Do You Wanna Fly to Baja?

Forry learned to fly in 1967 and promptly bought a red and white Piper Cherokee 180 from Price Aviation in Spokane. One day the next winter, when we were in Spokane talking with Tom Price, he asked if we wanted to go to the tip of Baja with him. He was going to take the firm's big twin Piper Navajo and a group of planes down for a winter break.

There ended up being seven planes that went to Baja with Tom. Most of them were small single engine planes like our Cherokee, though if I remember right, there was one other twin-engine airplane besides Tom's Navajo. We left from Spokane and stopped for the night in Reno. The next day we crossed the border at Tijuana and went as far as La Paz, where we spent the night on cots in a fishing camp.

LaPaz was literally the end of the road, such as it was. There was no paved road from there to the tip of Baja. Indeed there is a famous off-road race called the Baja 1000, which was mainly Jeep style rigs. The only was you went further south from LaPaz was by private plane (there were no commercial flights and no runways suitable for jet traffic) or by yacht. Sailors who went to the tip of Baja usually returned to the north by first following the currents west to Hawaii, then swinging back northeast to the states. Because of the distance of the journey, you did not see many small boats at the tip. Though we did see a few abandoned catamarans whose owners gave up trying to fight the currents returning north.

We flew on further south and landed at the small airport at Cabo San Lucas where we stayed at the fabulous Palmilla Hotel -- at that time the ONLY hotel at the tip (there were two other small ones a few miles north). We went deep-sea fishing and caught our first marlins -- the meat of which was highly prized by the Baja natives. We went snorkeling, but I don't recall that we did any scuba diving. I do remember the very formal, very elegant, and very slow meals -- an hour plus to eat breakfast and 2-3 hours for dinner! It was our first taste of papaya, which has become a favorite.

The other thing I vividly remember about this trip was being insanely jealous of Tom's Navajo during the long days of flying. There was a bathroom in that airplane! A few months later when we were talking with Tom about the trip, I mentioned our envy. He roared with laughter and said that no one ever used it! Turns out he had a rule that the first person the use the facilities on a trip was the one who had to clean it at the end...!

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This afternoon we went into Fountain Hills to send a Priority Mail package of tax stuff off to Cleon. While we were there, we went across the street to the library so that I could get a library card (I wanted to be able to check out e-books for my iPad.). These are a couple of the art works in the courtyard of the City Complex where the library and the post office are located --