Brent & Kristi's honeymoon page

Our first full day in Baja. We left San Diego the afternoon before this picture was taken.
Ash is ready to move on! She is never willing to stray very far from the car when there is a door open for her!
Still the first day -- our campsite at Playa Saldamando.
A veiw of our campsite with the ocean & mountains beyond.
The view from our campsite.
Bottom left--Cholla cacti (OUCH!), above those--cardon, on the right (tall & skinny)--cirios. We spent most of the first day (and many of the subsequent days) looking out the van windows at Cactus Fields.
Cirios on the left & right, a Century plant middle-right & cardons in the background.
This flag stands at the state line between Baja California & Baja California South. It was so big it led the way for many, many miles....
The flag was HUGE! That truck is still about 1/4 mile in front of the flag.
Moon shining through date palms in San Ignacio (out of focus, but nice). There were date palms everywhere here. It was one of the nicest inland towns we saw.
There were lava flows everywhere; elephant trees only grow in these flows!
More elephant trees, and of course, some cacti.
Strange how many different kinds of plants learn to survive in lava flows.... Kind of pretty, isn't it?!
Heading to Santa Rosalia and the Sea of Cortez.
I can't remember now exactly where this was, but it is a typical scene along the Sea of Cortez -- beautiful water, palapas, sailboats, and I'm sure that's a bar surrounded by all the RV's....
It was very hot, so we decided to go swimming at one of the small fishing towns along the water.... There was only one road into town & somehow we got lost in the desert trying to leave!
The hotel we stayed at in Loreto. It was a beautiful place, but it was hot & the cinder block walls didn't help. The water was right behind us in the picture.
Barrel Cacti -- Some of the prettiest cacti we saw -- of course they were on the hotel grounds, so I'm sure they got a little water & help from the gardeners....
The main street in Loreto. At night, every teen-ager in town cruised along the strip in their parent's or friend's car. The trail of headlights in one direction & tail lights in the other was amazing. It was actually fun to watch for awhile.
Playa Tecolate -- Kristi's favorite beach. This is just North of La Paz. The locals say the water here is "special" for diving & snorkeling. We stopped again on our way back North -- with snorkeling equipment & an underwater camera. It really was special.
View of the other end of Playa Tecolate. We camped right on the beach, and did most of our snorkeling near the rocks.
Let us know if you can figure out any reason for this stop light. We suspect traces of a dirt road intersect the paved road near the light.... But the locals just drove off the side of the paved road & around the light to avoid it.... We were afraid we'd get pulled over, so we waited at the light like good little Americans who don't want to go to Mexican jail.
Our campsite in San Jose del Cabo. We didn't stay in Cabo very long. It was a bit of culture-shock after driving through rural Mexico for a week -- too many Americans.
The beaches were beautiful, though.
Of course, the locals weren't allowed to use them....
This was an unusual sight.... We saw this colorful floral display on a different route back to La Paz. We stopped in Los Barriles for a few days, but strangely enough, we don't have any pictures of that beautiful stop.
Cardon (and Brent) -- They weren't all this big -- some were even bigger!
We camped at Playa Tecolate for one night again, and then stayed in this beautiful hotel for a night when we realized that Ash had hurt her paw. We determined it was a cactus spine, but some strange woman kept insisting that it was cancer.... We took her to the vet the next day & he agreed it was a spine. Ash was much better after a few days, a few shots, and a few ointments.
Here she is, cured of her cancer (you may be able to see her paw is wrapped). She's happy to be in the car, and especially happy because we weren't forcing her to get OUT of the car. I wish I had a picture of the police officer who pulled me over on our way out of La Paz....
Our campsite at Manfred's RV park in Ciudad Constitucion. We ate Chinese food that night. (Manfred's had flies...it was the only time we used the vanagon's rear screen, which you can see here.)
Playa El Coyote on Bahia Coyote -- this beach was wonderful! Some man came by to charge a fee to stay at the beach.... We paid it, but we were unsure if he was authorized to charge the fee.... He DID give us a receipt. Several stray dogs lived on this beach. All the regulars were trying to convince the non-regulars to take a dog home with them. We refrained.
Still Playa el Coyote -- the most beautiful sunset of the trip (chosen out of many beautiful sunsets).
Truly amazing....
Kristi's photography skills certainly don't do it justice.
A lava flow someone outlined in white paint. Kristi really liked it, so we had to pull over to take pictures. Neat.
Another typical beach scene on the Sea of Cortez. I think this is where we dropped off a hitch-hiker named Sandra from Calgary. She was on her "world tour," heading southbound en route to South America. But she sure didn't know much about geography or politics! When we asked her how she was going to get across to the mainland, she said she didn' know. We're not even sure she realized what we meant when we told her she was on a peninsula!!
Another cardon -- and a self-portrait, too.
Cirio -- and the nasty-looking things to the right & nearer the ground are cholla cacti (OUCH!)
More cirio.
Our last night in Baja -- Ciudad Vincente Guerrero -- This was probably the ugliest place we stayed. We could tell we were getting closer to the border by this time -- the TV in the restaurant had English ESPN on all the time.
Ash glad to be home -- but making sure we couldn't sneak off again without her knowing it!