June 22: Thursday - Arroyo de San Francisquito

Camp 5: Boojum country; cold as blitz¹⁴. Several [of our group] without even a jacket. Grandma wins again with the extra blanket. Others had to cover with tarps to keep warm and to keep dew off. Scenery absolutely beautiful. Lots of pictures here: Agave plants, Boojums, Fishhook cactus, Cardons¹⁵, Elephant trees, flat leafed plants, and other bushes and vegetation. Children had a ball. Packing slow. Gene fixing bus transmission, Carl welding truck. Saw Ravens. Leave 3:45 PM. Hopefully all in good shape. We take Todd and Bryan. Five people got stuck with the jumping cactus¹⁶, including Todd, Curtis, and Grandma. Wow! They hurt! Pictures of teddy bear cholla cactus. Road bed (Larry has picture of this hill). Gene having troubles again. Red fuzzy cactus. Chain fruit cholla. Cat claw bush. Mimosa leaves. Many cat-like claw spines. Carl did welding again for Gene in the deep rocky canyon¹⁷. Curtis rides with Billie in the sand buggy. Spouse fed us all in the rocky canyon while the bus was being fixed. Disaster! Gene broke steering gear box¹⁸ and had a flat. Got it fixed and [we moved] on. Larry had bent radius rod¹⁹, which he [had] fixed that morning before we left. Gene also worked on shock absorbers and Carl fixed right rear spring support on the truck²⁰. Camp 6.

June 23: Friday - Laguna Chapala

Camp 6: Left camp about 11:30 AM. More Cardons and Boojums, and other interesting cactus: Pipe Organ, jumping cactus, etc. Took lots of pictures of vegetation. Five-headed Boojum²¹, giant Cardon. Cold, Cold! Todd slept in the truck with me. Many birds, mostly Finches and Gila Woodpeckers probably! One sure needs patience on a trip like this. We are approximately two days behind schedule. Wide spine Fishhook cactus in bloom before we left. Larry has picture of shrine²². Cardon forest, organ pipe-like cactus in bloom, ocotillo, and many boojums. Gene in trouble again. Only seven miles on our way. Steering out again. 1:30 PM. 3:30 going again. More pictures. Bottlebrush type red flower. Through a Joshua forest. Stopped about 10:30 PM for the night for Camp 7 after we got out of the dust flats²³ in the flat lands. (Lake flats.)

¹⁴While summer temperatures commonly reach 110-120 degrees F. on the east coast of the Baja Peninsula, temperatures vary widely depending upon geography. Even in the narrow 30 mile wide mid-section, night-time inland temperatures can reach 50 degrees or lower in the summertime, while the static Pacific coast remains a nearly constant 70 degrees.

¹⁵The Cardon cactus (often spelled "Cordon") is similar in looks to a Saguaro, but is somewhat larger and flowers on the upper sides of the arms rather than the tops.

¹⁶Jumping Cactus is another name for the Cholla, or Teddy Bear cactus, named for its tendency to attach to the unwary, who often don’t even realize they have brushed the detachable thorn balls.

¹⁷Arroyo de San Francisquito.

¹⁸The steering box was stripped off on a rock in Arroyo de San Francisquito. Small parts and springs were collected from the roadbed, bolt ends were drilled and removed with an easy-out. The holes were enlarged and re-threaded to accept over-sized bolts from the spare parts, and the box was reassembled. The party wound up spending the night on the narrow grade, which was completely blocked by the disabled vehicle; but it didn’t matter, as only gringos would attempt that road after dark.

¹⁹This was the second time the Scout radius rod had bent. This time the bend was a full 90 degrees. It was removed and, with the help of a cheater pipe straighten to its nominal original condition. Although the metal was thought to have lost its temper at the time, the inch diameter rod never bent again during the remaining 17 years of the vehicle’s active life.

²⁰This was another welding job. The spring shackle mount had broken a number of years earlier in the civilian life of the Dodge Weapons Carrier, and the leaf spring had come to rest against the metal bed of the truck. On these first few days of this journey it wore through the metal bed and was threatening to continue tearing until the bed came down against the wheel. The shackle bold had long been lost, but a replacement of appropriate size and thread (a 1" x 5" hitch pin) was found among the Scout spare parts that were brought along.

²¹Split-trunk Boojum trees are abnormal, and thought to be a result of lightening strikes.

²²Shrines are placed frequently along roadways throughout Mexico to provide a place for worship and prayers of safe passage to St. Christopher, particularly along remote and primitive roadways. Shrines along these routes vary in size and composition from a large food can to a walk-in stucco building. Often, they are constructed from any and all available natural and man-made materials and a large portion of ingenuity; and always, they feature a picture of Christ, a burning candle, and an ample supply of fresh candles ready to be lit as required to keep the flame going 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

²³Federal Highway #2 reaches Federal Highway #1, the main trans-peninsular highway, at Laguna Chapala, a normally a dry lake bed which may contain water one to two miles across in wet years. On this particular occasion it contained approximately a foot of powdered dust so fine that walking in it produced no footprints. Despite this, the road through the lake bed was better defined than the rocky road around, and the hard surface beneath the dust was so rough that speeds in excess of fifteen miles per hour were unmanageable. Ref. National Geographic Magazine, satellite picture, Circa 1972.
 

 
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L. Elva Fox & Larry K. Fox

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