Joel Perlish; USA/MEXICO/CANADA DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY & THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY -- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008 by Joel Perlish

Joel Perlish; USA/MEXICO/CANADA DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY & THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY -- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008 by Joel Perlish

July 19, 2008 - Saturday - Day 19
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 0 - Total Miles - 4741
(-staying at Charles Grey's in Ensenada,Mexico -)
- SYNOPSIS -


It was a wonderful night's rest in the casita. The bedroom is a small room with big windows and open air flows freely and fresh from the rest of the place.
After awakening early I stayed in bed for a couple hours typing away and enjoying the activity and blue sky and trees from beyond the little deck.
After some delicious oatmeal this morning we went to a neighborhood swap meet. I got to meet a bunch of the people in the community.
From the road near Charles' one can spy a huge house on the top of a nearby mountain. I learned that was the home of a Sony executive. When he found out that the windows he wanted to put in would cost $100,000 he walked away from the project.
The squatter laws in this area are much different than those in the United States. After a certain amount of time on a piece of land, squatters attain certain rights, not ownership rights, but rights to remain on that property. I suggested an owner had better be vigilant about kicking people off if he didn't want them there.
Near this area is a world class surfing championship that features 50-ft waves and $50,000 worth of prizes. I suggested that Charles should be practicing!
Puerto Escondido is the name of the community we visited next. Charles called the road toward the place, “the Interstate of Dirt Roads.” The roads in the little community, dirt and gravel and sand, were up and down in amazing roller coaster swoops - but Charles said he can even ride his Goldwing up here. I found that pretty amazing.
We stopped at Jay and Trisha's home. And quite the home it is!! Perched way up on the very tippy top of a mountain it looks down on the ocean with a view as stupendous as it is jaw dropping. They've been here about the same length of time as Charles, about four years.
The Palmer Century Plants were pointed out to me. It used to be believed that they bloomed only every 100 years, but it's since been shown it's every 30 years. Regrettably, Jay was just stuck with the poison points of one of the sharp leaves of a century plant. He has to take expensive medicines for a week. The hole in his calf was kinda gruesome.
In the water, far down below there were huge rings that encompassed tuna farms. Charles said that these tuna farms, basically Japanese business concerns, were an ecological disaster. The waste product of the thousands of tuna go down to the ocean floor, and spread out killing everything in their path. The boats carry armed guards that protect the rings 24 hours a day as each ring can hold $25 million worth of tuna. The tuna are hand picked by Japanese businessmen who come and decide which are good and which are no good. The divers that go into the pens are extremely brave according to Charles. Sharks can eat their way into the farms and can surprise the divers that go in.



We were at the home about an hour. It was fun seeing the decorations and the paintings and the furniture. It was a home that could have been in an art gallery somewhere. I took many pictures of the cute knick-knacks and colorful designs there.
The route out of the mountaintop community was even more roller-coasty than the one in. Carol and I held on tightly in the car as we maneuvered over the sometimes sandy roadway, thousands of feet above the land below, but Charles seemed to take it in stride.
****
Gas down in these parts is $2.55/gallon.
I was amazed when the little store had soy milk. Now that was a surprise!
Charles and Carol held a dinner party for David and Betsy, Jay and Tricia, and me in the evening. It was a superb spaghetti meal and everything was just perfect.
While joking around and ribbing one of the folks here, David came out with the colorful phrase, “Screw you and the horse you came in on!” Everyone got a laugh out of that one.
The conversation was witty and clever as I listened to it, and occasionally joined in. I would fail in capturing the proper descriptive here of the friendliness and even camaraderie of this group of friends, and so I'm not even going to try.
Everyone left around nine, Charles and Carol went to bed, and after some time on the DSL wire, and working on journal notes I, too, went back to the casita. After some work with maps and bag organization, I dozed comfortably here so very far from home.

To view photos from trip, and there are a LOT from today, you can check out
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, by going to http://www.joelperlish.com/blog/blog.html.