ENSENADA, B.C., MEXICO FROM LATE SATURDAY NIGHT TACO STANDS TO MOM AND POP GROCERY STORES & HOUSE BBQ’S TO THE WINERIES OF THE VALLE DE GUADALUPE
This past weekend a friend of my wife whose named Maria, asked us to go with her to Ensenada so she could see her first cousin who just moved to Ensenada - so she wouldn’t have to drive across the demarcation line of Mexico and California border by herself.
That’s pragmatically understandable, especially when one considers that the fastest way to Ensenada is through outskirts of the wild, wild south Tijuana - along the scenic and beautiful Pacific ocean…...
Like my wife, Maria was born and raised in Mexico. They both know the more good than there is the bad including thou ugly of not only Mexico politics and Drug Lords, but the U.S' as well.
By pleasant serendipity Maria’s two boys grew up with our two boys as they attended elementary school and high school together within the protective bubble environs of Aliso Viejo, California.
Aliso Viejo’s weekly manicured flora road dividers and busy street corners would remind anyone of the keen topiary of floral that’s nurtured nightly at Disneyland USA in Anaheim, California.
Picture will you - one of the most popular rides since ’55 - “It’s a small World of Melting Pot of Ethnic Backgrounds - after all.” All dressed up robots remarkably singing in purrfect harmony and union with the only differences being that their “at one’s best,” indigenous clothing culture settings.
We pointed the car due south along the tides surf of the Pacific ocean via Interstate 5 San Diego Freeway this past late Saturday afternoon/evening and our arrival back to San Clemente, California in the early morning hours of Monday morning - some 35 hours later.
Yes, the supposed casa of Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass and "The Bull" --- Fernando V., an All-Time-All-Star-Hall-Of-Famer Dodger Great that took baseball and the world by with his golden left paw and his stare up to God during his wind up ---- in the twilight spring scented cotton candy colored sky enhanced ten-fold by - the silver streaked starry overhead stadium lights.
Not unlike the Yankee Babe Bambino, Fernando was a hitter too. Oh goodness, yes he was.
I know.
I was sitting in beautiful Doger stadium by my lonesome on Opening Day in 1981 with Fernando who knew ZERO English being the seasons starting day pitcher. What a game - with a Dr. Pepper on the Rocks in one hand with vintage Vin Scully doing his poetry out of my battery operated GE radio in my other hand. I was in Tommy Lasorda's Dodger heaven with Roy, Duke and two of my favorites: the brave Roy C. and the iconoclastic - Mr. Robinson.
Yes, the infamous “The Towering Line of Babel” to get photographed by Trump’s amped up Border patrol was at its usual snails crossing pace.
Can’t blame them employees sitting in their Drive-In Movie look-alike booths.
I’d be grouchy and irritated at 2:30 AM too.
It took us nearly five (5) hours while inhaling residual petrol and diesel exhaust here, there and everywhere on California’s Prop 65.
Hey newly/latest elected Mr. Governor of Socialist California, what’s up with the latest with Proposition 65 chemicals that are known to cause cancer in laboratory Ratatouilles?
How about the Homo sapiens, you Remy you.
President Trump, the good guys, girls and kids are affected with your one fell border Swoops with German Shepherds on-a-leash all sniffing under tired car wells and overheated engine hoods - even in the early morning hours at that.
No I don’t want myself or any family members or friends of to be murdered by a Gangis Khan Tattoo Thug from central America ethier. I voted for the wall and your promise of a strong economy when I casted my vote as an independent back in 2016, Mr. President.
After all - it's all about the economy and a dollop of integrity mixed with trust - - - Hillary C.
Mr. Trump you ought to witness selected natives of Mexico out there with their nearly newborns looking more like stillborns, acting as panda backpacks by their caring and loaded down swinging Pinata Moms - looking as if they're hanging onto their biblical/crucified eyes with another slightly older child in tow dodging Gringo Ram 4x4 Trucks and silver-polished while her other son pedals on a 3rd generation hand-me down rusty colored tricycle at 2:45 AM in the morning - just south of the San Diego Padres.
Mr. President, don’t overlook the Mid-Night Summer Live Dream of Herb Alpert & His T Brass Band as Pied Piper induced solo artists Sid Fernandez’ greatest country hits in live, living color, plays under the extreme 5,000 foot candle-powered non-Hollywood Partial Quality Inspection Food Lights of the ‘Armed To The Chest USA Border Guards .’
And don’t underlook the really bottom of the barrel ones pushing themselves by their worn out fingerless black cotton gloves skimming along a low riding customized ‘1 by 1 no legs flatbed’ with four rusty skateboard sized wheels - minus their bearings and much needed 3 N 1 oil. Always pleading in the summer heat or the Pacific cold of the night for a mere peso or 2 from brothers/sisters among the guys and gals dressed in smart Angel White nursing suits and - dodging between cars heading Northbound, professing to be doing God’s work by tossing into a Fountain of Wishing Wells disguised as Green Giant tin cans - Gringo coins of Lincolns, Jeffersons and Eisenhower's North and South of the richly decorated Catholic church where known local and distant pedophiles all the way to the stairway of thou Vatican in Rome, Italy that have been featured on the HD screens via orbiting space satellites to the masses far below by Fox & CNN.
At least they do agree on one (1) social event
Got to get those former Rabbit Ear ratings up.
Disgusting.
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Though I’ve visited Ensenada, Mexico many the last 30 years, I’ve always experienced a ‘Cee something new and intriguing scenes,’ whether ones visit is 35 hours or the more conventional and relaxing three (3) day visits.
When we visit stores in northern Mexico, I always make a beeline to the perishable products and raw produce (there’s , Burger King, McDonalds, Carl’s Junior, etc., operating in Ensenada) and witness by observing and asking questions on how they deal with food and occupational safety. In a language and respectful style we both can understand.
On a previous 2018 Ensenada visit, a well known Ensenada grocery chain had a huge open refrigerated coffin with unpackaged and fully exposed chicken parts for sale. The people were picking and keeping what they didn’t throw off to the side over and over again.
I kid you not.
No need for no GMO feed free, no hormone ever or cage free labeling here like it is North/East of the border up Washington DC way.
However, back South of the Border down Mexico way, the Mexican people nearly ‘BBQ sear’ their raw chicken/beef internally and externally - while squeezing an ‘ Ignaz Semmelweis lime juice’ that was just snapped off a neighbors citrus tree for enhanced flavoring; with a XX cold one or two in an, I Dream of Jeannie brown recyclable bottle.
If people from the United States followed the catch-all Critical (CCP 1 ) of cooking to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F., for 3 seconds, there would be no need of the worldwide used usage of RB Thompkins academia study of enteric pathogens and critical Mother Nature stone old meat heated temperatures.
I’ve consumed grilled Mexican BBQ ‘Chicken on A Stick’ during past visits to Mexico and I’ve never ever become sick of Salmonella or campylobacter - just virgin Dr. Peppers on the rocks.
The same is applicable to the non-intact and intact Ensenada Costco domesticated Su Karne beef that I consumed and woofed down on this truncated journey to Ensenada BC that were topped off with fresh guacamole,
- Red and Green Homemade Salsa,
- Raw Red Radishes and
- Chopped up Parsley while listening to
- The Rolling Stones,
- Led Zeppelin,
- Nirvana and
Multiple Grammy winner,Carlos Santana who - in live and living color did ‘Oye Como Va’’ in the late 60s and early 70s one house within a rocks throw from my wife’s childhood house - belched out classic 60s 70s 80’s and 90s Rock N Roll smack on the flat lands of Middle Ensenada BC - one of many of Mexico’s best kept secret(s).
Imagine that.
Whenever we go to a restaurant in Ensenada, Puerto Nuevo or , I’ll always sneak-a-peek at the restaurant kitchens and visit their bathrooms for tell-tale signs.
I can’t help it - - - even when my wife pleads to me not to.
In the early 2000s, I was hired by several Insurance companies to perform audits centering on food and OSHA safety. I stored a lot in my knucklehead of what not to do, while learning/retaining a whole bunch.
One thing that became apparent at restaurants in the U.S. in the 2,000s was that roughly seven times out of ten, if the bathrooms were clean and orderly - so were the even more critical kitchen and food and packaging storage areas. So much for a wild Rodeo Pony audit show for those days of old - unless you rely on the lucky roll of double snake eyes.
But don’t be too hard on Senior Sid Fernandez and Mu-Cha-Cha Maria Perez – they’re learning and doing much better now, thank you gringo ego men.
Don’t overlook that earlier LinkedIn blog centering on Ignaz Semmelweis and his epiphany discovery of observing what was causing Puerperal Fever deaths back in mid 19th century Europe.
Doctors and pre-nurses weren’t cleaning their hands after going from one blue-blood patient to another blue-blood wretch. In fact it wasn’t until the late 1880s that Dr. Pasteur invented - upon the great ‘Mind-backs’ of those that preceded him during the pioneering Davy Crockett days of today’s modern 21st century Clinical Biology.
That is - the last half of the 19th century that ‘Spontaneous Generation’ was a but a Superstar Stevie Wonder Superstition, Bazooka Joe pink-pop-bubble gum myth until the good French Doctor published his first of many to be or not to be Magna Carta’s –
The Theory of Germs.
(Hush now Toby or no more “Mull of Kintyre Dog Treats” for you during Holmes and Watson’s Act 1 with Special Guest Star - Dr. Louis Pasteur.)
Okay.
Good news.
No more writing and straining your eyes.
Each picture uploaded below R in chronological sequence of what our 35 hour trip to Ensenada was like on March 23rd and 24th, 2019.
Enjoy the colored pictures, with some sure surprises from my cracked Ipads tablet with very few remaining comments I’ll scribble in between the pictures.
Every Single Picture Tells A Story.
The picture above was taken late Saturday evening in Ensenada at a taco stand. Suddenly this gentleman in the red apron said, "Mr. Steve." This gentleman worked at a Texas harvesting plant that I audited several years ago. I bought him 3 tacos as I drank my Dr. Peppers and we talked about life in the US opposed to his home here in Mexico. What a small world it is - even though I could not recall him.
The initial pictures above were from our Guadalupe Valley Wine run with the last few --- at relatives homes - and finally early Monday morning crossing the border.
I at the very least, enjoyed my most recent 35 hour tour-de-force of Ensenada Baja California.
Great people w/ Great food.
Adios Amigos/Amigas .........