North to the USA

March 22 - A drastic change of colour as we headed north.

We had a night at Fidel's RV Park, where we'd stayed on our way down, about 16 km south of San Quintin. Fidel's fronts a wide and long strand of beach made of yellow and black intermixed sand with shiny gold flecks. When we arrived in the late afternoon, we were greeted with howling winds. We tried to enjoy a beer on the beach, but the blowing sand filled our cups. By morning, the wind was gone and we went on a long walk/run on the beach and through the dunes with Coco. It is a beautiful spot in full thanks to Mother Nature's artistry.

Leaving Fidel's north towards Ensenada, we slowly passed through many villages and then winded through green hills. We kept saying "Is this the same way we came down?" It looked completely different with spring flowers and greenery vs the barren desert-scape it was in December. We could have been driving through the fields between Armstrong and Enderby!

Then is started raining fairly heavily just before Ensenada (our third experience with rain during the entire winter!) and the city was flooded with mud pits and roadside rivers. As someone told us, "Ensenada has such a drainage problem, it floods if anyone spits!".

We reached Sordo Mundo RV park about 30 km northeast of the city late in the afternoon and prepped for the next morning's border crossing. We'd been warned that Tecate's border gets busy and to head there early, so we packed, prepared and set our alarms for 6 AM.

It was still dark when the alarm went off so we napped a bit longer, made coffee and hit the road at 6:45, reaching Tecate in just under an hour. We were shocked to find a line for the border stretching about 1.5 km! The US side of the Tecate border is complete wilderness for miles but nonetheless there still seems to be numerous Mexicans that want to cross early in the day; we were the only RVers in the line. We pondered why Trump says he wants to build a fence...there is a 12' high corrugated steel fence all along the border that we saw for miles even after we crossed.

We got through at 9:15 AM after a very brief "interview" - they didn't even inspect the trailer and the only question about Coco was "Does it have a rabies shot?". Yes, but no request to see proof. Even so, we are glad we did everything properly and to the letter of the law as you never know when there may be a more thorough inspection, and we wouldn't want to jeopardize our status as trusted travellers.

Driving through Southern California between San Diego and Yuma was a revelation. No one ever talks about that area of land...there are no parks or tourism but it is immensely stunning. The road curved through canyons of immense rose boulders dotted with greenery. In the early morning, the temperature gauge stayed in the 8-9 degree range. Then we reached an area of the highway with steep 6% grades downwards. A sign at the top of the slope said 3000 ft elevation and to expect strong winds. No kidding! Within 20 minutes, we had reached sea level flat desert, passed massive wind and solar farms, and watched the temperature rise to 25 degrees!