Photo of Ranchera on Naranjos Road rancho about 30 years ago. Below is much farther back.
It’s really unusual to hear about Baja this far back.
Hi Lloyd! My, how tasty a menu of treats your latest flyer presented Geraldine and me! You’re heading to Baja and I first flew down, with my dad piloting his trusty Cessna 180, when I was a junior in high school ~ 1954 ~ and our first stop was at Santa Rosalia for fuel which the sole attendant hand pumped from rusty 55 gal drums into our screened funnel. Dad was raised in France and his home apartment elevator was a classic engineered by Eiffel … so we were impressed to visit Eiffel’s chapel there when the French were mining … Muleje was a favorite overnight and when the prison was operating they freed the prisoners in daylight and on the honor system they returned at night. In the plaza ~ evenings ~ the boys strolled clockwise and the gals otherwise with amazing eyeballing etc. We flew to La Paz and visited, with dad’s insistence, “La Vista Hermosa” which was a whorehouse of renown … We set off for San Jose del Cabo, a tiny shrimper hamlet, and landed on a narrow strip strewn with white seashells and no other planes! We walked to the Rodrigues Posada, the only inn in town, with six, maybe eight rooms! The only gringos who visited there were occasional bill-fishers. There was absolutely NO development there nor at Cabo San Lucas … I’ve been doing Baja in my 17′ RV, a TDI VW Coupe and one winter, after the America’s Cup racing on San Francisco Bay, sailed down with the BajaHaHa cruise and hauled out and trucked home from Guaymas…
I believe we met thru ED STILES, an old buddy, or maybe HUEY JOHNSON whom I’d known in his school-teaching days in Boise before Nature Conservancy and TPL or maybe when you visited the PacNW inasmuch as I live at Rangerville … and Ranger and I went to the memorial pot-luck (Plenty POT!) for Sun Ray up Day Creek … and I know we sent you fotos of the Gnome Dome that the crew built at R’ville, in Alger!
In 1977 I homebuilt a snazzy cabin (#92) at Salmon Beach, under Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, built upon pilings in The Narrows and I’ve often wondered if you ever wandered down to Salmon Beach as it shows the creative flair of community love action.
Enjoy your adventures, Lloyd, and many thanks for catching your admirers up!
Hugs! George Jay, Rangerville in summertime, Oceanside in wintertime
It was 1974, High School was over. The grad ceremony was done.
Families began congratulating their sons and daughters in the parking lot. Some handed their child a watch, some presented keys to a car. In my case my mom pushed a small crumpled brown paper bag into my hands. She had a big smile that showed all her teeth. “Open it!” She squealed.
I unfolded the sack and found two small boxes that were identical. I read the writing on the box- Water Heater Thermostat. My moms face was still beaming. I looked at her confused. “I don’t get it” I said “Your going to take these to Alfonso Fisher!! She continued beaming. “Ahhh, who’s Alfonso and why don’t you give them to him?”
Turns out Alfonso was a waiter at the Mexican restaurant in town where my mom was a waitress. Alfonso’s family owned and he operated Los Arcos Trailer Park in Cabo San Lucas. Seems that Alfonso who had returned to his hometown had cooked up a plan to send me down with the hot water heater parts and enlist me in running the trailer park for Room & Board.
Lloyd the World change when I arrived at the end of that desert spit of earth. I wound up staying there long enough to start dreaming in Spanish. Everyday had a piece of strange magic in it.
50 years later in my minds eye I can still see open coastline, sleeping dogs laying comfortably in the middle of dirt roads,
a pastry chef who had set up a three wall shack open to the road busily breaking eggs into a crater of white flour atop his mixing table made from a door complete with door knob resting on sawhorses.
I do not doubt you will see that magic every moment you are there. You cannot escape it.
Via con Dios!
P.S.:
On your way home there is a place called Raul’s Shack Mexican Food. It’s in Encinitas on the ocean side of PCH. It might fit right up your alley.
Fantastic Jesse!
The magic is still here, despite the enormous growth.