Yes, we are indeed, on the road again.  Well before we were inundated with “atmospheric rivers” and cold weather, we were dreaming of travelling once again.  The actual impetus for this trip began with a football game.  My family has traditionally gone to the Apple Cup, a game between our beloved Washington Huskies and the cross state rivals, the Washington State Cougars.  Covid, of course, kept us away, but over the summer, we decided that this fall we would, once again, brave the rain and cold of Seattle to watch the game.  We all bought our tickets (kind of pricey, if you ask me!) and were eagerly looking forward to actually seeing each other in person after too many Zoom family visits.  However, the border was a problem for us, up here in Canada.  The land border remained closed and we wondered if it would open in time for us to go to the game.  Knowing that the Thanksgiving week is traditionally the busiest travel week of the year, we wondered about leaving it too late to buy tickets to fly down.  You see, even though the land border was closed, we could still fly into the States – go figure!  So, as we talked about possibly using our Alaska Air points to fly to Seattle, the idea then became, “if we are heading to Seattle in late November, why not continue south after the game?”.  Why not indeed!  Once the idea was planted, it grew and grew.  We looked at places we had wanted to visit and thought about ways we could travel.  Did we want to take the bikes?  One idea that we have kicked around for several years was to just find a place we liked and plunk ourselves there for several months.  No car, no bikes, just us, living in a community and getting a feel for it.  We looked at the Baja in Mexico, remembering fondly a trip we had taken to San Jose del Cabo many years ago.  We loved the laid back atmosphere there, but the water was not accessible, due to the strong currents.  We looked on the other side and discovered La Paz.  We had known about this city from reading journals of cyclists who rode down the Baja.  The city is home to many retired Americans and Canadians, so language would not be as big a barrier as in many smaller communities.  And the biggest plus?  Whale sharks!  When we wanted to head down was the time of year that these gentle giants make their annual appearance in the waters off of La Paz.  The chance to swim with this amazing animals tipped the scales and we eagerly began looking for a place to stay.  Finding what we were looking for on Air BnB, we booked our stay and used our Alaska Air points to book the trip, making our stay in Seattle a brief stopover along the way.  

As the days grew shorter and the rain began to fall in earnest, we grew more and more excited to head out.  We looked for and bought wet suits so we could enjoy the snorkeling without getting too cold and checked and rechecked the equipment we wanted to bring, adding a few new goodies to our collection of gear in order to make some videos while in La Paz.  Hopefully, with our new little camera, we can capture our snorkeling adventures to share with you!

Finally, the day arrived when we loaded up our gear into Emily’s Jeep and she dropped us off at the ferry.  It would prove to be a long long day, as the first ferry we were to take was cancelled (thanks once again, BC Ferries!!) and so we had to get Emily to drop us off at a different terminal to catch a ferry over to the mainland.  It is only on these rare occasions when we leave the island that living here does get challenging.  But not enough to make us move back!  Once in Richmond, we met up with our son, Colin, who kept us company as we headed to the airport to get our Covid tests done.  We had an appointment, but arrived earlier than our appointment time.  Luckily, the clinic was not busy and we got in right away.  Unluckily for us, there was some construction going on at this end of the terminal and we had to contend with the sound of jackhammers as we had our tests and waited the 20 minutes for the results.  Kudos to Colin for sticking around!!  After the tests were done, we found a quieter spot for a visit with him as we wouldn’t be seeing him again until our return in February.  We left Colin to take the sky train back home and got on the hotel shuttle for the Days Inn, where we had a room booked for that night.  Later, we had dinner with our daughter, Katie and her son Ronan.  It was so nice to have family to visit with before we left!

The following morning we had arranged to catch the shuttle to be at the airport 3 hours ahead of time, as advised by Alaska.  The extra Covid precautions have caused much more delays.  Jim went down to the lobby early to grab something for us to nibble on, having been told the night before that there would be a Continental Breakfast served in the morning.  He returned with two cups of coffee.  Hmmm… Continental Breakfast?  I’m pretty sure they eat a little more that this in the morning over on the continent!  Ah well, we figured, we will get through security and find somewhere to eat inside.  Thankfully, due to our Nexus passes, we flew through both security and customs and were soon seated at a nice restaurant.  Unfortunately, this restaurant did not serve breakfast, so we shared an overpriced BLT – don’t you just love airports!!!

Our short flight to Seattle gave us a lovely view of the snow capped mountains in the distance, reminding us of what we were leaving behind.

At SeaTac, we were met by my brother, Mike.  How wonderful to give him a giant hug after so long!!!

We had arrived in Seattle on the day before Thanksgiving (well, American Thanksgiving that is) and so were treated to our second Thanksgiving dinner this year!

And the day after that, we gathered with the rest of my siblings to watch our team loose in spectacular fashion.  Oddly enough, we didn’t really care.  Turns out, it was all about family all along – go figure!

The following day, I had arranged to meet up with a former student of mine who now lives and works in Seattle.  Although I always knew him as Tommy, he now goes by his actual first name, Scott.  How lovely to spend time hearing about where life has taken him and his dreams of the future!  After my time with Tommy, my sister, Barb made her way over to spend the afternoon with me, an extra special treat for us both!  We wandered the Pike Place Market and found a great little restaurant where we enjoyed lunch while watching the rain pour just outside our seating area.

Oh, and what was Jim doing while I was out wandering the city?  Well, turns out his team, the Michigan Wolverines, actually played the most amazing game and beat Ohio State for the first time in 8 years!  Needless to say, my Jim was a happy happy camper!  Go Blue!

We had an early flight the next day, so said goodbye to Mike’s wife Leslie and their grandson Isaiah before heading off to bed a little early, where we both tossed and turned for much of the night.  So exciting to finally be off on an adventure again!  The alarm got us up and out of bed at 5:45 and we were out the door at 6:15.  Mike, bless him, was once again our chauffeur and dropped us off right at the Alaska terminal.  Despite it being the busiest day of the travel year, we managed to get through ticketing and security in quick order, allowing us lots of time to find some coffee and muffins (again, way overpriced!) and a spot to sit and wait for our flight.  After what seemed like forever (it actually was about an hour), our flight was called and we happily boarded, having changed our runners for sandals and put away our heavy jackets in our carry on luggage.  Won’t be needing any of that until we return!

The flight down was uneventful and much quicker than I had thought, because we crossed a time zone and so what I thought was a 4 hour plus flight was a 3 hour plus – nice!  We indulged in the (again expensive) snack pack offered on board the flight, having not thought ahead at the airport to buying food to bring on the plane.  We knew that we had a 3 hour bus ride over the La Paz and most likely would not find anything to eat at the San Jose del Cabo airport.  So, having something in our stomachs, not matter the cost, was what we had to do. 

We arrived at the airport and were immediately so excited to feel the warm air of Mexico!  Bags came through and we amazingly again passed through customs quickly.  The last time we were at this airport we were newbies to what goes on.  Outside of customs is a hall filled with tour operators wanting to sell you all sorts of adventures.  We had gotten pulled in by one, mistaking him as a representative of the hotel we were staying at and ended up wasting both time and money.  This time we were prepared, and barreled through the hall of sellers without making eye contact with anyone.  Once outside, we found that we had made such good time we were able to get the bus heading to La Paz an hour earlier than we had planned – yay for us! 

The ride to La Paz was interesting for the first hour, but after the bus left its stop in Todo Santos, the sun went down and with the coming of the night there was nothing left to look at.  We sort of napped until he pulled into the station in La Paz, where we gathered our luggage and made our way across the street to a little sidewalk restaurant for our first street tacos of the trip.  Super yummy beef tacos hit the spot and we enjoyed watching the activity along the Malecon as we ate.  By this time it was past 8:00 on a Sunday night, but you’d never know that people had to get up the next day.  Families strolled up and down the Malecon, greeting people they knew.  And the cars!  Oh my!!  It was a steady stream of cars driving both directions, blasting music from their stereos.  Some had giant speakers in the back of their cars, and the music coming from the open tailgates was so loud!  We were totally enchanted!  All too soon it was time for us to look for a cab to take us to our Air Bnb.  It is only a 10 minute walk away from the Malecon, but with all of our luggage, a cab seemed the most sensible way to get there.  Except for the fact that when we went to the taxi stand to look, there were no cabs!!!  We walked to another taxi stand and still none.  Oh no!!!  We were to meet someone at our place to let us in and with only 15 minutes to go, we decided we had not choice but to schlep out stuff up the street.  What a sight we must have been!  Poor Jim, of course, had to carry the one heavy bag not on wheels, but we were both pretty hot and sweaty when we finally arrived, just a couple of minutes late, at our destination.  Our host, Silvia, was working that night and so sent one of her employees to let us in.  He very kindly showed us around and pointed out some of the oddities of our little place (more on that another time).  He spoke no English, but we managed to get all the information anyways and happily sent him on his way with a big Gracias. 

Of course, having arrived, our day was not done.  Nope.  Because of course, this is Mexico, and you don’t drink the tap water.  Finding no water jugs in the kitchen, we quickly put away what needed to be put away and headed back to the Malecon to take in some more of the sights and buy some water  and beer to bring back with us.  Only problem, there is a rule here, no selling of alcohol after 8 pm!  Oh well, water was fine!  Exhausted and happy, we headed back to our little casita to drop into our very comfy bed and have our first sleep in La Paz.

In the morning, we walked down to a coffee shop on the Malecon where we indulged ourselves in having cinnamon buns, fruit and coffee – oh, how I have missed the fruit here! 

We decided, over breakfast, that our first week here in La Paz would be a true holiday (or vacation for your Americans) from everything – no blogging, no video.  We just ate, slept, and absorbed the wonderfulness of this beautiful place.  Over the next 9 weeks or so, we will try to share with you what it is like to live here, not necessarily as a tourist (although we most certainly will do lots of touristy things) but as a local.  But for today, I will just share some pictures from our first week.  So much more to come, so stick around – it should be a blast!

Ok, now for the interactive portion of this blog!  Our good friend, Colleen, said that she would really like to be able to ask questions about what we are doing while we are doing it on this trip.  Now, while we can’t exactly answer questions right away, we thought it would be great if you, dear readers, ask any questions that you have about what we are doing, what we have posted so far, or ideas about what you’d like to see more of in the coming weeks.  After all, we are here until February 9th!  So, ask away!  We will try to tailor our coming posts to include what you ask about or show you what you wanted to see.  This is your big chance, so don’t just sit there reading… get involved!  Looking forward to hearing from you! And to keep you entertained, or maybe prompt some questions, here are some random shots from our first week here.