After a great time in LaPaz Mexico for the ’05 – ’06 winter season, meeting new friends and visits from other friends and Jeanette, we made our way back up the inside of the Baja to Santa Rosalia. We made several stops for the night at Isla San Francisco, Aqua Verde, Puerto Escondido, and San Juanico. After arriving at Santa Rosalia, we took the bus back to La Paz and brought our car back. On the way back up the Baja with the car, we stopped in Loreto to visit Tom & Sue in their motor home. Molly took the car back Guaymas in the ferry and I sail Albion back to San Carlos. We spent the next week getting Albion put away for the summer and hauled her on March 30.In Tucson, we got the RV out of storage and then stayed in the Desert Pueblo Mobil Home Park along side of our friend and cruising buddy Cathy Fleming. We stayed there for one month. While in Tucson, we visited with friends Nada and Dorsey and Molly’s classmate and wife Larry and Sheryl Beach. A few of the things we did while there included a guided tour of the Pima Air Museum by Larry (who is a very knowledgeable member there), the county fair, the Botanical Gardens, and Sabino Canyon Park.
When we head North, back to Oregon, we decided to take our time and see a few things along the way. We spent several days camped at the Camp Verde RV park and visited the old mining town of Jerome that is built on th
e side of a very steep hill and is now an artist colony. It’s a site that should not be missed if you are in the area. At the base of Jerome are several ancient Indian ruins including Tuzigoot National Monument, Montezuma’s Castle National Monument, and Montezuma’s Well National Monument. These are all very close together and well worth the visit.
When we left Camp Verde, we were waiting for Dan Hardwick (Cathy’s significant other) to help deliver a boat through the Miraflores Lock in the Panama Canal. Cathy told us that he would be approaching the lock at a certain time and we were watching a web cam at the lock. Finally we couldn’t wait any longer and started North on the freeway while Molly watched the web cam on the computer. When she saw their boat approaching, we pulled off into a rest area and made several screen saves of the boat’s transit. It was exciting to watch our friend 2500 miles away bring a boat into the Panama Canal. Then we were off to Fredonia, Arizona where we were going to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon the next day. But we found out it doesn’t open until the 15th, and it was only the 10th. So the next day we drove back down toward Page to check out a steep hill that we bypassed via a northern route, and we got to visit the Vermilion Cliffs, Marble Canyon and the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. We arrived back in Gresham at Jeanette’s on May 16th.
We spend 10 days at our new Coast to Coast "Home Park" in Neskowin. It is an ok place to get away from the hustle and bustle, but that’s not what we wanted at this time. We’ve already been away for eight months. It’s now time to see friends and family and Neskowin was just too far away. So we moved back to the Salem Elks for a month and a half with a short trip to Albany for the FMCA Northwest Region Rally. There were lots of stuff there to buy and have repaired, as well as learning from many of the seminars.
