Notable Times: Orphanage in Mexico, Part 1: Getting there

Linette teaches Spanish I at North Star Academy, one class every other day. She recently heard about an opportunity to visit an orphanage in Mexico and decided to let people in her Spanish class know about it. There was enough interest that she arranged for our group to do its own trip, ultimately with 52 people, including 9 members of her Spanish class, several of their families, and several other families from the school.

Meanwhile, Jared was needing to do an Eagle project, so a bit of encouragement on Linette's part (seems like there was an understatement hidden in there somewhere), he decided to collect donations of baby supplies (and money to buy supplies in Mexico to avoid border tariffs) for a new nursery they were building at the orphanage.

We tried to come up with a slogan for the project, but "Diapers Over the Wall" seemed so wrong. Ultimately we settled on "Bottles Without Borders."

Jared had a group of fellow scouts pass out flyers to the neighborhood.

Then Saturday it rained while a big group of guys and a couple of young women went around collecting supplies and money.

They were able to gather a big pile of stuff and raise $1600.

Finally, on Friday, April 7, 2017, we headed for Mexico! Our first stop was to drop a package off to be mailed to Erika in Peru, at a house in Saratoga Springs. Nobody was home when we dropped it, so we hoped it would make it.

That detour put us on the west side of Utah Lake, so we ended up driving all the way down on that side, through the middle of nowhere. We went through Goshen, then south through some mountains, and finally popped back out onto I-15. That was a fun little adventure because we had never gone that way before even though we lived in this area for decades.

Linette read "Killing Lincoln" to me while I drove. It was an interesting book, and was in large print, which allowed Linette to employ a creative technique for holding the book.

We stayed with Robin & Bill Christensen in St. George that night, and had a great time talking with them and with Bill's mother Jackie who is staying with them.

Saturday we drove to L.A. in time to get in a few hours at Universal Studios. But alas, it was a "black out" day, so our annual passes from January didn't work. So we instead decided to go up to the observatory near the Hollywood sign. As we turned to drive up the mountain, Sienna said the path looked fun to walk along, so we got out and had a beautiful hike.

Sienna found a really fun tree to climb along the way.

The last stretch of the hike was a steep, dusty hill.

You can just see the Hollywood sign on the hill in the distance.

The view from the observatory was great.

We looked at the science displays in the observatory, and then decided to catch a 30-minute nap, I mean, er, planetarium show (about the Northern Lights). The reclined, comfortable seats and darkened room were no fair, though, after driving all day and hiking up there.

I suspected there were many good authentic Thai places in L.A., so when Sienna spotted one, I immediately pulled over and it turned out to be slow but tasty. (They even gave you magazines to read while you waited, so they weren't even pretending).

While we waited, we availed ourselves of some fine pastries at a local bakery next door. The guy insisted that I try their cinnamon croissant with vanilla cream layers (bottom right in the picture), adding it "on the house" to make sure I didn't go without experiencing it. It was amazing indeed.

I had to smile when I noticed that it was 32 degrees and snowing in Riverton that day, while the weather was perfect in California.

That night we stayed with our friends the Dukes, who used to live in our neighborhood in Riverton, but now live in Santa Clarita (north of L.A.). I suspect their youngest daughter Sienna was named after ours.

They were working on a poster for a young women's fundraiser, so we helped with that for a while. Then we talked about eating healthy. Then we had doughnuts.

Sunday morning we got up early to drive down to Anaheim to pick up Sharon, Jared and Mikayla from their choir tour. Their choir director, Mr. Ulmer, was there to oversee the handoff.

Then we drove to Pasadena to join cousin Karen for church. It was ward conference and the stake leaders gave some excellent lessons. After church Karen had us come to her place for lunch, and we had a lovely time talking about traveling and such.

I thought it was appropriate to be in Southern California for Palm Sunday.

That night we met up with Roger and Jason at a hotel in San Diego.

They had flown down that day so that they could spend the week with Sharon at Legoland and Sea World and such.

I watched the sunset from the balcony of our hotel.

Monday morning we drove to the San Diego shore for a Hornblower whale watching tour.

Sharon, Roger and Jason had San Diego "Go Cards" that included the tour and the theme parks. (The rest of us used a Groupon.)

The boat was big enough to hold 300 people, but there were probably only 100 on board, since it was the end of the whale season.

The kids had fun jumping up and down on the bow when the boat started hitting the waves in the open ocean. (Until the captain told them to stop it before they twisted an ankle).

The waves did take Linette and Sienna out of commission, unfortunately. Jared also wasn't feeling especially well.

We didn't see any whales on the tour, but we saw a whole bunch of dolphins! These little ones came in groups to come play in the waves of the boat.

Then the nature lady told me to go down by the rope and look down at the bow. I did, and holy cow! There were a dozen dolphins all surfing at the front of the boat! The force of the boat pushed them through the water and I just stood and watched them for several minutes while they played.

Mikayla eventually joined me to see them. Here's a 3 minute video of the dolphins we saw. The surfing at the bow starts about halfway through.

For me, the dolphins were both unexpected and more delightful than whales would have been, so I was thrilled. I was sorry that the rest of my fam got seasick.

Back on shore, we saw the U.S.S. Midway (Sharon, Roger and Jason later went on board).

We walked down the pier and everyone found something for lunch.

And Sienna and Linette appeared to be sharing some sort of hat...

Finally, we took Mikayla with us and drove off to the airport to pick up our trip leaders, then met up with several other families at the Wal-Mart near the border, got some final instructions, and then crossed over into Mexico.

The border crossing went quickly and smoothly, and we had spread out the diapers and other supplies widely enough that we wouldn't have had a problem even if searched. (The last thing you'd want is to get busted in a diaper-smuggling ring. We must have had 8 bricks of wipes.)

We all then went to a restaurant to eat. Too bad it didn't have a nice view....!

Sienna ordered the quail. She didn't realize that they would be serving her an entire flock!

Mikayla got the ribs. Messy.

Jared got the steak. Did I mention that this dinner set us back a hundred bucks? :/

Linette was the only one who got Mexican food that night.

When the sun started to set, it got really pleasant and really pretty.

And there was a chicken walking around the restaurant that everyone played with.

Here is Sienna with her friend Brooklyn McKay. And el gallo.

There was also an ultralight airplane on the beach that would take you for a ride for $20.

Several people in our group went for it.

It was after dark when our group arrived at the orphanage.

The guys and gals each had a separate dorm room with bunks.

The next morning we ate at a restaurant that was voted to have "the best breakfast in the world."

Breakfast included chips, spicy salsa, and a soft, mild cheese.

I got to know many people in the group, including this grandma, mom and daughter trio.

The restaurant apparently grew their own bacon.

They had some delicious thick pancakes, and some great meat dish that you ate in tortillas. And the orange juice was freshly squeezed.

It was really delicious. At one point I realized I was thoroughly enjoying it, and proclaimed, "This is the best breakfast in the world!"

Next we all drove down to Las Cañadas for zip lining. We had been there in January to check things out in advance.

I think there were about 30 of us in our group, so it took a couple hours to get through.

Here are cousins Mikayla and Jared on the first zip line.

Linette demonstrates her prowess on the obstacle courses. You could hold the side hand rails or you could push it and try using the not-long-enough ropes to try to balance.

There was a little rest stop near the top.

Here a bunch of the group are waiting their turn on the quarter-mile-long zip line(!).

With that, we headed for La Bufadora ("the blowhole"), where waves funnel into a tight spot and get shot a hundred feet into the air. The waves were so beautiful on the craggy rocks.

There was a serious "tourist gauntlet" you had to go through to get there. I just "bufed" right through, though, and only looked at the shopping on the way back.

Sienna posed with this Aztec dude.