The Bilodeaus Go...

Well we took the long drive today from Guerro Negro (which we just can’t seem to like no matter how hard we try) to San Quintin. It is about a 400 kilometer stretch and it took us a while because it is through the mountains.  Anyway, we absolutely loved the boulders on both sides of the road. It really looks like a giant spilled his marbles all over the place. There are literally full sized mountains just made from rocks! He even dropped some on the road to create some of the biggest potholes I have ever seen.  After that we stopped at a routine military checkpoint and they had us get out of the car which is pretty normal, but this time they wanted us to pop up the camper even! We were really not interested in doing that, but they carry assault rifles so we prepared to humor them. Ty went to the back to get the crank out of the car… and it wasn’t there! Holy shizzz this is the moment I have been dreading this entire trip! I LEFT THE CRANK IN THE BACK AFTER TAKING IT DOWN AN...

Mulege (Prounounced Moo-lah-hay) is a cute little town on the brink of the desert and the ocean. We loved exploring the town and passing through their really narrow roads. Just as you are passing the town on the highway, there is a beautiful large arch that you must pass through to get anywhere in the city. We obviously had to take a picture in front of it. Only problem was that we were standing on the highway while we did.. haha safety first! Once we got into the town we saw a storefront that said "Homemade ice cream and treats: Almost free!" Well, we had to stop and see what they had. Holy cannoli. We got two large pastry breads stuffed with meat, cheese, and sauce and a homemade strawberry ice cream on a cone for the equivalent of $3.30! Best ever. So we drove out to the lighthouse and hiked up to the top to enjoy our lunch. Let me just say, it was quite windy up there so please pardon the hair situations. The view was beautiful and totally worth it. Driving back throu...

It has officially been eight days since we have had a proper shower.... I do not know how we allowed it to go on for so long! I think we must have just gotten caught up in the heat of the days and the coolness of the ocean to realize that we have not been actually washed. Just rinsed by the salty water on the sea of Cortez. Yuck. The new spot we are at will take care of that for us though. We have been living so primitively for such a long time that we decided to spoil ourselves a little bit. In the beautiful city of Mulege where we are staying, we now have hot showers (our number one priority), electricity (so we can recharge all our lanterns that we've been using), a pool (like we'll actually use it being so close to the ocean, but it's a nice amenity, and wifi IN the camper. I never thought I'd see those days again! All for a whopping $10 a night. I think we hit the big time with this spot. We can't wait to check out the city and see what else it has to offer! ...

We spent five days at the most beautiful place we have yet to see on the Baja peninsula. The pictures do not do it any sort of justice. This bay was our goal. This is how far south we wanted to make it, and we did! We met up with Tim and Victoria here again and went for a hike on an island that you can walk to at low tide. It was crazy how clear and blue and beautiful the water was. I'm not kidding you, these pictures make the water look gray compared to how it actually looks in real life... The sun beat down on us all day long and though it was windy, we were happy as clams. There were some hot springs just around the corner from where we made camp so we walked over there to give ourselves a little R & R and rinse off our unshowered bodies...   Every morning there were vendors from the neighboring city that would come by to sell their handmade products, vegetables, fruits, and fish. It was so easy for us to stay on the beach all day! We couldn't even run ...

On our drive from San Ignacio to Bahia de Concepcion we stopped in a city called Santa Rosalía. This city is so unique to this area. It was founded in the 1880s by a French mining company that mined copper ore. The city has a major french influence.  Most of the buildings are "french colonial " style instead of being built by cement and cinder blocks are actually made of wood imported from the states. The main reason that we stopped here is because there is a famous french bakery in the middle of the town.  We could smell the bread for blocks and blocks. The smell literally reminded me of when I was in France. We bought a handful of baguettes and rolls and sweetbreads and enjoyed them immensely.   Another reason we decided to stop in this town is because of the mission church.  The Santa Rosalía church was designed and prefabricated in France then shipped to the Baja around Cape Horn! Here's the kicker: the church was designed by A. G. Eiffel.  Many of you may ...

Every winter from January through March the grey whales of the pacific come to three lagoons in Baja California Sur to mate with one another and have their babies from the previous years mating (a grey whales gestation is 13 months!). Since we were going to be at one of the lagoons in the scheduled time of year, we figured it would be a crime to not take advantage of it. We made some friends from Oregon in our new campsite in San Ignacio and we got together and took the trip out to the lagoon. I do not know what else to say but "wow". Those whales were absolutely spectacular! There were 202 grey whales in the lagoon on the day that we went. They jumped and belly-flopped and spouted and sprayed and and mated and played and flicked water with their tales! One whale got almost close enough for us to touch her, but she sprayed her blowhole water all over us instead. It was a riot! I don't know if it's because we watched Jurassic World right before we came out here... but ...

We continued further south to a small town called San Ignacio. We camped at this beautiful campsite called Los Petates that was right on the edge of a pond. The pond brought all sorts of ducks, bull frogs, swans, and as I like to call them "birds of prey".  It is actually crazy the bird watching that can be done in this region. We see hawks, ospreys, eagles, falcons, etc on a daily basis. Today we even caught a bird of prey snatch a duck right out of the pond and carry it over to kill and eat it... Wild.   This town is an oasis in the desert. It is completely surrounded by date palm trees even though north, south, east, and west of it is all desert. I mean dry desert (you should see the cracks on the heels of my feet...gross). Anyway, the mission church is this town is one of the things that drew us in because the guidebook boasts of it having FOUR foot wide walls. We totally thought it was an exaggeration, but we had to check it out ourselves.  L...

We drove across to the west side of the peninsula so we could continue our trip further south. Conor found a bus to take him up to Tijuana from Guerro Negro and left last night to continue to his trip to Korea. One thing I did not mention was that Bahia de Los Angeles does not have a bank and most places do not accept credit cards. There was an ATM installed in town for the 500 residents and their frequent camping tourists, but somebody wrapped a chain around it in the night and pulled it away with their truck… It was nice to come to the closest bank (about 100 miles away) and fill our wallets and fanny packs with more pesos.  Ty and I were able to make it to church again this week! Guerro Negro has a little branch about the size of the Vineyard in the winter. It is about a quarter of the size of the San Quintin branch we visited last sunday. We were excited to add to their numbers for sacrament meeting. The members were so kind to us and very welcoming. The chorister was t...

We had no idea as we entered the bay of Los Angeles that things were going to pick up like crazy as the weekend began. Saturday morning was the big race! Cars, trucks, VW bugs, and motorcycles all gathered around to race the 200 miles off road track. We were up nice and early and got to stand right at the starting line to see them go. You ca only imagine the look on Ty’s face the entire time we were at this thing. People race in the 200 to prepare and qualify for the infamous Baja 1000 race that happens every fall. We met people from all over the peninsula and California too. What an awesome event! It was the perfect way for us to say goodbye to the city that we had grown to love so dearly. Farewell Bahia de Los Angeles, we will see you again someday!

We made friends with Tim and Victoria from Savannah, Georgia as soon as we arrived at camp. They invited us to their camp fire and we stayed up late into the night talking and laughing about our various Baja experiences. They invited us to drive out with them to the end of the beach road and dig for clams. We were not too sure what to expect but what we got was so so good! We were out at low tide digging in the streams between the spit of land to the closest island. Conor and Ty picked it up very quickly while I just dug and dug to no avail. After a while our buddy Cowboy came over and showed me a better spot so FINALLY I started catching up to the big guns. We came home and let them sit in water for the night to spew out all their sand. The next day we ate clams for lunch. Just clams! and for dinner we made a dutch oven potato, vegetables, and chorizo casserole…with more clams piled on top. Yum yum. Just as we were getting ourselves comfortable around the campfire with our ne...

As sad as we were to leave our fantastic spot on the water, we were comforted to know that our favorite retired couple (Bill and Linda from Wyoming) were moving to the same camp as we were! We swapped numbers to make sure we could have each others backs on the road as necessary, and we were on our way! The drive was through the desert in the longest stretch of road without a gas station. It is approximately a 300 kilometer distance from one gas station to the next. Why? Who knows! It definitely kept us on our toes throughout the drive (don’t worry mom we had a Jerry-can with extra fuel). The desert landscapes we saw were absolutely phenomenal! There is a big national park outside of Catavina where there are just boulders. Boulders stacked on boulders making mountains of boulders. I wish I was a better photographer because my pictures do not do it justice.  Our new spot at the Bay of Los Angeles is spectacular! Our campsite is right on the water and our view includes an archip...

We moved to a new campsite about 20 miles down from where we were staying before. The windmill is now about 200 yards from where we are sleeping. There is a beautiful bay that rises and sinks with the tide, so low in fact that a boat on a mooring near us is now just sitting in the sand. We have met some fun people since we got here too. It seems that everyone that travels and camps in the Baja has a story to tell and a difference to make. We met Meg and Gordon who are BIKING the entire Pan-American Highway. They started in Alaska and are almost halfway to their goal of Argentina! We have met some amazing photographers, designers, retirees, and artists. We are have spend an entire day reading in front of our camper in the sun. We have seen a 15 foot long dead whale washed up on the sand. We have eaten fish tacos... so many fish tacos! Looking forward to continuing our adventure in Baja!

Yesterday was Ty's birthday! (Happy Birthday my love!) We spent the day doing things that he enjoys most. We drove around looking for an oyster farm located in the area... After off roading on the WORST dirt road that lasted forever and ever, we finally got to a cool place! Back in the day, American settler's came to plant and harvest wheat. The only problem was the rain... it didn't rain much so the whole thing was a bust! The only remains of these American settlers are their cemetery, their pier, and their windmill. Pretty cool. As we drove around, we realized that though wheat does not grow well here, strawberries do! So well in fact that Driscoll's Berries have purchased acres and acres of land and this is where all their strawberries come from! We bought some off the street and they were delicious. Freshly picked just hours earlier. Yum yum yum. We went to a beach nearby an it was completely covered in sand dollars. I started collecting them the second I got out ...

The drive from our spot at Clam Beach to La Jolla Camp site in Ensenada was absolutely beautiful! We were right on the coastline the entire time and the waves were spectacular. The city of Ensenada has a big harbor with yachts and ships just like we see on the island. We loved it. Our campsite was just south of the city, right on the beach. There weren't many other campers there yet so we picked a great spot, rolled out the carpet, and plugged in. It was decently windy so Conor finally got a chance to do some kite surfing. He was out there for over an hour surfing waves, hitting jumps, and even getting within 5 feet of a seal! It was fun to watch. Afterwards we drove a ways up the hill to see the famous La Bufadora. We parked and walked down over to see the blowhole on the side of the cliff. The waves gather and crash together at a certain spot just perfectly to shoot a big stream of water straight up into the air, like a whale spout! We saw that everyone was getting closer and c...

This place was pretty close to how I think of camping when I think of camping. We got there only about 26 hours later than we planned on. It was about fifteen minutes north of the USA-Mexico border crossing so we were excited to finally have it within our reaches! The campground was clean and full of people.  There were families there was the south, a group of kids doing a school overnight trip, and a few people just site-seeing in one of the biggest cities in California. At camp site 42 we even had an equestrian stall! We ate at an amazing place called TJ’s Oyster Bar. Oh. My. The food was heavenly! I had some fish tacos, Ty had a smoked fish burrito, and Conor had a salmon burrito. All were so inexpensive and delicious! We were stoked about it. 

After driving from Flagstaff to Phoenix to pick up Conor from the airport, we stopped at an auto shop to replace the two tires on our trailer that weren’t functional (had a blowout north of Flagstaff and the spare was flat. But I learned how to reseal a bead on a tire using a gas station air pump!). Anyway, we had planned on making it to San Diego that night to camp close to the border and cross early in the morning. That did not happen. Just as we were merging onto I-8 at the southern tip of the town called Gila Bend (Pronounced: He-la Bend), our car (Sher-Khan, the ’99 forerunner) started revving really high and stopped shifting all together. We pulled over to the side of the road and checked what was going on up front. Turns out the transmission fluid was leaking all over and the radiator coolant was gone. Ouch! Our poor car. There was nothing we could do standing on the side of the road, so we called AAA and got ourselves a tow truck. Luckily, Gila Bend has a shop the works with A...

Waking up at five thirty was so easy to do knowing that we would be seeing some of the most beautiful sites the west has to offer. All our camping gear was packed and loaded and we were on our way! We drove down to St George and met our friend Shelby for brunch and continued on toward the great Grand Canyon National Park. In and out of Kaibab National Forest we drove until we finally got into the park at the south rim. It was absolutely breathtaking! We couldn't believe how much snow there was! The canyon was so clear and crisp, but the edges we were on were ankle deep in ice and slush. Who knew it got so cold there? Luckily, that didn't perturb us one bit. We enjoyed seeing some of God's finest earthly creations with our own eyes! What a great experience.   and yes, Ty is wearing a headband... :)