Our Christmas Tree

Hitch-hikers, snowboarding, and law firms

Hair-bag. That was the name of the hitchhiker that we picked up last weekend. We were headed up to Bridger Bowl and saw a guy with snowboarding gear with his thumb up. Brooke said, "look at that guy, he's going to walk there," (15 miles) and I pulled over the car. Nice guy, prints t-shirts and has a powder day clause in his contract. Anytime it snows at least 6 inches at night he gets off that day. Neither of us had ever met anyone named Hair-bag before and if we wouldn't have picked him up I don't think we ever would have.

The locals are saying that this is one of the best early seasons for snow in quite some time. This is our second weekend snowboarding at Bridger Bowl and it is perfect for us. Brooke is getting significantly better every day. The snow is soft and we are taking advantage of this by falling head first, back first, front first, and just about every way one can imagine.

I'm working 8 until 5 Monday through Friday at small law firm in town. I'm the legal assistant for one of the partners named Buzz. He's a great boss since he likes to teach and makes sure I know what's going on. He's also a rock and roller, playing bass for his band The Buzztones. We haven't seen them yet, but I'm sure they rock.

We are excited to go back to Wisconsin for Christmas time. Happy Holidays!

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow!

Getting ready to hit the slopes.

More snow in Bozeman.

A rare moment, just prior to falling...again.

Brooke's stunning hair!

snow capped mountains to the north

living part of our living room

Our eating half of the living room

Working and Waiting

Brooke and I are both substitute teaching at the local school district. Brooke has been everything from a first grade teacher to AP Psychology at the high school. I spent three days as a middle school Home Ec. teacher. Sewing, cooking and party planning. This has been going fairly well as at least one of us has been called everyday. I am also in search of a legal assistant position with a local law firm. Later this afternoon I have a second interview with a lawyer that specializes in Construction Law. I'm following my first ever interview with my first ever second interview.

We are all moved into our wonderful, sunny apartment in the downtown area. I'm not going to include the address since anyone can read this website. We are really happy with everything and already feel at home. At times the radiators don't kick out as much heat as we would like, but one can't have it all. And that is what blankets are for anyway.

As we are far from close friends and family, I found myself the number one prospect for accompanying Brooke to the local Wedding Show this Sunday at the Hilton. It could be described as a lot of women with a few men hiding off to the side. According to Brooke, "We came away with a few good ideas, and you got a free massage." This is true. After the wedding dress fashion show, Brooke got her hair done and I received a free massage. She looked stunning. Not so bad.

It snows just about every other day and usually melts by midafternoon. It seems as though the whole city is just waiting for the ski areas to open for the winter. Many people hike up the Bridgers for a couple turns and Big Sky opened a couple runs this last sunday. Both of these events have been highlighted in the local newspaper.

Looking Down on Bozeman.

Brooke and myself sitting next to Spanish Creek, no attempt was made to wear matching colors.

New to the Mountains

Here we are. Shortly after entering the mountains, I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Welcome to Montana, now go home." We aren't leaving anytime soon and have found the attitude of most people to be quite friendly. Fortunately we were able to spend our first two nights with a Manito-wish friend, Mike Wolfe. The Wolfe family has been incredible to us as we moved into Mike's parents basement apartment until we could find an apartment. After much searching we found a great two bedroom, hardwood floors, downtown apartment. We'll be able to move in November 1st and end our temporary living status.

We've been staying active as Mike's girlfriend Laurel took us hiking up towards Baldy Peak and then later to the Norris Hot Springs. This hike took me from Saturday until Wednesday before I could walk normally again. I'm not used to that kind of soreness. Yesterday we went for a hike at the Spanish Creek trailhead. Getting to this spot took us about 40 minutes outside of Bozeman, through Ted Turner's land, past a herd of Bison and on a rode that brought back memories of Baja.

Home.

Lil' Rascals Brass Band at Jazz Fest

Back.

Boiled crawfish and potatoes at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

We've been home for a while now. Since leaving San Miguel de Allende we bee-lined it to the border. We were able to convince the border patrol that we weren't up to no good which wasn't that easy. Let's see, no jobs, four months of surfing, outdoor recreation, you're going to have to pull over into the left lane. Fortunately the guy who talked to us was a surfer from Morocco.
Padre Island turned out to be a less than exciting place to spend a couple days. It was overcast, windy and no place to seek cover in case of rain. Our first night there we were each enjoying a Shiner Bock and on the bottle they invited us to the brewery for a tour and said they would save a cold one for us. So after surfing the next day we packed up and headed to the brewery. We missed the tour, but were still able to try some of the beers. Later that night we found a state campground that had a golf course so we stayed and chopped up the grass a little. They use prisoners to keep up the state park system so every couple holes we would see a guy in stripes cutting the grass.
From the Golfing experience we headed up to Austin to visit Brooke's sister Megan. This was interesting as the hotel she was staying in had a transvestite/transgender conference going on. Needless to say that night at the hotel bar was an eyeopening experience. After Austin we went to visit Colleen, our friend who is doing Teach for America in Baton Rouge. She gave us a great tour of the city and took us to a cajun restaurant where I was able to order a five pound bucket of crawfish. Five pounds makes the little pile from the picture here look like chicken scraps. In fact, the friend of the guy who ordered that crawfish basket at Jazz Fest wouldn't even talk to him because of overpaying for such a small amount.
From Colleens we went to Jazz Fest in New Orleans and got to see some incredible bands at the fairgrounds. And after two days of driving, we were home.
Brooke heads up to Coons June 1st, missing my brother's 21st birthday by mere hours and I have to be at Camp Manito-wish on June 4th. I'll be joining Brooke at work mid-August to finish out the summer. Next update will probably come in September when the van moves again.

Our first Texas BBQ. No forks...or plates.

Posing at the Shiner Brewery in Shiner, TX. We missed the tours but they still let us try their beers.

Jay is surfing in Corpus Christi, TX.

The local garbage men sit on top of the truck and clang on a piece of metal really loudly so that you know it is time to take out the trash. I´m sure they delight in waking up most of San Miguel as they begin working as early as 6am.

This is a view of San Miguel de Allende. We are staying in the centro near the large cathedral. This colonial city reminds us both of Europe in many ways.

This is a view of Teotihuacan from the Temple of the Moon. The Sun temple is on the left, it is much larger than the Moon and offered a great view of the smog cloud over Mexico City in the distance.

We set the camera down on a rock for this one and were pleasantly surprised. There is a pyramid behind us that we ended up blocking...oh well.

Pyramid of the Moon. We climbed up it yesterday morning and were both out of breath when we reached the top.

Into the urban jungle

We called our extreme mechanic at 11:00 a.m. and due to street noise and the difficulty of understanding spanish over the phone all we got out of it was ¨Call back in an hour¨. So we went back to our room and waited. After about 45 minutes I went back to the payphone and this time I was able to talk to Humberto and figure out that our car was done but there was something we had to see. The prospect of taking a cab out to the shop for something that we ¨had to see¨ did`t excite me too much, but it was checkout time and we packed up our stuff (minus our pillows?) and took a cab to Mecanica Extrema. When we arrived, there was an older couple from Washington who had been coming back to Humberto for the last 8 years which made me feel a little better about the whole thing. We got to crawl under the car and he showed us what he had done (service the bearing in the alternator, clean and lube absolutely everything, rotate the tires) and told us that he notices something in the transistor that could cause problems. I don`t really know if that is the name of it or what a transistor does, but by replacing the part the belt was supposed to run more smoothly. I don`t think the van has ever been this clean inside and out.

Our plan for the afternoon was to drive the couple of hours to Puebla and find a place to stay there. We got on the road and drove right past Puebla. Right as it was about to get dark Brooke said, ¨If that is the Volkswagon plant, we`re past Puebla.¨ As Puebla appeared to be a gigantic city, I didn`t have any qualms with this. We spent the night in a Highway Hotel that we were at first a little nervous about leaving our van in the parking lot. When I went back out to get something from the van after sunset and saw an armed guard climb up to the roof of the building next door I let go of any worries.

We got up at the still dark hour of 5:30 so that we would be able to make it to the pyramids outside of Mexico City and up to San Miguel de Allende before night. The morning driving session went incredible as we made it to Teotihuacan by breakfast time. After a stroll in the impressive ruins of Teotihuacan and two steep climbs up pyramids we decided to get back on the road. When we entered the ruins we were almost alone, but by the time we walked back to the car I felt like I was on a slalom course avoiding merchants trying to sell us little flutes and handycrafts. ¨No, I do not want that stone flute that you just coughed on.¨ We figured we had about three hours till we would be relaxing in San Miguel.

Unfortunately we didn`t figure we would be taking an unexpected journey into the heart of Mexico City. We were looking for a turnoff that in the confusion of detours and toll booths we never found. Brooke was searching the maps for an alternate route and we were going to try to cut through the city and back up north. Brooke saw through the thick smog the outline of the largest lineup of skyscrapers she had ever seen and said ¨Jay, turn around, now. We`re not going in there¨ I was able to turn a U-turn and head back out of the city. We ended up going north to the town of Pachuca and a little before this taking an exit and heading west towards the toll road leading to San Miguel de Allende. Hundreds of speedbumps, many unlabeled just follow that guy turns, great directions from a gas station worker, three hours, and a couple miles of unpaved dirt road later we were on the three lane superhigway heading north.

We got into San Miguel de Allende about three hours before sunset with no idea where to stay or what to do in the town. After a tired search for a hotel with parking came up empty we saw a tourist office, our first of the trip. Here we received a hotel guide and the first place we checked out is where we are staying. For the same price as the places without parking we have a huge place with a little living room, loft, and kitchen. Not to mention the restaurant in the courtyard has a guitar, violin, percussion trio that plays every night. We are enjoying the laid back European/Mexican atmosphere of the town and taking advantage of our last couple days in Mexico. Right now we are enjoying tostadas, Oaxaca cheese, great fresh veggies, and cold Mexican beers. Soon we`ll be enjoying Wisconsin Cheeses, brats and cold Wisconsin beers. Sometimes it doesn`t matter where you are.

Mechanicas Extremas working on the van. They did a great job.

Mexican construction gone wrong.

This is El Tule, the most voluminous tree in the world. We went on a small tour, guided by a 7 year-old with a mirror, that enlightened us to animals that appear in the bark of the tree.

Jay is drinking out of a cold coconut. It tastes like sweet water, very refreshing on a hot day.

This is a very small representation of the markets in Oaxaca. Fruits, vegetables, grasshoppers, cheese and clothing are just a few items one can find here.

These are roasted grasshoppers. They are toasted with lime, garlic and chili powder and most people from Oaxaca like them, we think. Jay bought a small bag and ate about 5, I didn´t eat any.

The coast ends

Here we are, inland, Oaxaca City, and not sweating nearly as much. We traveled with Greg from Puerto Escondido to a little beach town called Zipolite. By traveled with I mean that we cleared a little space in the back for him to lay down on. Probably not the safest, but who knows if the buses here are much safer. After stopping for fruit and veggies and a coco frio we checked out the beach town Mazunte. After getting bitten up by mosquitos in daylight and being told that you had to get indoors before dark or you would be eaten alive, we decided to move on to the next town. Zipolite is a new-age town that allows nudity(men from what we saw) in one part of the beach. Before we knew this, we were checking out a hostel at that end of the beach and looked down to see a large naked man just standing in the break-zone getting pounded by waves. Partly due to this view, we went to the center of the little village and got an inexpensive room. That night we got eaten up from mosquitos and decided that we would move on and continue looking for surf. We had a spot circled, Barra de la Cruz inbetween Zipolite and Salina Cruz. After missing the turnoff we finally got into the city and went down a long windy dirt road to the beach where we found a break with infinite potential, but not much happening at the time. We would`ve stayed and waited out the wind, but you couldn`t camp at the beach and the only place we heard that you could camp in the town was on a rooster farm. ¨Get to bed early, cause the roosters wake ya up pretty early¨ was what one guy told me. After thinking about it for a while we pushed on to Salina Cruz where there were a few breaks to the north. We took a long washboard road to the beach Playa Azul where we almost had the doors rip off from the wind. We felt like we were in some sort of Star Wars dunes scene. Sand was flying all over the place making camping difficult and surfing impossible. There is a flat corridor that connects the Gulf with the Pacific that funnels wind. The right pressure systems were around that made for some of the fiercest constant wind of the trip. We found a hotel in Salina Cruz and when the wind didn`t die down at night we made the decision to move on to Oaxaca instead of waiting an indeterminate amount of time.
The drive to Oaxaca had us going uphill for the majority of the time. Since our minivan is not a mountain/extreme heat vehicle, we had to have the heat pumping and pull over every once in a while to avoid making it breakdown. One of these stops we met a man who had a little Mezcal/avacado farm. He had lived in Salt Lake City of all places for five years. After getting to Oaxaca we parked and walked around looking for a place to stay. Luckily we found one with parking fairly close to the center of town. The markets here are crazy. It seems to me that one could buy just about anything, but if you`re in the market for grasshoppers, Oaxaca Cheese(which believe it or not gives WI a run for its money), chocolate, mole, or Mezcal you`ve hit the jackpot. The first full day here we drove out the the ruins Monte Alban which situate on mountain-top near Oaxaca. The drive there was one of the scariest of my life. We got on what in my mind was narrower that a typical one-way street curving up and around a mountain. About halfway up the road, a taxi came screaming down on my side of the road and skidded out just missing us. Luckily nothing happened, but I decided that the wide United States roads might be a good thing. Monte Alban was an impressive sight filled with ruins of all shapes and sizes and men around every corner to sell you relics. On the way back to Oaxaca we found the road with two lanes which was a big improvement over the less than one. We weaved our way around the city and found the mechanic that had been recommended to us earlier on the trip and his shop, Mecanica Extrema. We figured if he was an extreme mechanic, he was someone we wanted to get to know. He told us that he would raise the exhaust so it doesn`t hit every speedbump and do a check to make sure that we would make it back. I personally don`t have any doubt about the van, but it can`t hurt and getting work done here is ten times cheaper than in the states. This should be done tomorrow morning, but who knows? Today we took a bus to El Tule where the tree with the most girth in the world is located. Let me say, this was one big honking tree. We got a guided tour from a seven year old boy showing us all the hidden animals natually shaped into the trunk of the tree. Everyother group that we saw with the boy was laughing hysterically a few times throughout the tour. I`m thinking something was lost in translation? Maybe he didn`t want to show us the naughty ones? The rest of our time has been spent walking around, stopping into the mezcal(tequila´s evil cousin) shops and sampling all the different kinds, going into chocolate shops and seeing which types we still like and trying foods typical to the region. My cheese intake has increased quite significantly.

Tomorrow we are planning on heading north toward Mexico City, not to the city, but towards it. We don`t know exactly where we will stay, but the plan is to visit the sun and the moon temples to the North-East of Mexico City the following day. Hopefully the car will be ready, we´ll see how extreme he is.

This guy played for us while we ate lunch yesterday and even found us again today and sang. His only song is called ¨Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Oaxaca¨ and he pretty much yells it the whole time. He sells a CD for about 70 pesos, we have yet to buy it...maybe next time.

Jay is a little large for the ancient peoples´ doorway.

The ancient city of Monte Alban.

A typical way of heating quesadillas in Mexico. A trash barrel oven, pretty ingenious.

Unfortunately, not all the beaches in Mexico are beautiful. This one had a couple of plastic bottles on it.

The Ranch to Mexipipe

There are thousands of these speedbumps on the roads in Mexico. This one happens to be marked with a TOPE sign. Sometimes they aren`t and we hit them too fast.

We left the Ranch monday morning expecting to drive a couple km, get some money and food and stay at La Saladita for a few days. Unfortunately, the town we went to had no ATM and we had no cash. So we had to drive to Zihuatenejo and by then we decided it wasn´t worth the gas and time to drive the 40 minutes back to La Saladita. At 3:00 we made the push to Pie de la Cuesta, the little town just to the north of Acapulco. The highway was a windy concrete stretch that seemed to me an excuse for small villages that could install Topes (speedbumps) every couple feet. Sometimes we would see them ahead of time, sometimes we wouldn´t. Sometimes it didn´t matter because even at the slowest speed we would still bottom out. If I were to run for president of Mexico I would run on a Tope removal platform. Though it is an effective way to slow people down and a convenient place to pass a Semi which has an even rougher time with them. We were all set to go to the KOA at Pie de la Cuesta, but KOA doesn´t own the campground anymore and the two seemingly drunk guys who came up to us as we drove into the rundown area didn´t impress us too much. We ended up going back to the Pie de la Cuesta RV Park which suited us for the night. The next day we woke up and and drove south to Playa Ventura which our guidebook said has good waves for surfing. It was a decent place to spend the night, but the author of the book was probably not a surfer. The next morning we moved on to Punta Maldonada which was a 30 km drive from MEX 200 and came upon a tiny fishing village on a point. The town used up almost all the available land which makes sense for them, but didn´t leave us much room for camping and the waves looked less than inspiring. So after a great little seafood lunch we drove on to Puerto Escondido, home of the Mexi-Pipeline. It´s a neat little town with one of the heaviest bonecrushing, boardbreaking beachbreaks in the world. M Neither Brooke or I have ventured into the Mexipipe, but I bought a pair of boardshorts with the MEXIPIPE logo on it. I´m pretty sure that these will improve my surfing tenfold. Last night we ran into Greg Vogel, a fellow Badger alumni and traveler. It was fun to talk Badger for a night. His website is www.tresgringos.blogspot.com if anyone is bored. From here we are going to be exploring our final coastline between Escondido and Salina Cruz and then heading up to Oaxaca City. Until then.

Catching an exciting wave.

Puerto Escondido, home of the Mexican pipeline. Much too powerful for either of us to try out.

This is red snapper, also known as huachinango in espanol. It was an amazing lunch.

The Easter Bunny even came to La Ticla and brought me some chocolate coins.

Jay playing with Loco, but not really because he is covered with little bugs.

A little R&R

The Last Month

We set up at La Ticla a couple days before Semana Santa when most of mainland Mexico descends on the beach. As we pulled up to the town before the turnoff we noticed a sign that announced a national surf competition during Easter weekend. This seemed alright to us as neither of us had seen this before. Ticla turned out to be a perfect place to hunker down as we were able to find a palapa with electricity and shade. Not to mention it had the perfect climate for us Wisconsin folk. Hot days and cool nights. If it hadn`t been for those damn swedes blaring their techno music till five in the morn, it might have been paradise. We were camped in what appeared to be a cattle stockade (a large open air palapa that had been sectioned off so that one could be stuck in the middle), but got to meet a lot of fun people. A group of guys pulled in from Guadalajara and started setting up camp next to ours. As far as I could see they hadn`t brought anything but their tent and beer so I tried to make a joke along the lines of, `no food, only beer?´ which immediately translated to Jay has beer in his hand. From then on we were friends and spent the next couple days hanging out and getting coached in Spanish slang. A local dog also adopted us as owners while we were there. He was known as Loco and that he was. He was chalk full of fleas and loved to sleep by our feet and in our chairs. He pretty much slept all day except when donkeys came near our sight. Loco hated donkeys and would chase them all day if needed. After our extended time at La Ticla we were ready to find a place where we both could surf.
We found this place after getting turned around and led in circles in the town of Lazaro Cardenas a few times. After finally finding the toll road, somehow we paid the toll and immediately exited to the twisty turny local highway. How this happened I have no idea, but we merged with the straight as an arrow toll road after about 40 minutes of winding through little villages. After a crazy turnoff, past a basketball field, futbol field, through a tiny village, two gates, we were at the beach. They call this place, The Ranch or Playa Capire. Either way, it is a great place. There are two competing restaurant/camping areas. We went with the first one, but happend to eat more at the second one. The lady at the second one makes these shimp quesadillas that appear to be fried in oil that make my mouth water just writing about them. And for a little less than 3 bucks for the whole meal, we figure you can`t go wrong.
We stayed at The Ranch for Brooke`s birthday which was quite fun. We were able to ride a wave together and she caught some of the best waves of her trip. I used my Dutch oven skills to make a pineapple upside-down cake that we shared with all who were camping. That night another couple made a run into the nearest town and we had a little beach campfire party. The next day we went 20 km south to La Saladita which is just west of Los Llanos. This was a really mellow surf based ¨town¨ that consisted of a few restaurants and bungalos. Paco, the owner of the restaurant we stayed next to strung out an extension cord and hung a light from the palm tree we were camped under so we could see after the sun went down. We really appreciated that, but decided we liked the wave and the tranquility of The Ranch. So after two nights at La Saladita we went into Zihautanejo to get our laundry done and check the internet. Zihautanejo must have been a cool little village in the Shawshank Redemption time, but for us it was a little tourist crazy. We returned to the Ranch where it was crazy with Texans taking day trips from Ixtapa. It seemed Texans don`t do anything unless it is big and loud. Four carloads showing up at 6:30 a.m. and not quieting down till they left at 3:00 p.m. They have all returned to their state and we have decided to stay for a while longer. We are right now at the little inland town of La Union that doesn`t appear to have any industry or water. I talked to one local, who said residents have to drive to Ixtapa/Zihaut to make a living since it isn`t fit for farming. They do have internet and enough little markets that we can resupply food and return to the Ranch for another couple nights. The climate in this area is nothing that us Wisconsin folk can get used to. I`m sure there are boatloads of people that would do anything to be in this climate, but the humid hot days and equally humid somewhat less hot nights have left us with less then full nights of sleep. I`ve actually thought nostagically about the cold Wisconsin weather.
We are constantly changing our plans for how we are going to return to the North, but right now they are drive down past Puerto Escondido and go up the middle and see some of colonial Mexico. We have even tossed around the idea of being in New Orleans for the end of Jazz Fest. Wishing everyone the best, love Jay and Brooke

A few of the palapas at La Ticla.

Leonel, Eric, Pedro, Pepe, Chewy and Brooke watching the surf competition. Simòn.

Hermit Crab army

My birthday cake. Pineapple upsidedown, yum.

La Chela, La Ticla

This is going to be a quick update. We just spent two wonderful weeks at La Ticla where it went from being peaceful to crazy and back to peaceful. We met some great people from Guadalajara, got to surf (at least go out in the water) and live in a great palapa. We are in an internet cafe in Lazaro Cardenas that doesn´t have a hook up for pictures so we´ll have to update the site later. From here we are going about 60 km south to a place that isn´t on the map called The Ranch, and then to Playa La Saladita. These are both supposed to be longboard waves which will be a perfect spot for Brooke to surf on her birthday (March 30th).

This is the section of the beach where all the beginners learn to surf.

This is our view from the top deck of the ferry from Baja over to mainland. Our van is on the far right between the railing and the Bimbo semi.

Mainland

This is one of the first waves that I successfully caught and rode all the way into the beach.

It was a crazy sprint from Mazatlan to Sayulita. The guy who was loading the ferry told us that he would tell us when it was our turn to go. After about an hour and what looked to be the rising of the ramp to the ferry I got a little worried and went and asked him what was going on. He then explained that by loading last we would be the first to leave in Mazatlan. This worked out well for us. The ferry was a boat full of bread and beer trucks and us. You can see where they tucked on the far right corner of the ferry picture. We expected to be searched or at least stopped and asked for our papers, but somehow we just drove off the ferry and headed south.
We arrived in Sayulita exhausted and confused due to the maze of one way dirt roads in different stages of construction. At first we were a little overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle of the little town, but after visiting Puerto Vallarta one afternoon I was convinced we were in the right place. I haven't felt so relieved to return to a tent for quite some time. The swell is pretty big right now, big enough that not too many people are surfing, and those who are beginning are getting frustrated. We got word of a mellow longboard wave about 30 minutes to the south at Punta Mita where we have both enjoyed success the last two days. On our way home yesterday we pulled into a little restaurante and tried ceviche and the their fish tacos. We liked it. We are still unsure of our plans for Semana Santa, holy week, but we will be moving on to someplace a little more out of the way.

Brooke cooking while the sun is setting.

La Ventana: kiteboarding/windsurfing capital of the world.

We got up close and personal with a few donkeys. I think they were after our chips.