Rocky Point, Mexico

We went down to Puerto Penasco, Mexico Sunday night and came back Monday night. Gringos (meaning us) call this Rocky Point. It is about a 31/2 hour drive from Phoenix. We went with another family that is familiar with the area. Our kids enjoyed searching the tide pools for sea creatures. Here is what they found: A sea urchin, sea enenome, tangerine sea slug, shrimp, starfish, baby octopus, hermit crabs, sea cucumber (this looks like something a dog left on the beach) and a couple of fish.

This is a starfish-- not the one your thinking of, this guy is a little more wormy looking. Kaden looks a little concerned.

Our bucket of goodies. It's a little hard to tell what it all is.


This is "Octo" the octopus. I think we scared him a little- he "inked" in the bucket a couple of times and then hid behind a rock.

We actually camped, near this rocky area, which turned out to be a disaster (especially when there are some beautiful resorts and condos that aren't that expensive nearby.) I think it would of been ok, but a horrible wind storm came that night. It looked like the palm trees were going to fall over and the waves were huge. It felt like Armageddon in our tent. Ella kept waking because she was scared (I was too). Hailey and Kaden slept through it all. About 3:30AM, after being whipped in the bum by the roof of our large tent a few times (literally), we finally decided to sleep in the van. Thayne and I were a little tired Monday- I also had a nasty cold and was already tired before this. However, we are still glad we went and the kids had fun.

After searching the tide pools Monday morning, we went to this little "Acquario", where we fed the sea otters and sea turtles. This is a little boy in our group. I think my kids were a little scared of this guy. Look at those teeth. (sorry blurry pictures)

After this, we headed to a more sandy beach. We had the beach to ourselves. It was fun to ride a four wheeler along the sand. We found lots of sea shells. You can see how choppy the water is from the wind. I guess, this beach usually has very smooth warm water.

That night we ate at a real Mexican restaurant. We ordered some shredded beef tacos. When I bit into it, it tasted a little sweeter than usual. I realized they mix the meat with potatoes. Very interesting. I don't know if this is what all restaurants do (probably because it's cheaper). It was pretty good. They mixed cucumbers in with the lettuce and they only used white jack cheese- no orange cheeses here. They gave us a warmed up green salsa, and a red salsa. Both were very hot!

Lastly, it was interesting coming back over the border. We had about a 45 minute wait in our car there. There were lots of Mexicans trying to sell homeade tortillas, and purses etc. (We bought tortillas earlier, yummy). When you get up to the border, you stop for a minute. I think they scan your license plate #'s, into the computer and look up your drivers license. They ask you to declare any food you have. Next year we will need a passport to leave the country. And that, my friends, was our first trip to Mexico.