The October trip this year began on Saturday, October 8th. Dan and Pandro were joining us. Ed and Donna, Scott and Ingrid, and Bruce were also going down. Bruce's bro' and our friend dating back to high school days, Chris(co) was also finally getting down there. We ran the usual routine in San Felipe. Dan chronicled the stop at the icehouse Agua Azul. Pandro keeps an eye on the iceman.

After getting supplies, we headed south to assault the Puertecitos road.

The road was as usual, in fine condition down to Campo Santa Maria at about km 32. At that point, however, we were pleasantly surprised to see the fine condition continuing. I thought I saw a sign just south of San Felipe touting some kind of road improvement project, but you never know what they're up to. I thought I'd read something about km 72, which is darn near all the way to Puertecitos. Sure enough, the good pavement kept going past Campo los Pulpos. About halfway up the big straightaway leading to the Campo Christina curve, I looked off to the right and saw an asphalt batch plant. If they bothered to haul that thing in, they must be serious. We continued down the straightaway, but alas, after making the turn at the top of the straightaway, the black pavement gave way to the potholed gray mess that we've become used to and grown to hate. But hey, the batch plant as there and who knows, maybe mañana?

The Gonzaga road had become a bit more worn throughout the summer, but no summer storm damage was apparent and that was good. We rolled into camp around 6 PM and set up camp. The first thing I discovered was that my batteries were about had it. After running a light load for a short while, they were down in the <12 volt range. I borrowed one off Eddie. The days were clear and we spent most of the time outside anyway, so we got by on just one battery. I hauled the old T105s out.

Sunday was a bit breezy. Morning mud was in order.

We got the boats ready, but never did get to launch. I seized the opportunity to get things in order. The first order of business was to fix the stove. The packrats that had found their way into the trailer last spring did an incredible amount of damage. One thing they did was gnaw the aluminum gas lines in the stove in two. Fortunately we detected the massive leak before blowing up the trailer. In order to fix it though, I had to plug the line over Memorial Day until I could secure some 3/16ths diameter Swagelok tubing connections. I have a ton of connections (right Mike?) from decommissioning Green Farm and other Maxwell facilities, but surprisingly, none of them were 3/16ths. I found some elbows and unions at Industrial Liquidators here in San Diego over the summer. I bought plenty of spares, as they were a couple bucks apiece rather than 10 or 15 bucks like if they were new. Here, I'm fixing it up.

I bought a bunch of plywood at Home Depot in San Diego to avoid having to buy substandard, expensive Mexican wood. I cut it into 4' squares to make it easy to haul and Pandro hauled it down. We also got a start on putting the roof on the new veranda. Here's the frame with the $5, ungraded Mexican 2 x 4 wood rafters stacked up.

Here's the campo.

I then set out a-rafterin'.

Pandro set out roofing.

Pandro and Dan relax under the newly added half-veranda

On Monday, the sunrise was nice.

One thing we did notice was that the shore fishing was quite good. We were coming off quarter tides and the rollers were optimal.