Turkey Day in Bahía Concepción

November 17 – November 24, 2018

We always love spending time in Puerto Escondido and exploring the surrounding area, but it came time to head north again to Bahía Concepción to meet up with our life-long friends, Leslie, Murphy, and Maggie Sackett, who were driving down in a caravan with about 15 of their besties for their annual Thanksgiving week camping trip. Not only did we get to spend some time with our buds in Mexico, they hand-delivered two new solar panels, a wok and spatula, fishing gear, and my favorite toothpicks! We cannot thank them enough for schlepping our crap down to us – thanks, Sacketts!! It was a very tranquil few days (except for the Mexican fireworks) with old and new friends, and finally sharing an anchorage with Christine and Gary on S/V Tigress II in Santispac. Couldn’t have asked for a nicer Thanksgiving holiday.

Just a little bit about Leslie…Leslie has been a part of my family since I was in high school, a billion years ago. She was accepted into the fold when she dated our across-the-street neighbor and my mom’s second son, Dave. After Dave dumped her during of one of our Halloween parties, she happily moved on from him to us. Living just a hop, skip, and a jump up the street, Leslie, affectionately known as Spaz (let’s just say she was/is prone to injury), would spend hours on end at our house, which was the gathering place for many of our friends. She has been there through thick and thin – college graduations, weddings, funerals, Superbowl parties, family ski trips, and on and on. Thirty-nine years, 14 surgeries (12 for Leslie, 2 for me), and many laughs and tears later, we find ourselves eating Thanksgiving dinner around a campfire in Bahía Concepción, and watching her husband, Murphy, instigate the lighting of Mexican fireworks as the after-dinner entertainment.

Now a little bit about Murphy…Back in his Lake Tahoe days, Rand worked at a local ski and bike shop, the Village Ski Loft, where Murph also worked seasonally, as he tended to his hometown bar in Lake Okoboji, Iowa, during the summers. So, Rand and Murph had known and worked together for years, when – remember I mentioned family ski trips – my family, including Leslie, came to Tahoe for some snow play. Well, Murph locked on to Leslie the moment she walked through the doors at the Loft, and suffice it to say, that was that. Years on, Murph is effectively our brother-in-law, and we have a sweet, smart “niece” named Maggie.

Seeing the Sacketts and having time together absent the distractions of life in San Diego was wonderful. And meeting a bunch of their friends was an added bonus. It isn’t often enough that we get to connect with our friends and family in Mexico, so we feel so lucky that the stars aligned and we were all able to be in the same place at the same time. It was too short a visit though, and once again, it was time to move on – back south to La Paz for us.