Here am i : Dodging rattle snakes and eating shark.

12/7/12

Dodging rattle snakes and eating shark.

I have a confession to make. I'm not actually in Mexico.

I know it looks like I am...and I was...but I'm not.

Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen surrounded by mountains of laundry and stacks of luggage waiting to be emptied, sorted and put away.

The weather outside is a balmy -20 degrees Celcius and the air is so dry that my skin feels like I might molt.

So there you have it ...the ugly truth. I'm freezing my hiney off as I post pictures of a warm sunny location.

We arrived home last night, everyone is exhausted from our 3 day/ 36 hr driving marathon from Mexico to the Canadian Prairies, everyone is sick with one virus or another picked up along the way...and my house is a disaster. Utterly chaotic.

but for now.....

I will remember last week. Last week was fun...and warm.

I didn't have much for internet access for the past month and none for about the last week so I didn't get many of our adventures posted.

So I'm planning on an adventure cluster dump....so stay tuned.

One sunny morning we decided to hike "HR rock" that stands among the rugged hills not too far from our little Baja house. We were joined by our neighbor. A man who actually lives and farms only a couple hours from us back home and also spends time serving with various ministries in the San Quintin Valley. He rented the trailer that is parked next to our house (in our same fenced yard) so he was blessed to be woken up by my howler monkey children every morning and a little girl knocking on his window saying 'HEY!". It was fun to have him hang out with us and it kind of nice to know there was another dude on the property. We didn't have a guard dog...but we had Warren the super taco eater.

A view of the newest kind of farming happening in the valley. These tent things reduce the amount of water they need to irrigate (all the farms require irragition from an aquifer).

A view of the dry river bed (the same one that flooded us out back in 2010)

It was a pretty rugged climb for a two year old. Warren also came in handy as toddler transportation. I also don't know what we were thinking letting the boys where shorts. I remember saying that they should wear jeans but then didn't bother to check on them before they hopped into the car. Dodging the cactus and prickly bushes was a challenge. We didn't come across any rattle snakes, so that was a bonus.

At the top and a view looking east toward the Baja mountains.

It was a bit nerve wracking. Once again I pictured my children bouncing down the cliffs to their deaths. I made them sit...unless they were firmly attached to my sweaty death grip hands.

More farm land and the town dump burning out in the background.

Facing west toward more farm land, the town of Colonia Vicente Guerrero and then the Pacific ocean in the distance.

The field workers bent over their crops with an open cab tractor spraying chemicals nearby.

Our family minus Aili. We lost her along the way.

Actually she was back in town doing crafts and baking with Amber...who, for the record, is way better at those things than her mom is.

If you look carefully you can see the HR up on the rock. There is a story there that goes back to describe quite a fascinating history of the area...but in my current state of confused exhaustion I can't seem to remember it with any sort of historica accuracy. I'll leave the tale of how Senior Hector Rodriguez slayed the last flying rattle snake saving the entire town from a hail storm made of giant chili balls for another day.

After our hike we took a little sight seeing trip down the dry river bed. These pipes are what supply our town water. No wonder the water is constantly unavailable....