Our return and the promised photos...

As of this morning, Camille and I are back in the good old U.S. of A. This morning we drove across the border early, got through quite easily, and are now up at her parents house, resting and getting ready for our return to San Luis Obispo. The necessity of our return has been minimalized a bit, though, as I found out this morning that due to the housing market slowdown, there will not be a place for me back at Cannon Associates. Although this may sound like bad news, it is actually a blessing for Camille and I, as we had really been praying for direction upon my return and had sensed a bit that although I felt committed to Cannon as they had allowed me this time off, perhaps there were other avenues I would be better off pursuing. So now we get to see which of those will pan out. But in the meantime, more vacation! And we are definitely looking forward to seeing and spending time with our friends and family, Nathan and Vanessa, and having a bit less stressful move into our new rental home.
But now on to the good stuff. I promised pictures, and I will deliver the goods. However, as there are a few I have decided to split them up into a few different sections of Baja, and it may take me a few days to get them all on here. But for now, a teaser...

Ryan

San Jose del Cabo

Here we are, at the southern tip of Baja California. We arrived here Saturday night, slept on the beach, then went about trying to find the home of Jeremiah and Shellie Blackwell, friends from San Luis Obispo who moved down here a little over a year ago. We found them after driving around there neighborhood a bit, (they bought Camille´s old car before they left, so we looked around for that), and have been camping in their short driveway since then. They have been incredibly gracious, as they have two young sons, (Owen, 2 and a half years old, and Elias, who is 9 months), and we will likely try to find a place to camp tomorrow and the next night on the beach so as to get out of their hair a bit. We have plans to go camping with them up the east cape of Baja this weekend, so we won´t be driving back up, but we could do to give them a bit more space.
Overall, though, our time here has been great. It is definitely an interesting town, with a strange mix of old fishing village being quickly changed into high end condos. I´m not sure if I have ever seen a place with so much construction happening so quickly, but I guess that is how it works. Jeremiah and Shellie actually have a piece of property on which they are living in a trailer, (of high quality), and plan to being on the foundation of their new home in the next couple of weeks.
It has definitely been a new weather change for us these last few days. This part of Baja is much more humid and warm than the rest of the trip down has been, so the last couple of days have been fairly uncomfortable. The nights have been just cool enough to sleep, and last night we actually did get some sleep as we finally figured out how the mosquitoes were getting through our net curtains and were able to stop them.
We´d better get going, as we have volunteered to watch the kids tonight and we need to get a little dinner first before we head back to their place. We´ll keep you all updated, but for now all is going well.

Ryan and Camille

Todos Santos

Well, here we are a week later, and much closer to the tip of the Baja peninsula. We just drove into the smallish town of Todos Santos, and now find ourselves about 100 miles from the southernmost point we will reach. We plan to stay here a couple of days and then move on.
Overall, we have had a great trip down. Our second morning we met another couple headed the same way and proceeded to travel with them for the next week and a half. Driving out through the desert proved to be much nicer with another car along, and we were able to explore a few points at the end of some long dirt roads. Although we didn't find a lot of sizeable surf, we got a few days of good longboarding at Scorpion Bay for Ryan, a few good lefts for Camille at Punta Conejo, and a change of air filter for the Toyota. The truck has held up admirably, and we haven't had any problems other than having to find and reattach all the bolts holding the camper shell onto the truck bed. After 100 miles of dirt roads all but two of the bolts had rattled off.
Not too much else to say other than that Camille and I are doing fine, and will post some pictures when we get a chance. We are both healthy, tan, and actually looking forward to being back in San Luis for a while. We have been realizing lately that we are definitely ready to get back to our friends, and look forward to the return. Of course I'll have to work again...

Ryan and Camille

Baja Surfing

Quick update to let everyone know that we are doing fine. We are now in a little town called San Ignacio, about halfway down the Baja peninsula. It has been a really nice trip down so far, although we haven´t had the best luck getting surf. We have had a few small days, but have yet to come across that 200 yard long right point.
We joined up the second morning with another couple going the same direction as us, and have been traveling with them since then. Their names are Christian and Jasmine and are pretty easy to travel with. Also, Christian speaks fluent Spanish, so between him and Camille we are doing well.
We aer headed toward Scorpion Bay this afternoon and are looking forward to maybe getting some good longboarding waves, but even if it doesn´t happen the experience has been well worth it.
Also, we are planning to meet up with our friends Jeremiah and Shelly down in Cabo San Lucas next weekend. They moved down there a couple of years ago, and we figure it will be nice to see them and spend some time with them and their two kids.
I´d better go as we have a few hours of dirt roads to navigate this afternoon. No mechanical problems yet, so we will hope that we continue along like that.

Ryan and Camille

Colorado to California

From Colorado and the quick trip west through Utah and Idaho, we went and visited Ryan James in Portland, Oregon, picked up Dave to do some fly fishing, then watched Ryan's dad race in the national triathlon race in Oregon. What a privilege to see him race. From there, we went to visit Camille's long lost sister and old babysitter and great friend, Christina in Bend Oregon and spent a night in their wonderful home. Down through Redding and Northern California we fished, until at last we landed at Ryan's families cabin in Chester. We ran a 5k there (where Camille, Dave and Tom all won second for their age group and got great medals), watched the fourth of July parade and fireworks around Lake Almanor. Traversing down further, we spent the night with Camille's first cousins, the Frietas family, who were gracious enough to open their home to us on short notice. Our car-weary legs were soon put to the test as we joined Matt and Shellie Sytsma on the John Muir Trial, completing 88 miles, 40,000 feet in altitude change, in 5 days. Blisters abounding, we hiked out, feasted on pizza and landed shortly thereafter in San Luis Obispo to refuel and check in before heading off to Southern California and Baja, Mexico.
... two and a half weeks, covered in a brief paragraph...
The End


Stuffing ourselves with pizza after the big hike

Ryan and Matt fly fishing at Rae Lakes

Ryan crossing the "one person at a time" suspension bridge

Ryan, Camille, Matt and Shellie at the top of Mather Pass, 12,000 feet.

Camille's Uncle Doug thought this "Peace, Love, Flowers" was an appropriate addition to the truck.

Camille's cousins, Aaron and Joshua Freitas (the third, Jacob was not there).

Ryan flyfishing during the famous "hex" hatch at sunset.

Lake Almanor Sunset

Ryan, Camille, Janet and Tom Hayes at Tom's race at Hag Lake, the National triathlon race in Oregon

Isaac and Jessie Hansen, this portrays their personalities very well, they are beautiful kids we love them.

Visiting Christina and Steve Hansen and their two little boys in Bend Oregon.

Amazing Roses in the Rose Garden in Portland, this is the dark red rose

Camille, Ryan and Ryan James in Portland

Colorado to Oregon

1,200 miles, that’s how far we’ve traveled since our last entry. 7 different campgrounds, 300 bug bites, and some 100 fish bites later, we have paused for a brief moment to record our travel stories here once again. Thank you so much to everyone who checks this and is interested in our lives, we appreciate your comments and prayers so much!
From Katherine and Creighton’s house, we drove through the Colorado mountains and fished on the Cochatepa River. They were biting at everything we threw at them, jumping out of the river as we hunted them down in their little holes (and this coming from Camille so you know the fish were pretty desperate). Ryan and I trekked through the tall grasses and muddy grounds, enjoying the abundant wildflowers. The river had perfect casting conditions, snow-capped Rockies in the background, and the setting sun made the fields glow as we experienced the adrenalin rush of the fish biting our lines (and the mosquitoes biting our bodies unfortunately). We were blessed to visit Ryan’s “grandmother in-law” (his Uncle’s mother) and we spent a day visiting her cabin in the mountains and feasting on berries and homemade cinnamon rolls. We traveled to the neighboring town of Ouray, hiked to an abandoned mine and went to church. We camped in the forest on the west fork of the Cimarron River exploring the 60+ mile dirt road and finally settling down right by the river in the forest with no one around for miles. The fish there were absolutely beautiful and ready to “be educated” (since we throw them all back, we figure it’s a learning experience for them ; ).
From Colorado, we hurried through Utah into Idaho where we camped in the mountains with natural hot springs about 100 feet from our camp spot. After soaking under the stars, in the early morning light, and every other chance we had, we were ready for the road, drove to Oregon and here we are. As for us personally, Ryan had a pretty bad sore throat which has since subsided and we are realizing more and more that a huge highlight of our trip has been seeing and communicating with all of our friends and family. Hope we’re not boring you all too much. Maybe next time we’ll throw in some really exciting stories just to keep you interested…they just might not be true…

Sending our love,

Ryan and Camille

Camille enjoying one of God's gifts to mankind on a hot summer day.

The hot stream and tubs we camped next to in Idaho.

The desolate but stunning section of Southeastern Utah.

The beautiful country side driving into the mountains.

The windy dirt road out in the Colorado Rockies where we camped.

Camille fly fishing on the Cochatepa river

Forgotten pictures

Well, yesterday Camille did a fine job of updating the blog, but she forgot a very important reason that we post the blog in the first place - showing off. Somehow it slipped her mind to put the pictures of us proudly holding our fish, so I've decided to add that feature myself...

Camille had been on a bit of a dry spell, so she was pretty happy about this guy. Notice the death grip...

Beautiful coloring

The West Bitterroot River - our chance to fish the infamous salmonfly hatch.

Yellowstone Cutthroat - my biggest fish of the trip