27 and 28 May, 2000

Our memorial day weekend turned out much differently than anticipated. It started out as planned with breakfast in Mission Beach for Steve, Beebee, her Dad and Greta. With a great view of the boardwalk, we sipped coffee and gobbled pancakes and got to see the Mission Beach institution that is the crazy guy who dresses up (or rather down, as he usually wears a large head decoration and a very small thong Speedo) for every major holiday. He then parades around Mission Beach for the entire day, usually on roller skates. Quite a site to see.

The unexpected happened while driving down to Mexico on Sunday for a little dunes, lobster and cerveza when we had a sudden deluge of coolant hit the windshield.

Not good.

Looks like the belt to the water pump is destroyed… which leads us to believe that the water pump seized (not horrifically uncommon, but unexpected) The radiator also has a 3 inch split along the top tank….. could be the sign of a not-so-great radiator (for which the previous owner had paid a very high price a mere 3 years ago) or maybe the rad cap was super-lousy and the pressure simply split the weld in the radiator.

The two things are clearly related, but we are not sure how just yet. Regardless, we are broken down right now, at Christine Miller's house (a childhood pal of Beebee's).

Bummer, to be sure, probably less than $500 in repair (new radiator~$250, new water pump~$100, new belt~$22, coolant~$15) but….. ya never know till the work gets started. Worst case scenario is that the engine block or the head is cracked from over-heating…. maybe we'll have that diesel engine after all! :^)

Regardless, we are really glad this happened now and not while we were out in the middle of nowhere. It isn't anything that we could have predicted, per se, just one of those things…. there is a really good chance that the slightly-out-of-line alternator that Steve installed may have been the proverbial straw that broke the water pump, er… Camel's back. FWIW, Super-B (Brian Sullivan) did suggest replacing the water pump "just in case", and we didn't. The current one is only a few years old, after all. Super-B: looks like you may owe us an "I told you so".

Since our winch is not expected to arrive for another five days or so, this isn't so much a time as a money inconvenience. The worst part is that we missed out on joining our good friends in Baja and eating lots of lobster and beer with them. Fortunately we told them to push on without us and we hope that they had a great day.

On the plus side, we spent most of the day (after waiting two hours for AAA, thank goodness for AAA) sitting in front of the pool drinking margaritas and enjoying the sun. First time that both of us have spent a few hours sunbathing in…. too long.

Later, Chris' boyfriend, Pat, and his brother, Sean came over for a late dinner and much gin and tonic drinking.

Last night we drove up to Palm Springs to stay in a family friend's condo. (Thank you so very much Brooks and Diane.) Six thirty in the morning brought cool (maybe only 85 degrees) air, gorgeous purple-pink sunlight on the craggy, ragged, towering mountains and desert-dry, sharp blue skies.

We went for a walk, played bocci ball in the sprinklers, nursed Steve's bee-stung toe (the only bad thing that happened all during Jocelyn's Birthday Observed); ate sweet cherries, grapes, yogurt and sparkling water on the shaded patio; drank beer by the pool while playing backgammon and swimming; lazed in the sun until well after five; and enjoyed dinner and ice cream before falling into bed, suntired and happy.

Now that is Beebee's idea of a birthday.

We find ourselves weary of waiting and re-doing. Our excitement for the trip grows again in great leaps when we meet new people who get interested and excited for us, but once back at the truck, faced with all the minor unfinished projects, our momentum wanes. The list we made up several days ago, helps. We decided that we would incur no more new projects (unavoidable ones are just that and don't count) until we complete the list. Twenty items remain and it gives Beebee great joy to black them out completely with a large Sharpie!

Lack of momentum aside, we owe a great thanks to Todd and his new roommate, Tony, for providing us with a warm place to stay and a driveway in which to work on Sandy. Our job might not be as easy or as pleasant elsewhere and we are very aware of that fact. At the moment we're enjoying "Hercules Returns" and the company of Todd's newest pet, Tempest.

Sonja'd been up early, so she was down for the count after that, but Cris, Steve and Beebee cabbed it out to another club and heard two more bands.

Needless to say, Steve and Beebee's work day productivity levels are low today. So, not wanting to break our minimalist work ethic, we're off to see "Gone In 60 Seconds".

-- Addendum: "Gone In 60 Seconds" was sold out, but we saw "Road Trip" instead and found it pretty darn hilarious.

Monday morning found us back on our way to Hemet (about an hour and a half drive) to see Mike at Rock Solid. Work is progressing, albeit never as quickly as we hope that it will. It seems that there is a nearly endless supply of completely valid but totally frustrating delays. Temperatures at Rock Solid were up over 100 degrees most of the week, indoors. Add welding and/or painting to that kind of heat and you've got a pretty miserable situation.

There were some triumphs, however. Our winch finally got here! Its arrival is a perfect example of the delays we've faced- we started trying to get the darn thing in April and got the run-around from everyone we spoke to (including Superwinch themselves). Mike finally managed to get one for us (thanks Mike) but even then it took over three weeks to get the winch sent and another week of shipping. Oh well, at least it is here.

Imagine our dismay when Steve went to install the winch and found out that it wouldn't fit! Mind you: this is the winch that is supposedly manufactured to fit the ARB bullbar, and the exact same winch/bar combo that we had before. So Steve spent the better part of one day trying to shift the mounting holes ¼" to the right. A power drill and a brand new carbide boring bit were no match for the ARB Bullbar. We ended up using Mike's plasma cutter to do the work. After a long day of drilling and cutting to make it all fit, Steve lined the winch up and… it still sat too low. We really hadn't expected to remodel the bullbar just to install the winch and it was too late in the day to do any more work. We did finally get it all squared away and installed by Friday. We haven't done the fairlead yet, but it should go on easily.

Other triumphs included getting our stuff packed and re-packed, thanks entirely to Beebee. We managed to shed a few more cubic feet of stuff that we don't really need, and we also found more efficient ways to pack things away.

We also finally got Gimpy (the trailer) back from the sandblaster. It was a four hour job that only took two weeks to complete. Mike hosed it down with a zinc chromate primer so we are finally rust-free and should stay that way. Of course, it was supposed to be rust-free and primered when we purchased it, but that is an issue that we need to take up with the manufacturer. All things considered, we got a lousy deal on the trailer and could have and should have gone about getting it very differently. If we knew then half of what we know now we would have gotten a much better trailer for a much lower price. Steve is still of the opinion that the manufacturer deserves a chance to set things straight somehow so he won't let Beebee bad mouth them on the site, yet.

Overall, the best part of the week was camping out at Lake Hemet, about 40 minutes from the shop- Northeast and up. Maybe only 30 minutes if you travel by car instead of by cruiser. The road up to the lake is fairly steep and very twisty- absolutely not the best thing for a heavy, lifted truck like ours. Not if you want to go fast, anyway. At least the view from 4,000 feet is lovely.

Also lovely was camping out, alone, by the side of a beautiful lake. We were lucky enough to have a nearly full moon on each of the three nights we stayed there and the reflection off of the water was breathtakingly beautiful. Too bad we were so pooped from working all day in the heat or it would have been a terribly romantic spot. Mostly we ate and flopped out in our tent by about 10 pm. One cool thing was that we got a different campsite each night as we were gone all day and took our stuff with us to keep it safe. It was also nice to be physically cool. Temps were much lower up at the lake than in Hemet.

       

Also, and perhaps more importantly, we got some practice at setting up and breaking camp with the new gear that we have purchased since the theft. We found a few important items that we had forgotten about and discovered that a few of the things we have aren't really as useful as we thought they would be. Beebee is, again, the queen of packing and has narrowed down the space required by our camping gear.

Friday we headed back to San Diego to hang out with at Todd's place. Todd and Tony have been exceptionally generous with their living room, not to mention garage and driveway. Thanks, guys.

We are planning to try to cross the border, again, this weekend to finally get some beer and lobster. We'll post a report on how that goes sometime midweek.

We finally made it across the border without incident! Whoo-hooo!

Friday brought with it a sincere desire to run down to Puerto Nuevo, Mexico for some lobster and beer. After a quick phone call to Christine and Patrick we agreed to pick them up on Saturday morning for an overnight trip.

Despite the fact that Puerto Nuevo is a mere 49 Km south of the US/Mexican border, the contrast between southern San Diego and northern Baja California is, at times, stunning. Chris and Pat had not taken the opportunity to drive down yet so we were pleased to play tour guide a little bit and show them around. At one point Beebee was very excited to look up the names of the Coronado Islands (clearly visible throughout much of the drive down) in our new Mexican Road Atlas. To her dismay the three islands' names are pretty droll- Norte, Del Medio and Sur. In English that is "North, middle, South". Not very imaginative names for such pretty islands. Oh-well.

After a quick drive down, about an hour, we got to Puerto Nuevo and settled in for some serious eating. Our meal of fried lobsters, beans, rice, garlic-fried fish and copious fresh tortillas (all with excellent salsa) was accompanied by a group of ten or twelve musicians playing loud traditional music. What started out as being a bit overwhelming turned into really fun live music when we realized that we had all payed to see American bands that have been far louder and less talented- these guys were really good. We all agreed, however that the music is a bit of an acquired taste.

When we finally pushed our bulging bellies from the table we had managed to consume literally all of the delicious lobster, fish and condiments that we could eat, add to that a generous number of beers, and all for a total tab of less than $50 for the four of us. Chris and Pat now understand why we love Puerto Nuevo so much.

We spent some time shopping the street vendors while our food settled, then grabbed some supplies and headed another 10 Km or so down the coast to our favorite little campground. Campground is a bit of a generous term when in reality the place is not much more than a gated dirt driveway where you pay $5/car to drive out into a grassy field that runs right up to the sandy beach. We found a large empty spot to park and the boys set to work building what turned out to just about be a fireplace out of rocks while the gals attended to setting up tents and buying an extra bag of firewood to burn.

As night fell we built a nice fire and spent the next several hours just relaxing with good company. It's pretty hard to beat a small group of good people, a fire, a few adult beverages and an ocean view. Great night.

Sunday came crashing down on us with coolish weather and a no-show on the part of this little old lady that usually carries a bucket of steaming tamales out to the beach to sell for breakfast. We sure hope she is ok, but were awfully disappointed that she didn't show up!

While most of us were feeling fine after a cup of coffee, it seemed that Chris reacted poorly to either the food or the (copious) drink the night before so we spent a few hours letting her recoup before driving back up to PN for lunch. Lunch was much more sedate than Saturday's- with all of us ordering sodas and a quesadilla or two instead of the monster feast we had eaten the day before. Beebee and Steve also got some good halibut ceviche, and Pat got an entirely decadent Queso Fundido with Chorizo. Just think fried fondue, with sausage. Yummy.

Crossing from Mexico to the US on a Sunday afternoon is always a drag, and being Father's Day didn't help much. Steve tried to remember a shortcut to the border that we had learned previously, and got it mostly right. Beebee tried to help with the Atlas- but that didn't do much. We are hoping that said Atlas is more accurate in other parts of the country as it didn't seem to do much for us finding our way back to the border after Steve took a wrong turn (poorly marked sign, he says).

Once we finally found the border, it was s l o w traffic for an hour or so. Not that bad, really, and time went all the quicker because we played a round or two of Hearts. Steve narrowly escaped getting whomped when we finally hit the little crossing kiosk just before the axe fell on his miserable hand.

All in all, a great weekend jaunt with two friends we are going to miss an awful lot.

So we finally rolled into the shop around 11 am. A little later than we intended. Oh, that was only after we tried to drop Beebee off at the local library to get some paperwork done and were greeted by a sign that informed us that today was "kids only day" from 11 to 3. What a drag. It is a little surprising how much trouble Beebee has had just finding a desk where she can spread out a little.

Best news of the day is that Steve finally finished the wiring! Yippee! Never again will he look down his nose at electricians who charge high rates. Electrical work, at least 12v, is a pain in the patootie and very laborious. Still no battery nor alternator, mind you, but those two things should fall into place tomorrow- assuming that Steve can get the parts he needs.

Beebee spent the day wading through the accumulated paperwork associated with our insurance claim. Yuck. At least there is light at the end of the tunnel.

7:30 pm finds us driving back to San Diego, looking for some dinner and a dip in the ocean. We decided to take tomorrow off of going to Hemet as Mike can work on the bumper without us and/or the trailer, and we have a handful of errands to run in San Diego anyway. It'll be nice to have a change of scenery, at least.

We've also set a new departure date: we plan to be leave on July 1st. If there are modifications still not complete by then we'll just have to get them done on the way! The only thing that'll sway us from that date is if any of our friends decide that they can only go with us if we wait until the following weekend.

We had some necessities that we hadn't replaced yet so we spent the better part of the afternoon buying stuff and running other errands. A stop at the bank confirmed our impression that we really had better get going on our trip as we are starting to run low on available funds. All this running about the last few months, though not terribly expensive on a daily basis has been tough on the savings account. Oh-well. We've lost enough money this year on theft and fraud that we pretty much knew we'd be forced back to work sooner than anticipated anyway. Such is life. At least we still have the lion's share of our sanity.

After the movie, Beebee talked Steve into going to her favorite bead store where she picked up all kinds of goodies and had enough quiet time in the evening to make a new necklace.

Beebee braved the searing outdoor heat to do an oil change so that we could check for coolant in the oil- no signs of coolant. That's good news as it means that we probably did not damage the head gasket in our recent over-heating episode.

Steve, on the other hand, didn't manage to get much accomplished today. Seemed like every time he got into a project someone needed help, advice, or commentary. Oh-well. There is still some time tonight and he is determined to make some progress on something before he calls it a night. He did get the switch cover that he has been waiting for, so now the dash switches are all finished up, that's something.

Saturday we dropped Gimpy off looking primered, went to play in the 70 degree ocean for a few hours, then returned to find a totally new-looking Gimp. Covered in "Desert Camo" Zolotone he is looking much better than we've ever seen before.

After three months getting ready, one month recovering from the theft and another four months putting it all together again, we are both exausted, mentally tapped out, terribly excited and we think, a little gun-shy. We have gotten used to being around our friends again and others have gotten used to us being in the States.

We said goodbye once and that was a heartwrenching experience. If we haven't said goodbye again to some of you, it is only because we wish to remember spending time with you as just that, not as The Time We Said Goodbye.

We realize the date is July 2 and we're still here, but that is on purpose. We swear. Cris wants to join us on the first leg down to San Felipe and the three of us decided to wait out the Big Holiday. We plan to take off on the fourth or fifth.

Our time now gets divided between running around doing last minute things we forgot, and spending time with our friends. We lucked out and Steve's sister and husband (Karyn and Randy) happened to be in San Diego for a wedding, so we did lunch yesterday with them and and another friend Stephanie.

Our dear friend Doug got into the States from Mexico early last week and finally last night we met up with him at a one of the best local pizza joints in town, Pizza Port. After dinner we headed to the Beachcomber, a little bar with a huge skylight above the middle of the dance floor. We closed them down and had a great time with Doug.

As we packed today, Todd, Herbie, Tony and Fredrick took off for a ride out to the country for some apple pie. We wanted to go along, but Sandy and Gimpy's lack of organization kept us here.

Pangs of departure are starting to set in again: Have we forgotten something? Are we crazy? Will yet another random thing keep us from leaving? Will we really see again someday all of the people we're leaving?

For this last question, we have both certain answers and unsure feelings. Some friendships (we are lucky and so this includes almost all of ours) withstand travel, opposing faiths, beliefs, marriages, children, time. Some friendships do not. At this juncture we want so badly to stay in touch with everyone who is important in our lives right now, but we know that some, because of our too-different lives will fall away. That we think, is the hardest part of leaving.

But despite that, the unknown beckons and excites us; scares and overwhelms us and we cannot wait to meet it.