As we approached the border, we drove along the fence dividing the two countries for a few miles. Closer to the border checkpoint, we had to stop and wait in line for about half an hour. While our car was stopped, the merchants came up to our window and offered to sell us tortillas, or jewelery, or popsicles, or wash our windows, or anything else to try and eek out their meager living. There is a line of trees right along the border fence and a lot of them use the shade for kind of a base camp for the stuff they are selling. Kids as young as preschool are out selling stuff to help their families earn enough money to survive. It got me to thinking... How would it be to work day in and day out literally inches from your dream of living in a wealthy country with opportunities to provide for your family. Always within sight of the dream, but never quite able to reach it. It must be maddening. I can see why so many Mexicans risk everything, even their lives, to cross the border into the USA.

We passed through the border at about 4:30 in the afternoon. The thermometer in Doug's truck measured the temperature at the boarder to be 122 degrees. HOT! The border patrol officer asked us our citizenship and asked to see our driver's licenses, then he asked Alex were he was born. He also asked if we were carrying any apples or oranges. After taking our driver's licenses into his booth for a few minutes, he handed them back to us and waved us through.

A few blocks after we crossed the border, we stopped and ate at Burger King. Even though I loved my time in Mexico, I felt a weight lift off of me when we were back in the USA. We were all glad to be back were we could drink the water, use a flush toilet in a mostly clean bathroom, bask in the air conditioning, and shop at Walmart. Part of me felt guilty for enjoying so many luxuries and privileges when there were people so nearby living in squalor. Even our beach cabana, which was roughing it by our standards (no drinkable water, power only by generator, etc) was palatial compared to what the vast majority of Mexicans were living in. Today I am finding it very easy to count my blessings.

Today we had to say goodbye to the beach and head home. After we loaded up all the trucks and cars and toys, we made a quick stop at the gigantic cactus just south of San Felipe to take a photo of all of us together. We are all grimy and salty and sweaty, but we had such a great time.

On the north side of San Felipe, we were stopped at a checkpoint run by the Mexican military. Scott and I had to get out of the car while the soldier tapped on all the interior panels of our van with the handle of a screwdriver and opened all the glove boxes and compartments in our car. He asked Alex where he lived and asked us were in the USA we were going. After he was satisfied that we were not transporting any guns or drugs or anything else illegal, he waved us on.

Between mountain ranges there are vast flat areas of nothing but sand. They remind me of Camp Greenlake from the book Holes. Today as we were driving across one of them, a sandstorm kicked up and cut down our visibility to almost nothing. It was another one of those "could have been really dangerous if we didn't have a nice and reliable vehicle to keep us safe" moments that was both exciting and a little scary.

About the time Andrea and I were waking up from our beach siesta, Brad and Stephanie came back from a run on their prowler. They were buzzing with excitement over a pristine and remote sandy beach that they had found. The back seat of the Prowler was loaded with gigantic clam shells and sand dollars.

Unbroken sand dollars had been the beach combing prize that everyone had been looking for the whole trip, and they were not common at all, but B and S came back with about a dozen of them that they found within a very short time.

The beach they found had no rocks to smash up the shells, plus it was only accessible at low tide and only accessible with an all terrain vehicle, and it was a huge sprawling area. All of these factors made for a beach combers paradise. Unfortunately there was only one low tide left before we had to leave and head back to Utah, and it was at 2:30 in the morning. Still, we were all so itchy to see that beach that we decided to try getting to it at night. Some of us decided that they would rather sleep than shell hunt in the dark, so we left them with the small children and the rest of us piled onto the two four-wheelers and the prowler. One of the four wheelers had no headlights, so we drove three wide on the beach to share the light. It took us about half an hour to get back to the general area were the beach was.

Unfortunately, Brad had not taken his GPS with him that afternoon so they were forced to navigate by memory. That's not such and easy thing to do when everything is unending sand and it is black as coal with no moon. The whole area was a labyrinth of safe sturdy sand and not so sturdy sand. The trick was telling the difference. Sometimes we couldn't even tell exactly were the water was unless we started driving into it. Still they were sure that we were on the right track to get there so we kept trying.

We got the Prowler stuck once, but were able to push it out without too much difficulty. After a while of driving in the dark, but not finding it, we parked the vehicles, marked their location on the GPS and set out on foot into the ankle deep sea water with our flashlights. We never did find the beach Brad and Stephanie had been to earlier, but we did find a lot of sand dollars and large clam shells. We even came across two crabs that seemed to be in the throws of passion -- sorry about that. *blush* As we were walking back to the vehicles the crescent moon rose over the ocean. It was breathtaking.

It occurred to Stephanie later that perhaps we couldn't get back to their beach because the hot sun had helped to harden the wet sand in the afternoon, making it drivable. At night, with softer sand, the beach may not have been accessible at all, no mater which route we tried.

Even though we never found our target beach, the whole experience was the crowning jewel of the whole trip for me. It was new and exciting and a little scary. I loved every minute of it.

Every night, we have all slept out on the balcony deck of the cabana to enjoy the cool ocean breeze at night. This morning I woke to find some light wispy clouds that made for an amazing sunrise over the water. The wind also kicked up, which is nice for keeping cool, but it was blowing the sand around a bit and that can get a little uncomfortable if the sand is blowing in your face. Still, it wasn't bad enough to keep us inside.

Alex and I had planned to get up and go to a big tide pool at low tide, but the tide didn't get as low as it had been for the past few days and we ended up waiting too long. Before we realized it, the tide was coming back in. Alex and MaKayla made an attempt at clam digging, but came up empty.

Then as the tide was getting too high for good beach combing, I laid down on a blanket with Andrea and we both had a little snooze while Scott, Starbuck, and Gwyneth walked around and looked for the tiny little shells that you can still find even at high tide. Andrea was really enjoying the ocean breeze in her hair and the sound of the waves on the shore. She was literally sleeping with a big grin on her face. It's little moments like this, when I see my kids really happy and content, that make me think I'm doing OK at this "mom" thing.

By now I have lost all track of time and would have to think for while to even tell you what day of the week it is. Friday, I think...

This morning and afternoon was more swimming and beach combing, we just can't ever seem to get our fill of it. In the afternoon I found a wonderfully breezy spot in the loft of the cabana and enjoyed a siesta that was absolutely sublime.

In the evening we went back into San Felipe for dinner, souvenir shopping, and a little more hair braiding. We ate on an open air balcony with an ocean view. I had a combo plate of two fish tacos with rice and beans for the very budget friendly price of $2. A plate of 20 steamed clams was probably the most expensive thing we ordered and cost a whole $3. YUM!!!

While we were eating, a mariachi band brought up all their instruments and played a few songs for us. The first was a love song for Scott's engaged sister and her fiance, but then we were ready for something a little more festive and they played a spicy song that got the kids dancing and grinning ear to ear. After dinner we walked for a few blocks and glanced through the shops. Then we got back in the cars and headed for the desert outside of town to do a night time geocache.

A night time geocache is a unique experience. You start at the given coordinates, then you shine your flashlight across the horizon and scan for a tiny reflector that shines your flashlight back into your eyes. Once you find the mark, you walk to the reflector and repeat the process. Eventually you are lead to the final destination that contains the cache. This one had us zig-zagging back and forth through the pitch black desert terrain that was infested with cactus and tarantula for over an hour. It was so fun! Brad and Stephanie had been to this geocache before and really liked it, but unfortunately the end cache had been removed since they were there last and we missed out on it. Still it was worth it. After all, it's not always about the destination, sometimes the journey is enough. : )

Today we woke to a beautiful day on the beach. The tide was low and we couldn't wait to get out and start beach combing. Hands down, Alex logged the most hours on the beach today. We had to keep a close eye on him and drag him back to eat and cool off every once in a while to keep him from getting sick. He loves to explore and examine everything around him and this was his first time on a warm water beach. He was in heaven flipping over rocks to see what was living under them and gathering every kind of shell and sponge and rock he could find.

Later in the afternoon when it was getting really hot, some of us, including the babies had a nice siesta in the cabana while others of us took the girls into town to have their hair braided. Long hair can be rather uncomfortable and hard to manage in the hot salty wind and water, but an easy fix is the braids. The braids are tiny and tight, so once they are in, you leave them in for the rest of the time you are there, and sometimes even for a while after you get home.

In San Felipe there are merchants walking everywhere up and down the street selling their wares. As soon as we got out of the car, the nice Mexican women were there to show us a little photo album of all the ways they could do braids. It is rare to find a merchant that speaks English, but they all speak just enough to conduct a transaction. Once Gabrielle found a style she liked, she sat down on a little curb under a palm tree and her Mexican hair stylist went to work. By American salon standards, they don't charge much. It cost me $10 for Gabrielle to have every strand of her hair braided into tiny cornrows.

Often you can haggle for prices and pay less than they originally ask for, but when you see the living conditions there, and consider that everything there is already considerably cheaper than what you would pay in the USA, I don't often ask them to drop the price. $3-$4 isn't going to make any difference in my vacation budget, but it can mean a lot to a family living in severe poverty.

After we got back from town, Scott's brother, Brad, took Scott and I out in his new Arctic Cat Prowler to go geocaching in the desert. Fun is too small a word to describe it. We were gone for quite a long time, it must have been at least a few hours but I'm not sure because I lost track of time. We came across some old abandoned sulfur mines, a few makeshift graves out in the desert, the route for the famous Baja dune buggy race, and enjoyed a beautiful desert sunset over the nearby mountains. We probably would have stayed out longer, but it was getting dark and we knew that we were expected back. Dinner was hot and waiting for us when we arrived back at the cabana.

After dinner we sat outside on the patio and enjoyed a nice breeze and nice conversation.

Yesterday we drove to St. George to meet up with Scott's family and pack all the food and gear for our trip to Mexico. It is about a twelve hour drive from St. George, UT to San Felipe, BC, so today we all got up really early and hit the road at about 4:30 in the morning to make tracks. We had two pickup trucks, one car, and our van all driving in caravan. The early start was nice because the kids, all 7 of them, slept for the first several hours and we made good time.

We crossed the border at Calexico, CA/Mexicali, MX at about 2:30 in the afternoon, then arrived at our beach cabana at about 5:30 in the evening. That gave us time to open up the cabana, unpack, swim, eat and do a little beach combing before dark.

After dark we lit about a million fireworks on the beach and sang a few patriotic songs to celebrate Independence Day.