Looking for a Catamaran Cruising Blog?

If you found this blog via a link from a cruising site ~ we did cruise Mexico on our Ocean 49 cat for a season. See the first text box on the right for links to our preparations, trip down Baja, life in Mexico, cruising and trip back up to SoCal. Unfortunately we are back to the grind in the USA...

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Day 8 ~ Loreto to La Paz or "439 Dead People, 8 Dead Dogs and 1 Dead Teddy Bear"

Same old morning routine...
Coffee, showers, jigsaw puzzle the car.

But wait!
Check out the view of the weather seen from "Hotel"!




The weather out over Isla Carmen!

The weather out over The Sea!













Something's going on...
Is Tropical Storm Lowell already here?
Time to go!

But first, here is what the stern of a Baja Road Trip Vehicle looks like on Day 8.
D I R T Y !It got worse...
See below.
No, a little further below than this.

But second, breakfast in town.
Sorry can't remember what the name of the place was, but this dude sits out on the wall on the side.
Just look for scroungy dirty dog sitting on the wall of the red place with cool interior decor and you will find a good breakfast.
Oh wait, I am sure there are 342 scroungy dirty dogs in town... never mind.Out of town and in to Costa Rica.
Well, not really, but it looked like Costa Rica to the four of us.And the reason why was soon apparent.
Rain.
Lots of rain.
Vados full of rain water.Some very, very full vados.
This is when Kellie and I both said, "We want to go home".And then said, "Sure glad we are in a four wheel drive instead of a peanut car".This is a lot of water.
So much that the red peanut car leaked for a half mile after this vado.
It must have gone into the trunk or back seat.
Eeeeeewwwwwwww.

We watched huge thunderheads form above.
Kellie kept telling Jim, "Keep driving Jimmy!"
It worked.
But then by El Centenarrio ~ oh boy!
It was really coming down!Luckily El Centenarrio is only a few miles from La Paz.
And has no major vados to speak of.

And now for the post title:
"439 Dead People, 8 Dead Dogs and 1 Dead Teddy Bear"Between the border and La Paz, the four of us counted 439 roadside memorials to people who had perished on this road.
Eight dead dogs.
One dead teddy bear.
Let me explain the teddy bear.
We actually saw two teddy bears.
One dead teddy bear and one live teddy bear.
Dead teddy bear was laying on his right side in a dirty turnoff alongside the road.
Live teddy bear was being used as a hood ornament on a semi truck.

439 memorials (and I am sure we missed some).
That is a lot of people in 919 miles.
Do the math.
Drive carefully and be kind to the other drivers out there.

5 comments:

judith said...

Don't you remember... you are not supposed to drive through water that you can't see the top of the curbside? Oh darn, they forgot to put in curbsides...

They are expecting a 25ft storm surge in Galveston tomorrow!!! They will be missing more than curbs down there. Hope my cousin get out, she works for NOAA...

Elizabeth said...

wow, I had a lot of catching up to do. no, more driving does not sound like fun at all.

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

Curbs? CURBS? We couldn't even see where the road was. But figured if the little red car could make it, we could...
Poor Galveston - sounds like it will be under water. Very scary.
Tell your cousin we love NOAA! That's kind of uh, what's the word for it, fitting? No that's not it, ironic. Yea, ironic. Works for NOAA and has to run from a hurricane. Bad Hurricane Ironic. I mean Bad Hurricane Ike.

Margarita Mirasol said...

Yeah, I always play 'count the dead people' too on the SC-Arizona stretch of road. So sad. About 6 local SC residents perished on that damn road last year.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, you know it's going to be bad when the NOAA people are the first to leave.

Really though she works in the under the water research department, finding out what kind of toxins are killing the ocean.