Recap: Puerto Penasco

This is our year of travel (have you figured out that’s what Brian and I are up to?), and the latest chapter was a quick, fairly impromptu trip to Rocky Point, Mexico.

The town of Puerto Penasco is only a 4 hour drive from Phoenix, which is super quick for a trip out of the country.  The majority of the drive is in the US, driving through the desert, passing lots of tall cacti and mountains. 

Since Brian does the driving (even with offers from me), I try my best to start playing his music when the drive gets too boring.  That means A LOT of REO Speedwagon.  Perhaps too much….

This trip we had Shea with us and it was her first lengthy road trip.  She doesn’t know how to relax in the car, so she spent the majority of the drive trying to weasel her way from the backseat to the front.  When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, she resigned herself to rest her chin on Brian’s shoulder.

Crossing the border was a breeze, even though Shea wanted to give the border agents a kiss or two.

There’s a small town right after the border, and then about an hour drive through the desert to get to Puerto Penasco.

We stopped by the rental office to get our key code and directions to our house, which was located in the Las Conchas area.  My favorite part was when the rental agent was telling us how to find the house (not all the roads are paved, so directions are necessary).  He told us to look for the really big house, with two big wooden curved garage doors.  And our house would be next door to that.  Hah.

Our house turned out to be adorable and perfect.  It had 3 bedrooms, a good size living area, a GIANT porch and a kitchen with everything we needed.

Here were some of our views

Yeah.  We weren’t complaining. 

After getting settled, we left the dogs in the house (James and George brought their pooches as well) and took a trip into Old Port, the center of the town for some lunch and a stop at the fish market.

After lunch, it was time to let the dogs say hello to the ocean.  Shea has never seen open water before, so we were super excited to see what she was going to do.

Boy did she love it.  She ran and leapt over waves and swam and ran some more.  She didn’t like when the tide was in and the waves were rough, but other than that, she was like a little mini horse leaping over the waves. 

Salty Dog!

Ruka also had her first experience with the ocean.  While she wasn’t thrilled with the water, she loved the open space to go running and had a ball rolling around in the sand.

The old man, Sid, trudged into the ocean and trudged back out, but that little nubbin of a tail was wagging the entire time.

A view of our house from the beach.  The stairs were a perfect form of exercise!

We wrapped up the day and I took a short nap.  I didn’t have much sleep the night before we left, and all the excitement left me tuckered.  I woke up just in time for dinner.

Grilled red snapper, fresh from the fish market with all the fixings.  We spent the evening watching a movie before calling it quits pretty early.  I think everyone was tired from the drive in and spending time in the sun. 

Early to bed means early to rise.

After a delicious breakfast, we set up shop at the beach. 

We swam, drank beers, saw horses, played with the dogs, had a beach picnic, body surfed, and reapplied sunblock all day long. 

Once the sun set (and after a nap of course) it was time to get the eats together.

Quick and easy kebobs on the grill, with a side of black beans.

One of the perks of driving to Mexico is being able to bring most of the food to prepare in the house.  We pick up fish, scrimps, and tortillas in town, but the rest is brought in from the states.

The rest of the evening was spent laughing and playing dice while listening to Sid snore away.

All good things must come to an end, so we left bright and early on Sunday in order to avoid a long wait at the border, and we zoomed right on through without any problems.

This weekend was fantastic! I loved being able to bring Shea with us and seeing her frolic in the ocean was hysterical.  All of the dogs got along swimmingly and were so very tired by the end of the weekend.  Shea has spent all day today sleeping as well.  I call that a success.  Not to mention we went with James and George, and any time we get to spend with them is pretty dang awesome.