Sunday was a great day for a beach party. Here are kibbitzers Kay, Al, Jonesy, Chuck and Nina instructing Joe (center) on how to build a fire

Russ and Elsa are kicking back watching the charcoal. Elsa just had successful laser eye surgery

"suck in those guts" I told Choo, Dik & Dave

Chuck did a little beach riding on his quad

Nina, Richard & Mitch just finished their 1/2 pound burgers

"Juan thumb" Joe even caught a few surf perch

  Gail and Mitch are admiring Jonesy's new Green Bay Packers attired Artic Cat

Ahh, a bellyfull of burgers, potato salad and beans. Next stop Happy Hour

Finally getting around to posting pics of Gary & Stacye's housewarming

Jose Luis's wife made the beans and rice. David cooked up the pork and beef  carne asada

Lots of beer and sodas also

25 May, we had a "Firehouse Chili" benefit to raise $300dlls to send our volunteer fireman "Santiago" to an advanced firefighting course in La Paz. Here is Nina, maker of the biggest pot of chili, presenting $321dlls to Santiago

"Snake eyes" Richard brought his dice game with booze prizes from him and Mike & Nina. They raised $80dlls for the fund.

 Mike and Rusty take a cocktail break during the event. By the way, bartender Cruz is the proud new father of a baby girl!

"Shipyard"  Joe and  "Commodore" Bob sampling some of the three different types of chili, made by "one thumb" Joe, Nina and Dave. Another great feed.

 It was fun to be able to make some contribution to the community. Most of San Quintin's fireman are volunteers, like Santiago. They have to pay their own way to take courses of certification. The 3 day course in La Paz is USA certified emergency extractions from vehicles. 

 "GET A ROPE!!" was the cry heard around the dice table as "lucky" Juanita won  50% of the prizes. Kay's expression soon changed when she won a fifth of booze.

Gary and Stacye were down last week and lived in their new house. Have a few bugs to work out. They threw a great housewarming carne asada of which pictures will be posted later.

This is Johnny Manana's garage. His house will be two stories. Cielito waiter Jose Luis and his construction crew have done these houses.

Cher, Jim, & Tonya should be down the 1st of July to move into their house. Another great party will be held as it will be Cher's birthday and housewarming party.

Cruz painted this picture for Roger.  See how many people you can identify.

February 25, 08. Did I say going wild, What I meant to say was, growing wild.  This is a photo of brother Mikes white carpet with Gary and Stacye's house in the background. 

This is Ralph and Dorothys lot looking at Marty and Randys feng shui flags.  Very colorful!

Lots of Lupin growing everywhere.  this one is on our lot looking toward the rangers lot.

I don't know the name of this one but it sure is purty.

 White and yellow Margaritas on everyones lot.

16 Feb we went to Baja Gardens new restaurant for lunch. This is run by the same couple that ran Viejo San Quintin restaurant downtown. They are the daughter and son in law of Carmen and Guillermo, owners of Baja Gardens Motel.

The food was great, as we expected. This photo is of the dining room, filled with a wedding party.

A nice bar, where we dined. Juanita, Choochoo Mike and Nina are in the background. Randy and Marty joined us. Randy and Marty are getting ready to head north next month

 We can finally work with the website again after being down for several months. We celebrated Chinese New Years today with lunch at Mi Lien Restaurant. All of us are stuffed.

In other news, Jeffe Luis is working in Tijuana with Esteban. Former assistant manager, Benny is now the Cielito Lindo manager. His family has moved into the big house.

We have had a few nice rainfalls. One period gave us 5". This is the first time we have seen water in the arroyo in 12 years

As a side note, the new Los Pinos Pemex station at our turnoff has been open for a while, but not selling fuel for a few more days. Yuppie coffee, snacks and Ice Cream!!

11 Nov and we are home but these 3 photos are from our stop in Topolobampo, one of our favorite stops. Cielito bartender Carmen recommended this palapa restaurant after her visit to her home in Sinaloa

Here is a red snapper being selected for our grilled fish tacos. We just finished off shrimp cocktails. Topolabampo had free bus tours and forkloric dancers to entertain the cruise passengers. About 300 passengers went on an 18 hour Copper Canyon tour.

Dave and friends enjoying after lunch cocktails. Our next stops were Loreto, La Paz and Cabo.

5 November, Dave and I are enjoying the cruise. Lots of good food, weather and people. Except for the presailing lifeboat drill, these photos were taken in Mazatlan yesterday. Today we arrived in Topolabampo where many of our fellow passengers departed early this AM for a Copper Canyon tour. We will be going to a little island for lunch.

 (Cielito bartender Carmen told us about it)

We decided to have a shrimp feed Sunday and had to get a Kilo for us to test from the new shrimp farm a few miles south of us before Pabellon RV Park. We saw the owner going past Cielito Lindo with two 250 gallon water tanks several times a day and thought he was taking fresh water to the point, but he was getting sea water for the shrimp, making two or 3 trips daily.

He gets the "shrimp starter" from La Paz, then raises them in 3 tanks like this one, each tank holding a different size shrimp. He also has a sea urchin harvesting operation which is presently subsidizing his beginning shrimp operation. We bought 1 kilo of medium size shrimp for $80 pesos (less than $4dlls per pound)

This is the net our 1 kilo was taken from. Still alive,talk about fresh. We will be going back Sunday to get about 10 kilos to feed those at Sunday's feast, money coming from our trash fund. Will post some photos of the feast so those of you not here can see our smacking lips.

"FORT SKIPPY" he was tired of someone breaking into his place so Skippy made his fort, with more barbed wire on the inside.

Here we are at the Sand Crab Cafe in San Diego with Joe & Rae, Skippy & Denise, Mike & Marivac. David remembered the place from 15 years ago as being great. We were not impressed with the place this time, but it was still fun having a "get together"

On our way home at 4pm Monday we hit a fire south of Ensenada which had jumped Hwy 1 and led to closure of the highway. We spent the night in town and passed thru Tuesday morning. There were still several fires burning south of Ensenada

MORE RACES!!

This Saturday 13 October found us heading to Posado Don Diego at 8am to watch the preparations for our local off road club "COYOTES" 100 mile race. We were about to head out for our viewing spot near the bridge when Juanita found out the course had been changed to keep away from the Baja 1000 prerunners in the mountains. The new course was to pass next to Cielito Lindo, so we returned home, set up our canopy and food/beverages table and kicked back for a relaxing day at the races.

Ladies at the registration booth. There were about 200 participants in the race.

A view of the pit area

In the foreground, Nina, Juanita and Choochoo Mike look over the setting up of the beer and vendors tents.

There were about six of these in the race.

The course ran past Gypsys then to the Cielito road and turned near Joe & Kay's place.

Nina braved the "crash" side of the corner to get some good action photos.

Eat your heart out Johnny Manana. This coudda been you in your new Artic Cat.

Hermano Mike & Marivic just returned from a trip to the Phillipines. Marivic cooked up a few pounds of chicken feet in a yummy sauce for happy hour.

Here is Hermano Mike chowing down on one of the tasty feet. Very few of the happy hour crowd joined him. Their message to Marivic is: "Next time make us some lumpia instead!"

Choo Choo Mike and Nina's house just isn't big enough for them so they are adding more rooms.  Here you see Mike framing in the new addition. 

Other news, Chuck is back from Bisby with a new quad, motorcycle fairing and all.  He went there for a hip replacement but visited his chiropractor first.  Results were, no hip replacement.  The Chiropractor did acupuncture and various other techniques which resulted in no pain and no surgery. 

It is beyond hot here in San Quintin so we headed for the beach in Colonia Guerrero and one of our favorite restaurants, Gastons.  Not shown in this pic is Sandys Joe and Russ who were checking out the koi pond outside.Not attending were Gabby, Bob, Sam and Bill. Paul was at a Seal Team reunion in San Diego, otherwise, these are all the residents here at Cielito at this time.

A nice off road race was being run in the arroyos on our way to Gaston's. Turns out it was a 150 KM race put on by our local Coyotes off road club. Quite a turnout. We plan to go see their next event next Sunday in San Simone.

Yesterday morning at 8:30 Dave and I went down to the beach to answer a call for volunteers written up in the local paper.  Club Coyotes organized a beach clean-up and wanted all the help they could get.  They started right on time and supplied the plastic bags and bottled water.

Club Coyotes had about 30 to 40 volunteers ranging in age from about 6 to 62 (me and Dave).  It was a lot of fun and we got meet some new friends.  The club plans on doing this on a regular basis and we plan to join them in the effort to keep the beach clean. They estimated about 1 ton of trash yesterday.

3 August 07. Coach Yuma John had to call for the hometown boys to come do some fish catching. Cielito Lindo was starting to stink from all the skunks running around. White seabass, yellowtail, baracudda etc were caught.

Yuma Sandy, Nina and Juanita have deserted us here to go to the big city of Yuma for some work/vacation, stopping at a casino along the way. We are now able to have some neat guy type food at happy hour. Tomorrow is beef hearts, followed by gizzards. Today we had fast grilled liver, saving some for our faithful dogs. Here is Richard feeding LBD and Buster some great leftovers. Fida & Bugsy were already full and Mike took a to-go bag for Charlie and Yoda. Paul is still looking for Dawg who is hiding out. I didn't give Yuma John a go bag for XX as that dammed dog tried to eat out 3 legged cat Raven the other day.Yuma John said the women must have lost big time at the casino as they were out of there pretty quick. Well, the dishes are piling up, the house is getting dirty, and Yuma John and Mike are drunk in the bar all day. David is being good.

Dave

We surprised Richard with a Birthday cake yesterdayat Happy Hour.  He's 39 again.

This is one of the souped up trucks in the sand drags.  Dave says it smelled like it was running on nitro.  No wonder he winning every race.

What a hectic week!  Parties to attend, fishing tournament and today (Sunday) a giant beach party with sand races.  There was all the candidates for the Miss San Quintin contest (waiter and contractor Jose Luis has a niece vying for the position).  The Mayor introduced the beautiful young ladies.  The sand drags were exciting to watch.  We figured there were about a thousand attendees.  It was fun and a nice way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon.

This past Saturday was the Old Mill fishing tournament.  It started out a little overcast but around 2 p.m. turned into a nice sunny day.  It was won by a 47 lb white sea bass (this is not it).  We enjoyed visiting with friends while we watched the boats come in.  We didn't stay for the raffle and boat give away, but heard it was won by a local.  Sandys Joe won a reel. 

Party, party, party!  It seems like thats all we ever do, but its fun.  This is Fernando cutting up the pig for carnitas.  Yuma John and Dave decided to throw themselves a party and invite everyone.  It was a good turnout and everyone had fun.  Happy retirment check John and Happy Birthday Dave.

Pryamid Mike and Keri came down for the day to help Dave celebrate his birthday and Yuma John to celebrate his retirement check.

Several couples staying at Gypsys came up to help Dave and John celebrate.

Our neighbors Mike and Nina with visiting grandkids who will be going home Sunday.  They've been quading on the beach and loving it.

We were all happy to see Rae.  She came down with friends Joe and Doreen shown here.

Here we have Guitar Mike, Yuma John (Johnny Manaña) and Delta Dik.  Yuma John happy to have that retirement check.

Dave seems to be contemplating yet another birthday. 

Captain Chino waiting for the food (notice the fish shirt).

Here's Keri, Sandy and Kay enjoying the day socializing with friends and neighbors.

A long line for the tasty carnitas. Cielito cooked up the beans and rice with salsa fresca.  Laura's brother did another fine job in cooking the pig.

July 15 Rancho Avina had a professional motorcross race with entrants of all ages. Dave and I went and enjoyed watching the kids race their bikes and quads.  The bleachers were full with parents, friends and race roadies.  Tecate had a beer stand.  Pollos Lalos had a roasted chicken stand.  There were also stands selling bottled water and t shirts.  All in all very well organized.

After the races were over the winners of each catagory went to the winners tent and signed posters of themselves.  I couldn't get close to get a signed poster, there were just way too many fans.

Birthday cake is one of my favorites and Botany Bob brought the ice cream. 

Laura's brother, Fernando, cooking carnitas 

Laura and Lourdes birthday party July 11 at Gypsys.  Her brother Fernando cooked carnitas which was enjoyed by everyone.  Lots of us residents attended and some of us even pigged out.

We have windpower at the Rancho. Joe & Kay built their own generator and had an "installation party". Worked great for a while then fell down. It is back up again and a few glitches are being worked out.