Belize Part III – Onlieenabelize

The trade winds really kicked up over the weekend. Saturday morning it churned the water inside the reef – there were whitecaps where we had calm sea before! We went down to the resort restaurant for breakfast. We both ordered the Belizean breakfast – scrambled eggs with tomato bits and bacon, black bean puree and fry jacks. Fry jacks are fried bread dough that comes out very light with a hollow interior. It’s tasty – I tore it in half and stuffed the hollow core with bean puree and eggs.

After breakfast, Donna and I took an early morning walk up the beach past several homes and boat docks. The beach is considered public land, so homeowners cannot bar access although a few of them piled seaweed and vegetation along their property lines to discourage visitors.

We came back onto the Costa Blu property and walked past the pool. We encountered a few iguanas and lizards sunning themselves. One large iguana lived under the building next door to us and we saw him every day in the garden by the stairs.

Fishing and snorkeling weren’t happening in the windy conditions – Tuff-E-Nuff cancelled all boating activities. We reserved a trip for Monday – a combination snorkeling and fishing excursion and hoped the wind would die down by then. While talking to Hatcher at Tuff-E-Nuff, he recommended a cafe in town called Brianna’s. He said it was a small place and not much to look at, but the food was great and the prices low – not many tourists go there but a lot of the locals do.

We took the golf cart and headed into town. When I rented the cart, the guy at the agency showed me the anti-theft device and told me it was very important to always use it. I made it a habit and saw everyone else with a golf cart did the same. The anti-theft device was crude but effective.

Everyone uses the same anti-theft set-up

We found Brianna’s and ordered lunch – Donna and I ordered the chicken soup special. The soup had potatoes, cabbage, rice, corn, a little pasta and a lot of chicken meat. It was delicious and very filling. Lunch for two with a soft drink was $14US.

I should mention hitchhikers in Ambergris Caye. We gave rides in town to a couple of guys – they weren’t hitchhiking with their thumbs out – they just called out “how about a ride” as we slowly drove by. When we were at Secret Beach, a young mother with a boy about 7 years old and an infant needed a ride. The boy asked us for a lift to town – otherwise they would have to make a five-mile walk. We drove them back to town.

On the way back from lunch at Brianna’s, we made a couple of stops. The first stop was a place on the side of the road called The Truck Stop. It was a cluster of buildings with a bar, ice cream parlor, pizza place and other food vendors. At The Truck Stop, I learned that craft beer had arrived in Belize. A brewery in Placencia on the mainland, south of Belize City was brewing it.

Donna tried the golden ale while I had an IPA. It was okay, but nothing too special. The beer you can count on in Belize is Belekin. Belekin beer is sold everywhere – from grocery stores to road side stands and every bar in the country. When we were in Turkey, there was beer there that was ubiquitous called Efes. In Jamaica, it’s Red Stripe and here it’s Belikin.

The Belikin slogan says “onlieenabelize.” This is a good example of the Belizean Creole language – words run together and are spoken quickly with the emphasis on certain syllables making it hard for a non-native to follow.

Belikin also makes a dark beer they call stout – but stylistically, it’s more of a bock beer. It’s lager, not stout ale and it’s 6.5% ABV. The slogan for the stout is “go deh strong.” Hatcher told me that Belizean Creole doesn’t use suffixes like “ing” or “er” as in walking or stronger. The prefix deh replaces it. So walking become deh-walk. Also, when they say “you,” it’s always singular. If you want to address a group you don’t say “all of you” – it’s unu. No wonder I can’t understand them.

We made another stop at Rojo’s Beach Bar and Grill. The road into Rojo’s was a little tight.

This is why golf carts are the best way to travel

Donna tried a ginger caipirinha there and said it was great. We’ll have to try making it some time – a caipirinha is a Cuban cocktail made with rum, muddled limes and sugar.

Donna conversing with a scarlet macaw at Rojo”s

Back at Costa Blu, I claimed my regular perch at the poolside bar. There was one corner of the bar that was sheltered from the wind and I always sat there so I could puff a cigar with a nightcap. The staff at Costa Blu are all super-friendly and quickly caught on to my habits. It was like they saved that seat for me and always broke out a clean ash tray when I arrived.

The wind continued unabated throughout the night and into Sunday. We headed back to Secret Beach on Sunday – it’s on the leeward side of the island and wasn’t nearly as windy.

Monday morning we had some light rain for an hour or so, but I was happy to see the wind had calmed. We were on the dock at 8:30am and Rafael took us and another couple in the boat to the main Tuff-E-Nuff dive shop at the Wyndham. From there we got on a catamaran with a crew of three plus 10 other people and went to Mexico Rocks. Mexico Rocks is another marine reserve almost directly in front of Costa Blu – we were nearly back to where we started.

A fishing guide took four people at a time on a boat through a channel past the reef to fish. A guy in the first group caught a huge barracuda – they said it was 30 pounds. While the first group fished, the rest of us snorkeled. At Hol Chan, we snorkeled in a relatively tight group with six people per guide. This was to prevent people from getting lost or joining up with the wrong group. At Mexico Rocks, we were pretty much by ourselves so once the guide was reasonably certain no one was likely to drown, we were able to snorkel on our own.

Donna and I went with another couple on the second fishing run. We went outside the reef where the ocean bottom suddenly drops off to a depth of 70 feet or more. There was an old shipwreck on the reef – just the skeletal remains of a ship – the keel and a few ribs and a partial mast. I don’t know the story behind it – the guide thought it had been there for at least 15 years. Maybe a victim of Hurricane Mitch?

After a short while, I had a fish on! It gave a tough fight but I landed it. It was an ocean triggerfish. These are good fish to eat. Triggerfish feed mostly on crustaceans. They have powerful jaws and teeth that can crack crabs and mollusks.

Our boat captain – captain Bob – prepared food in the small galley of the catamaran. They fileted the barracuda and Bob took the fishing boat with another crew member to the beach to grill the fish. They came back and served it in a seasoned broth with sliced potatoes and flour tortillas. It was excellent! They also provided unlimited beer and rum punch.

The sun rises early in Belize. This time of year near the spring equinox and and again in the fall are when they have the longest daylight hours at this latitude. As usual, we were up early on Tuesday and Donna snapped a photo after sunrise.

We had breakfast at the restaurant, then packed our bags. It was time to head back home. I checked us out and we managed to stay within budget – I was wondering how we did on room charges but never really kept track.

We stopped by the cart rental place and a girl from the agency rode with us to the water taxi so she could take the golf cart back.

The taxi was on schedule and took us back to Belize City with a stop at Caye Caulker. One of the deckhands on the water taxi called ahead and arranged for a taxi cab to take us to the airport.

Our flight home took us from Belize City to Dallas/Fort Worth where we caught a flight back to San Diego. The flights were uneventful but we were exhausted by the time we took an Uber ride back to Mission Bay RV Resort. Vacation over and back to the RV lifestyle in sunny San Diego!

Belize Part II – Not-So-Secret Beach

In part one, I neglected to mention one detail of our golf cart ride up the road to the Costa Blu resort. After three miles or so heading north, the road becomes a very hard packed dirt/gravel surface. We were cruising along when Donna suddenly yelled, “Snake!” I hit the brakes and discovered the golf cart brakes are on the rear axle only – we skidded to a stop about a foot short of a large, dark snake in the road. It was six or seven feet long and thick bodied. I got a good look at it before it slithered off the road into the scrub. We didn’t think much else about it and I didn’t identify it as we stayed off the Internet while we were on vacation.

I asked a few locals about it and they all seemed surprised to hear we had seen a snake in the road. One bartender insisted it had to be a boa constrictor, but I knew it wasn’t. The color and markings weren’t boa. Last night, I did some research. There’s no doubt in my or Donna’s mind – we both had a good look at the snake – it was a fer-de-lance. A fer-de-lance is a viper found in Central America and is responsible for more than half of the deaths attributed to venomous snake bites. Yikes! That was the only snake we saw on the trip.

We sat at the poolside bar on the first night and met a few people. One of the locals we met was named Justin. He was prospecting for couples to sign up for a tour of the Wyndam condos and to sit through a no-obligation fractional ownership presentation. He offered a free breakfast at Coco Beach Resort and a selection of gifts. Donna and I talked it over and thought “Why not?” We didn’t have a plan for the morning and the tour might be a good way to learn more about the area and local economic situation. For a couple of hours of our time, we would get a nice breakfast and also a free snorkeling trip worth $110. We signed up.

So on Thursday morning, we drove the golf cart down to the Wyndam. We had arranged to meet Justin across the street by the lagoon. I parked by the lagoon between two shacks – we later found out these were occupied residences. The area by the lagoon seemed a bit trashy – many areas of Ambergris Caye have litter problems. About forty feet away from us, we saw three large crocodiles. These were American crocodiles that live in the salt water lagoon. We saw a total of seven crocodiles on land and in the water. Most of them were 10 to 12 feet long. These crocodiles commonly grow to 17 feet and specimens as large have 21 feet have been reported.

It looks like a log floating in the water

Justin showed up in a golf cart with another couple he’d signed up for the tour. We went to Coco Beach and were introduced to Fernando. Fernando had breakfast with us – it was a nice full breakfast – then he took us on a tour of the Wyndam Venezia del Caribe Resort and Spa. Donna and I knew we weren’t signing up for anything, but the tour was educational. Fernando was from Mexico and he spent several years in Cancun selling time-shares. He had a lot of facts and figures about tourism in Belize and things to do.

The Venezia del Caribe is under construction. The scaffolding on the outside of the five-story structure was a little scary. It was made from locally sourced wood and I don’t think it would meet OSHA approval.

Fernando was a nice guy and we made it clear we weren’t about to sign on the dotted line for anything. He thanked us for our time and excused himself. Then they sent in the closer. This guy started spewing figures that made my head spin and wanted us to understand we were about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime. I shut him down – I didn’t appreciate his hard-sell approach at all. We walked away with a voucher for a snorkeling trip to Hol Chan Marine Reserve set for Friday.

After the tour, we drove into San Pedro – we were halfway there already. I was looking for the Havana Cigar shop – I wanted to check the prices on Cuban cigars there. We stopped and asked a guy standing by the road where it was – he started to give us directions, then he just hopped on the back of the cart and said he would show us the way. He directed me to two shops then we dropped him off near where we found him and parked the cart. He worked at a beach bar/cafe called Gill-E’s Pour House. Later we stopped there for lunch and it was good with a great view of the sea.

This dive dock features (R to L) flags from Belize, USA, Mexico, Germany and Canada

The eastern shoreline of Ambergris Caye is just that – shoreline. Although there are sandy beach areas, mostly it’s not the type of beach where you can walk out into the water. The shore is built up with sea walls to stop flooding and erosion. The trade winds blow from the east-northeast and can push the sea water over the beaches – thus the sea walls found here.

In the afternoon, I went to the Tuff-E-Nuff dive shop on the dock at Costa Blu. We made our arrangements to go snorkeling and met the guy that runs the place, Hatcher. Hatcher was born and raised here, but he spent 13 years in the U.S. He returned to Belize a little over a year ago. His American English was accent-free and he had a wealth of knowledge about Belize and Ambergris Caye. He told us about a place we should try for lunch on the west side called Aurora’s.

Friday morning we were picked up at the Costa Blu dock for a boat ride down to the main Tuff-E-Nuff shop near the Wyndham. Rafael piloted the boat and dropped us off.

At the dive shop, we were joined by three other couples and a family of four making a total of 12 of us taking the Hol Chan – Shark/Ray Alley snorkeling tour. We had two guides – Sherri and the boat captain called Candy Man.

Our guide/boat captain Candy Man in the red trunks

We cruised out near the reef to a National Preserve area called Hol Chan. Hol Chan is a Mayan phrase referring to the natural channel through the reef there. This area is protected and nothing can be removed from the ocean here – that includes fish. We checked in with the park ranger at a floating cabana and were issued wrist bands. There’s a $10 fee for park access that was included in each person’s ticket.

You cannot anchor in the preserve – it would damage the corals there. Instead, there were a number of buoy balls secured to underwater concrete blocks that we tied up to. Several tour boats were in the area, but all of the guides were cooperative and stayed out of each other’s way.

I started snorkeling when I was five years old. My family lived in Guam then and snorkeling the coral reefs was what we did on most weekends. So I really feel like I’m in my element with a mask and fins in the ocean. Donna is a strong swimmer and we’ve snorkeled together many times in Hawaii, so there were no issues.

The marine life was incredible at Hol Chan. We found a large moray eel – the largest I’ve ever seen. I also found two large Atlantic barracuda. Schools of colorful reef fish were everywhere. We saw a large spotted eagle ray – it appeared to be flying majestically under water.

Later we moved to Shark/Ray Alley. After we got in the water, the guides started feeding the nurse sharks and sting rays. They went crazy thrashing about the boat. The nurse shark skin is very rough – I touched one under water and it felt like 40 grit sand paper.

Friday afternoon we headed over to the west side of the island to Secret Beach. Secret Beach is a white sand area with a gently sloping sandy bottom making a nice, shallow area to enjoy the water. Hatcher told us about it and recommended eating at Aurora’s. Aurora is the one that brought tourism to Secret Beach five years ago. She set up a food truck – a trailer actually and started serving lunch and drinks. Before then, Secret Beach was a place only the locals went to and it involved hiking several miles of trail to get there. Today there’s a road and several bars and cafes there. At Pirates Bar, they call it Not-So-Secret beach.

We had barbecued fish with seasoned veggies and coconut rice at Aurora’s and it was excellent. They feature several picnic type tables with palm leaf covers or umbrellas on the sandy beach and a few that are in two feet of water off the beach!

After lunch at Aurora’s, we walked a few hundred feet away to Pirates for a cold one.

View from Pirates bar – there are bars on both docks also along with massage tables.

At Pirates, they served pina coladas in whole pineapples. They cut the top off the pineapple, hollow it out then re-fasten the top with toothpicks. Because we happened to be sitting at the bar watching as those drinks were made, Donna was the beneficiary of some excess pina colada which she said was the best she’d ever had.

We were back at Costa Blu by 5pm. We had the conch specials for dinner at the poolside bar – I had conch fritters and Donna had the conch soup. It was tasty.

Conch is a sea mollusk – basically it’s a sea snail with a large spiral shell. The meat is a Caribbean delicacy and lucky for us, it was in season. We headed back to our suite around 8pm and were worn out by the day’s activities and time in the sun. We soon learned that most of the guests at Costa Blu were done-in by 9pm. No wonder they close the bar early.

To be continued…

Belize Part One – Getting There

It’s Thursday morning and Donna and I are still recovering from our trip to Belize. We arrived back in San Diego close to midnight Tuesday. I’ll tell the story of our trip from the start – it may take three or four posts to get through it.

In hindsight, I wish I would’ve spent the money to get a more direct route to Belize. Instead, I went for a cheap fare which had us flying a red-eye to Miami where we had a long layover before we flew into Belize City. Belize is located on the eastern coast of Central America and is bordered by Mexico to the northwest, Guatemala to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.

My generation probably remembers Belize as British Honduras. It was colonized and claimed by the British in the mid-1800s and didn’t gain independence until 1981.

The mainland is about 180 miles long and 68 miles wide. The population of the country is less than 400,000. The official language is English, but the native language spoken by most of the local population is Belizean Creole – an interesting dialect. Other languages include Spanish, Mayan dialects and Garifuni – a language spoken by people of African origin that came from the lesser Antilles. The economy is fairly stable and the Belize dollar trades at 2 to 1 for the American dollar. It’s a good idea to inquire if the price stated is US$ or Belize. One US dollar is two Belize.

The coast of Belize is protected by a barrier reef 178 miles long – it’s the second largest barrier reef in the world – Australia’s Great Barrier reef is the largest. The reef runs north/south and is closest to the shore to the north – about 1,000 yards out at the nearest point and up to 25 miles off the coast to the south. Where we stayed, the reef was anywhere from 3/4 mile to four miles offshore. The reef is made up of coral and the water inside the reef was only four to 20 feet deep in our area. The water depth over the reef itself is mere inches. There are several natural channels along the reef allowing vessels to reach the open sea. The swells from the ocean break over the reef and the water inside the reef is calm with no surf. Along the reef are several small islands – the larger populated islands are called cayes (keys).

Our destination was the largest island – Ambergris Caye. Disembarking from the plane at Belize City – the largest city in the country with nearly 100,000 residents – was a culture shock. The airport was definitely old school – stair cases were wheeled out to the flight line and we walked along tarmac to the terminal. After clearing customs and passport control, we stopped at the duty-free store. Belize is the only country I’ve visited that sells duty-free to international arrivals – usually it’s only available to those departing on international flights. I picked up a bottle of El Dorado – a premium dark rum made in Guyana.

We found a taxi outside and drove across town to the port. The ride was bit hair-raising. We drove in an old Ford Crown Victoria with blown out shock absorbers and a driver that didn’t mind making daring overtaking maneuvers on narrow streets. As in most third-world countries, there was no sense of zoning in the city – industrial buildings sat next to shacks and modern houses or offices were sprinkled here and there. At the harbor, I purchased round-trip boat taxi tickets to San Pedro – the main town in Ambergris Caye with a population of about 10,000.

The boat taxi carried around 60 passengers or so and cruised smartly along. We made a stop at Caye Caulker after about 60 minutes where several passengers disembarked and a few came aboard. The next stop at San Pedro was another 30 minutes away. The water taxis run a tight schedule and everything was on time.

View from the front of the water taxi at Caye Caulker

The sea water inside the reef is very clear. In areas where the bottom is sandy, the water has a turquoise appearance. Rocky bottoms or areas with sea weed are darker.

If I thought Belize City was a culture shock, San Pedro was mind blowing. I had reserved a gasoline-powered four-seat golf cart for the duration of our stay. The guy from the rental agency texted me a phone number and said I should have the attendant at the boat taxi office call them and they would deliver the cart. This didn’t happen. The attendant said, “No phone calls, sorry.”

A taxi cab driver said he would take us to the rental agency for five dollars US. It seemed like the simplest answer, so we were off. The streets of San Pedro are narrow and bumpy. They are filled with golf carts, cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians. We got to the rental agency and it was empty! The taxi driver called the office and found out they had moved and were a few blocks away at a grocery store they owned. San Pedro has three main drags – I don’t know the official road names – the locals call the north/south road on the east side Front Street. It’s one-way to the north. The next main north/south thoroughfare is Middle Street and it’s one-way south. The last north/south route is Back Street and is two-way. I was completely confused by the time we picked up the cart.

Luckily I had studied a map for the route to our resort – Costa Blu was about 6.5 miles north of town. To get out of town you have to cross a canal – there’s a toll of $2.50BZ each way. We were told that no so long ago the only way across was a rope-drawn ferry. After about half an hour of driving on a narrow road mostly paved with concrete and frequent speed bumps, we found the resort.

Check-in was efficient and the staff was very friendly. The grounds were immaculate and the buildings well-maintained. Our room was an upstairs suite with a living room and kitchenette and a separate bedroom and bathroom with a large shower.

Viewed from the beach, our suite was in building 1 on the left . We had the upstairs room on the right side of the building

There are 10 buildings on the site in addition to the main reception/restaurant building and most of them are divided into four suites. There are a total of 38 suites here at Costa Blu. We had a private balcony overlooking the grounds and the sea.

Our bedroom had an extra-large, comfortable king-size bed.

I was whipped from the travel, time zone changes and lack of regular meals over the previous 20 hours or so. I was in paradise, but I was grumpy.

Donna went down to the bar and brought me a burger. After eating and resting for bit, I was feeling much better. We went down to the bar for our introduction to island life. I was surprised to learn the bar usually closed at 9pm. Later, this made sense to me. To be continued!

Packing Light

You have to love the climate here in San Diego. Although the daily highs were on the cooler side for the tail-end of last week, we still had highs in the mid to upper 60s. The weekend was fabulous with the thermometer hitting the mid 70s and we had a high of 83 degrees yesterday. Since we’re located right on Mission Bay, we have a cool, refreshing breeze off the water most of the time.

Mesa, Arizona is heating up at this time of year. If we were still there, I’m sure we’d have the air conditioners running all day. One thing about Arizona though, you can’t beat the sunsets. The dust in the desert air makes spectacular, fiery sunsets at times. Here in San Diego, we often have beautiful sunsets on the bay or over the ocean.

Thursday evening, Donna and I took a stroll around Mission Bay RV Resort and I snapped a photo of the sunset. It wasn’t the fiery, colorful display of most sunsets. What was striking about it to me was the blue hue of the sky and water. Also, notice how the sunset is to the northwest of the park. When we’re here in the fall, the sunset is west-southwest.

On Saturday morning, I took Donna to her sister’s place on the Spyder. It was a short ride, one exit up on I-5 to La Jolla Parkway which becomes Torrey Pines Road. The traffic was backed up for a couple of miles. It turned out there was construction on Torrey Pines Road that only allowed a single lane of traffic through.

Nowadays, most of us understand that the pronunciation of many words around here that are derived from Spanish. For example, La Jolla is pronounced La Hoy-ya. It’s the Spanish double-L thing, like the word tortilla. Back in the 1960s, many people who visited San Diego didn’t know this. At the time, my step-dad, Ken, worked for the city of San Diego as an electrician and he drove a marked city-owned truck. People would see he was a local and often asked him how to get to La Jal-lah. He would deadpan, “Never heard of it!”

After dropping Donna off, I decided to avoid Torrey Pines Road and took an alternate route over the top of Mt. Soledad. It was a fairly clear day so I had to stop at the monument at the top of Soledad. I’ve posted pictures of the view from there before, but here are a few more.

View northwest – La Jolla Shores beach and the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club – Scripps Pier on the far right

Looking north – you can see Scripps Pier and Torrey Pines all the way to Del Mar

Looking east – you can see the 12,000-ft concrete runway several miles away at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar

Looking south – southwest – Mission Bay in the center, Point Loma to the right and you can just see the Coronado Islands of Mexico past Point Loma

Today we’re busy packing and making final decisions on what we’ll need to take with us to Belize. Donna made arrangements for Willie, the guy that runs the snack shack here at Mission Bay RV Resort, to feed and take care of Ozark the cat. He’ll come to the coach daily for the week we’re gone. Our flight is scheduled for 9:40pm tonight and I haven’t packed anything yet. I made a run to the bank yesterday and withdrew a pile of cash – they like American dollars in Belize. This will be the first time both of us are away from the coach at the same time.

For our last home-cooked dinner before we leave, Donna kept it simple last night. She grilled chicken and a medley of peppers, onions and corn with sweet potato mash on the side.

I won’t need to pack much for Belize. The forecast calls for daily highs in the mid to upper 80s and overnight lows in the upper 70s. Shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops are the uniform of the day in this tropical country. I’ll be packing light.

We’re planning to stay off the grid most of the time while we’re down there. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of stories to tell and photos to share once we return next week.

Late Check Out

Our three-month stay at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona went by much too quickly. I can hardly believe we’re a quarter of the way through 2019 already. My final days at VIewpoint were filled with thoughts of the road. I needed to get things together and made mental checklists. There were a few things I had put off and needed to get cracking on. One item was a “D” ring in the trailer that had pulled out – I use it to secure the Traeger so it needed to be re-installed.

The weather over our last couple of weeks in Mesa was much more in line with what we expect there. Most days had clear skies and temperatures reached 80 degrees – we even ran the air conditioners a few afternoons. We had one cloudy day last Wednesday but it didn’t rain and the temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees. The clouds made a spectacular sunset – the fiery reflection off the clouds made it a double sunset.

They had an open house event at Falcon Field on Saturday and we wanted to meet Jeff Spencer there, but I knew if I went, I wouldn’t get everything packed and ready to go. So, we missed the event while I cleaned and organized the trailer. I had almost everything put away by the end of the day, leaving only a few items for Sunday morning.

I started Sunday off with the Formula One race in Bahrain. It was good one but the outcome wasn’t so good. Young Charles LeClerc had the race well in hand with a big lead in his second race for Ferrari. Then, with about 10 laps to go, his powertrain let him down as it lost power and he lost about five seconds per lap. He finished third – it should have been his first win in Formula One at the age of 20.

After the race, I finished packing and also dumped and flushed our holding tanks. While I did that, I had the Moto GP race from Argentina recording on the DVR. To get the whole race, I had to cheat a bit. Check out is supposed to be 11am, but I dawdled until noon. It didn’t matter much to anyone – the park is emptying out as the snowbirds head back north. No one was checking in. Another rig on our row pulled out at the same time as us.

I had a little trouble maneuvering the trailer out of our site. I usually pull out of this site to the east, but with open sites across from us to the west I thought this would be a better option. It was, except for the orange tree in our site. It’s more of a bush really. After some jockeying back and forth, I was nearly clear but it looked like I might scrape a few of the sharp branches on the side of the trailer. Our neighbor lent a hand by coming over with a small rug which he and Donna used to hold the branches back, clear of the trailer and we were on our way.

We made the familiar drive on the loop 202 (San Tan Freeway) to I-10 then we crossed through Maricopa on AZ347. This is my shortcut – it’s shorter and faster than following I-10 to I-8. Once we hit I-8, it was straight shot west. We made a stop at exit 67 – Dateland. We bought date milkshakes for a snack and got back on the Interstate. Our next stop was exit 12 in Yuma, Fortuna Road. I filled our fuel tank at the Pilot/Flying J there at $2.89/gallon and also topped up our propane tank with 27 gallons at $2.39/gallon. The last time I filled the propane tank was September of 2017. We don’t use much propane in the coach – it’s mostly used to run the refrigerator when we boondock or occasionally for the water heater.

We made our usual overnight stop in the California desert west of Yuma near the Imperial Sand Dunes. We saw a couple of other rigs boondocking on the BLM public land, but we were more than a quarter of a mile away from anyone. It was very quiet and peaceful

We were rolling down the road again a little past 9am on Monday morning – April Fool’s Day. We had about 170 miles between our boondocking spot and Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego. We only made one stop. I stopped at the Golden Acorn Casino to top up the tank with some of the cheapest fuel we’ll find in the area – California fuel prices are high. I only needed 20 gallons to fill up at $3.69/gallon. I like to have the tank full or nearly so when we are parked by the bay. This takes up space in the fuel tank and doesn’t leave as much air space for condensation to form.

I had completed the Fast Track pre-check in online so we were able to cruise straight to the overflow lot and drop the trailer. Then we backed into site 142 and were set up in no time. We’ll have eight days to get ready for our trip to Belize – we leave on Tuesday, April 9th. Donna is making arrangements for someone to take care of Ozark the cat. I plan to leave our coach hooked up with the water supply shut off while we’re gone for a week.

The weather here is agreeable – it was warm on Monday and hit a high of 80 degrees. Yesterday was cooler at about 70 degrees. We had a rain shower this morning, but we can expect daily highs of 70 degrees for the rest of the month here. Belize is sure to be much warmer.

I’ll close this post with a dinner plate featuring Donna’s Jamaican jerk chicken with mango salsa. She served it with bok choy and black rice.

SMM Three Gun

I’ve become a little lazy about posting lately. I haven’t written a post in 10 days! It’s mainly due to the routine we’ve fallen into here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for almost three months already. Our routine consists of pickleball games most mornings, tennis lesson a couple of times per week for Donna and I instruct a pickleball class on Wednesday afternoon for players graduating to intermediate level play.

I have happy hour with my friends at Lucky Lou’s a couple afternoons every week. I spend time with some of the guys I knew and hung out with when we lived here 10 years ago. In one week, we’ll be moving on – back to San Diego for a month. With the coach set up at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego, we’ll take a week off and kick back in Belize.

Last week, I finally got the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker grill out of the trailer and prepared my famous babyback ribs. Our neighbor across the street from us, Dick, was a bachelor for the week as his wife, Roxie, had to take care of business back at their home in Spokane. We invited Dick over to have a smoked rib dinner and we enjoyed the company and a few adult beverages. Originally we intended to include our other neighbors, Chuck and Sue from Illinois, but Sue’s brother unexpectedly passed away and they hastily packed up and headed back to Illinois.

There’s an outdoor shooting range up on Usery Pass – a couple of miles up Ellsworth Road. They hold an annual competition there for three gun competitors. Three gun competition is exactly how it sounds – you must be proficient with three types of firearms – pistol, shotgun and rifle. I went to check it out Friday afternoon – there’s no charge for spectators.

Rio Salado Sportsman Club at Usery Mountain

The event is called the Superstition Mountain Mystery Three Gun. Competitors complete various scenarios in different settings called stages – this competition had 12 stages. In each stage, targets are engaged from different positions and distances and the competitor has to transition from one gun to another.

In the picture below, the shooter is knocking down steel plates with a shotgun. He started on the left side of the helicopter chassis and knocked down six plates, then he had to move to the right side to knock down six more plates – he’s shooting at the last plate.

In another stage, the competitor is shooting a pistol at a variety of targets, then he drops the pistol and picks up a rifle as he scrambles onto an inclined board to engage targets 500 meters away with his rifle. This is a long shot! Five hundred meters is about 1,600 feet – well over a quarter of a mile. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking so they have to make the shots as quickly as possible and don’t have time to catch their breath during a stage.

Pistol shooting – judges and time keeper behind the shooter

Transition to 500 meter shot with a rifle from prone position

I had the opportunity to meet a legend in the speed shooting and competition shooting world. Jerry Miculek (MITCH-e-lek) was competing in the Superstition Mountain Mystery three gun event. Jerry has been at the top of the game for as long as I can remember. I think he’s been sponsored by Smith and Wesson for nearly thirty years. He holds several world records for speed and accuracy. He has a TV show on the Outdoor Channel called Shootout Lane that I enjoy watching.

The greatest shooter of all time – the Legend, Jerry Miculek

I had to opportunity to meet and speak with Jerry. He’s truly a nice guy – if you’ve ever watched his TV show, he is just as soft spoken and humble as he appears on TV. Jerry’s 64 years young and still at the top of the game. His daughter, Lena, is also a top competitor sponsored by Sig Sauer – she was the top female shooter in the world in 2014. She wasn’t at this competition – she’s concentrating on Pistol Cartridge Carbine (PCC) competition at this time.

Saturday morning, I competed in a men only pickleball tournament. We started with a series of round-robin play to establish the qualifiers for the semi-final and Championship round. I played nine games of round robin and qualified for the championship round. Unfortunately I lost the in the end and wound up in second place again. It was fun, but I was whipped after 10 games. My S-Health app recorded nearly 15,000 steps on Saturday. You can see from the bar graph that most of them were before noon during the pickleball tournament. I keep my phone in my pocket while I play to record the steps.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to a pool party and barbeque at Jeff and Krissy Van Deren’s house. We had a fun time with plenty of good food and drink. The only person in the pool was Mike and Kim Child’s granddaughter Abigail. We said our goodbyes to Mike and Jodi Hall there as they’re heading out for week-long vacation in Jamaica.

My post wouldn’t be complete without a dinner plate picture. Thursday night, Donna made Chicken Lombardy. It was absolutely delicious served with forbidden (black) rice and asparagus.

The weather has been very pleasant although we had a couple of cloudy days and gusty winds last Tuesday. The daily high temperature ranged from 70 to 80 degrees. The week ahead looks a little warmer with mid-to-upper 80s. I’ll have to get busy and finish a few maintenance chores before we pull out of here next Sunday.

Spring Ahead

We had a great weekend. It started with the usual Friday happy hour at Lucky Lou’s but the highlight was Saturday’s lunch. Our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) organized a lunch for members of Xscapers. Xscapers is a sub-group of the Escapees RV Club. We aren’t really Xscapers – it’s geared more toward young, working full-time RVers. But, we are Escapees members and although I’m retired, we still feel young enough – most of the time!

The lunch meet-up was at the Monastery Bar and Grill adjacent to Falcon Field on McKellips Road in Mesa. The Monastery is a unique place. Although they call themselves a pub, it’s mostly an outdoor restaurant, bar and activity center. The menu has everything from nachos to steaks. They have a full-service kitchen and wait staff – but you can also order your steak, chicken or burger uncooked for about half-price and grill it yourself on grills they provide in the courtyard. They also have a huge beer selection.

The indoor seating area has limited space, but there’s a bar on the patio with a stage, tables and several outdoor seating areas. There are also two sand volleyball courts and bean bag cornhole games.

Outdoor sand volleyball court at The Monastery

The only people in attendance that we had met previously were Jeff and Deb. We had a good time meeting several new people in the RV community and we’re glad that Jeff and Deb organized this and invited us.

After the big lunch at The Monastery, Donna kept it simple for Saturday night dinner. Simple but delicious! She made an Asian chicken stir-fry that I loved. The sauce she whips up for it makes the dish – it includes soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, chopped fresh ginger and garlic.

Asian chicken, broccoli and mushroom stir-fry

We had another social event on Sunday. It was time for the annual Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort Pickleball Club meeting and banquet. There was a short club meeting in the ballroom at 4:30pm here at Viewpoint to discuss club business. We learned that the pickleball club now has over 500 members in good standing. They had door prizes and Donna won a free membership for next year – a $15 value.

The dinner was catered by Buca di Beppo restaurant and they served a great lasagna with dinner salad and bread. The serving line was very slow though as they only had two people staffing the cafeteria-style food service.

The rest of the country set their clocks forward over the weekend. In Arizona, we don’t do that. In the winter months, Arizona time is equivalent to Mountain Standard Time. When everyone else springs forward, Arizona doesn’t change their clocks, but now we’re the same as Pacific Daylight Time. Someone forgot to tell Verizon that. I have my phone set to automatically reset to the local time. On Mondays, I have an alarm set for 6:15 am so I can get up, have coffee and breakfast and be ready to hit the pickleball round-robin match at 8am. Yesterday I got up at the sound of my phone alarm and fixed coffee and breakfast. Donna came out and asked if I realized we were up an hour early. What! I checked my phone and sure enough – the clock had reset to Mountain Daylight Time. Grrr!

The weather was great last week – mostly in the 70s with clear to partly cloudy skies. That changed yesterday. Rain moved into the area and the temperature will only reach 60 degrees over the next couple of days. We expect rain showers to continue through tomorrow morning. By the weekend, the forecast improves with highs in the upper 70s to 80 degrees for the remainder of the month. That’s more like the weather we expect and love in this part of the country at this time of year. This has been and long, wet and relatively cold winter here.

Who Let the Cat Out?

This blog is written on a template from WordPress. Periodically, WordPress updates the platform. I was told, by someone in the know, to always update to the latest version. Sometimes the update fixes bugs or plugs vulnerabilities. So that’s what I do. Well, the latest “upgrade” changed the whole platform. My photos no longer are reduced to a smaller image that can enlarged to their original size by clicking on them – they are sized to fit the page automatically. I don’t see this as an upgrade.

It’s taken me a while to figure out how to insert links in the new format. The biggest issue I have is with the sidebar widgets. I have affiliate links in the sidebar. Some no longer work – for example, I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you go to Amazon from my website link, I earn a small referral for anything you buy from them on that visit. You pay the same price – I just earn an small referral fee. It isn’t much and now that the link has broken, my last statement showed I earned all of 54 cents in the last month. I’ll have to figure out how to fix it. I’m never going to get enough referral money to even pay for the web hosting cost of a blog, but a few bucks here and there doesn’t hurt.

I don’t have much to report on the RV side of things. We’re settled in and I haven’t had any real projects here in Mesa. We stay active at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort though. I’ve been busy playing pickleball and instructing pickelball lessons. Giving lessons has helped me focus my own play – so it’s beneficial to both me and my students.

We enjoy the birds here at Viewpoint. When I bought the second quail block to attract and feed birds, I wondered if I could keep it up. The birds demolished the first one in about 10 days. At $14 per block, I wasn’t sure if I should keep it up. Now that we have much warmer weather, the birds have an easier time finding more naturally occurring food sources, so the block isn’t disappearing as fast.

Ozark the cat loves the quail block. She sits on the bottom step of the entry and watches the birds through the screen door. She doesn’t try to go outside though. I think she had enough of the outdoors when we found her as a young kitten hiding under our coach at Turkey Creek near Branson, Missouri. She’d much rather stay dry and well fed in our coach.

Ozark the cat stretching out on the dashboard

Our friends Mike and Jodi Hall have a rescue kitten that looks a lot like Ozark the cat. We were talking over happy hour at Lucky Lou’s and Jodi told us her cat story. Apparently, the night before, their kitten, unbeknownst to them, went out the back screen door sometime after 10pm. Jodi knew something wasn’t right when the cat never came to snuggle in bed all night. In the morning, she couldn’t find the cat and it didn’t come when she put food out.

She checked the backyard fearing the kitten may have fallen into the koi pond or got into the pool and ended up in the filtration system, but the cat was nowhere to be found. In the backyard they have an aviary built around a tree. In the afternoon, Jodi looked at the tree carefully. Sure enough, the kitten was up in a crook in the tree. Jodi had to climb up on the aviary, then into the tree to bring the cat down. Mystery solved and now their cat doesn’t seem as inclined to go outside anymore.

While I don’t have any RV related things to post, I want to post a few meal pictures. I know this seems like a food blog at times, but I like to make the point that full-time RV living doesn’t mean always mean eating out, grilling hot dogs or microwaving frozen food. It doesn’t always have to be fancy either. Last week Donna diced leftover pork tenderloin and prepared street tacos. Yummy!

I took advantage of the fine weather and grilled steaks on Sunday.

Steak with baked sweet potato and asparagus

Monday Donna made a dish called chicken Gabriella and served it with mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts.

Chicken with mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts

Speaking of fine weather, we’ve had daily highs in the mid to upper 70s over the last 10 days and even hit 83 degrees yesterday. The forecast looks good although we may have a couple of cooler days with rain showers next week. Overall, we can expect upper 70s and low 80s in the foreseeable future.

Snow Gawkers and Cowboys

The lousy weather forecast from last week held true by Thursday. We started off dry Monday afternoon and Tuesday, but it wasn’t warm. The high on Tuesday was only 55 degrees. But we didn’t let that stop us from hopping on the Spyder and heading over to Lucky Lou’s. Tuesday was Jodi Hall’s and her sister Jackie’s birthday and a bunch of us celebrated on the patio at Lou’s. Good thing they have propane heaters out on the patio.

The overnight lows hit the low 30s – there was frost on our neighbor’s car. We braved the cold and played pickleball Wednesday morning. In the afternoon I gave lessons – it was a bit windy and cold though.

Donna made chicken tikka masala for dinner Wednesday night. It was scrumptious and I paired it with a IPA from Coronado Brewing (San Diego). This IPA is very traditional West Coast style with centennial, chinook, and columbus hops.

By Thursday morning, the rain was coming down in force. It was cold and wet out – the high was only 50 degrees and we had the heat pumps running all day. We hunkered down and stayed indoors. Donna made a batch of chili in the slow cooker – just the thing for a cold , rainy day. Lucky for me, I had another IPA in the refrigerator – something called Scorpion Bowl from Stone Brewing that Donna picked up for me.

The rain continued through Friday and it was an even colder day as the high was only 47 degrees. Over the 48-hour period, well over two inches of rain fell in Mesa, Arizona.

Saturday the sun was back and it was dry out. The official high temperature on Saturday was only 55 degrees, but it felt warmer in the direct sun. Our friends Kim and Mike Childs picked us up around 12:30pm and we headed out Brown Road toward Apache Trail to the rodeo grounds. It was time for the 55th Annual Lost Dutchman Rodeo.

The traffic getting to the rodeo was unusually heavy. Part of the reason was the rodeo and carnival, but it was also created by a large number of people heading out toward Apache Trail to take photos of the snow on the Superstition Mountains.

Snow on the Superstition Mountains looking east from the rodeo bleachers

More snow on Four Peaks looking northeast from the rodeo bleachers

With all the rainfall, the ground was quite wet and the arena surface was mostly mud. It couldn’t have been much fun for the cowboys as they had to jump, fall or wrestle in the cold, wet mud.

The bulldoggers wrestling steers to the ground came up dripping mud. One of the saddle bronc riders lost his boot as he flew out of the saddle and had to stomp around in the mud in his sock to find the boot. None of the dozen or so bull riders were able to get a qualified eight-second ride – all were thrown into the mud. I wrote about my rodeo experience a while back in this post.

I wanted to post over the weekend, but server issues at Bluehost made it impossible. I think this site was actually down for part of the weekend. It all looks to be resolved now. Today we’re expecting a more seasonable high of 71 degrees and should be in the mid-70s for the rest of the week. I’m up for that!

Tournaments and Lovebirds

In my last post, I mentioned that the Valentine’s Day pickleball tournament was cancelled. Donna and I looked forward to it as an opportunity to play as a team in a tournament. Here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, they have monthly tournaments at this time of year. However, Donna and I play in different groups in these tournaments.

Pickleball players are rated from 1.0 (beginner) to 5.0 (Pro). Here at Viewpoint, they are fairly strict with their ratings – most people over-rate themselves – but that doesn’t work for long here. The powers that be will move you into a group commensurate with the expected level of play here. I think we would both be rated 0.5 higher than we are here at most places. Donna plays in the 3.0 group while I play in the 3.5 group.

The February tournament was held on Saturday. The play was very competitive and we played well. Donna made it through the elimination rounds and played in the championship round. She finished in second place for the 3.0 group. Likewise, I made it through to the championship round but lost and finished second in the 3.5 group.

Donna has been back for a week now and it’s flown by. I’m happy to report that the quality of my meals has improved greatly. Donna whips up meals that I wouldn’t dream of making on my own. I’m just not that into it, although I love eating. The grill is more my forte rather than elaborate meal planning and blending of flavors. Last Thursday, Donna made cioppino for our Valentine’s Day dinner with clams, calamari, shrimp and cod. It was delicious and a real treat. She served it over chickpea spaghetti and garlicky sauteed spinach.

Saturday afternoon we joined friends at Mike and Jodi Hall’s place for an impromptu barbeque. We actually had a plan the night before, but things don’t always go as planned. When we left Lucky Lou’s Friday night, I planned to pick up babyback ribs and cook them on the Traeger after Saturday’s pickleball tournament. But the Safeway supermarket next door was sold out of babyback ribs. No problem I thought, I’ll get them Saturday morning after the tournament and should have ample time to smoke them.

I thought we’d be done with the tournament around 10:30am. With both of us advancing all the way to the final round, we weren’t done until noon. That ended the possibility of me smoking ribs in time to get to the Hall’s by 2:30pm. Mike Hall said not to worry, Mike Childs was bringing meat and also he had beef ribs to grill. Jeff and Chrissy Van Deren were bringing salad and guacamole. Donna made prosciutto and boursin cheese wrapped asparagus for an appetizer. Then we heard Mike Childs was under the weather, so we had to make do with what was available.

It was no problem though – there turned out to be plenty of food for all. It was fun time and we all enjoyed the company and conversation. Mike Hall and I enjoyed stogies on the back patio by the koi pond.

Donna snapped a photo of Mike and me shooting the breeze and puffing cigars

I put out another quail block last week and the birds have been flocking to our site. I’ve had quail blocks out before – I even had them years ago when we lived in this area – but I never had such a variety of birds attracted to the seed block.

We had colorful visitors at our site this weekend. A couple of weeks ago, I saw what I thought was a Central or South American conure in our orange tree. He didn’t stay long enough for me to get a positive identification. On Sunday, he returned and perched on our window sill. I was able to photograph the bird and identify as a Lovebird – it’s either a Rosy-face Lovebird or a Fischer’s Lovebird. Both birds are very similar in appearance but I think this was a Rosy-faced Lovebird due to its size.

Rosy-faced Lovebird on our window sill – photo was shot through the screen

This morning, the Lovebird returned with its mate. Unlike most bird species, Lovebirds have the same plumage whether they’re male or female.

Dove, Lovebird and Grackle at the seed block

Rosy-faced Lovebirds are indigenous to southwest Africa – Namibia and Angola. But flocks of feral birds are known to inhabit Puerto Rico, Phoenix metro area and San Diego County. The origin of these feral flocks is most likely from the pet industry – birds either escaped or were let loose.

The fickle winter weather continues in the southwest. In the photo from Saturday, you can see we have jackets on. The high was only about 60 degrees. Sunday was cool and breezy with a high in the upper 50s. We had rain overnight and today we’ll only reach the mid 50s with breezy winds again. The week ahead doesn’t look much better with cool temperatures and rain moving in again on Thursday.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Belize Part III – Onlieenabelize

Belize Part II – Not-So-Secret Beach

Belize Part One – Getting There

Packing Light

Late Check Out

SMM Three Gun

Spring Ahead

Who Let the Cat Out?

Snow Gawkers and Cowboys

Tournaments and Lovebirds

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: