1981 - Linda In Brooklyn, Hubbie as Mommy, “Searching for a Sunny Day…”; Bounding to the Baja; Noah’s “We Don’t Eat Meat!!”

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While Linda was in midwifery school in Brooklyn, they traveled once to Baja California. Paul Winter reassembled the Canyon crew to whale watch humpbacks in Magdalena Bay. With both a scuba tank and Noah on Paul’s back and Linda hauling their packs, they took the subway to Newark to fly World Airways just as it went bankrupt.  Arriving in LA, they met up again with their friend Judge, and in his compact Toyota truck and even tinier camper top, they headed out for the Baja.

They never met up with the Paul Winter gang, but made it to the Bay, wandering down a sandy path to find a temporary fishing camp with tents, a dozen boats, and two trucks. Paul thought to possibly rent a boat to get to the whales, but the fishermen were clearly occupied, hauling their catch to the beach, a mother lode of fish flopping from the gunwales. A landmark moment and a lifelong memory: 3-year-old Noah running up and down the beach as they pulled in the fish, piping out over and over again in child-like pride and identify assertion, “We don’t eat meat! We don’t eat meat!” When he grew up, Noah eschewed that practice and became an avid carnivore, but nothing can eclipse that moment.

On the way back, they stopped at “El Presidente,” a modern looking place they thought safe for a meal. The meal was good, but the ice was contaminated, and they fought increasing GI distress all the way back. To add to the “adventure,” flash floods washed out the roads, and Mexican Army troops towed Judge’s truck across the torrents. Unfortunately, the water over the hood burned out his alternator, and the last part of the trip turned into a nighttime sprint with ever-fading lights.

At the border, unable to obey the Customs Officer’s command to turn off the engine (knowing there was no juice to restart it and not sure if a tow truck would be allowed in the customs area), Judge and Paul looked like zombies. Without a second glance, they pulled them aside, drug-dogs and five customs officers, two with wrenches and jacks. But when Linda poked her head out of the back, asking them nicely to do what they needed quietly so Noah would not awaken, the growing sternness bordering on hostility evaporated, and they motioned them across into the US of A.

They made it 10 feet across the border before the truck gave up the ghost.

Judge got it fixed, and as Linda and her crew headed back to Brooklyn, Judge muttered “This is one for the books”

Yes, yes it was.