Final days in Mulege

Instead of returning to our normal spot in Mulege, we went to an old favorite in search of something different then beaches and the same tropical campground in town. Located a few miles outside of town, down a sparsely populated dirt road, is a farm slash RV park. We know it as “Ray’s” but it has since dropped the previous owner’s name from the signage (Ray passed away a few years back). We were looking for some peace and quiet, away from all the other American and Canadian nomads in Baja this year. It also helped that we knew this place had a great shower, a large open grassy area, and ample orange trees for as much free fresh squeezed orange juice as we could handle.

Upon arrival there were already a half dozen other rigs parked in the RV park area. Big ones too, and spread out just right so each rig commanded not just their own RV space, but all the others directly beside in all directions. This effectively blocked off all the spaces in the RV park, unless we wanted to camp under the awning of a 40 foot Class-A, or step out onto the poop-hose of a monster 5th wheel. It may sound like I am complaining (I do that a lot) but I was all too happy to see them clustered together, allowing us to take up a spot at the far side of the property, along the fence line, all by ourselves, hundreds of feet from the nearest next camper. We don’t need no stinkin’ hookups!

It was good to have some distance between me and anyone else this week. Although I quit smoking cigarettes back in 2009, for the past few years I started smoking a pipe. This started as a very occasional activity, like sitting around a camp fire once or twice a week. Over the recent years, it slowly escalated to a daily occurrence, and recently turned into something I was doing a few times each day. By the beginning of this year I knew the inevitable had to be done – to quit smoking again. I did not have enough tobacco to last the entire trip in Baja, and the day before arriving at Ray’s was my final smoke’s worth of tobacco. The pipes were then thrown away and for the second time in a decade I was a new non-smoker. The next week would not be a good time for anyone within a few hundred feet of me. I get quite grumpy for a few days after my final smoke.