9/11

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I'm sure that for all of us, this was a life altering event. I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor and the ensuing WW2, but I'm sure that those who do remember, remember it well.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was close, but the Kennedy Assassination was my first. On November 22, 1963, I was at sea on an aircraft carrier, the USS Constellation CVA-64. I remember the announcement over the 1-MC. In no time at all, we all wanted to spool up the Phantoms. We all felt, as I still feel, that Castro was behind it all.

The truth about that little event has never, to my satisfaction, been told.

But I digress.

On 9/11/2001, I get a call from a friend back in Indiana asking me if I'm up yet and do I have the TV on. The answers to that two-part question was no and no. I put on the TV and don't really belive what I'm seeing. I thought that it was a hoax. It had to be like Orson Wells, War of the Worlds, hoax. But as we all sadly know, it wasn't.

It was the second life changing event of my life.

We must remember that over 3000 innocent people were executed on that day. Ben Laden and Al Qaeda are like playground bullies at school. They aren't necessarily the toughest kids in the yard. But they are the sociopaths who continue to beat up the kids who are not able, or willing, to defend themselves. They continue, bolder and bolder, unabated to throw their weight around until one day, the big kid, who has seen finally enough ambles over and kicks the crap out of them. It is time for us to quit pussyfooting around, afraid that we're going to piss the extremists off. Piss the extremists off? What do they have to do, kill another 30,000 Americans before we wake up and face the fact that they are already very pissed off. If the Sunnis want to kill the Shiites, and vice versa, let them kill each other. They have been doing it for thousands of years.

Kids and dogs because they don't have a well developed sense of right and wrong, will weigh the consequences of their acts before eating all of the cookies or peeing on the carpet. If they think that the reprisals for their acts are lesser than the repercussions, they will go ahead with their mischief.

If we amble over and do some big-time ass kicking, I think that they will contain their bullying to their own sandbox and stay away from us.

Burn Baby Burn

It was a stupid idea in Nazi Germany, during the Watts riots and it still is.

Burning entire neighborhoods, flags and books.

What way is there to proclaim to the entire world that I was born with a head full of shit instead of brains.

Truth be told, I have always been a but leery of Arabs and Muslims and since 9/11, I just plain don't like them. They want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Do they have the right to do it here in the good old USA? Is it right? Hell no. Now we have some asshole(s) in, where else, Florida who are making a lot of headlines by talking about a public burning of the Koran. One again, do they have the right? Again, yes. Is it just plain wrong? The burning of someone's holy book, like our King Jame's Bibles, is WRONG, and everyone should speak out.

When I was a kid, the Soviet Union had a lot of nuclear weapons. We had Air Raid drills at school and I just knew that some day there would be a big, bright flash and the world, as I knew it, would either end or really change.

Then the Red Chinese were the BIG threat.

But it also passed.

Now it's the Islamic fanatics.

You know what? Here is what is going to happen. Just like the East Germans and the Russians,

the Muslim women, sooner or later, are going to get pissed off.

Communist dominated women wanted Mercedes Benzes, TVs, refrigerators and dishwashers and Communism wouldn't support such consumerism and the whole flawed system crumbled like a Trabant.

As the world grows metaphorically smaller and flatter, I don't think that the woman in the Islamic world will take the veils, burkas and other subjugation much longer. And when the Camel dung hits the fan, that system will change as quickly as The Evil Empire did.

Flugtag

Let's see, what to do this weekend. Oh yah. Red Bull is staging a flugtag here in Long Beach. In case you're not familiar with this event, allow me to explain. First of all, as you probably figured out, Flugtag is German. Flug means flt and tag, pronounced tock, means day. Got it Flying Day.

It's a joke. Those Krauts have a warped sense of humor. The whole idea is teams build flying machines out of strofoam and ripcloth and assemble them with duct tape and a glue gun. The idea is to see how far these craft will fly off of a thirty foot high platform.

Get the joke yet? There aint no way these things can fly. Fall yes, fly nope.

Any way, on Saturday I took the Golden Girl down to Rainbow Harbor, my old live aboard home and enjoyed the party with 105,000 other aviation fans. Sadie wasn't impressed, I was. It was a bucket list event for me. Vini, vidi, vichi. I came, I saw, I had a beer.

Travels With Andy, La Paz

Andy and I got into La Paz Friday afternoon. It was a fun trip, but I was glad the we were finally in town. The Slice of Life II is a seventy foot Pacemaker and is about the most luxurious boat afloat. Each stateroom has it's own air-conditioner unit. After the 106 degree heat outside it made for near-perfect napping, which I did.

The Slice has a very nice hard-bottomed inflatable dingy so after my nap, I took a spin around the marinas after which, we all took advantage of the marina's pool.

To sum things up. Would I take this trip again? Yes.

In a car? I wouldn't. But I'm a pickup guy. The road is "paved" and for most of the trip, in pretty good condition. I would also carry one, or better yet two, five gallon cans of gas. There are some pretty long stretches between gas station in central Baja. A map that shows where gas stations are located is a must. The Mexican map that we bought along the way sucked. It wasn't, at all, up to date. Some of the places that showed Pemex stations located had crumpled vestiges. The AAA map is much more accurate.

Is it dangerous? It never even crossed my mind that there was a possibility of danger while we were on the road.

Did I burn out on Mexican food? Yes, but only for a day, or two.

Travels With Andy, Loreto to La Paz.

I am seriously considering retiring in Baja Sur. I thought that I'd like to live in La Paz because it is big enough to have certain amenities that we Gringos feel the we can't live without. Things like electricity and running water and maybe a supermarket. But now I'm starting that La Paz is going to hell just like Cabo San Lucas already has. I didn't see a Starbucks yet, but the do have a Walmart. The Walmart is OK, but when the Starbucks opens, I think I'll move on to a quieter, saner place. One of my Plan B options is Loreto/Peurto Escondido, so when we pulled out of Loreto, we took a small side to Escondido.

Yah, this is mas pacifico, more peaceful. After driving down the coast for a half hour and enjoying the sights along Loreto Bay, MX1 veered west and inland for the next few hours. We tanked up at the Pemex in Viudad Constitucion and started to look for a cute place to eat. We ran out of town before we found anything so we just kept rolling along. A bit south of Santa Rita, I said that I was stopping at the very next place that had food and we found this charming little place along the side of the road.

There was no menu. You could have a machaca burrito or a machaca quesidilla. What else do you have we asked? Oh, you can have a machaca & egg burito or a machaca & egg quesidilla. That was about it. But the beer was cold.
We ate and once again, hit the road to La Paz.

Next episode, thoughts on Baja, Loreto, Peurto Escondido, La Paz and Mexico & Mexicans.

Travels With Andy, Baja Sur to Loreto

We, Andy & I, crossed into Baja Sur about noon on Thursday. More desert, rocks and Baja highway. As we approached The Sea of Cortez you could sense that we were putting the desert behind us and the sea was looming ahead.

On our way to the sea, we crossed over this stream with palms etc. It was very scenic.

Finally we came to the Gulf and drove into Santa Rosita, a really cute little fishing town with a few stoplights and the trappings of a small city. We lunched in town and I had, what else, more grilled Yellowtail. Can't get enough of that Yellowtail.

South of Mulege, we stopped at a beach called Playa Santispac on the Bahia Concepcion. The water was the warmest that I've been in outside of a tub, it was about ninety six which isn't too surprising being the air temperature was 106. Not only was the water vary warm, but the salinity seem higher than normal so we got an eight pack of Modelo beer and floated around sipping that good Mexican beer.

The Germans set up breweries in Mexico and the Mexicans became almost as good as the Krauts at brewing beer. My two favorites are Pacifico probably because it has anchors and other nautical crap on the label and Bohemia because it's so damned good.

Conception Bay is huge, and we drove along it for over half of an hour. Each time we rounded a corner, the view was so spectacular that I wanted to pull the truck over and take yet another photo. We got into Loreto a bit early to stop for the night but we stopped for the evening anyway because we were hot and tired and, most of all thirsty for more beer. We stayed at the Oasis Hotel right on the beach and I had more grilled fish for dinner. Friday morning we got up early and when I went outside, I was befuddled for a moment. Not too difficult for me to be on any given morning.

I was looking at the Sun rising over the sea, a sight that I don't see to often living in California. I then realized that we were on the east coast of Baja and I was seeing the Sun rise over the Sea of Cortez, AKA The Golf of California. It was a very nice way to begin the day.

We next stopped at Puerto Escondido which was very nice. But that's a subject in the next exciting chapter entitled The Third Day.

Travels With Andy, Baja Norte

The other day, my neighbor Andy May asked me if I wanted to help him drive down Baja to La Paz Mexico. Andy captains a seventy foot yacht which he takes down to La Paz for six months of the year and wanted some help driving his truck with a boat trailer in tow. Being I was waiting for a large check to clear at the back and was essential stranded in the marina because I only had $3 in my pocket and I considered it a trip of a lifetime, I said hell yes. Now I, and a hell of a lot of other people, have traveled extensively. I’ve hopped on airplanes and have jetted to Europe, Australia, Japan and Korea which are all basically pleasure trips. Driving down Baja was a bonfide adventure. Literally, a trip of a lifetime for me. It’s not the Baja 1000 race over dirt roads but we were pulling a trailor with a nineteen foot Boston Whaler on it down some pretty crummy and narrow pavement.

Long Beach to Ensenada through TJ was pretty routine. South of Ensenada you cross the “frontier” into the “real” Mexico. For a few hundred miles, most all of the bridges along the road were being replaced and there aint nuttin’ like a Mexican detour. The boat trailer was bouncing like hell and the Whaler was bouncing on the trailer most of the time.

We stopped for lunch the first afternoon at a little restaurant near the Mission San Vicente. I figured that as long as I am in Baja, I'd load up on fish so I had grilled Yellowtail which is the "well" fish in Baja.

We spent the first night in Catavina, a little town in the Mexican desert that appeared to be dying. The Pemex gas station had closed and there was a very nice hotel called The Desert Inn is where we stayed which had to make it’s own electricity with their own generator which quit periodically. It was a bit pricey, $85/night for two, for being in the middle of the Mexican desert, but it was truly the only game in town. No fish here, so I had Pollo con Mole. It was bueno.

Off we went the next morning at 6 AM through some of the most rugged terrain that I have ever driven through. Narrow bumpy roads with dips called vados that water washes through when it rains. When it rains along there, there is no way you could get a car, or even the pickup truck through. Along the way, I drove over a rock, imagine that rocks on a Mexican road, and punctured the left front tire. Before we could get the jack set up, an Angeles Verdes appeared and changed our tire. The Green Angels patrol the highways in Mexico to assist tourists at no charge. It was the first time I recall seeing one and there he was and we were on our way in no time.

About noon, we stopped for coffee in Gerraro Negro which is where the Twenty Eighth Parallel is. The 28^th is the official dividing line between Baja California Norte (North) and the state of Baja California Sur (South). Every fifty, or so, miles there is a military checkpoint where some uniformed, and armed, Mexican solder asks you where you’re coming from and where you are going. Most don’t speak a word of English and talk very fast but after awhile, you just automatically say Long Beach California after the first burst of Spanish and then say La Paz after the second burst. They all seem to be nice and friendly and a few want to chat a bit to try out their limited English. I’m not sure what is really going on, but I’m guessing that the Mexicans are trying to discourage the drug traffic and also to try and show that everyone is relatively safe from the gangstas.

Next Baja Sur to Mulege.