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TECATE – A beer? No, a border town!

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

We have been to several border towns in Mexico across from Texas. As you go down the main street of any border town all the shopkeepers are trying to get the tourists to come in and buy their stuff. You can not walk down the street without being bombarded with pleas from the owners.

Yesterday we drove to Tecate, MX. There is not a large CA population near the border town. Tecate, CA is a very small town. Usually we park on the US side and walk across the border. Normally, there is a large paved organized parking lot. Not in Tecate, CA. The parking lot was not organized and it was not paved, but dirt. We walked across the border and not one shopkeeper bothered us. In fact most of them were in their shop. Tecate, MX is not a tourist town. It reminded us of a regular Mexican interior town. We had a great lunch and then headed home.

There was a square with lots of people enjoying the day.

Mexican men meeting in the square playing dominoes.

Mixed in with the local businesses were a few truly American sights, McDonalds and Dominos Pizza.

On our way back we came across an interesting sight. In Texas we see wind generators on hillsides from a distance, such as in Big Spring. In California, there are some that are fairly close to the freeway. They look big, but their size, even close up is quite deceiving. Each blade is 136 feet long. This one is on Interstate 8 at the Tecate Divide, 50 miles east of San Diego. You can find more information at http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050829/news_1m29wind.html.

The size of the generator portion of the windmills are also deceiving. Heres one that is in transit on a huge semi-trailer

Today we are getting our 5^th wheel ready so that we can move on down the road tomorrow. We are heading to Buellton, CA. which is 40 miles above Santa Barbara, CA. It will take us 2 days to get there. We are trying to only travel 200 miles at the most in any one day.

Posted in California, Mexico - Tecate | 1 Comment »

San Diego Zoo

Saturday, April 7th, 2007

We’re certainly glad that we decided to go to the San Diego Zoo on a weekday. The place was jammed with people and what seemed like entire school districts.

The zoo is well known for its animals, but their foliage is also amazing. The entry to the zoo is guarded by a pair of large topiary elephants.

From this aerial view (taken from the Skytram) you can see how green the place is. Note: The large netting area is one of the many aviaries.

To get acquainted with the layout of the zoo, we took a guided bus tour. On that tour we learned that we needed to pay close attention to the “uphill” and “downhill” path designations on the zoo map.

The koala exhibit had its share of cuteness.

How about the world’s largest rodent.

The elephants were playing with a large assortment of toys. This one has a carrot filled ball that, when rolled drops a few treats.

For every animal that you recognize, there are ten that you didn’t know existed. Here’s the blue crowned pigeon – yes pigeon.

And the giant anteaters –

and a few more photos

And the oddest of them all —

Posted in California | 3 Comments »

Desert Wonders

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

On a recent journey out into the mountain desert area we came upon a number of interesting scenes.

We found an old movie set hotel that has been abandoned. It was used in a TV pilot that didn’t make it.

It is a full sized building, but is dwarfed by the huge rocks on the hillside.

This is a fairly common sight, a mountain of huge boulders that appear to be put into place by a huge wheel barrow.

This land, in the picture below, looks so much like Afghanistan that the military uses this area for training missions.

There are many formations of rocks that appear to be balanced in a fashion that would seem to defy gravity.

We’ve seen many more examples and will add some new photos when we get some better shots. Below is a little information on how the balanced rocks are formed.

Further information can be found at the source of this information: http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/staff/bell/documents/Bell%20et%20al%201998.pdf

We saw several old stagecoach trails weaving their way through the mountains. They were quite narrow (5 to 8 feet) and looked very uncomfortable. The old highway that was replaced by Interstate 8 was not much better. As you can see by the two photos below, the road was very prone to rock slides.

One of the most amazing feats of construction was the railroad through the mountains. The railroad trestels and tunnels were built by Chinese workers in the 1800’s. The section in this area contains the longest trestle in the US. (not shown in photo) The tunnels are up to 7 miles long and were excavated with pickaxe and wheelbarrow. The photo below shows some of the trestles and I have marked a couple of the tunnels.

Laziness and the stupidity of cows. This photo shows what appears to be your standard cattle guard to prevent the movement of lifestock.

Guess what — The cattle guard is actually painted stripes on the road. Apparently it works.

Coming from, relatively flat, Texas, the visit to this area has been an extraordinary experience.

Posted in California | 3 Comments »

All Wal Marts are not created equal!!

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

As we left the D/FW area we were low on fresh veggies and meat and planned on stopping at a Wal-Mart along the road. In Texas you can find a Wal-Mart everywhere. They all look the same except in certain cities like Addison that make them build it to code of their city. In Addison Wal-Mart is a red brick building. We saw several Wal-Marts along the way but we were in a hurry and didnt stop. Then we got to New Mexico and Arizona and couldnt find one along the highway. In AZ there is no big sign letting you know you are near a Wal-Mart. They all look like all the other buildings and just a sign on the building itself. We finally did find one in Phoenix and loaded up on groceries.

We went to Wal-Mart in El Centro to look at digital cameras as our battery cover latch is broken and we have to tape it shut. They had a limited selection as they were expecting new cameras in April. We didnt buy one. The Wal-Mart looked like any Wal-Mart in TX.

A few days later we were in El Cajon and stopped by Best Buy to see what kind of cameras they had and their prices. As we drove into the parking lot of Best Buy, we saw a sign and an arrow pointing to Wal-Mart. Did not see it any where. As we left Best Buy we asked where Wal-Mart was located. Best Buy was next door to a shopping mall with Macys as one of its anchor store. The salesman told us to drive around the mall and it was on the other side. It was not in a parking lot by itself but IN THE MALL ITSELF. Not only was it in the mall but it was 2 stories tall. It was one of the anchor stores. How COOL is that? So we went in to see what their selections of cameras were.

Rick always gets a cart and uses it to walk with around a store. So he grabs a cart and we look to see where their cameras were. They were up the escalator on the 2^nd floor. How do we get the cart up the escalator? Well, between the up and down people escalator, there is a shoppinig cart escalator.

Notice the garden center is upstairs. You can park your car in a covered 3 story garage.

Posted in Arizona, California, New Mexico | 2 Comments »

One of my favorite photographs

Friday, March 30th, 2007

March 30, 2007

We went to San Diego and took a harbor cruise. It was great. We will post more on the entire trip later. Our boat pulled out of the dock in the SD Harbor and started going toward the south end of the harbor. Within 5 minutes I spotted a huge statue that reminded me of the famous World War II “Life” Magazine photograph.

Kiss