That's my old Minolta Dimage Z1 that I purchased for our first visit to Mazatlan in the the year 2000. I've taken literally thousands of pictures with it and kept it in the boat with me and taken it everywhere since I started this blog in 2009. And yes...that would be caked on salmon eggs that you see on the handle. The camera has 10 power optical zoom and 40 more power digital zoom and it has two ways to shoot, either with the screen or with a viewfinder which I prefer as it helps you aim when you use a lot of zoom. Also the camera being 25 years old has only 3.2 mega pixels of definition which for me is nice in that I don't have to manipulate the pics to post them on the blog or Facebook .......Well me and MPeasy went to Freeze Out Lake to do our new yearly bird watching trip and I got one shot in and the camera told me my SD card was full. For some reason the camera will not work with the new micro SD cards on an adapter so I'm stuck with the 1 gigabyte card that's been in it since 2015, ten years ago. So the other day as I watched the Seattle Mariners struggle through what can barely pass as a baseball game as they start another season I went through the card and deleted doubles and poor pictures.....and there were a lot of them . BUT, there were also some real beauties that I'm going to share on this edition of Mile 14 . First a short list of my thinking....this won't take long naturally.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Good Pics
Monday, March 10, 2025
The Ying and Yang
Pardon me if I deviate from the whimsical for just one edition of Mile 14 Southern Bureau. I've been wanting to write this for some time now and to tell you the truth as I start to type I have no idea how it it is going to turn out....what can I say that makes sense about the people of Mazatlan who love so much and hurt so much at the same time.
As MPeasy and I walk the streets and watch the town awake on our especially cool Sunday mornings we bump into it all. It's obvious. Great joy everywhere like this young Lady telling us ' I can do anything through Christ '.
Or these three guys who were gut chuckling their way along Cameron Sabalo and gave us big a buenos dias and asked how we were. When I asked if I could get their picture for the blog they said of course, of course you can.Or the kids playing soccer on the beach. Their folks get them to this wonderful place and they do exactly what they'd do at home but barefoot and carefree. I watched them play and well, all of us know the joy of youth.These two sold us an anniversary silver pendant at Rubio Jewelry for MP on our wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful talk about silver and then about marriage. This young woman in her 30's told us of her 5 lifelong best friends of which 3 of them are divorced , she and us shared marriage success stories. But then this...We were so excited when we first arrived to do our Sunday ' up and over ' hike. We take in the views, have breakfast on the beach and then on our way to the Mercado to get the bus we walk through Revolution Plaza that borders the seat of Government and come across this.Dozens and dozens of people laying out homemade posters looking for information on loved one that have disappeared in the ongoing Cartel war. The missing are all young men . It's quiet and when I ask if it's O.K. to look and take a few pics a woman told me ' please do '....it was solemn .At first I thought it was a memorial, a remembrance and out pouring of grief . But no it wasn't that at all, it was people doing all they could to find lost ones and at the very least put the effort forward keep hope alive....Maybe somebody knows that their son just decided to leave for Mexico City for a while to look for work...maybe...
Everybody is used to seeing the Military. All of our years in Mazatlan we see convoys and police trucks with armed men but now it's different. The National Guard now patrol and you can tell it's not just routine, the soldiers are looking, paying attention . Now they walk the Malecon in security teams and are part of everything...everything. Hundreds of soldiers . We did one of our ' staycations' at the La Siesta . amongst the sunset crowd I took this pic. The soldiers act like it's normal and they even say hi and smile....and of course I always say thank you . So...So....Without going into this deal and try to sort out the cause, the right and wrong, the zig and zag , I'll just say this. The human spirit is alive and well in Mazatlan Mexico. Love will win, it always does . One thing I've learned in my life is that nothing is lineal, there are no straight lines, no easy answers . And while you look for those things you carry on, looking for love.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Just like the old days
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Sometimes....
It feels a bit like an alternate universe here in Mazatlan, you know the old parallel worlds deal. I've often told people that the coolest thing about Mexico is that there's no doubt that it doesn't even TRY to be like the USA and for me....that's a good thing .
I shoot that pic through window this morning at a place we came across on our Saturday morning walk / talk / eat trip . We've found the most wonderful breakfast spot called La Laguna which is at a point in the wetlands that run parallel with the Malecon. Great food and the vibe is like you were in Paris dining along the Seine. As we ate this morning we watched this guy circumnavigate the Lagoon, expertly throwing his cast net as he moved along .....Pretty cool. But I digress. I was gonna tell a story about beer...Pacific of course is brewed right here in Mazatlan and it fuels the town, no doubt about it . Well the other day we're at our new favorite and recently discovered taco stand Epa Epa. Now we had to look for a new place as Tacos Martin which had the wonderful beef tongue (lengua ) that I love mysteriously went out of business . Epa has Happy hour all day, 2 Pacificos for 50 peso, $2.50 in gringo. So,for every beer a frugal person will order two, right ? I looked that word frugal up in the Thesaurus and the first word for it came up was ' miserly ' ....well I don't think I'm that but I can stretch a buck....so where's this story going you ask... So we get our two beers and order taco's El pastor and a crazy potato. When it comes we order two more Pacifico's even though MP doesn't really want another but I'm ready for one and as we eat I drink it and then 'help' MP with hers. Well about this time a Mexican man with his family leaves table and goes out to his car and comes back with 2 Pacifico's and I figure that he's bringing his own beer in which you see all the time and is acceptable in Mexico. But nope, he walks over to our table and says he'd like to treat us as they're jumping the jet for Tijuana soon and have to empty their cooler. So in the spirit of International co operation I say thank you and now we have a 6 beer lunch, kinda like your basic 3 martini lunch on Wall Street ...and me...well....I've got my first early day burner ( as Tom O'mara would say ) going in looooooong time. Took a nap when we got home.And fishing....yup we're still pounding the water. Most of Team X convenes every morning over at Mar Rosa and the reports have been kinda slow and with the Water Taxi refusing to let non El Cid people aboard I've been fishing closer to home. AND, it's been sooo cold in the morning that I've kinda changed that pattern and lately I walk in the morning asnf fish in the afternoon...Dan Sterchi said to me one morning years ago " I don't know why the hell we gotta get up so early for , I mean the fish DO live here don't they "! so I invented a pattern where I fish in the pool troughs just off shore at low tide. I use my ultra light outfit as I only cast 20 or 30 feet and then let a really really small rubber swimfish just kind float and dodge along and low and behold there's snappers in those pools. I've caught many like this and the other day a gorgeous yellow one. They're slol close you'd think you can see them but you can't.Behind me you can see the shallow sand I wade out on and then cast parallel with the beach up and down the trough. Nuttin to it .
And finally in the ' we've got culture ' department we ran into these dancers on the Malecon this morning. What a great place to walk and visit and you never know what or who you're going to run into. You can stop for a coconut, you can get a cold Michelada or you can just belong, it's really cool.