Our original trip concept was to take RVs to Mexico, stay on the beach a month, drink beer, and check out bikinis.
Our original destination was to be San Carlos, Mexico – up the coast north from Mazatlan. There was a RV park already picked out. But things change, all the time and quickly, so that trip idea turned and became a different animal.
Because diesel fuel is of a lower grade in Mexico, Alan didn’t want to drive his RV to San Carlos. By the time we three figured the cost of fuel, insurance, space rent ,it was going to be cheaper to take a traditional vacation to a hotel with hot water and maid service so we dropped our idea of a RV caravan.
On a morning walk, Alan and I discover a RV park in Mazatlan where we all might have stayed if we had brought our RV’s. It is on the beach, in the middle of the Zona Dorado, and affordable. Seeing these big rigs pulled in between palm trees on a dirt lot and old guys in shorts riding rusting bicycles to the front doors of their luxurious motor homes, brings a fuzziness to my heart. The snowbirds carry English newspapers in little wire bicycle baskets and will spend this afternoon working on a crossword puzzle because it is too hot to go fishing.
Jose, the park’s maintenance man, waves when we knock on the closed office door and we talk with him in broken Spanish, enough to understand that it costs five hundred dollars a month to stay here and you pay for your electric. This park is right on the beach and some patrons come down for months. The office is closed but this park doesn’t need much management with these old guys taking care of most nuisances themselves.
In a place like this you want to live quiet, economical, and simple. You want to have a few friends you can count on and buy lots of shrimp on the beach from fishermen who just come in. A couple of beers in the evening to calm the mind are good, and reading ” Old Man and the Sea ” puts your mind in the right frame.
Here, in Mazatlan, we all have time to savor our time.
Hotels and restaurants dot both sides of the street that takes you from the Mazatlan historical center to the marina at the north end of town. If each hotel was represented on a map with a red pin, and each restaurant a blue pin, you would have a long
row of pins. You could climb up on the head of one pin and walk all the way to the marina without ever touching the road.
A half block down the calle, in front of the Hotel Playa ,is a colorful eatery that calls itself the Gringo Lingo
A kid in front of the eatery, holds a menu, stands on the sidewalk and talks us inside for a meal and a Pacifico beer – one of Mazatlan’s gifts to the world. There is world class fishing in these waters that drew Hollywood stars in the 50’s, taking time off from the rigors of stardom and Los Angeles. You see photos of John Wayne and Robert Mitchem in travel brochures in local shops and huge marlin dangling from the end of ominous hooks connected to dock scales.
This evening the three of us are enticed into the Gringo Lingo complete with bright primary school colors, hanging potted plants, and an extensive menu of Mexican and American favorites. There is only a handful of patrons when we enter and only a few come after we find a table. It is early in the evening and people are still recovering from sunburn and too many afternoon margaritas.
This evening we try tortilla soup and chicken wings. Ordering food is a tricky business in Mexico even though menus show pictures and have food descriptions written in English as well as Spanish.
Dining tonight in the ” Golden Zone, ” we eat what tastes good to us and look for movie stars.
Mazatlan, in it’s day, was where gringos went to speak their lingo to the ocean sunsets.
Mazatlan, today, has lost some of it’s charm. Now, it feels like a big marlin that has hung a bit too long from a big hook on the pier.
If places could just remain the way they used to be,mostly natural and undiscovered, we travelers would all be the better for it.
While the places I visit are new to me, there is no question that I have been preceded where I go by many.
If going someplace no one has been was my goal, I would never get out of my house.
In the morning, before ten, the beaches are empty except for romantics, beachcombers, and elderly walking their dogs.
Around this place, people stay up late, dance into the late hours, have a few too many drinks, keep everyone at the hotel awake as they stumble down hallways with all too many doors looking the same.
The Malecon is a wide sidewalk that runs from Valentino’s to the Centro of Mazatlan. It parallels the beach and gives ample room for bicycles, walkers, joggers, hand holders, pet walkers, photographers, street hustlers, tourists and locals. The thoroughfare is level, the potholes far and few between, and, if you wish, you can take concrete steps down to the beach and feel sand between your toes. It reminds me of the Rambla in Montevideo though the sunlight in Mazatlan is more intense than sunlight in Montevideo.
At breakfast, our conversation is about re-locating to Mexico from America, and Americans.
“You don’t want to be around Americans,” Dave insists.
What he says is understandable, but we are Americans. It sticks on us like a glove. You can change your clothes, work on your accent, hang out with the locals, smoke non filter cigarettes and eat shrimp till your eyes bulge,but you will always be a gringo.
You can take Americans out of their country but you can’t take America out of American’s.
Being an American doesn’t prohibit you from enjoying Mazatlan for as long as you want to stay. As long as you are spending green dollars, there is tolerance here for you.
People here might not like Americans, but they love our American money.
At dusk, clouds congregate on the horizon and cars exit Highway 303 at Bell Rd. to go to Surprise, Arizona.
It is quitting time for those who still have a job to go too.
In Surprise, brother Alan and I are staying at the Happy Trails Resort but it could just as well be Tumbleweed Acres, the Paradise River Resort, the Leaping Lizard RV Park, or the Frontier Horizons. There are plenty of places in Surprise for people to pull RV’s, buy homes to fit their budgets, or stay in planned parks with clubhouses, libraries, ballrooms, swimming pools and saunas. In the deserts of Arizona there are plenty of developer escapades to worry about ,and, according to a yesterday’s local news article, plenty of land fraud cases to keep a team of corporate lawyers busy.
On the off ramp at Bell Road, we are just another car in line, waiting to make a left, continue down Bell Rd till we see our Happy Trails Resort, stop at a security gate and get waved through by a security guard, a middle aged park tenant making extra money to pay his monthly space rent.
Sunset is on the way, and,as it spreads, the sky becomes streaks of pink with textures reminding me of Van Gogh;s ” Starry Night. “.
The End of the World has been on my mind lately.
There are enough bad toys around the world to exterminate us all.
Staying off the internet and staying uninformed is a smart thing to do.
When Rome burns, you want to be out of town.
Outside the Happy Trails Resort, to the southwest, is a nature preserve named the White Tank Mountains.
Whereas Surprise is a continuation of development, an encroachment upon the desert, the White Tank Mountains are resolutely clinging to nature. Within fifteen miles of Surprise, this preserve takes you into wilderness with some modern conveniences. There are picnic areas, a winding loop road that returns you to the visitor center, RV spaces for rent, clean bathrooms. Some of the trails are okay for patrons in wheelchairs or using canes, and on other trails you see mountain bikes, horseback riding, and hikers.
Leaving the visitor center and driving into the park, there is a pull off place for active souls who like to run, ride bikes, horseback, train for athletic events. This time of morning, on a weekday, there are only two cars in the parking lot when brother Alan and I pull in.
Walking the trail, it isn’t hard to imagine grizzled prospectors leading a donkey deep into the mountains looking for precious metals. It isn’t hard to imagine ranchers chasing down cattle or Indians fighting troops stationed at old time forts.
There are still places you can disappear in Arizona.
Staying on Pathways has always been difficult for me, but I am not the only one who has trouble walking a straight line.
Brothers keep us grounded by knowing who we used to be.
Victoria Gardens is a Rancho Cucamonga mall, one of many in the Los Angeles area where shopping ranks high on people’s to do lists.
The day before Christmas, late afternoon, crowds are thinning. By now, most have their shopping complete and are winding home to pack, wrap, tie bows, slip their gift under a tree or drop it into a red sock hanging from fake fireplace mantles. On the outside wall of a mall store, the California Soul Records marquee is a synopsis of California.
The surf is here. The palm trees are here. The image of carefree living is here. The surfer is here. The feeling of comfort, washed out shirts and denims, short sleeves and caps is here. The effects of unlimited sun, salt, air, and wind have worked the images on the painted brick wall into something as comfortable as your favorite pair of shorts.
There might not have been a California Soul Records, but if there wasn’t, there should be.
This afternoon, Chris and I take photos for our future albums with this wall in the background.
When you are an imaginary recording star, with California Soul Records , looks are everything.
This afternoon I imagine Andy Warhol opening a can of Campbell soup, grasping it with a pair of channel locks,and warming it on a can of sterno by a Christmas tree on Wall Street
Finishing 2014 on the road, most of my past year didn’t end up on scotttreks, and that is good.
When I tuck a past year into the scrapbook, I’m okay if most of it doesn’t wake up again.
Your chariot has to be tuned up to keep you in the Los Angeles race.
You aren’t going to get anywhere in this L.A. burg without a good set of wheels, a team of rested and well fed horses, and enough time to get where you are going through a maze of interconnected freeways, on and off ramps, incorporated towns that remind you of a patchwork quilt with each town independent but linked to the others to make a California dreaming quilt.
It is almost a forty minute drive to Los Angeles to reach Chris’s mechanic.
Ontario, where Chris and his mom live, is fifty miles from the Pacific Ocean, the Getty Museum, Staples Center, Sunset Strip, Hollywood, the Walk of Fame, and other landmarks. His car’s CHECK engine light is on and fan belts, recently replaced, are slipping and making a squeal..It isn’t something any garage can’t fix but when you get a mechanic you trust, you will grudgingly drive the hour to let him work his car magic on your car.
The Auto Care Center,when we pull in, is busting open at the seams with car hoods up, tires off, doors open, uniformed grease junkies busily removing and replacing parts, running computer checks, calling parts suppliers. It is the day before Christmas and cars are doing what they invariably do – break down.
Chris’s car belts are tightened and his check engine light turns out to be caused by not tightening down on the gas cap enough so a seal is broken and escaping emissions trigger a sensor.
On the way back to Ontario we stay off the freeways.
Chris, who cared for my dad and Roseanne, in California, was exceedingly fond of my Dad.
California was never a place my dad wanted to be, and, at the end, he wasn’t.
Chris and I still have plenty of J.L. stories, and all of them make us smile, to tell, even when they don’t have happy endings.
Fort Lauderdale is to Pompano Beach as Cadillac is to Ford.
Fort Lauderdale has location, money, reputation, retirees. The boulevards are a little bigger, the canals a little deeper, the yachts a little bigger, the bling a little brighter, the stories much much more full of deception.
Pompano Beach seems more comfortable, more downscale, more livable. Pompano Beach seems like an old pair of beach shoes that fit your feet perfect, don’t care if sand gets on them, and fit on the floor of your car like they were made to be there.
At Sand Harbor there is an ancient hotel that retains the charm of the fifties, a bar and restaurant that serves great fish sandwiches, plus a nice view of the Intra-coastal Waterway.
After lunch Ruth and I walk the beach and it reminds me why half the east coast moved to Florida and stayed. Ruth moved her 90 year old mom down to Florida from New York into a second floor condo above her.
It is a slightly cool afternoon and at a little snack bar on the beach folks are gathering to chat, have coffee, eat, lounge under palm trees and be glad they don’t have to work at jobs they did ten years longer than they should because their kids were in college.
Pompano Beach, this afternoon, is one of those old fashioned postcard shots that tells everyone you are in Florida and having a great time, and eat your heart out.
The bond between mothers and daughters is sometimes tenuous, but, more often, tough and durable.
Love and duty are inextricably linked.
Tomorrow, I fly back to the desert.
You stay in Florida too long, you start to get webbed feet.
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