July 18, 2008 - Friday - Day 18
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 284 - Total Miles - 4741
Barstow,CA to Ensenada,Mexico
(-staying at Charles Grey's home-)
(CA-Mexico)
- INTO MEXICO - OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO…. -
This was the first day that I came out to the motorcycle and there was not a single cloud in the sky. Not a single white puff, large or small, anywhere above. Had hoped to leave by 7am, and be early. But I had built a thick pad of leeway time, and so I was still well within making my scheduled meeting time with Charles Grey in Chula Vista, just south of San Diego, by noon.
I'm guessing that most readers would have finished the phrase above, “Out of the frying pan into…. the fire.” But you would not have been correct at least as it pertains to my riding today. It was downright cool to cold today. I lucked out with the temperatures. While at home in the western Philadelphia 'burbs everyone is sweating with 95degree temps and higher, here it was likely in the high sixties and low seventies most of the day. It was a welcome relief after yesterday's top-burner like experience through Needles and the 110degree day.
Victorville was another thirty miles or so, and I got a bunch of pictures of the town name for my friend at home for whom the town was surely absolutely clearly likely named…
Outside of Victorville on the southern highway, the dynamic of the traffic and road changed somewhat abruptly. There was much more traffic and the hectic pace of it picked up considerably.
After just passing the San Bernadino National Forest came a 12(!)-mile downhill. (I remember such descents fondly on my bicycle - so glorious!) This one was swooping with long vistas to the left. As I descended I noticed the elevation markers - 4,000 feet - 3,000 feet - and so on. And occasionally I'd swallow and my ears would pop with the altitude differential.
One gas stop was particularly frustrating. They seemed to take only debit cards there, and I carry a credit card, by which I'm paying for most everything. The pump just wouldn't read the card, so I went into talk with the lady behind the counter. She came out and examined the pump - and said I'd have to come inside and pay. I told her I didn't know how much it would be. She just could not understand that concept that I couldn't know what the cost would be. Eventually I just up and went to a different gas station.
If it weren't for the episode above, I likely would have been right on time for the noon meeting with Charles Grey and his girlfriend, Carol Larsen. They were waiting for me and reading in the Chula Vista Starbucks. It was the first I had actually met Charles but our communication through the Haverford Class of '59 on-line discussion group brought us together. We have many similar views and in a number of ways we just seemed to mesh on-line. (I was actually in the Class of 1965, but because I'm president of the Alumni Association, I was allowed to take part in the '59 group.)
We all hugged and smiled at meeting. I had a cold drink as we chatted, and then eventually headed out of the little city traveling due south and across the border into Mexico.
I had been in Mexico once before. It was in 1980 on the cross-country bicycle trip. It was then I had crossed the border in Calixico into Mexicali. Only stayed about a half hour or so and found the town dusty and not particularly friendly.
During the mostly pleasant ride into Mexico this time I thought to myself, “Sometimes this seems like a whirlwind dream, and sometimes this whole adventure seems like a slow motion drama playing itself out in real life.”
We passed through the hustle-bustle town of Tijuana. I had been warned many times by many many well-meaning people about the danger, potential and real, of doing this… Folks had read about murders and drug-related crimes and the like, and so at first I was somewhat apprehensive. But it seemed like a normal city and certainly no different from when I'd travel through other big cities - in many parts it was dirty, traffic clogged, and people-filled. In most parts there were billboards all over the place, hawkers selling their wares by the side of the road, and buildings in the midst of construction.
With somewhat of a deep deadpan, I asked Charles, “How come everything is in a different language?” And noted with the same deadpan, “I've noticed that there are a LOT of Mexican restaurants around here.”
At one point on our way through the middle of a busy town, we were stopped at a red light. There, a young 20ish fellow who was also stopped, was using his cell phone to take pictures of a lot of folks in traffic. He especially zeroed in on the two motorcycles. Who knows for what reason he was taking the pictures! But he had a friendly smile and interesting way about him. But he was REALLY surprised when I slid my camera out and took a picture of HIM! He laughed and laughed at the surprise, and we exchanged friendly grins. He passed by me a little later, shouted something unintelligible through the traffic and in Spanish to me, showed a great laugh, and lifted up his left arm which was all in a heavily signed cast.
It struck me that there are a number of signs when entering the country that read “NO GUNS ALLOWED”. Even law enforcement officers from across the border are not allowed to bring guns into the country.
It seemed that the most prominent billboards of all read “DISPONIBLE”. Charles let me know that meant “AVAILABLE”… There was some recently passed law, and the advertisers were trying to get buyers for their signs.
There are a bunch of the old style Volkswagens driving along here, and it made me homesick for the ones I used to own.
(I recounted the story to Charles later that in college my girlfriend and I were driving back to Kutztown State College from her home in Kennett Square. It was in her family VW. It was on a Sunday night and the roads were all totally dark, and the music in the car was softly playing, and the VW heater was doing its uncontrollable very hot heat-blasting thing. I was driving and tired, and fell asleep at the wheel!
The country roads, adjacent to acres and acres of cornfields, were not very wide, and they were lined with very tall, and very sturdy, and very thick large trees. The trees were, say, twenty feet apart and spaced evenly. When the VW came to a corner with it's sleeping driver at the wheel it kept going straight, of course, as the road turned. My girlfriend and I hurtled into the farmer's field in the dark, traveled several hundred feet, flipped over a few times in the little VW, and came to a rest finally and firmly with the car on its roof!
We were okay, and we scrambled out one of the windows. The road was sparcely traveled but eventually, and I recall the headlights stopped by the roadside, a few of the farmer-type guys came over to check out the accident scene with flashlights beaming rays into the darkness of that field. They pushed the car over onto its four wheels. And, with no damage to ourselves or the car - aside from the roof being smashed in a bit on the VW - we drove to the college.
My folks never did find out about that. It was my birthday a few days later, and I recall having quite a time avoiding the real answers to the, “What's new?” and “How are you?” questions. But after that I concluded that VW's were very safe cars and that I would always only get that kind of car. In fact, my next seven cars or so were all VW's, and would continue to be for as long as they were manufactured. Anyway, that's why it was good seeing the Volkswagens on the road here, despite the fact most were all very old and even battered.)
Across many of the town roads here there are “topes”, or speedbumps. Some of them are made of leg-thick rope which span the road. I thought that very effective, and certainly less expensive than the cement speedbumps. At any rate, both types are very annoying, but they do serve their function. They have cut down on the traffic accidents a lot.
There were also many what seemed free-for-all stop signs at various intersections.
Past the cities, on the coastline here it's much like the coastline in some parts of California - on the left, headed south are high mountains, some built-upon, and some nicely treed. And on the right, down unbelievable ravines and cliffs, sits the sparkling Pacific Ocean. The white wave lines near the shore, the deeper blues further out. It's all such a magnificent scene - especially from the seat of a motorcycle with the fresh air rushing against cheeks and neck.
On our way in we passed the largest color statue of Jesus in the world. It sits upon a mountaintop near Rosarito. It was erected by a dad whose son died in that area in a car accident. This humongous (75 feet tall and weighing in at 40 tons) statue of Jesus Christ was commissioned by Antonio Pequeno Guerrero and now stands over the old town of El Morro,
On our way to their home in Ensenada, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensenada,_Baja_California) Charles and Carol took me to a popular restaurant, La Fonda. On our way in we met two friends, David and Betsy Lewis. Friendly and outgoing, we chatted and they posed by my motorcycle. I offered Betsy, the head of the Family Court System in California, and who has a private law firm, an who said she was extremely fearful of motorcycles, a ride. She declined with a laugh.
Charles pointed out that in Mexico the service is slow. “That's just the way it is. It's not that it's tomorrow, it's just not today,” he observed. He said that it takes awhile to adjust to that time attitude. I suggested that it would take a long time for someone like me to adjust to that.
In my broken Spanish, I asked the good-natured server guy, “What does 'La Fonda' mean in English?” He got a mischievous look in his eye, and told me, “McDonalds”!
I learned from Charles that Mexico is the most obese country in the world. Well, next to the United States, of course, which is embarrassingly number one!
Our seats in La Fonda were right in view of the Pacific. The sweet breeze rushed in as the couple chickens prowled the floor. A Mexican band played native music, and everyone was smiley and friendly.
As we came out a lanky friendly fellow was interested in my trip, and I showed him the big USA map with the route plotted. The security guard there congratulated me on making it so far.
Along the rest of the way we passed all manner of buildings and homes. They ranged from fabulously well-to-do to run-down shacks. After passing some of the slum-like residences, I pulled up alongside Charles and Carol at a light, and knowing their sense of humor, shouted over to them, “What you SHOULD have done was pulled up to one of the broken down homes, and told me, 'Here we are!'”
Charles moved into the left lane at one point and a car from behind, going about 90mph in the probably 25mph zone came somewhat close to clipping them. In the same somewhat humorous vein as above, I pulled up to their Honda Goldwing at a light and mock whined, “That was awfully close. What would I have done for a place to stay tonight?????”
It was humorous to me - especially after my experience the last couple of days - that the final approximately mile to the little community was on a dirt road. But this one as eminently rideable as opposed to the one up to the mountaintop the day before.
There is the main home and a little “casita”, which is really a big apartment a across a beautiful courtyard, and over the gigantic garage.
As we sat in the spacious courtyard it was fun to see the humming birds, in all their seeming hyperactivity, flitting around the trees. Charles noted that they come first in the morning to the little fountain here. He said that different birds come at different times during the day for a drink at that fountain.Charles explained that Ensenada is one of the three places in the world where a living desert meets the sea. Just beyond Ensenada to the south, the highway turns to dirt road. I wryly expressed that it's the 'end of civilization' and Charles agreed that, in the least with regard to the number of people, it was the end of civilization as we know it.
Charles noted that the entry-level average factory worker is paid 78 pesos a day, which is about $7.50. Minimum wage here is about $5 a DAY!
After a bit of freshening up we went to Betsy and David's elegant home for dinner. It has an open air courtyard with hot tub and seating right in the middle of the home. The Pacific is right outside in their backyard.
It was wonderful conversation, some about my trip, and some about local events happening or about to happen. David, a brain cancer survivor, and now retired, has a wonderful personality and terrific smile, and it meshed well with Charles' and my good humor. There was a lot of good natured needling and friendliness. My vegetarian diet always is a source of conversation for folks and it was no different here.
As we're talking around the table Betsy used a local colorful expression to describe someone she knew who was a little out of the ordinary - he is a “baja goofball” she noted.
We left about 9pm.
One can see the huge Americanization of the Spanish lifestyle in many ways - from the billboards to everyday language. For instance, coming back from the Lewis', Charles chatted friendly like with each security guy at the different 'gates' into and out of various communities. At one place tonight, as he put it, “he went through hoops” to speak Spanish, and the Mexican guard says simply, “Okay!”
When back in my spacious casita around 10 or so, I worked on looking at the next few travel days, and on the route in Canada. There are some ferries which will need to be taken in Canada, and in the past that has always been a problem in planning. No more. One can not only check out the existence of the ferries, but can get the exact schedule, and even book them - all on line, at no extra cost. Sometimes it just seems too easy.
The bed was deliciously firm, and though I felt badly about not getting the journal page out, I was made to feel a bit better by the words of someone who had written earlier in the trip that I didn't need to feel that I 'had a school assignment' each day…. I chuckled about that, and I recounted the many many wonderful parts of this day, as I drifted off pleasantly to sleep.
Note:
To view the many photos from today and the whole trip, you can visit
http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?tmpl=45&user_id=42473&event=196141. Some folks have reported trouble with this link, but most find that it works. Sometimes it takes two tries… Also, you can check out the past day journal entries by going to joelperlish.com, and clicking on the appropriate trip down at the bottom on the left hand corner or just going to http://www.joelperlish.com/blog/blog.html.)
