About Us
The Pack Family Journal is a place where we gather text and images of our lives, adventures and travels. This is a very personal site, written openly and honestly. Enjoy.
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| John and Rachel Pack |
Last night was our first show at
Paradise Cove Tiki Bar & Grill and we had a wonderful time, started slow and built up, just like we like it. Thanks
Jeanne Pepler for having us. It was great to meet
Franny for the first time. Its cool to meet someone for the first time and they know all about you from Facebook. Franny said I was a "great Facebooker". Sorry Franny we didn't get to meet your friend, however I did see her bobbing her head at the bar
wink emoticon. It was also te
rrific to see our musicians friends Eloy Miron and Ed Torriente, thanks for the compliments guys, always good to be appreciated by other musicians. Hope to see you Saturday. Dennis and Maureen
John - While sitting perfectly still playing my guitar my back went out - completely debilitating! Not sure I ever felt that much pain, not ever. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, because of the nerve damage in my back, we had some medicated pain patches, a lot of ibuprofen and a lot of moaning a groaning later, I was able to move. Our concern was last night was our first night at Paradise Cove Tiki Bar & Grill in Rosarito. It's almost a 2 hour drive, then 3 hours of playing and two hours home (1.5 actually because no traffic at night). We waited until noon to decided whether we were going to contact our friend Jeanne the manager, or just go for it. Which we have never done. Fortunately, we still have a perfect record. Other than Rachel and Oscar doing most of the lifting the night went on without a hitch. The show must go on.
Mama Bears was great. We just love this place, the customers are very nice, and always incredible tippers...truly amazing, more than any other place we have ever played. Plus the owners Tina and Joanie are way cool and the staff are too. Next week is their last week and the new owners will be taking over...and they too seem very cool. I know one of them Cort is already cooking all the pizza and he is really a nice guy, very laid back bunch. When we were done, Tina got so excited she even picked up Rachel wink emoticon Our good friend Phillip Singletary joined us on his sax, plus other San Felipe friends Marilyn, JC and NickiNomi and local friends too. Oh and of course, the food is amazing...we even have our own pizza, now called the "veggie cracker", veggie pizza with red sauce, and no cheese and added garlic. Ate two of them last night yum!
Today we moved the RV to a new location in the park. Our new spot that has an awesome view of the La Bufadora Cove and big beautiful palapa in the other side. We will have fun using it for our rehearsal/practice space. - MORE PHOTOS -
Before we moved John thought that one of the RV's tires where going flat, certainly appeared low. Turned out it was fine, but Richardo, the manager and all around guy here came to the rescue. He had a hose hooked up under the hood, with a push button switch on a long wire attached to his battery. So he can pump up a tire with his jeep and use the button to stop and start the pump. Oh and all his wrenches were stuck inside the engine compartment with a giant magnet. I love Mexican ingenuity! - MORE PHOTOS -
"The only difference between an ordeal and an adventure is your attitude!" and we just had a great adventure. We drove through downtown Ensenada without any brakes! Yep, none at all. It was a pure adrenaline rush - I loved it!! Rachel not so much. I just used the transmission and emergency brake to slow and stop. From the way people in Ensenada traffic drive, I think a good number of them where driving the same way.
I LOVE BAJA!! I always think it, but sometimes I want to say it outloud. Just got back from a trip the get the brakes fixed. Rachel and I thought it a good idea to go to a dealer and not just any mechanico on the side of the road. So with the help of our good buddy Oscar, he recommended the Michelin dealer in front of the Ensenada Costco. They had the car on the rack for about an hour, had all 4 tires removed and the TOTAL BILL was $176 PESOS. That is about $15 dollars for my Americana amigos. We now have perfect brakes and all is great in our universe...however the drive home was boring compared to the drive there. July 6, 2015
