Day 3 Miles: 106 miles

Leaving the blue water of the Pacific Ocean behind, we began our trek east through the desert, encountering Seussian trees and fields of stone.

Boojum Trees (from Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Hunting of the Snark,”) “Cirio” in Spanish, exist only in Baja! They remind me of Christmas trees in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” This is especially true when a yellow flower cluster at the top is in bloom. The trees can live up to 300 years.

The boulder fields outside Catavina are made of granite, and were quite spectacular from the road. Unfortunately there’s no place for nine rigs to pull over for photo ops, so here are some we were able to snap from inside the rig.

We settled for the day at Ranch Santa Ynez:

then trekked into the desert to view petroglyphs that are over 7,000 years old. I know it’s difficult to make out, but here’s a butterfly.

The desert landscape was right out of a B movie western, complete with our young and handsome tour guide who could have been from Central Casting, and bleached bones direct from the Prop Department.

I won’t bore you with more tales of narrow roads, potholes, and maniac drivers; I find driving and traffic stories to be so banal. I will say that the “tope,” or speed bump, is my new natural born enemy

and I will never complain about the condition of I-5 in Seattle again. Today a window shade shook loose, as did the makeup mirror in the bathroom. Luckily both are salvageable.

We feasted on a dinner of margaritas, enchiladas and tacos at the charming, tiny restaurant here at the campground tonight, made by the matriarch abuela of the family who runs the RV park.

It is so dark and quiet here in the middle of nowhere!

Tomorrow we cross into Baja California Sur – the southern part of Baja – and we lose an hour. But to tell you the truth, the time makes me no never mind at this point. Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes.