I. Twenty-four hours in Point Loma.
II. Amor Camp, east Tijuana, first morning.
III. Relaxing in a stupor after first work day.
IV. Don’t Tell Me How Red My Face is, Jules
V. Half the pad we used to be.
VI. Tuesday, the short day.
VII. Wednesday, Thursday, notebook blank.
VIII. Postscript: Tijuana Pack Notes 2024.
I. Twenty-four hours in Point Loma.
It’s 4:25 Pacific time, San Diego time. Sunday morning and a good one. Some hip discomfort, right hip. I probably strained or irritated something hiking here to the hotel from the airport yesterday. Heavy pack, 45-minute walk west to the Point Loma district of town. I didn’t feel strained or physically stressed while making the trek, but that’s all I can think of. I feel it while walking. And I walked a lot yesterday.
I’m also a little sunburned, which I’m sheepishly ashamed of, having made a simple but obvious mistake. I got into San Diego well before my room would be ready so I checked my pack at the front desk. When doing so, I omitted first taking some items from the pack that I would need: sun hat, sunscreen, water bottle (large), bag for shopping. What was I thinking?
I caught a bunch of sun at Mitch’s Seafood, sitting there on that dock/patio ledge as the marine layer burned off and the sun bore down on Point Loma as late morning became early afternoon.
I was out on the marina walkway for a few hours after eating at Mitch’s. Before that I had walked to Ralph’s to see if they sold Good & Plenty. They didn’t. The Good & Plenty are a request from my Secret Pal. I also wanted to buy almonds for the Secret Pal bag I would have to present to this person mid-week as we were camped on the hard playa east of Tijuana. For myself, I planned to pick up a tin or two of mixed nuts for a burst of salt and protein during the four days our group would be building a very basic house for a family in need of one.
Then I started thinking: I don’t even have my shopping bag. If I buy anything now, I’m just going to have to walk around with it for hours. I bought a bottle of water at Ralph’s, which I certainly needed. Walking around, taking on sun, eating a meal. I stubbornly refused to buy sunscreen at Ralph’s. The voice I heard was, “I brought three tubes of sunscreen in my bag from St. Louis. I lugged them all the way from the airport to the hotel. I’m not going to buy more. I will stick it out.”
The food took half an hour to come out at Mitch’s but that fried shrimp was worth the wait. I had a ball cap on so I positioned it at a weird angle to block the sun. The left side of my neck still ended up getting red. My cheeks as well, but they’re always red.
I walked up and down the marina walkway. Can I call it a wharf? What is required for a wharf? The Point Loma marina was active. Groups would meet and walk out onto the docks to get on a boat. Some were small groups of friends. Some were bachelorette parties going out on audaciously decorated pontoons. Then there were the dozens of fishermen waiting to get onto a fishing boat at Fisherman’s Landing.
I saw lots of people buying ice. People dined at Pizza Nova and Jimmy’s Famous Tavern. A few people found their way down to Tunaville, an impressive little fish market tucked away inconspicuously down the eastern end of the marina. I went in mid-afternoon to see what it was. I was offered the opportunity to sample from among the ceviches and a couple other fish salads, Portugese-style tuna salad for example. Rockfish ceviche was only one of six or seven ceviches they had.
I was still full enough on shrimp and fries so I walked out empty handed. I went and sat on a stone planter bench, which was shaded by the tree growing out of its planter center. I read, wrote, answered a phone call, and stared out at the boats coming and going.
When I went back to the Best Western at 2:30, there was no room ready for me. I wanted one of their city-view balcony rooms, not just anything they might have available. So I went around the corner to pick up some beer. I recognized the shop owner from the year before. He says something like, “Hey, boss!” when I come into the store. He’s got snacks and candy on sale as well so I asked if he sold Good & Plenty. He grimaced, said he didn’t. The brand seemed to take him back.
We talked about how Good & Plenty has been around for a long time. He suggested I try the 7-11 down the street. When the hotel clerk told me my room wasn’t ready, I asked to get into my pack real quick. I rummaged through it awkwardly in the hallway for sunscreen, sunhat, and a canvas bag. I figured I still had time to kill so I walked the seven or eight minutes down to 7-11. But they didn’t have Good & Plenty either so I went back to the corner store for a six of Racer 5.
It was right around 3:00, my check-in time. I didn’t want to show up back at the hotel right at three asking for my room. What if it wasn’t ready? That would have irked me, so why not just try to avoid it? I committed to a cold seafood dinner and went back to Tunaville where I bought half a pound of sashimi-grade bluefin and half a pound of sashimi-grade yellowtail, which was about half the price of the bluefin. Then I ordered half a pound of what appeared to be a tomato-based calamari ceviche. Unfortunately I have forgotten the exact name. Chemcharon? They don’t have an online menu. And Google search seems to have gotten worse, at least for this kind of search. When I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, AI isn’t going to be much help.
When I got back to the hotel it was just about 3:30 p.m. It was the same clerk behind the counter. I figured he was tired of seeing me. There was one person ahead of me in line. Someone else entered the lobby and asked me if I was in line. I’m not sure what else I would’ve been doing there, sunburned and slumped against a wall, four feet behind the person at the counter. “Yeah.”
Just then, another hotel employee whisked onto the scene, taking up his station behind a second computer. He offered a profuse apology to his co-worker, who seemed a little chapped. This second guy was twenty-five minutes late for his shift. He said he would be ordering pizzas for them in a little while.
Then he went about checking me in. He said that, in fact, my room was not ready (what the heck!) but he would see what he could do. I wanted city view with a balcony, I said. Almost all of our rooms have balconies, he said. Then I relayed my experience from two or three years back when I had reserved what I thought was a balcony room only to get a first floor room that looked out on a small parking lot where a garbage truck was in the process of collecting waste.
“I don’t want to be right on a parking lot,” I said.
“Well, city view also does look onto a parking lot,” he replied.
Yes, but I love that parking lot, I said. And I do. He was checking to see if he had something a little higher up. He offered room 501, one of his favorites he said, “It’s actually a really nice view.” And I don’t know what this guy’s name was or whether he ordered those pizzas or why he was late to work but I do know that 501 at the Best Western Yacht Harbor is my kind of room, on the corner, with a view of the city, and of the water, and of the marina, and down upon that fishermen’s parking lot below.
The chemcharon was spicy. I was glad I bought it. It paired well with the fish. The yellowtail was just as tasty as the bluefin but not as nice to eat because it still had the skin on and it had a backbone present—a ridge of meat I wasn’t going to try to eat. Then again, I was just gnawing at it so maybe if I had cut it better I would have no complaint.
I’d go back and try any of those ceviches. Or all of them. The only useful item I gleaned from their spartan website is that Mitch of Mitch’s seafood is co-owner of Tunaville. It all starts to make sense. The other co-owner is the guy who kept going to a separate shed to give people bags of ice. Sign on the shed says to ask for ice at the ice cream stand. Then I saw Mitch and other Mitch’s employees getting frozen food from a freezer about half-way between Mitch’s and Tunaville. They’re doing fine, I’m sure, but I bet they wish they had more foot traffic down Tunaville’s way. There’s a decent public bathroom hidden down that way (but with no doors on any of the stalls, at least on the men’s side). Beyond Tunaville were some buildings that looked like they were no longer cared for. The walkway ended not too far down that way, but it was quiet there, and the views of the bay were nice. I stood there for a while and enjoyed the solitude.
Sunday morning, 6:09. Fishermen have been arriving, assembling their tackle, and crossing over to Fishermen’s Landing. Pleasant morning. Typical San Diego. Cloudy, a little humid, cool.
I’ve been awake since 3 a.m. A car alarm went off, and went off, and went off. I’m on St. Louis time anyway, and it’s so nice just to be in this room with the balcony door slung open. I decided to get up and stay awake.
Schooners on the wharf. Signs for king tides still on some streets. It occurs to me I don’t know what King Tides are so I look it up. Peak tides, three or four times a year, based on the moon, made more intense as our climate changes. Some coastal cities are now hosting King Tides events to raise awareness: this could be the water level on a more regular basis, so think about it.
This is one of those cities, another is New Orleans, and once upon a time Chicago, where I’m loathe to go to sleep. Who wants to sleep when it’s so nice to be awake? I like San Diego, and I really like it here in Point Loma. How could I not?
Love is an old hotel. I’m dozing after a decent breakfast downstairs. I’m thinking back to the conversation two guys were having next to me yesterday along the dining ledge at Mitch’s. One of the guys had just been laid off. One of his former co-workers had hit him up for a lunch. The questions were all going one way.
“So what’ve you been up to?”
“This.”
“You can drink in the afternoon? It makes me feel tired and lazy. How does it make you feel?”
“Tired and lazy.”
The guy who had been laid off had been with the company for a while. He was doing some sort of design but who can say what design really means. “I’m not your typical designer,” he said. “I have a degree in cognitive science. I can do design but if you’re looking for somebody to tell you what shade of green to use for your logo, I’m not your guy.”
I was more interested when he said he could feel the layoff coming. Companies are starting to pull their reigns in, he said. Once this guy started sharing, the other guy just sat and listened. And I did, too, for a while. Until I had nothing left to eat and my neck and face were seared.
It’s still hazy out there, cloudy. For a while at Mitch’s I would hear these planes taking off. Jets. Navy training runs. When I first got to San Diego I could hear the jets but I could not see them. They had to be so close, how could they be obscured? When the clouds lifted or melted away I saw plenty of those jets rocketing into the sky toward the marina, until they banked and headed south to Coronado. I was happy to be able to see them, and to hear them roar.
In a few hours, I head back to the airport where I’ll meet up with the group, which numbers 37 this year. We’ll pick up the rental vehicles then head to Denerry Road just north of the border. There we’ll convene with a rep from Amor Ministries, the not-for-profit that runs the camp outside Tijuana where we’ll stay for the week.
II. Amor Camp, east Tijuana, first morning.
Angling toward departure. Cargo van fires up. Jim says something about not wanting Tom’s “coffee stink” to take over the cabin.
Jim and Tom drive the cargo van down from Burlingame, a town in the Bay Area I’ve never even been to. I found my way to this trip back in 2018 when my brother-in-law Graham invited me to join him. He’s the head pastor of Burlingame Presbyterian, the church that organizes the trip. I’ve come back every year since, save 2020 and 2021, when the trip did not happen.
The Burlingame contingent of this trip, which is the vast majority, load their gear into the truck so they don’t have to fly with it. I fly with my pack but Jim’s wife Cheryl, whose debut on this trip coincided with mine, has been steadfastly hooking me up with camping gear three years running. She packed me the tent I’m staying in (her brother’s) and the cot I’m sleeping on (which belongs to this guy Gary, who was also on that 2018 trip, and none since, but whose hand-application stucco technique is something I’ve adopted).
I slept fine last night.
…And the cargo van is on the move with Cynthia in the back!
“I guess we’re going,” she says. She is not only my co-pilot in our sketchy rental Sonata but she is youth pastor at the church. I can’t tell if she is worried about the truck moving. It’s not going far so I don’t do much of anything but Mary intervenes, yelling out to Jim that Cynthia is in the back of the truck. He stops. Cynthia deplanes.
Mary and Cheryl are also in the Sonata. Yesterday, as we were making our way toward Tijuana, Cynthia opened the music conversation by asking what we were thinking. I didn’t say anything. But the first name that popped into my head was Paul Simon. That’s good road trip music, right? The playlist found its way there despite my silence. Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” inspired the name we (they) decided the car should be called. It’s a good name but the car has some problems. It’s stalled out on us three times now.
Smoke in the distance. Smoke in the air. Smoke from fires everywhere. I’m already starting to sweat a little. Pee bottle in the tent was nice. I only went out once in the night.
Last minutes before heading to the worksite. I’ve applied sunscreen. I’ve got ice in my water bottle. I ate a banana, instant oatmeal, a few small pancakes, and a couple of sausage links. Feeling fine. I drank two cups of milk and a water bottle filled with water and hydration powder. That’s the best I can do.
I’ve been quiet. I had moments of doubt last night during the big group worship when we were doing ice breakers. I was asking myself what the hell I was doing here. Why did I do this for a fifth time? I don’t need this. This was a mistake.
It’s homesickness, I suppose. I feel guilty leaving my wife Brook behind so I can play the yarn circle game with people who I see at most once or year—or many people whom I’ve never met and will probably never see again. I know I gotta shelve that attitude. I’m here. I gotta go somewhere, be somewhere, strike out, camp out. But I feel more like a loner now than ever.
Mad cats it is smoky around here. Dark grey smoke. Belching, fulminating.
“Ten minutes,” bellows Dan, a trip veteran and one of our leaders, despite being days shy of his thirtieth birthday. “Ten minutes.”
“Bring a chair for the worksite,” Tom reminds everyone. “Throw it in the back of the truck.”
I’ll hit the baño then check texts. 7:24.
III. Relaxing in a stupor after first work day.
Tall mountains with their lost shoulders below. People build their second cities there, call them foothills. Spread the word that group begins at 7:30 pm. It is 7:25.
A large fire starts up. I see it straight out my open tent door, whatever direction that is. Northwest? It was also burning there last night. The fires, the burning, the smoke. It’s getting worse here. This camp is otherwise in a good spot, in land the government deeded Amor, bolstered on two sides by government-owned gas pipeline infrastructure. La policía seem to have a substation in the lot right next to us.
I am sitting up on my cot resting, looking out at whatever is going on. Watching the sun continue to fall, mercifully, behind the mountain. Cooper, one of Mike Mayer’s grandsons, reveals a trick for locking Big Blue, the big Ford pickup Frank drives down from Altadena, all sorts of wheelbarrows and tools loaded up in the back. Mike has done this trip something like 26 times. Frank is one behind him.
“If you hit the last two, it locks automatically,” says Cooper.
Big Blue is parked back near my tent. So is the cargo truck. And at this moment Mary is scaling the back of the cargo truck looking for something. It’s not the easiest place to get in and out of, the back of that cargo truck.
“Don’t you be watching me, John Randall!” she warns. But I was just sitting there in my tent, and I was a bit concerned about her foray.
“I’m not watching,” I tell her.
Once she is down, she tells a passerby that she had a bit of a tricky time with the cargo truck, and that I was watching the whole time. Mary’s in my small group. We’ve done the trip together before. We’re still getting to know each other a little better.
“I put on quite a show for him,” she says, and I am amused. Then she observes apparent redness on my face, which surprises me because I had that mineral sunscreen paste on all day, and I wore my sun hat. If my face is red it’s because of the washing I had to do to get the dang sunscreen off of it. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. Which is why I quickly wrote the following poem before group worship began.
IV. Don’t Tell Me How Red My Face is, Jules
I’m sorry I just
wipe sunscreen from sweaty face
get sunburned why
is your face so red don’t
you know about cancer yes
I know my face is red because
I just wiped that sunscreen from
my face it’s the mineral stuff the
paste the glue the white I look
ridiculous like a mime or
someone from the circus crazy
Joe Davola from Seinfeld so then
I say well at least I am not
sunburned and to celebrate
I drink something spicy
and make social faux pas
which leaves me red
in the face and I am wishing
I had a moon to stare at
but it is not that late so I
slather on aloe which of course
does nothing but make my
red face shine real weird
V. Half the pad we used to be.
Late Monday night. We did not finish the concrete pad today. Setback. We…we did not have the site space we would have preferred for building a double wide house. There was nowhere to work, no “side lot” like we have had in every other year except for one, and that year we were building a standard “single-wide” house.
With nowhere else to build our wall frames or stack our materials, we used the street. Which was fine except that some neighbors were thereby penned in, and probably not too happy about it. Some of them needed to use the street, too. As a street.
Incredibly, the place we rented our vehicles from, the ironically titled Car Rental Help Center, actually sent someone with a replacement Sonata to meet Dan at camp so they could swap out Cecilia 1 with Cecilia 2. Whenever a car needed to get out of the dead-end street we are on, we had to pick up the heavy wall panels and move them. Move them where? We decided to lean them up tall against the closest good fence. There are plenty of fences around but most of them don’t look so sturdy.
The scarcity of space and the unevenness of the lot slowed us down. It was hours of moving dirt around to get a 22 foot by 22 foot section of ground level enough for us to begin mixing and pouring concrete on top of it. By that time, our worksite leaders and our Amor rep David agreed that it would be wise to pour just one half of the concrete pad, leave the other half for tomorrow. So that is what we did, deflating as it might be.
I’m awake, wherefore, whatnot, I’d rather just sleep but I’m missing that Puff the Magic Dragon lullaby I usually sing to myself before going to sleep. The breeze, let’s focus on that. In through the lowered flaps of this cozy tent. The sound of someone walking by in the dark with flip-flops on.
Dirt booger, useless phone. The moon. The washing station lights. I don’t want to sleep…
VI. Tuesday, the short day.
Ocho cinco ocho
ocho cinco dos
can I get a witness
can I get a host
(repeat)
The upside of splitting the concrete work into two days is that today, Tuesday, turned out to be a short work day. We got back to camp by three o’clock, yielding us some rare and important camp downtime. It’s still blazing hot and the sun is in command but it’s still a respite. A time to exhale.
I am sitting in my tent again looking out at the mountains. A path leading uphill to the summit, zig zag, country tag. A vulture in the skies above, riding a thermal. Clouds. Lustrous and varied. Altocumulus for sure. Maybe some cumulus congestus. The congestus were out there earlier, I was watching them at the work site. Erupting upward. There probably are some cirrus way up high but there are clouds at two or three levels, so it’s hard to see clearly.
Why know the clouds? Because clouds talk about weather and I like to talk about the weather. We can say what the weather is but we can’t really predict it. No one can be certain about a forecast but clouds can tell us weather is happening when it is, they reveal when weather is building, when it shifts. These cumulus are not quite cumulonimbus but they are getting interesting. If that is not cirrus up there it is cirrostratus.
Using the extra time, I went out for a walk around the campground. There’s a strange fenced-in area at one of the back corners of this campground that probably isn’t technically part of the camp. I don’t know who stays there but someone must. There are all sorts of pipes, and the building is kept up, looked after, fortified. Aside the building is an impressive garden, which has been there since 2018 at least. In addition to the six roosters kept in a pen, there is maize, prickly pear, and other plants I can’t quite get a good look at.
This tent is rocking in the afternoon wind. So much so that the cup I had set on the tent floor tipped over. The wind rocks this billowing tent like the waves on an ocean would do to a boat, rollicking. From camp, kazoos and the screams of younger people. Somebody pops a can of Diet Coke. Don’t you be watching me, John Randall.
Elsewhere around this campground, there is brittlebrush and palms. There’s a healthy organ pipe cactus up near the front gate and a similarly tall and straight bearded cactus sporting a beautiful white flower. Sonoran vibes. I’d say whoever is taking care of the garden in the fenced-in area in the back is also responsible for these cacti near the front gate that are not quite native to this area.
I’m holding out on a shower. If the sun breaks out from behind the clouds, it’s a burner. It doesn’t take much. A truck air brakes for half a mile, all the way out of earshot. A backup beeper sounds.
No music today at the worksite. Yesterday, in the words of Pastor Cynthia, there was “Jesus-y” music, slow at times, that I did not find inspirational. And it was way too loud. Carlos, the father of the family for whom we are building, had a huge speaker sound system strangely standing like an unexplained monolith amongst the debris of what must have been his family’s possessions, tossed out of what used to be their house, clearing the way for their new house to be built. Piles of clothes, prior foam wall units, dirty pots and pans, a mishmash of old car parts. Earlier in the day, Carlos tried to jump a car, then I saw him carrying a battery, then that car was towed away.
Some of the neighbors continue to be unenthused about the construction, and I sympathize. For our part, I’ll say that when we have had to move our panels or our shade canopy out of the street, we have done so quickly.
There’s an older guy in the dwelling just to the east of us. He’s trim, wears a Honda ball cap. Yesterday I was right next to his front gate as he stepped over some of our bags and tools to get out of his front yard. He didn’t slow down or stop to say anything, one way or another. Today he had his truck parked out front, to claim that space for himself, which I respect. We still had our tools and gear placed near or around his truck.
All of a sudden he appeared and said something to me. All I heard for sure was “allí.” I wasn’t sure if he was asking me a question, or perhaps it was a rhetorical question. Something like, I’d like to use the street now myself. It took me a moment to still my mind so I could find the words en español but eventually I got there.
“Necesitas hablar con una persona que habla español?”
I’m not sure if that’s one hundred per cent correct. But he responded, “Sí.” And I said, “Uno minuto, por favor.”
I went and got Rodrigo, told him, “Necesito ayuda con un vecino.”
Rodrigo hails from Chilé. He has served as translator on four of the trips I’ve done, including this one. But we also had Anet this year, who is a native of Mexico City. And Sarah spoke fluid Spanish as well. This year, estábamos listo.
From the distance, a sound, a rumble. We’re all just hanging out enjoying the late afternoon.
Mary says, “John? Was that thunder.”
I wasn’t sure, I was looking the wrong way. The sky I was looking at wasn’t dark. So I didn’t answer. But Cheryl said, “I think so.”
I got out of the tent and looked to the southeast. Sure enough, there was a big old blue-gray cumulonimbus brewing and stewing. I checked my weather app, which loaded after a few tries. There was a cell out there. I didn’t get to see rain in Tucson in June but now it looked like I might see rain in Tijuana in July.
Hurriedly, I got the rain fly out of the tent bag. I had never put it on. It’s practically a desert where we stay, call it Villa del Campo or Rancho Tecomán or Valle Redondo. I didn’t think I’d need it but I wasn’t the only one scrambling to attach their fly. Jeff Wolfe, the stuntman, gave me a hand. So did Tom. Not too long after that, the storm blew off to the west. A few drops fell as I made my way to the shower.
VII. Wednesday, Thursday, notebook blank.
I must’ve hit the writing wall Wednesday because there is nothing in my notebook from that day. Nor did I manage to write anything useful on Thursday. I was out of gas, I guess.
Wednesday was a full work day. That was the roof. I was a mess of tar. Cheryl put a garbage bag down in the driver’s seat of Cecilia so I wouldn’t mar it with tar. I didn’t do a very good job rolling out the roofing paper. Jason was disappointed, and he wasn’t wrong to be. I just didn’t get the job done. It’s a hard job but one I’ve done before. I think my nailing team—first Ange and Tristan, then Tristan and Griffin and maybe Paul Bruno in there, too—were so darned good at hammering in the roofing paper—which is basically one long shingle all rolled into a carpet runner-like section about three feet wide—that we were nailing it down pretty much as it unfolded. Which in some ways was necessary because the wind was really blowing up there.
Years past, I’ve worked with Tom up there. And he was on the roof for a while helping roll out one half of the roof before I got up there. He’d been up there long enough, in fact, that Cynthia ordered him off the roof, which was the right call. I don’t even know how old Tom is. He’s been on the trip every year I’ve done it. He goes to the Phillippines, too. Or used to. He can do any aspect of the house building but he does seem to love being on the roof.
So I was leading the rolling out of the roofing paper on the other half of the roof. The mistake I made was not making darned sure I had the paper straight to begin with. Because once you get off track, you can’t go back. There needs to be overlap between every subsequent roll. And by the time I got to the end of the second roll, there was hardly any overlap. I just pushed through. On to the next roll. That one was even worse. It was clear there wouldn’t be any overlap at all by the time we got to the far edge of the house. So we cut the roll, nailed that edge down, and started to re-run the roll. It wasn’t pretty. I gotta get that figured out next year. We needed to roll out more length before nailing it down, or we needed to nail first along just one edge?
Then Wednesday night was the Secret Pal bags. Mike Mayer was my Secret Pal. He really appreciated the note I left him. I talked about how impressed I was with Griffin’s work at the site, on the roof. And I wasn’t just saying that. Especially this year, I saw in Griffin a serious young man who showed up every day ready to work. His nailing was steady and exact. Cooper is the younger brother, about to enter eighth grade. Student body President. A future ambassador or comedian. We spoke a little Spanish with each other.
I also included a Bible verse for Mike, something we’ve been encouraged to do in the past but which I never did until this year. Before the trip, my mother-in-law Karin sent me a verse from Isaiah 4:5-6—
“Over all your gatherings, the Lord sends a cloud and smoke as a covering
by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night. And His Glory shall be
upon you like a canopy of divine love and protection.
And there shall be a pavilion for shade in the daytime from the heat, and
for a place of refuge and shelter from storm and rain.”
I thought it fit the Mexico Mission trip pretty well so I included it in my note. Then I wrote out the “Hacienda Camp” poem I wrote in San Diego after the 2019 trip. He seemed to like that as well. He came over and sat with me and Frank for a while to shoot the breeze once everyone had opened their bags. I don’t know who had me as a Secret Pal. It must have been one of the kids. There was no note inside.
Thursday was a blur, pretty much from beginning to end. I remember being frustrated that we were taking so long to get the stucco going. We needed to put both coats on Thursday, which is actually the normal schedule. It’s what we did for the double house we built in 2018. One coat in the morning, let it set and dry a bit, then the second coat after lunch. When I got frustrated, I just went over to Big Blue, pulled out my tin of mixed nuts and ate them one-by-one until the stucco operation was ready to begin.
I had an early hawk of stucco and started smearing stucco on the eastern wall. Then Jen Dawson sort of ran me out of there. I think she wanted that wall pretty much to herself, which I later realized she was more than capable of handling. How was I supposed to know? She had done this trip at least a few times before, before my time, and she knew what she was doing with stucco. She had a different method. She wanted a whole bucket filled up. Then she troweled it all on.
The first coat went on incredibly fast. I found that I was most of use mixing up batches of stucco until only the higher parts of the walls were left to be covered. Then I stopped mixing and started smearing stucco up high. Tim, Thomas, and Cynthia had hawks of new mud ready anytime I turned around. It was simply the cleanest and quickest application of stucco in the five years I’ve done the trip.
Thursday night was a long one. The Amor fundraising rep wanted to talk to the group and he seemed to go on for a while. He definitely talked for more than a couple of minutes. Maybe I’ve heard the story before and I was just tired. Then the Scouts had some programming they wanted to do before we were all going to break camp the next morning. It was past ten when I started packing, aiming to have my bag pretty much filled by the time I went to sleep.
With that, all that remain of my account are the Pack Notes below…
VIII. Postscript: Tijuana Pack Notes 2024.
The following pack notes are long and they are tedious. They are another way of telling the story I tried to tell above. They are an attempt to fill in the gaps, which of course can never be filled. Thanks for reading!
Long-sleeved, collared shirts. I brought three and used all of them extensively. I used two as work shirts. The third I wore on the plane but otherwise kept clean to wear around camp when it was still too sunny to go without long sleeves. The two I wore to work at the site are very dirty. Previously, I wore t-shirts for the building work, but the long sleeves keep the sun off of my arms, allowing me to put less sunscreen there, if any. I still slathered mineral sunscreen on my neck but having the collar there yields extra protection that a t-shirt doesn’t provide. Even at home, I am tending toward relying on thinner, long-sleeved collared shirts for working outdoors during the summer. Both of the long-sleeved shirts I wore for work are hand-me-downs from my dad, shirts he used to wear to work. I like that about them, too.
Hankies. Didn’t much use them, if at all.
Work gloves. Two pair. One went missing the first day. I set them down at the back of the lot when I was filling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with dirt to level the pad. Someone must’ve picked them up. A lot of gloves look alike. So I’m glad I brought a second pair, which I needed often. Anytime I’m handling lumber or moving wall panels I want good gloves on. Ditto while hoisting plywood panels to the roof, sifting the sand and rock, or while mixing concrete or stucco so I won’t get blisters. Both pairs I took were thin. Thicker gloves just make my hands sweat and then they absorb the moisture which is no bueno. Luckily, Frank bought a pack of stretchy, tacky, orange semi-disposable gloves at Home Depot in San Diego. They were on offer and I went through two pairs of them. One for roof work, which were trashed by tar. Then another pair for stucco application. Those are high on my list for HD next time around.
Neck pillow. I used it every night in the tent, placing it between my legs so I could sleep on my side without my knees knocking. On the way back, my pack was busting at the seams so I carried the neck pillow onto the plane to make room. I slept most of that flight. Had a whole row to myself. Before I knew it we were magically back in St. Louis and I took a taxi home.
Liquid IV. It dubs itself a “hydration multiplier.” I used one every morning we went to work. They help. I picked up a small water bottle at the Best Western in San Diego and held onto it. I’d dump the powder into the empty water bottle, then fill it with water, shake, and pound. One word of caution. These do seem to get the liquids flowing. It wouldn’t be long into the work day when I felt a keen need to use the family’s baño at the church down the dead end street. For this reason, I decided not to use one Sunday morning in San Diego in advance of heading across the border. Nor did I want one Friday morning before crossing the border back into the U.S. at Tecate. I am going to drink one right now to rehydrate after yesterday’s travel and the vodka hip flask I bought on Coronado and downed at the airport before getting on the plane.
Small tonic water bottle. I carried it empty in my carry on. Then I used it for water at Lambert while I was waiting for my flight to take off, filling it at one of the water bottle refill stations. It’s a small bottle, ten ounces.
Mostly used-up running shoes. I wore them on the plane to San Diego. My room wasn’t going to be anywhere near ready when I landed in San Diego so I walked a lot in them Saturday. After that I didn’t wear them again until Friday morning when we packed up and broke camp. I was wearing them for our time on Coronado Friday afternoon. They’re the right shoe for travel days.
Socks. I brought six pairs but I only used three. I know, it doesn’t sound great to say I wore each pair a couple of times each but I was careful to air them out after I wore them. The first pair I wore on the way to San Diego. When I finally got into my room, I put them out on the balcony where they aired out all night. I didn’t wear those again until we crossed back into the States. I wore a fresh pair with my boots on Sunday for the rendezvous, border cross, and camp set up. Once again, I hung or attached them among the straps and guy lines of the tent so they could air out in that strong, hot Mexican scrubland breeze. I wore those again at least once, switching back and forth with another pair. Wear, air out/dry out, wear again. It’s not better than washing, but if they aren’t soiled it’s a serviceable option when your packing space is limited. The socks I didn’t use still played a role as filler in my pillowcase so they weren’t a total waste of space.
Painter’s pants. Whoof. I considered burning them in lieu of putting them in my pack so dirty and tar-splotched. Just now I took them outside and hosed them down. Pre-wash. Some of the tar came off. Most or all of the roofing paper gravel that was stuck to the tar came off. These were the only pair of work pants I brought. They serve me well with all of their pockets. I don’t need a tool belt because these painter’s pants have all the distinct storage spaces I could possibly need, including two hammer loops. I’ve never liked the feeling of a tool belt hanging off of me. After two years on this trip, they are now really broken in, which is the only good reason I had not to burn them in Tijuana. I would take them back next year.
Cheap flip-flops. The plan was to wear them as shower shoes, which is how I used them last year. But I didn’t really wear them while I was showering. I took them off and set them to the side once I got into the bathhouse. So all I really did was wear them to and fro the bathhouse, which serves no purpose. The ground at camp is hard and can be rocky. So cheap flip flops don’t offer much sole protection while I’m walking around camp. I don’t want to leave the bathhouse with wet feet, or with wet flip flops because they’d be covered with dirt by the time I got back to the tent. Next time, I’ll leave the flip flops at home and wear my Crox to the shower. I thought I wanted the flip flops for aeration but if my feet are still a little damp in the Crox after bathing, they will soon be dried out by the early evening sun and wind.
Sun hats. Absolutely. I took two, wore them both. Same brand, same style, just different colors. One hat for the work site, one hat for camp. The work hat is dirty and grimy with sweat, cement, and sunscreen. The camp hat, which I also wore in San Diego and on Coronado, is still pretty much clean. I needed a clean sun hat for post-shower sauntering around camp and for blocking a sun that still beats down on us during dinner. Depending on when worship started, I might have still had my hat on then, too.
Run shorts. These are lightweight, mostly polyester with a poly liner. I put them on every evening after bathing. I wore them to dinner, wore them to worship and small group, then I wore them to bed. They were essential. Despite the liner, they still breathe pretty well so I can dry out pretty quickly with them on, which is important lest a case of jock itch throw itself into the mix.
Solar shower. Packed in an REI camp chair bag. I used it for all five of my showers and it was great. It employs a foot pump to add pressure to the shower bag, meaning I have some water pressure to help me get clean while at the same time using limited water efficiently. I don’t fill it up until I’m ready to shower. Some folks want scalding hot water for their showers so they leave their bags or water containers out in the sun all day. I just fill mine up from the huge non-potable water tank right before bathing. That water is plenty warm on its own. I drained it after using and kept it from blowing away by wedging it under a cheap folding chair that I borrowed from Baja Cooks and set outside my tent to use as a place to sit and put my socks and shoes on (in what order?)
Boots. Sure. Yes. They are the same pair I have worn for the last three trips. Keen Utility. They are steel-toed, which comes in handy when we are moving heavy wall sections and roof panels. If a frame is set down on top of my toes, fine. I won’t feel it. It’s actually a good way to land a wall section after five or six of us have lugged it from wherever to situate it on its eventual and proper place on the pad. I had no problems with my feet whatsoever this trip. Boots are like umpires or offensive linemen. If you never think about them, it means they’re doing a good job.
Pillowcase. This trip marked a real improvement in my attempt at making a pillow out of whatever I had on hand. I stuffed anything soft (clean or dirty) into this real, actual pillowcase until it was full: poncho, shirts, socks, rags, towels, underwear, shorts, unused bags. It felt and slept like a real pillow.
Cot (via Cheryl). It’s been great three years running. She ensures it gets packed into the cargo truck. For as long and wide and high off the ground as it is, it folds up easily. This year I also grabbed a roll of foam from the array of surplus items emptied from the truck. The foam rolled out like a thick yoga mat. It complimented the cot well, helping to smooth out a few of the rougher edges, especially if I wanted to sit perpendicular to the cot, upright, and stare dazily out of my tent at whatever might be going on out there. To keep the edge of the cot frame from digging into my haunches.
Tent (via Cheryl). It’s her brother’s. It was a good tent. I left it pretty dirty. Sorry, Randy. I needed a broom and my trusty Dyson hand vac. But all week there was good airflow through the tent with the flaps/windows down. It has a couple of pockets. I used the one by the door to hold things I wanted to remind myself about: toothbrush, pill mix, toothbrush, floss, nasal spray. There was a tarp in the tent bag as well, which I put down on that hardscrabble playa before erecting the tent. The tarp was a little damp and dirty when I took the tent down (with Tom’s help). I looked for a broom to sweep the tarp. There was one in the back of Big Blue mid-week but by Friday morning it was buried.
Aloe. I used it in San Diego but not in Mexico. I previously mentioned the error I made not fishing my sun gear out of my pack before checking it with the desk in Point Loma. Last year I had dry skin at camp but not this year. Why? What’s the difference? Was it the long sleeves I was wearing? Was it because I was otherwise good about sunscreen? Or maybe San Diego and Tijuana were just a little more humid than usual. I’d still pack aloe.
Items I brought but didn’t use. Small tube of jock itch cream. Would I bring it again? Yes. Small tube of Aquaphor. Would I bring it again? Yes.
Phone charger cord and plug. I used the plug portion only in the hotel room in San Diego. Once I was in Tijuana, I used the cord to recharge my phone from a mobile battery pack. We also used the charging cord(s) extensively while in the car. Mine was the one without a hippo on it.
Sleeping bag. Rancho Tecomán is the location my weather app says we were at at camp. Someone else said the worksite came up as El Niño. Unless the forecast next year indicates overnight lows in the fifties or low sixties, I won’t bring a sleeping bag. It takes up too much space in the pack. I would instead bring a sheet or two, as Frank said he had done this year, with success. Late Thursday night I wanted to get my pack packed for real so I put my sleeping bag in it because there was no point packing anything else unless the sleeping bag was in there. It can’t go into the top of the pack. It can’t be added last minute. So I slept under only the rando towel that was rolled up within the foam roll I took from surplus on the first day. It didn’t cover all of me, just my belly down. Early morning I donned the blue plaid long-sleeved shirt I kept clean all week. Next time around, a sheet and/or a bigger towel might do the job. Bottom line, the sleeping bag is low-hanging fruit when I scrutinize what takes up space and is not essential.
Towels. I brought two medium-sized towels. I like both. One is thin, threadbare, a half-towel that is old. It dries fast. I took it with me to the bathhouse. Once I dried off in the tent, I would pin the thin towel to a cord or through some tent fabric outside. Even on one pin, it dried quickly out there. My other towel is thicker but still only medium-sized. I would use it for a second dry or to sit on when I wanted to sit on my cot after showering. The two-towel system works but if I don’t bring the sleeping bag next time I will probably bring a large, thin towel that can double as a sheet.
Poncho. Some call it a drug rug. I never wore it but I will take it again. It was the main constituent of my makeshift pillow. Plus, I bought the thing at the Amor store last year so I feel like it belongs at camp. If I had gone swimming in San Diego, it would have come in handy. Throw on that poncho after splashing in those cool Coronado waves.
Trunk-shorts. Columbia brand. They dry pretty fast. I wear them as my trunks in the shower. But they can double as shorts if needed. The pockets are a mesh. The shorts are 88% poly, 12 % elastane. I pinned them to zippers at the top of my tent and they were dry by the time dinner was done.
T-shirts. I brought four, used only two. One I wore on the plane, my only Amor shirt. I aired it out on the Best Western balcony. Then I wore it again when I met the group. It has no pocket but it’s a good color, salmon. A blue pocket T was my work shirt on Tuesday. It’s fine. It’s old. It’s got tar on it from a prior Amor house roof. And the collar is blowing out. It’s soft. I also brought a Venice Burnout deep-V that I never wore. I like that shirt but it doesn’t really work at camp because it doesn’t offer much protection against the sun. I never considered it a work shirt. The other heavy T I brought never came out of my tool bag. It was a backup in case the long-sleeved collared shirt did not work.
Ball cap. Red Sox. My dad’s team. I wore it on the plane to San Diego. Then I wore it around Point Loma while I was hiding from the sun until my room was ready. It was the best defense I had as I sat with it cranked to a funny angle on the side of my head at Mitch’s. I don’t think I wore it at all the rest of the trip.
Rags. I took three. One I kept in my tool bag or in my pocket while I was working, using it to wipe sweat and sunscreen from my face. One was dedicated solely to the tent, meant for extra drying. The third is kind of fuzzy to me at this point. Did I take it to work one day? Did I not use it at all? The one dedicated to the tent has a yellow stripe down it. The others look the same except they are different shades of blue. I should probably only bring two next year, to avoid confusion. Whichever ones I had in the tent, however, were also part of my pillow so bear that in mind.
Lightweight synthetic short-sleeved collared shirt with two front pockets. I wore it several times. Once or twice after dinner when the clouds were sufficient to take the edge off of the sun. I wore it when we broke camp and drove back to San Diego. For the border cross and Coronado. Cynthia remarked on my short sleeves as we walked to The Tavern. She wondered aloud why she did not put on short sleeves after showering at the CC.
Mess kit: kitchen towel. I used it to dry my plate after cleaning it. I used it as a napkin. I would take it again.
Washcloths. I took two. Barely used one. I saw no point in scrubbing my feet just to have them damp as I walked back through dirt to the tent. It’s just hard to get a good wash in that bathhouse when you don’t have running water and you have to have a swimsuit on while showering. I used shampoo, face wash, and sometimes wipes to clean my arms and neck of sunscreen buildup pre-shower. The washcloth became an afterthought. I definitely didn’t need two
Underwear. I packed six pair. One I did not wear. I tried to hang them up in the tent when I disrobed after work. Using the safety pins and tent zippers system. I think they aired out pretty well in there.
Patmos bag. Cloth bag my parents brought back thirty years ago from Greece. I used it in San Diego for shopping. Not so much after. Maybe it helped me organize my pack when I repacked Saturday night in the hotel before meeting the group. I put my leftover bluefin in it so I could easily pull it out of my pack Sunday for lunch. Which was bluefin on a bagel with cream cheese from the hotel breakfast. Tom saw what I was eating and cut a little chunk off of what was left of the bluefin.
Biteguard. I fell asleep one night without wearing it but otherwise I had it in. I need it. I grind my teeth. I think that’s how I ended up cracking a molar that had me chewing on one side of my mouth for over a year before I had my dentist put a crown it. One of my top priorities when I first left the tent every morning was to rinse the mouthguard, usually at the wash station, from the water cooler there.
Crox. They are excellent camp shoes. Toes, soles, and heels protected. Enough aeration. One knock: they do not pack up well. Gotta shove some garments in there to fill the empty space.
Brook’s collapsible bag. It’s the kind of bag that packs into its own pocket when you’re not using it. It’s lightweight with big straps and it’s OK if it gets wet so it works well as a bathhouse bag. I would put my towel, washcloth, and toiletries in there when I walked to the bathroom. Hung it on one of the rebar hooks so I was not setting anything on the ground.
Tool bag. Another bag I borrowed from Brook. It’s a colorful LeSportSac. I used the same bag in 2019 when Mike Mayer was in my van. He gave me some playful static about the bag’s appearance. It’s got a lot of colors on it, one of which is pink. He thought it didn’t belong in what was an all-gents van. “Whose bag is this?” he asked aloud, holding the bag aloft. It’s a good bag, though. Sturdy, with a zipper, large enough to hold a saw, hammer, gloves, sunscreen, nut mix, extra t-shirt, pencils, utility knife, etc. On site I set it down along the street or sometimes put it in the bed of Big Blue. That’s when I heard a strange clicking sound coming from Frank’s truck. He was aware of it. Twice during the week, Big Blue required a jump. That was just the beginning.
Utility knife. For cutting roofing paper. I was first on the roof right before a lunch break, and I left the knife up there. There was enough interest in doing roof work early on so I didn’t go back up there for a while. The knife got plenty of use in my absence. There’s tar all over it now, most of which I was responsible for. There’s even tar on the blade. It’s been a great utility knife. Slices right through that shingle paper with precision and heft. I’ll change out the blade and put it back in my car, which is where I keep it.
Mess kit: plate, cup, spoon, and fork. Used all of them for every breakfast and dinner. Lunch, by the way, was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a banana, and some chips. The first day I made two PB&Js but didn’t eat the second one until the next morning. It was fine. A few other folks in camp have adopted the mess kit no-mess approach. Maybe I don’t need the plate because the plates Baja Cooks supplies are paper and don’t take up a lot of room in a trash can. And if I had to, I could try to use just a few plastic cups over the course of a week by re-using each one a few times. But the last items I’d give up are my metal spoon and metal fork. I do not like eating with plastic utensils much less chucking them after one use.
Tools: tape measure. It’s a small, lightweight tape measure. It’s the right size for cutting twelve- or eight-foot boards down to size. It’s great for making birdblock measurements. I cut a bunch of birdblocks. A dozen. I like that job. It’s like I set up a birdblock desk. Tim and Amy N were getting measurements from Frank, Jason, and possibly Mike Arata on the roof. They’d relay me the measurements and I would add them to a list I started making on a scrap piece of 2 x 4, scratching off the measurements once I had the board cut.
Wire cutters. In an eyeglass pouch. I did not use them. They are essential for chicken wire work but I did not do any chicken wire work because I was on the roof. I’d still bring wire cutters, or buy a pair at HD. I didn’t buy much at HD this year. My best buy was a 2″ putty knife that I used for precise stucco application. There are certain spots along the tops of the walls, above the doors, and then down alongside the doors and windows where it’s really nice to have the putty knife’s small blade to apply the stucco. It seems to help small amounts of stucco stick. Ask Anet. I heard her ask someone else if there was something besides the big trowels we could use to apply the stucco. I held the putty knife out to her. She gave it back and I started using it but she asked for it later on and I gave it to her. I was probably mixing stucco at that point and didn’t need it. She gave it back and I used it to apply the second coat up high. Somehow I didn’t come back with the putty knife, though. When the stucco was done I washed the putty knife off and put it out on that big stump to dry. Throughout the week, I was using that stump as a place to cut wood and as a place to set my water bottle. I like a good stump.
Sunscreen. What I brought with me worked, expired or not. I’ve used expired sunscreen in the past, and I think it still works. (Expired eyedrops I probably wouldn’t use, unless they were the only ones I had.) My guess is that sunscreen will go bad if it is exposed to constant heat. It will start to separate. I’ve had that happen. The tube I most relied on this trip was some CeraVe SPF 50 mineral sunscreen for face, expiration date of March 2022. Nine percent titanium dioxide, 7% zinc oxide. I used that on my face, neck, and arms. It was great. I also had a small bottle of Coppertone Sport SPF 50, expiring May 2025. I didn’t use it a lot but I did apply it on Coronado. It is not a mineral sunscreen so it doesn’t make me look silly. Avobenzone 3%, Homosalate 10%, Octisalate 4.5%, Octocrylene 8% (octocrylene is a known carcinogen). My third tube is the heavy hitter, a generic mineral SPF 50 boasting 21.6% zinc oxide. It is a gunky paste. Mime makeup. But it works. I would suggest that this type of sunscreen cannot expire if it’s kept under the right conditions. Metal doesn’t expire. Zinc will always be zinc. It’s been here from the beginning and it’s still what it’s always been.
Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss. Used them all on a regular basis. Maybe didn’t floss quite as often as I’d like. I’ll floss right now. Floss break.
Pencils. I use pencils to mark cut lines on wood. I tried something different this year but it didn’t work much better. I sharpened a few basic, classroom-style pencils. But I don’t want to leave something sharp in my bag lest TSA reach in and get poked so I wrapped all the tips together with blue masking tape. I believe I cracked two of the three leads merely unwrapping the pencils the first morning at the worksite. When I went to mark a cut line on eight foot boards we were cutting down to seven feet for a standard 7-foot wall panel, the lead on my old St. Louis football Cardinals pencil broke straight away. Then I tried another and got the same result. But one of the three pencils, a PaperMate Earthwrite remained intact. I made many marks and wrote many numbers with it. There is something satisfying about writing a number like 21 3/4″ on a piece of wood with a strong pencil. I’m not sure how I’ll play this next year. Maybe pack my pencils in some sort of case.
Valise & toiletries. The valise is from Brook. It’s clear and sturdy with a good zipper. It held a soap tin, an earplug canister, a pill mix in a small pill bottle, face wash in a repurposed jojoba oil bottle, a pair of tweezers, and shampoo in a 3 oz. travel bottle. The valise helps me keep these sundry small items organized. And it can contain a leak, should one occur. I would take it again.
Battery charger. I used it. I never shared it, as I have in prior years. Graham used a prior charger I had with me when we were tent-mates in 2018. Last year, my van mates Tim, Wade, and Peter all used it. I should have offered it up to Mary at some point during the week. She could have used it but I started the week with a bit of a crusty attitude toward Mary that didn’t give way until later in the week. Early on she wanted the key so she could start the car to charge her phone. I really didn’t want to give the key away but when Cheryl asked for it I wasn’t going to say no. Later in the week, we were starting to get low on gas in Cecilia 2. Friday morning at camp Mary had the car running to charge her phone. I was a little worried, thinking it would be pretty silly for us to run out of gas at the border because we had been idling the car in our smoky campground in Tijuana. Then we really did get low on gas as we slogged through a slow and longer-than-usual queue at the Tecate crossing. What a morning that was. Big Blue dead due to a burned up alternator. Jim and Tom detained because they pulled the box truck next to Frank to try to jump him (not yet knowing the alternator was toast). Cynthia going through tissues and making a Telehealth call because her eye was probably infected. Sarah going to get her son Isaiah from Big Blue because she didn’t want him left behind. Frank, Mike, Cooper, and Griffin seemingly stranded. And me switching from drive to neutral to park depending on whether we were going downhill or uphill because I was afraid of running out of gas and compounding all of our problems further. In the end, it all worked out. The cops got their cash. Jim and Tom towed Big Blue across the border. And Walgreens on Coronado had the eyedrops Cynthia was looking for. The lesson I take from all of this? Share the battery charger next time.
Sunglasses. I brought two pairs but I only wore one. The plan was to have one pair to wear around camp and in the car. The other pair was supposed to be for the worksite. But I never made the transition. I’d still bring a second pair.
Mechanical pencil and pens. The mechanical pencil was for doing sudoku on the plane. I used it, but after two hours trying to crack one single sudoku on the flight to San Diego, I came up empty-handed. It was supposed to be a “super-fiendish” sudoku, but clearly my skills are shabby. Pens, yeah. I used all of what I brought, six pens of various color. Marking time, thought, subject, people, sky, voices, place.
Carabiners. In prior years I brought magnets or even a short clothesline for drying clothes. This year it was safety pins and carabiners. I would hook a carabiner through the belt loop on my trunks or work pants, then find somewhere on my tent to hook the carabiner. It worked. You really can’t have too many fasteners.
Hydroflask. It’s an insulated liquids holder. Even in the heat, it can keep your water and ice or Gatorade and ice plenty cool. The one I took is sky blue with a green carabiner. It holds 40 ounces. It’s heavier than other water bottles, certainly heavier than your basic Nalgene. But the extra weight is the basis of the insulation, and it’s worth it. Doing this trip the first couple of years with just a Nalgene, I can affirm that an insulated thermos makes a difference. It allows the ice to stay as ice. Say the flask is nearly empty. If there is ice available—and this was not a given—you can fill the flask about halfway with ice, add your water and/or Gatorade (a 50/50 mix was sometimes more refreshing than either water or Gatorade alone), chug some cold beverage, top off the flask, and then half an hour later you can return to find that the ice has remained ice, the drink is cold, you are refreshed.
Photo by Jen Dawson.
Reading glasses, books, notebooks. I use eyeglasses to read or to look at my phone. I wore them on the plane staring at that sudoku. In San Diego I read aloud just a little in the hotel room. New England Review. That Diane Golub poem, “Hypnagogia.” A thirty-line list that is sly and sad at the same time. Then that Christine Byrne poem, “Irene is Late to the Diner.” Dynamic, nostalgic, wistful. Writing this I stop and read it again. I started writing in this notebook in San Diego. Kept at it for the first three nights in Tijuana, then I fell off. Not enough time, not enough commitment. For books I took that New England Review, my cloud book, a book called Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat, and a book about the O’odham/Papagos of the Sonoran Desert. Where we camp is not quite in the Sonoran Desert, but it’s getting there. Stark, beautiful, plain, real, basic. But I didn’t read much in the tent. Writing is reading, reading is writing.
Pill mix bottle. I had Omeprazole, some other heartburn meds, allergy pills, Tylenol, a Benadryl, a generic Immodium, and some decongestant. All I took was the Omeprazole. I went easy on the tamale, ate barely any chorizo. Didn’t feel that grip in my abdomen at all during the trip.
Head lamp. I used it every night at camp. And early in the mornings. I wore it in the tent to see amongst the clutter. At night, it gets dark sometime during worship or small group. It was fully charged when I left St. Louis. It was running on a lithium battery so it’s supposed to be packed in your carry-on. It is down to one dot left on the charge indicator, out of three.
Small metal funnel. Yeah, I used it. You’d be surprised how handy funnels are.
Tools: saw. It’s flat so it packs up adequately. It is a clean, sharp saw. There were other saws around. Some were dull or rusted or both. Tim, Wade, and I cut two-by-fours with it for a wall panel. Mike Arata and I cut plywood with it. He was in my small group and he was good with a saw. He cut at a sharper angle than I do, less vertical. That was probably better for the plywood. Then I cut an abundance of birdblocks.
Tools: speed square. I used it. I used other speed squares, too. There were plenty lying around, blue plastic or yellow plastic. Although I did use the one I brought, I don’t need to bring it again. Using the square has vastly improved my carpentry skills. I make an initial mark according to my tape measure reading. Then I fit the square snug against the two-by-four, then I make a line all the way down the face of the wood, and that’s the cut line. Although sometimes the birdblock orders would come in and they would ask for a little more or a little less than, e.g. 22 1/2″. As Peter suggested, “save the line” would indicate cutting just to the right of the cutline, to add a little to the measurement. I was starting to get the hang of it. Having someone hold the other end of the board helps a lot. We had sawhorses on the site, which are good. Building our wall panel on top of a stack of three other wall panels also saved a lot of time and trouble. It kept us from working right on the ground.
Soap. I brought two thin bars of soap, then picked up one of the freebie bars from the hotel. The hotel soap I left in a shelf above one of the sinks Amor provides near the baños. There is liquid soap back there, and hand sanitizer. But I don’t like their liquid soap. I really don’t like most liquid soaps, unless they’re foamed. And I contend that hand sanitizer does me more harm than good because I like the bacteria on my hands—they are part of my immune system and I want to let them continue to help me keep from getting sick. That said, I do like to wash my hands so I have supplied a bar of soap back there three years running. One of the reasons I like bar soap better than liquid soap is that liquid soap seems to be harder to rinse off than bar soap. I don’t like washing my hands before dinner only to find that I am smelling liquid soap every time I bring food to my mouth. Last year, I packed a small bottle of Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap, one of the only liquid soaps that seems to rinse clean. But it leaked during the flight, probably because of air pressure changes. What I need to do is buy some Dr. Bronner’s in San Diego. Then I can take one of the hotel freebie water bottles and mix up a weakened solution of Dr. Bronner’s in the water bottle. Use that in the shower or at the sink.
Band Aids. I took five but I didn’t use any. Which is fine. I kept a couple in my tool bag, so I had them on the site. I noticed a box of Band Aids floating around camp, maybe in the back of the box truck.
Tweezers. I didn’t use them but I’d bring them again. There was a moment on site when Jeff got a splinter under his nail and he asked Anet if she had nails. What kind of nails, she asked. He said, No, I mean fingernails. He wanted someone to use their nails like tweezers, which Anet adeptly did.
Ear plugs. I never used them. Maybe I’ve developed some tolerance for camp sounds. I will wear ear plugs if I really need them, but my ears hurt when I fall asleep with them in. Some of us wanted or needed ear plugs Wednesday morning when our new neighbors were up early and hollering for no good reason at 5:15 just a stone’s throw away from where many of us were still trying to sleep. Camp quiet hours are from 10 pm to 6 am and the fact that our group largely minds these quiet hours has at least something to do with why I keep coming back.
Headphones. I took two pair, both wired. I don’t bring my AirPods on this trip because I worry about losing them. Imagine dropping a bud to the floor of the airplane. Even if you could somehow reach down there, would you want to? If it were at your neighbor’s feet, and they had taken their shoes off? I don’t think so. I used headphones a few times at camp. One pair is a nice pair of Bose with noise-blocking ear cups. The other pair is the basic Apple wired headphone that used to come free when you bought an iPhone. When the other group showed up Tuesday evening, I put my headphones in for relaxing in my tent and, eventually, for falling asleep. I woke up at 2:30 in the morning with the music still going. Spoon’s, “Don’t You Evah.” I also like to wear my headphones when I head to the baños in the morning. Talk about another place you don’t want to drop an ear bud accidentally. You’re never getting that one back.
Three AAA batteries. These are for my headlamp. It can run on either a lithium ion battery pack (sold separately) or it can run on three AAAs. I like the versatility. Even though I did not need the AAAs, I would bring them as backup again.
Nasal spray. I took it pretty much every morning, preferably first thing. I think it helped. I only had one sneezing fit despite the persistently poor air quality in Tijuana. The spray is a glucocorticoid, not an antihistamine. I did not take an allergy pill all week.
Rubbing alcohol. In a three-ounce spray bottle. It’s my deodorant. I think it works sufficiently. No one told me I smelled bad but it’s a group of nice, polite people. Even if I had smelled a bit, no one would have known it in the first Cecilia. The blue Sonata that kept on stalling out. It first stalled just as I pulled into the airport pickup line. I didn’t know what was happening. I turned the car off, then I tried the key again. It started right up so I decided not to say anything, not to cause alarm for a trip that was still just getting off the ground. But then it stalled again in the parking lot at 940 Denerry. “No, let’s talk about your face.” That’s when I told the rest of the car what was happening. We pressed on, over the border. Then Cecilia stalled again just as I was trying to merge into traffic along the Boulevard Ferrocarril, not far from where we exited the toll road, 2D. What I meant to say is that the first Cecilia reeked of smoke. Definitely cigarettes, maybe a little weed. I spray the rubbing alcohol on my pits as soon as I wake up. A few sprays, it doesn’t take much. Whatever I had leftover I dumped outside Terminal 1 as I was repacking my bag for the flight home. I wanted to take a little bit of the Coronado vodka through security, and the rubbing alcohol bottle was the only small one I had. I still ordered a double at the chaotic, cramped bar in the gate area just before the flight. This is the side of me the Mexico Mission group doesn’t see.
Bags and cases. I bag most of my items to keep them—and to keep me—organized. I had four small mesh bags, a small mesh case that originally came with the battery charger, a soft pleather eyeglass case to hold the Bose headphones, a Hobo bag to hold the house plans, and a flannel shoe bag to hold cash and IDs. Everything goes in a bag. But the bag it arrives in might not be the bag it leaves in. Last night at camp, with my headphones in so I could concentrate, I asked myself, “What do I still need here at camp in the morning?” That’s a bag. What will I want on Coronado? That’s a bag. What will I want on the plane? That goes in the fanny pack.
Fanny pack. It’s been my plane carry-on for over two decades. I toted it around Point Loma on Saturday. It stayed in the car at the site, holding my license and my passport among other things. I’d still rather keep these items locked in a car on site than leave them all day in my tent at camp.
What I took that I didn’t bring back. Three astronaut ice creams that I gave to my Secret Pal, Mike M. A bag of cinnamon coated almonds, also for Mike. Some candies, which mostly melted. Building plans. A little bit of cash.
Big backpack. It’s a great pack and it has been for over 20 years. I actually did some backpack hiking on this trip, if you consider my hike with the pack on my back from the airport to the hotel on Saturday morning. It took me forty-five minutes. While re-packing my bag in the hotel in San Diego, I finally discovered the best way to pack and to use this two-compartment pack. Start by putting a pillow or some other filler (the fanny pack stuffed with whatever you will soon need) in the bottom compartment. Call that compartment the boot. Then identify those items that you are least likely to need access to. Then stand the pack up tall. Add the “least likely” items to the big/top compartment first. When I was packing my bag to head home Thursday, these items were: sleeping bag, tools, dirty clothes, boots, anything I wasn’t going to want on Coronado, and that I wasn’t flying with. Smash all of these items into the top compartment. If it’s a mess, it shouldn’t matter because ideally you aren’t going to need any of these things for the rest of the trip. If I had packed my bag right in St. Louis in advance of the trip, I would have saved the shopping bag, sunscreen, and floppy hat for the boot, because I would have imagined a need for them in San Diego while I was waiting for the room to open.
What I came back with that I didn’t start out with. A notebook I received from my unidentified Secret Pal. It’s got a bluebird on the front. It’s not spiral (my preferred notebook style) but it folds open without trying to snap right back shut. Gluten free pretzels, also from my Secret Pal. A worn-out marker that I bought at HD to mark rafter lines on the roofing paper. A bag of almonds, also from my Secret Pal. A tin of mixed nuts I bought at Von’s for snacking on throughout the week. Otherwise, not much. Two quarters, four pennies, a five peso coin, a cross in the shape of a paper clip, and one tiny jar of water.
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