me to finish my photo-ing and come help push the plane into the hangar.

And we're home.