Tag: tent

Tijuana 2024: San Diego, Camp Scrawl, Pack Notes.

~ johnbrandall

What follows is an account of my recent trip into Tijuana, Mexico with a group of 36 other people mostly associated with BurlPres, a church in the Bay Area. While in Tijuana, we were camped out east of town for five nights. Together we built a basic but sturdy house for a family in need. The second half of the post comprises my Pack Notes, which functions as an alternative way of recounting the trip as I unpack all of what I brought back with me... Read the full travelogue here...

Tijuana Pack Notes 2023

~ johnbrandall

Since 2018, I have taken an annual trip to Tijuana, Mexico by way of San Diego to help build a small house for a family in need of a place to call their own.   I say annual but of course the trip did not occur in 2020 or in 2021.  In San Diego I meet up with a group from the San Francisco area who are mostly all members of the same church.  The church has been doing the trip for a few decades.  My wife’s sister was married to a pastor at the church, which is how I found my way to the trip.

After meeting in San Diego, we rent vans and make our way across the border at Otay Mesa.  We proceed from there to a campground run by a not-for-profit called Amor that hosts groups like ours.  The campground is on the eastern outskirts of Tijuana, on the road toward Tecate.  We set up tents at the campground; we hire a local team of cooks to provide food for us for the five nights we are there.  

I have written an account of the trip each of the four times I’ve done it.  After the trip, I take account of my packing.  Did I bring what I needed?  What did I bring that I didn’t use?  It’s a challenging trip to pack for because everyone working on the house is supposed to bring a few basic tools.  After including clothes, tools, and some camping gear, my pack gets pretty heavy.  Which is why I take a close look at what I choose to lug around with me as I make the trip from St. Louis to San Diego and then to Tijuana and back.  These are my pack notes, with each item getting its own bullet-point breakdown.

/\\.

Tonic water bottle (10 oz, plastic).  I used it extensively, initially as a water bottle in the airport.  I brought it empty in my carry-on as I went through security.  I filled it from water fountains or water stations in the airports.  The Elkay brand bottle-filling stations have become close to ubiquitous in airports nowadays: Lambert, DFW, San Diego...


Unpack the full pack list here...

Tijuana 2023, Part Two

~ johnbrandall

We got the pad done today. We call it "the pad" but it's really the house's concrete foundation, a rectangle of cement, water, sand, and gravel measuring eleven by twenty-two feet. And we constructed all of the wall sections, seven of them in all. 

The family for whom we are building the house is really friendly. And happy. They are Ivan (age 26) and Enalit (24) and their two children, Keila (7) and Matias (3) . Ivan has a factory job in Tijuana making $85/week, so he wasn't around until later in the day but when he got there we were pretty close to being finished with the pad. He and his wife were standing at the foot of it taking photos. They moved to Tijuana from Chiapas (southern Mexico) in 2022...

This is part two of my 2023 Tijuana trip blog...

Baja Notes (2022 edition)

~ johnbrandall

As I sit on the balcony and look east/southeast, I can see a few of the tall buildings downtown.  And I can see the masts of dozens and dozens of sailboats.  No water is visible but it is implied.  Seagulls huff and squeal.

Two guys, four rods between them.  Getting ready to cross the street by foot, from the Landing side.  One is wheeling a small suitcase.  One carries an over-the-shoulder bag, the other has a backpack.  Both sport galoshes.  One is carrying a double-sack that looks heavy.  Ice and fish.

I could write more about these fisherman but not today.  Maybe I should have planned to stay right here again on the back-end of my excursion to Tijuana?  I love this balcony.  I could sit here all week.  I don’t need to go downtown.  I can get a good burrito and beer over here.  Hashtag regret.  Next time.  Or on some future vacation.  It’s expensive but when Comic-Con is in town, what’s not?  

It’s a grey day but don’t they all start this way in San Diego?  The temperature is perfect and it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be slapping on sunscreen, reaching for my hat.  I’ve buried the lede, though.  I’ve been so engrossed in the fishing traffic that I’ve failed to mention Dan C reaching out to me by text at 4:41.  Dan is the leader of the trip I’m taking into Tijuana with Burlingame Presbyterian, my third such foray but the first in three years (COVID).  

Dan was asking me about my flight, when it gets in.  I said, “Yesterday!”  To which he replied, “Great!”  But all is not great.  One of the flights scheduled to bring in some of our group from the San Francisco airport has been flat-out canceled.  This will delay us for sure.  How long, that’s the question.  The plan was for everyone to meet at the San Diego airport at 10:30 when some of us, including me, would go get the rental vans before returning to the airport to pick up most of the rest of the group.  We have 15 to 20 people this year.  Once we get to Tijuana we will camp east of the city, with mountains in the distance.  This week we will build a basic 11’ x 22’ house for a family of four in the Antorcha neighborhood of Tijuana.  It is an act of charity, coordinated by a ministry called Amor....


Continue reading my account of last year's trip to San Diego and Tijuana...

Babler State Park, April 2018

~ johnbrandall

But Meg said, but Greg said.  Camp host reading Stephen King.  Spooky.  The Cardinals lost, the Nationals lost.  Padres at Rockies now, from Coors.  There was a brawl in this game.  Rox lead 5-0.

I turn down the sound of a commercial.  It felt especially out of place here.  In Denver you go to Applejack Wine & Spirits.  In Chicago it’s Binny’s Beverage Depot.  Heck, these days you don’t even have to go to the Binny’s store, they’ll bring it right to your door.  Joe Maddon told me that.

I went to Binny’s a couple of times when I lived a summer in Chicago.  That was back when beer was blowing up, craft beer—or microbrews, as they were then known.  I heard the Tampa Rays announcer yesterday talking about how he used to live in Chicago.  He was doing a Rays game against the White Sox.  It struck me that a lot of people have once lived in Chicago, midwesterners at least.  My brother and sister both live there now.  

I’ve only ever once been to New York City.  The Big Apple was the setting for a book I just read.  It made me want to visit again; or, it made me wish I’d been born there, had a chance to spend more than a few days of my life there.  I don’t think I could move to NYC now.  Not as a dog owner.  Not even as a married man.  I would’ve had to have lived there young.  If I were living in NYC I’d have to be able to float around.  I could have a job but no attachments outside of that.  Otherwise I think the City would crush me, wring me out, drive me mad.


Camping a night in Babler Park five years ago...

Notas de Maleta de Tijuana 2.0

~ johnbrandall

What follows is a thorough, categorical examination of what I took with me to Tijuana when I traveled there on a mission trip with members of the Burlingame Presbyterian church this past July. I wrote this mostly for my own benefit, in order to pack smarter next time I travel, to Tijuana or to anywhere. Writing this out, which I did on the first full day I was back at home, also serves as a sort of trip debriefing. It's a different way for me to record an account of the trip, albeit in a more straightforward and less lyrical style than what I wrote while I was actually in Mexico (which can be found here)...


Click here for the rest of the pack notes...

Tijuana Mission Trip 2.0

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

We're between mountains, like in Colorado, or Utah. Wall! Border wall. To our left, to the north. Contiguous. Iron? A rusty red. Eight feet high? It cuts into the hillside.

Suddenly it's a little greener. Wind in the palms. Some flattening out. By the looks of it, the playa at camp will be windy. Stones, boulders on the hillsides. I've lost sight of the wall as we've tended south.

This is a smooth road. Turning to the south. Large round boulders. Accesso planta dart. Windmill. This is the back way into camp. It has a rural feel but there's actually quite a few plants or factories back in here. The road has gotten very rocky. A metal structure manufacturer. Galvanization. A burned area. Car carcasse. Lots of old tires. A guy in a chair under the shade of a tree just looking out at the road. Railroad.

We take a right onto a much smoother, paved road. There are lots of cars stopped on the side of this road. There are canopies set up. Lots of them. Is it a market? We're close to camp. Turning right, I know this road. There's the old, snub-nosed flatbed lorry. The silo-like red cylinder lying on its side. Dust! At 14:42 we are at the Amor Hacienda Camp...


Continue with this Tijuana 2019 travelogue...

Meramec State Park, August 22-24

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

I wrote nothing the whole time at Meramec.  We camped, we floated, we sweated.  Friday I camped with one of my five cousins, Lyle.  He picked me up in his Sierra.  I gave him a quick tour of the house.  His brother had been here, a few years ago at holiday time.  We crawled along Hanley and I regretted having suggested we go that way.  Big Bend, Jack—quit forgetting about Big Bend.

Just getting my camp gear loaded into the truck I was sweating.  He was sweating at work and never stopped.  He must've hauled ass to get to my place when he did—left the mill at 3:50, down 70 to Soulard, fight the good fight along 64/170 to College City—I expected him at 5:30 but he got here at ten after.  I was only a third of the way through a manhattan solidarity said I shouldn't have.  But solidarity lost its good fight.


Continue with this travelogue...