Got to Love Arizona!!

There are few places on the planet that one day you can be on the beach in shorts fishing and the next day in the pines with snow on the ground hunting....all within a 5 to 6 hour drive. These shots are from my elk hunting trip the weekend after Thanksgiving near Alpine, Arizona.


I can not remember the last time I had driven in snow so it added to the fun of the trip.

We did see elk on Thursday (three of them right when the sun had set)....but not on Friday, or the rest of the week end. In hind sight the animals must have been down in the lower elevations and we just did not hunt those zones. All in all a great time and got to see a part of the state I rarely go and see in the winter.

Thanksgiving Weekend

The Thanksgiving weekend was a odd one this year. Lourdes had things to do at home and Vincent was working so it ended up being my Mom and dad as well as Matthew at the beach house for the holiday. We had dinner on Thursday and left the house early on Friday for a three day week end. As was the norm, the weather was great. The trip down was very uneventful. We made the trip door to door in less then four hours. The new truck again did great and averaged around 20 mpg (sweet). We got a glimpse of the new lanes they are adding to the port of entry....looks like two new lanes. The crowd has really slowed since the hay day of 2006-2007 when a wait of over 2 hours happened quite often on a Sunday. But it will get back to those levels someday, and better to have the infrastructure now then having to wait for it to be built later, and I guess they had to hire an architect and a contractor for it!!!!...god bless the government (maybe??).....back to the trip.

Reef zone Matt caught his fish on our last trip.

Matt fishing.

We arrived around noon. Had some lunch and then Matt, my Dad, and I sent off to the estuary to see if Matt could show us where we had caught his fish last time. Although the tide was up Matt was convinced that he could just show up, toss in a line and catch fish....he learned that timing is important and we did not catch a thing. It is a good spot to fish, but not when the tide is in. That night was an easy one. We made up some carne on the grill, a couple of gin and tonics and got to see one of the best sun sets.

Great Sunset!

Carne on the grill

The next day I got couple quick things done around the house and we headed over to the beach by El Golfo. As we did the year before, we made the run over there to explore and see the old stomping ground. The temperature on Saturday was close to 75 deg and very dry. We got to the beach around 11 am as the drive from the house is a little over an hour. We aired down the tires and rolled out onto the beach. Unlike last year, for this day trip we did not have anyone on the beach but Mexican fishermen. The day was great looking for shells, and just hanging out. We drove all the way out to the reef near the second light house.

Air those tires down...like the good old days!

Mom, dad and Matt on the salt flat.

No one on the beach.

The reef.

Matt fishing on the reef.

Matt and I tried fishing again (again due to the time of day it was close to high tide) with no luck, but it was fun to be out there with no one around, in late November in shorts...can not beat it. While we were getting a drink at the truck, two vehicles passed us and I thought the guy driving was in a suit and the girl was in a dress. We got the truck packed and I wanted to see where they were off to. Around the corner by where the estuary creates a canal by the light house they were taking wedding photos!!! Made for a nice way to end our day at the beach.

Wedding Photos on the beach.

Matt eating a snack.

Mom and Dad relaxing.

We got back to RP around 4:30. We aired up the tires at Pemex and ran down to the fish market to get some shrimp for the night. The fishermen are out in force right now and all of the seafood was very fresh. For 3 pounds of medium shrimp, all cleaned and de-veined we paid $12.00. I cooked them up that night on the grill with some peppers and butter. I was beat and by 9:00 pm I was off to bed. Matt stayed up a little longer and watched TV, but he looked like he had a full day as well. The next day I took a nice long walk on the beach and then had to get a few projects done at the house. With those complete, we packed a few snacks, got the truck packed and headed back home to Phoenix. The boarder was not busy at all for a Sunday and we had a 10 minute wait, and we were able to make the trip back in less the 4 hours again.

Manny's Closed!!

For many, Manny's Beach Club was a throw back to the good old times of Rocky Point. For me this place (and JJ's which is still open) were the quintessential Mexico party bars. I have seen a number of drunk people there and in fact have tossed back a few myself....it always was a party and a good spot for people watching. The last few times the crowd had been smaller then in the past, and the hard times have finally taken its toll on this establishment. Check out the article in the Rocky Point Tides.....a sad day if I say so myself.

http://rptides.blogspot.com/

January Jam-----RCPM

Just checked the web site and the date for the January Jam at JJ's for 2011 has been posted!! January 29th is the day. Always a good time.....Roger and the gang did not let me down.

Now to talk to the boys about the trip!!

More information to follow......

Matt's First Fish!!!

As I wrote in a prior post, when Matt was in Mexico last Josh took him out fishing at the estuary where he ended up catching his first fish. I did not get a shot of it when he got back to the house....but Josh did get some photos right when he landed it.....so here you go! Very cool. And thanks to Josh for being ready with the camera!!

Day off....get some work done on the house.

With the month of November getting busy I decided to take a Friday off and do some work on the house. Lourdes had been down during a big storm event about 2 weeks ago and we ended up with some water under the exterior wood doors and a leak at the round skylight (we fixed the roof last February!!!). Also, with elk hunting coming up in December, the ATV needed some work and I really needed to have it in Phoenix so that could be accomplished before the hunt.

With a list of things to do (sounds like a RCPM tune...list of things to do "fiesta number one, siesta number two!!") I took the the boys to school and got out of Phoenix at 8:00 in the morning on Friday. The drive down was nice...less the four hours door to door, including a couple of stops. I got to the house around 11:45, unloaded the truck and made a quick lunch then got to work. I started with the doors off the first floor patio. I purchased some stain and hoped it would match...and it ended up being perfect. As I have wrote about before, the salt environment here has got to be one the toughest in the world as anything outside gets abused, and the stained doors had been needing some attention. Also, the cheap door sweeps that the Mexican builder installed sucked, as they did not really seal the bottom of the doors. So I pulled the doors off, cut the bottom of the door to allow for a real aluminum door bottom and sweep, stain the doors and then reinstall them. All went well...but I had to keep moving to get all of that done, let the doors dry, and get the doors back on before dark. By 5:30 I was beat. I had a couple of beers while I got the work done, but I was ready to eat by 6:00. I made some cheese crisp on the grill, and fixed a gin and tonic. I finished the drink and food, turned on the TV for the Sun's game.....and fell asleep on the couch. Woke up to find the game in overtime!

New stain on the front door frame and trim

The morning sun.

Patio was nice.

The next morning was one of the those nice quiet morning's on the beach. The light at that time of day has a rosy color, and with the crisp air it was nice to sit on the patio drinking coffee and watch the day roll in. The plan was to get the last of the trim staining done, do some other odds and ends repairs done around the house, get the roof patch done last then take a nap before I had to get back to Phoenix. As it turned out I had enough stain to complete all of the wood door frames at the beach side of the house as well as the door frame on the front door. As I started on the roof work, this crappy red truck pulled up below the house and four workers get out. They started to work on the house in front of mine using an old generator to power up a grinder so they could sand the steel garage door of the the house they were working on. I got my work done, but it was so loud from the generator that a nap was not going to happen. I goofed around the house and decided to get the ATV packed up for the trip home and leave a little sooner then planned.

POS generator....messed up my nap plans!!!

With the ATV packed I got the house cleaned up, took a quick shower, and got rolling. The drive home was a quiet one, with some RCPM on in the truck the desert highway moved along in front of me. The new truck was great for the trip.

Mexican highway!

"Ashes of San Miguel"....love that song.

New truck with the ATV all loaded.

El Golfo

I was talking about Mexico with one of my staff today, and low and behold she has been on the beach there camping before. Her jeep had an issue with a broken shock mount and when they were fixing that they discovered how rusted the exhaust system was. We talked about speeding down the beach on the hard pack, and just how out of the way that place is.....miss those times. I never really missed the "sleeping" on the beach, but those days of running the beach all day, looking for shells, and then a cold beer and a camp fire in the evening were great.

I need to dig up some of those old photos and post them. (Chris...if you read this and have some good old shots those would be good!!) We hope that we can make the run down there again this Thanksgiving....last year was a wonderful time and I hope I can make that a tradition.

First Power Bill......and other things of note.

We had a great time in Mexico this last week end with Chris and the gang. His brother and wife from Montana were down along with Stephanie's and her two boys, as well as Chris's and his two girls ...for a total of 11 of us. They did not all stay in our house as it would have been tight to all sleep there.....at least that was the plan. They ended up renting the two story house to the east of ours right on the beach. They got down the Thursday before us, and all was good for that night. Then as they are cooking dinner on Friday the power in the house goes out. They tried to reset the inverter over and over again with no luck. It was a little warm so we had all the kids stay in our house as the kids could then sleep well as they could run the ceiling fans, while the other couples stayed in the rented house. They tried to recharge the batteries the next day, but as we found out one of the batteries had failed, and such the entire system would not hold a change.

Josh (Chris's brother) loves to fish, and Matt had been wanting to go fishing for some time. I am not a good fisherman, and I told Matt this would be a good chance to go out with someone who knew what he was doing. So early Saturday he and Matt and one of the other boys hit the estuary, and low and behold, Matt caught five fish....two pan size fish that we cleaned and cooked up on the grill that night....Josh called the fish Bar Jacks. Matt wants to go hit that spot again, and you never know i may learn to fish with the help of my son pushing me along. The photo attached is of a Bar Jack I found on the Internet.....not of Matt's fish (which would have been cool)....I will need to have the camera ready for the next one he hooks.

The rest of the Saturday was good. The group went to town and got shrimp and we enjoyed the beach and the great weather. This week end the first electrical bills arrived for our community and we had been anxiously waiting for this first bill to get an idea of what the costs could be. It was a run around, but we got the bill and what a surprise!! $807 pesos, and that included a $430 peso meter fee...that was for two months, and included about 8 days of some hot days running most of the AC units in the house. With the exchange rate of 12 to 1 that is a total bill of $67.25 dollars. We think the bill will run a little less then $20 per month which is awesome. Of course we plan to switch back to the solar system that we paid a lot for during the months we can, but to know we can run the AC in the summer week ends and it will not break the bank is a nice feeling. Check out the shot of the power control panel running over 4000 watts when we had our big group at the house on Labor Day....never could have done that without city power!!

That night the mosquitoes showed up so the patio was not the best place to be past 9:00....and I was beat so by 10:00 pm or so it was off to bed early. Chris and his gang packed up and got out of the house around 9 am on Sunday. We stayed until 1:30 m that day and enjoyed the beach for a few more hours then it was back home...back to reality.

NEW TRUCK!!!

Well...the old trooper that Vincent was driving was on it last legs: we thought the computer or something was really wrong with it as it would run, then would stop running and just shut off; Not good. With a ton of soul searching I now have a new truck...and my son is driving the Toyota Tundra. Attached is a shot of the new truck....a GMC (these are photos off the Internet as I do not have any good shots of the real truck yet). I know....What, a GMC???!!! But I liked the styling of this truck over the Ford, I have never trusted that a Dodge would last. I was back and forth between this truck and another Toyota. The long and short of it is that I now have a USA made truck for the first time over 15 years.

So far I really like the truck. It handles better then the Tundra, and has more power, but about the same gas mileage so far even with the bigger engine (the tundra had a 4.3 liter and this truck has the 5.3...but with the 6 speed transmission). A run to Mexico will be the real test. Also, the Bose stereo is great, and the built in i-pod system is a very nice feature.

On a connected topic, I was shopping for Mexico insurance for the new truck and Chris said to try Costco (I never would have thought about them). I went to the Costco site, and with the HUGE discount you get as an executive member (35%) full coverage on the new truck for the year was $345. I checked the site that I normally get the year policy and it was close to $500.

Thanks for Chris for doing some extra digging.

No new posts....busy summer

The summer has been a long and busy one. Work has been better for the firm, which has limited my time writing this blog (which has been a good thing from a personal perspective). We have only been to the house three times since May, which is not our typical deal, but with Matthew's baseball and such we have not had the same time off as we would like. That said we have had some good weekends with the 4th of July as well as Labor day being in the mix. We also got a chance to bring down a couple of new friends to visit our little beach community which was also fun.

The big news I guess is that power has arrived at the beach. For two years we have waited, and for the Labor Day week end we were able to air condition the entire main floor of the house. Very nice. No generator noise or auto start issues....I slept like a baby. It was not cheap to get it all done and hooked up...and it is still not totally perfect as the voltage provided by CFE is very high. So high in fact that our solar inverter will not hook up to this power source for auto transfer; which means that we may need to switch manually from city power to our solar system for now until more and more people hook up to the system which will lower the voltage. But...it is very nice to have city power when you need it, and it will make next summer a cooler one.

As for other stuff at the house, by the time I write this blog the other 1/2 of the house should be painted. If you recall, we painted the beach facing side of the house last year, so this was the year for the other 1/2. I hope that by using a high quality paint we can now paint the house every three years, but time will tell.

October is about here and with it comes the great weather we long for here in the Southwest. Last weekend was one of the hottest on record, and as luck would have it Matthew played a double header the day we had 111 deg...this is September right? (crazy I know). So to have a weekend of temperatures in the low 90's will be great....and for Mexico that would mean temperatures around 85 degrees. October is also the month that the sea turtles come back to the beach and I hope and wonder if we will get a chance to see them first hand....never know, but it is one of the sights we keep missing.

That is about it for now. As we explore I will try and update things as I can.

Bubba makes the trip....will not be his last!!

Last Summer Chris and I made a trip out to Tennessee to surprise a long time friend Jim (Bubba) for this birthday. Since that time we had talked off and on about him coming out to enjoy some Arizona and south of the boarder experiences. It all came together this May. Jim arrived on Thursday May 13th, and we were able to hook up with Chris and Grant down in Tempe for a few drinks. It was a fun night, but I had a long night with a case in Chandler and was not as into the night as the others were.....I was looking forward to the next three days on the beach. May is a great time to be in Mexico. The weather is not too warm and the ocean is refreshing. We left the house in Phoenix around 8:30 am and arrived at the house at close to noon. The beach was great and Jim was blown away by the house, the view, etc....which was very rewarding to me. We enjoyed the beach that afternoon and that night we made some great carne assada tacos on the grill. That evening we took Jim to town to see the Boo Bar and some of the other sights down by the malcon.

First night in Mexico...had to hit the Boo Bar.

The next day the beach was great; we played some beach golf, ladder golf, and just enjoyed the sun. While on the beach the tide pool in front of the house had a very strange fish trapped. The fish had large side fins, but also had what looked like crab like feet under its body. See the photo below....never seen one like this before.

Darren and Jim playing golf.

Odd fish we found in the tide pool.

We decided that we would run to town around 1:00 and make the loop out to JJ's to let Jim see the grand changes RP had gone through since his last trip down in the late 80's. We got a beer there and then back over to the fish market to pick up some shrimp and sea bass. We were able to get 3 pounds of medium shrimp cleaned as well as two huge sea bass fillets for $25.00. Town was busy...lots of people in bars and such. We went up to the Boo Bar while our shrimp was being cleaned and had a drink and enjoyed the view. It was about 3:00 when we started back to the house and on the way I recalled the oyster bar I had seen a sign for on the way back to the house.....I had never been over there so we made the right turn toward the estuary for a look. When you talk about "third world cantina" this was the spot. A weather worn shade structure, a small building for beer, and a restroom and there you have it....very cool. We ordered a dozen oysters and three beers. I asked the waiter how long ago they had harvested the oysters he served us and he said, "about 3 hours ago"...needless to say; fresh. I do not eat oysters very often, but they were fresh and very good. The great Mexican hot sauces were perfect, and the whole experience said Mexico. Definitely a place I will go back and see again.

This is a view of the estuary and the oyster beds that float in the bay.

Bubba and Darren waiting for our beer and food.

Jim diving into the fresh oysters.

I will put it out there that one can not get fresher oysters then this....and the price; $6 per dozen!

Back at the house, we hung out on the patio and enjoyed the evening. Around 6:00 we started dinner....marinated shrimp, grilled shrimp, and the sea bass baked in foil. We had this great feast along with some Spanish rice; A great meal. That night we went back into town for a few drinks...not a lot going and as we tried Manny's as well as Capone's for a beer or two, then back to the house. The next day after a breakfast of eggs and sausage we took a drive over to the estuary at low tide. The new condo tower dominates the view, but it is a unique area with tons of shells. During our walk Darren found what appears to be the spiked tail of a sting ray.

We got back to the house around 9:30 am and we were able to get packed and on the road for the trip back to Phoenix around 10:45-11:00. As luck would have it there was not line at the boarder crossing and we were on our way. Another trip packed with experiences.....

To Jim; I hope you had a great time...next time you need to bring the entire family.

Lots of stuff....new roof, new lights, and easter!

A lot of things have been going on in my life that have made getting a new post up tougher then in the past. Work has been busy. For the most part this blog was a diversion at times from the reality of my business...which was slow. So with the added work (which has been great) the result has been less time to report on the happenings down south. I hope those who follow have not lost interest.

Since RCPM in February a few things have happened at the house. We discovered in discussion with our house keeper that during the big storm we had back in February that the roof was leaking badly....water was running in through a couple of light fixtures and around one of the air-conditioners. She had cleaned up the mess, but we were not aware of the real issues with the roof. I had a feeling last year the roof was not done well by the contractor, but it was a surprise to have to deal with this now with the house being only 2 years old. In an effort to "just get it done" I asked Darren to come down with me and have a work party over a couple of days. He agreed and we ran down with he and my Dad around March 14th to re-roof the house as well as add light fixtures on the patio in place of the rusted and broken fans. We worked for two days and got the roof and the lights done as well as a couple other items. I sure hope this new roof will hold up for more then 2 years.

New cabinet in the main entry hall

New lights on the patio to replace the rusted fans

New towel hooks by the outdoor shower.

Spring Break this year was all over the place for our family. For the first time, we all had a different schedule; Lourdes had her Spring Break due to her new job at the very beginning of March; Vincent was in the middle with PVCC, and Matt was at the end. Lourdes ran down at the beginning of the month with a friend, I made the run in the middle to fix the roof, and we all made the trip at the end of March. The end of the month was also Easter, and as we did last year we invited the Parmiters. We arrived on Thursday night late and settled in with a bottle of wine for the girls and a gin and tonic for me. The kids played some video games and a quick run the beach.

Good Friday was nice. I got to sleep in a little, and was able to read a book and drink coffee until 9:30, then a nice walk on the beach. We ended up running to town around noon to pick up a few items at the store as well as shrimp at the fish market. We had grand plans to watch the Good Friday procession, but again we just could not get down town in time....but we had a good time anyway. The weather really cooperated that day and we made a great meal that night of fresh grilled shrimp and shrimp quesadillas.

Fresh shrimp about to go on the BBQ.

Deb cooking up tortillas.

Saturday morning was a repeat of the Friday...but the day looked to be a little warmer. I got a few projects done around the house that I needed to get accomplished and then I packed the ATV for a day at the beach; Not to hot and not to cold, a nice breeze, good tunes on the I-pod, a good books, and a few cold drinks....nice.

The kids played some beach games, hit a few golf balls, and just did kid stuff. Around 3:00 we made it back to the house to get cleaned up as the plan was to run into town. It is always a party over this week end....great time to people watch and have a few drinks. The patio at the Thirsty Parrot again was our destination and it was good as always....Close to the action to catch the bands, and see the crowd. We had a few drinks as the kids did some shopping and just enjoyed the view as always. Deb and I had a couple of margaritas while Lourdes had the Mango Tango.

View from the patio.

Lourdes and Deb having a good drink.

That evening we had the Turduckin and rice. I made a fire in the outdoor fireplace and we cooked marshmallows and made smores. We then watched "Ironman"....I think I was awake for about 1/2 of it as we were all beat. I think we were all in bed by 10:30.

Easter Sunday was very nice. We had a good breakfast and we divided up some plastic eggs to hide for the kids. Each was worth a $1.00 to make it interesting. I thought I had hidden them well...but they found them all in about 30 min. The day was too nice to waste so we hit the beach again. The girls had not used sunblock very well on Saturday so they were only catching rays on the legs, but it was another great day at the beach. We packed up the house right after lunch and got out of the house around 2:45. Like the year before, no line at the boarder and we breezed home to Phoenix. It was not until we got back did he hear anything about the earth quake as we did not notice or feel anything while we were driving. Also, we do not know if there are any issues in the house as we have not been back since this trip.

All in all another great Easter and the start of a real tradition.