It Just Keeps Getting Better From Now On

The Hot Springs LTVA might not be the most scenic place on earth, a cousin keeps calling it a "Gravel Pit" and when we turned in here back in the fall of 2005 Bea wondered about the same. 

So why on earth are we, and a lot of other folks, returning here year after year? It is not entirely free camping as we pay a fee for being here. $180 is not a whole lot, but keeps some riffraff out. And we know that our garbage is taken care off, that there is a host and that we can get packages sent here. And not only our kitchen garbage is taken away, but also our wastewater can be deposited in a nearby sanitary station.

The same town (Holtville) offers shopping, a bank, a post office and gas stations. And only 13 miles farther down the I-8, there are all the big-box stores. So you see there are a lot of conveniences attached to it.

But would that be enough to return here year after year?

It wouldn't.

What about the Hot Spring? Great, but we also have a working shower stall in the rig.

The essence of the attraction is we have always found nice fellow campers here plus the fact that the LTVA (Long-term visitor-area) offers so many nice spots to tug away your RV, either between local desert vegetation or in the open areas. And if one likes hiking, there are literally miles of desert just waiting for you to explore. 

And last but not least, we feel safe here. There has never been any real serious problem out here.

So with this knowledge we consider this our winter home.

For us personally, we enjoyed another great benefit today.

 In the city of El Centro there is an ALDI Store. And Aldi is German, which means they also have European products, at this time before Christmas, all the known products we looked forward to as kids growing up in Germany. 

Needless to say this morning we had to check out ALDI's goodies, and we did not return empty-handed!!

The Day After

 After settling in at the rest area we had a good sleep without any nightmares. The place remained quiet as no truckers stayed overnight there.

We had a great breakfast and started the last leg of our trip.

Everything was going to be OK today, the coach ran just fine, no overheating issues of any kind. A short lunch break and onwards to California we went. While running down the highway a lot of memories were coming up. So many years ago it was that we had our first visit at the Hot Springs. Back then in 2005 we came from the west coast. That first changed in the fall of 2009 after we had moved to the Canadian Maritimes. It lengthened our journey with a full week. Some years we got hit by snow or also strong crosswinds. There has always been a host of challenges and problems. They all got solved by our determination to make it work, to be warm and in a safe spot for the winter. 

Friends came and went, we all met in camp, sharing values you can only find in an RV Community. And it wasn't "only" the warm weather but also the desire to have a break in your usual life style in a bricks and sticks home. In an RV you are much closer to nature, closer to weather, and many times closer to humanity.

Today there is a new group of RVers out there. They are younger, they occupy themselves differently. Many still work - remotely making money on the go. Finding income while traveling remained a dream for many during those days 20 years ago. Technology has stood for those changes. Our phones today do not cause high roaming fees. People can have international plans, some have unlimited data and phone. In 2005 and 2006 we dragged bulky satellite dishes mounted on heavy tripods with us, and a phone line had to be connected to a router inside your RV. It was terribly expensive and cumbersome.

Back then solar panels were super expensive, we paid $500 for a 100W panel. and we had just 2 of them.

Those are just a few changes we gone through over the years.

What still is the same is the desire for a place that always felt like a second home. 

Tonight we spent time at a campfire exchanging stories, enjoying the company.

Thanksgiving is over for now, and we sure have a lot to be thankful for.

Leaving Mexico

So the day of departure from this beautiful, jet for us not acceptable location, had finally arrived. After saying Good Bye to our neighbours, we rolled up to the paved highway turning north onto Carretera 15 after a few minutes.

The coach was running great with the temperature staying where it should be.

Had a short rest stop beside the highway then took on the last 1.5hrs until the border.

Our plan was crossing into the US at the Mariposa Truck border, but when getting into Nogales we both overlooked a sign to Mariposa, or maybe there wasn't a sign? There sure was a lot of construction going on. So we got sucked into one of the worst city traffics I have ever seen, and that includes driving a motor coach in Manhattan.

Honestly Nogales is worse, by a lot. Just imagine our 65ft rig moving along narrow city streets with tons of Mexican drivers while following the FRONTERA USA sign. But that is the crossing within the city - so not for us. We were looking for Mariposa border crossing. Bea was frantically trying to locate a way out of this hellscape and eventually directed the driver to hang a sharp left. Don't know how I bent the coach around that corner. The area we went through I have no words for. Chaos erupted all around us, but somehow we suddenly entered a broader highway and followed traffic.

A sign for the border crossing popped up. It showed a scary height restriction: 3m. Oooops!!! So we chose to break the line, which led us to a dead end. Yess, and a turn around operation looked pretty difficult. With Bea at the rear directing and holding back traffic, I backed up into the road we came from, then, after 3 attempts, I bent the hole thing a 180 around so we got out of this mouse trap. 

The area to the right showed closed gates. The truck border - now closed

 

"The Line to the border"

An inquiry with some police officers hanging around the area brought out the whole drama: The truck border crossing was closed until further notice or after a current trucker protest was over. So we had to get back in line, the very same line we had broken out of 15 minutes earlier. But for that I had to perform a full U-turn across a busy highway.

Again we were facing the height restriction of 3m which is ridiculously low for our rig. But at the same time there was also a sign for BUSES which lit a flame of hope in us.

2 CBP officers where just hanging around there so Bea shouted a question out the window. The 2.officer started walking up a lane beginning at our right and was now removing a cone and asking us to follow. 

The entry into that lane was so narrow that when I watched the trailer going by the concrete divider on the driver side there wouldn't have been space for a sheet of paper in between. So now we were in the right lane and moving towards a closed steel gate where an officer eventually appeared to open the barrier.

What followed after that was probably a routine inspection, involving 3 officers.

Next on the agenda was the slow drive through a scanner. Not more than 3miles/hr. please. What we missed was the green light above the scanner. So when the officer came running behind us we (I) were asked to please back the whole rig through the scanner to repeat the exercise. 

That scanner pass-through is only inches wider than our coach. Bea, who tried to be the spotter, was quickly ordered back into the coach. So the last act of this drama was finished when we made it successfully through the scanner a second time, and got the "Get the hell out of here" from the officer.

I might be partly, willfully or not, blind, (when I can't find the butter in the fridge) but yet I am pretty damn glad that I can back up a trailer and do wild U-turns on a busy street.

The first stop after the border was to fill up our Diesel tank. 298 Dollars later we went down the I-19 and eventually turned into a nice rest area for the night.

Those truckers are all victims of the Mexican trucker protest

Afterall there will be another day tomorrow.

Is There A Ghost In The COMET HOUSE?

 Got a busy day today. After our signature breakfast, which is crispy rolls with jam, some cheese, scrambled eggs and coffee, we did a morning walk with Dixie. And that way I found out that the main road was now fully drivable. A fellow camper had paid the operator of a grader to come in and fix all the roads in the area. That was yesterday, and the sun had now dried out most of the mud. That meant we could leave for our next adventure.

Destination for Friday is set to Holtville Hot Springs, California. 

The Hot Springs have always been the place we had turned to when other destinations hadn't worked out.

One year we were on the Florida Panhandle, when it got extremely cold and icicles grew from our trailer. We left and went...to the Hot Springs. Another time we tried southern Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. It started drizzling and stayed on for a full week turning everything into mud. We left and went back to the Hot Springs. So now you understand....Mexico, and then the Hot Springs.

But back to our agenda today.

In order to cross into the US, we were in need for a "Screw worm certificate" for Dixie. So our appointment with an approved vet was at 10am. The vet checked out Dixie and we left with the desired paper. 

While returning to camp we visited the "Comet House", an abandoned structure high on a hill. It is a building constructed around an atrium and it certainly gave us eerie feelings. What kind of people had lived here, how old was the building? The center is marked by a beautiful star built with blue tiles, and we believe that there once was a fountain in the middle.

The location offers stunning 360 degree views, and we could make out our RV in the far distance. 

The Senora

There are plenty bougainvillea growing all around the building, as if they want to hide the decay, by making it all more beautiful.

The following afternoon was dedicated to prepare for departure in the morning.

After a month of staying in this spot, there seemed to be half a million things to do. The last thing was loading the car onto the trailer, which is quite the precision work. Tying it down takes quite a while as well.

Finally, it looked like there was nothing more to do than sitting down for supper, which had been prepared by Bea.

While we had been busy in the afternoon, our very smart dog Dixie had found out what was going on. She tried to stay as close as possible, reminding us not to forget her  and before I got back in the bus I found Dixie whining in front of the screen door, waiting to be let inside.

So, hopefully, tomorrow we will have great day of travel up north. 

Stunning views from the Comet House