California + Nevada + Mexico, Solar Eclipse : 24 March - 13 April 2024

We visited Chris' sister and her family in Tennessee in 2017 to watch the 21 August 2017 total solar eclipse, where the center of the path of totality was only thirty minutes away from Chris' sister's house.  This was our first total solar eclipse, and we liked it so much that about a year before the 2024 eclipse, Tami looked up the best places to watch the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.  She found that Mazatlan, Mexico was forecast to have one of the best weather conditions, so she made hotel reservations in Mazatlan.  We were not sure if we would actually make this trip, as it required quite a bit of travel and planning to reach the path of totality, but the reservations were refundable and gave us options. About three weeks before the eclipse, the Textron Systems common unmanned surface vehicle (CUSV) boat program requested Chris' support in San Diego for a few weeks, and the end of that trip lined up perfectly with a flight to Mexico just a few days before the eclipse.  We spent two weeks in San Diego, visiting Las Vegas and Death Valley over the long Easter weekend, and then flew from Tijuana to Puerto Vallarta on 6 April.  We spent a night there, and then drove six hours to Mazatlan on 7 April, watched the solar eclipse on 8 April, enjoyed the beach and town, and then drove back to Puerto Vallarta on 9 April to spend four more nights at the beach there.  We flew home on 13 April 2024.

Sunday, 24 March 2024 to Friday, 5 April 2024 : San Diego and Las Vegas

Chris worked long hours supporting the CUSV at Mission Bay marina while Tami tele-worked from our hotel on Coronado Island, with a view that overlooked San Diego Harbor and the Coronado Bridge.  We had dinner at several restaurants around town, including a few we had visited in previous trips to San Diego.

Easter Sunday was in the middle of these two weeks, so it ended up being a travel weekend for the Textron employees to go home and be with their families.  Chris had the option of flying home or staying in San Diego.  We decided to stay in San Diego, but the weather for the Pacific coast, north to San Francisco and south into Mexico, and quite a ways inland, was forecast to be cold and raining all weekend.  We made reservations for Las Vegas, which was supposed to be out of the rain.  We made the six hour drive north to Las Vegas on Friday, 29 March 2024, and spent the weekend there.

Death Valley Driving, Dante's View, Badwater Basin, 1 April 2024

We drove from Las Vegas back to San Diego on Monday, 1 April 2024, detouring through Death Valley National Park on the way back.  It ended up adding several hours to the drive, but the conditions in and around Death Valley were unique and very pretty.  The normal desert at Badwater Basin was flooded from recent rainstorms, leaving a shallow lake covering the valley floor.  There were also many wildflowers in bloom in the area.  We visited Dante's View, Zabriskie Point, Furnace Creek, and Badwater Basin, and then drove south out of the park to rejoin I-15 back to San Diego.

Dante's View, Death Valley

Zabriskie Point, Death Valley

Badwater Basin, Death Valley - the lake is not normal

Saturday, 6 April 2024 to Saturday, 13 April 2024 : Mexico

We dropped the rental car off at the Cross Border Express (CBX) crossing station, which connects from the US directly into Tijuana International Airport.  The entrance is on the US side of the border and most US Avis locations near San Diego are considered local rentals, so there was no extra charge for picking up at San Diego Airport and dropping off at CBX. We took our luggage, crossed the border directly into the Tijuana Airport, passed through immigration, and joined boarding on a Mexico domestic flight to Puerto Vallarta.  Mexico domestic flights are a good value, and the border crossing is quick.  It was very busy, as we were crossing with lots of other people on a Saturday morning headed to Mexico for a long weekend, with many probably headed to see the eclipse as well. 

If you use CBX, you have to have an immigration form completed via the CBX website, and there is a fee for using CBX for crossing the border.  The way the website is set up, you can't get a copy of the immigration form until you have paid the fee, so we figured the immigration form printout was all we needed. This is not true - even though we had the immigration form printed out, they also require proof of the payment .. that you had to make before you get the immigration form.  It seems ridiculous, but make sure you print out your immigration form AND your payment proof for CBX.  We flew into Puerto Vallarta and took the shuttle to the rental car pickup just two minutes from the airport.  We got our car and headed north out of town for thirty minutes to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle for our first night in Mexico.

View from our room in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

The next morning, Sunday, 7 April 2024, we continued north along the 200 and 150 toll roads to Mazatlan, where we had reservations for two nights, sandwiching the eclipse viewing on 8 April 2024.  It was an almost six hour drive.  The toll roads are in good condition, but are also very expensive; it was almost $85 US dollars ($1400 pesos) to use the toll roads all the way from Puerto Vallarta to Mazatlan, a distance of 258 miles (415 km).  Mazatlan is in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.  At the time of our visit, the US State Department's assessment of Sinaloa was "Do not travel."  It has high crime and kidnapping, and US Government employees on official travel are not allowed to use ground transportation in Sinaloa; the only place allowed in Sinaloa is the city center of Mazatlan with required ground travel from there directly to the airport.  We saw many trucks with military personnel with weapons and mounted machine guns.  When we entered Sinaloa going north there was a checkpoint that backed up traffic for two miles on the 150 toll road; the checkpoint had many machine gun equipped vehicles overseeing the inspections.  We had to open our trunk, but it was quick and without incident.  The rest stops along the 150 were guarded by armed personnel.  We passed next to a convoy escorted by trucks with mounted machine guns as we were coming back from our eclipse viewing at the beach.  Going south back to Puerto Vallarta there was another road-block backing up traffic; this time the vehicles and personnel were not marked with military or federal insignia, but we passed through this with no incidents also.  All personnel at all checkpoints were well armed, masked, and wearing body armor, so the crime must be present and real. Most of the roads between Puerto Vallarta and Mazatland are in better shape than the roads in Costa Rica, but they do have one drawback: except for the toll roads, there are excessive speed bumps.  The speed bumps are everywhere and are continuous; it gets incredibly annoying slowing down every 300 yards, or 50 ft, or whatever other seemingly random distance has been selected. They are large and will break your car if you don't slow down.  Sometime a set of speed bumps will be set in place where a cross roads join the road you are one; sometimes the cross road is big and it almost makes sense. Sometimes the side road is a dirt road that looks unused, but the same speed bumps are still there.  Sometimes a large side road joins in, but there will be no speed bumps.  Don't try to predict it; just be aware and on the lookout all the time.

Sunset view from our room in Mazatlan

Monday, 8 April 2024 : Solar Eclipse in Mazatlan We started driving through downtown Mazatlan to join the huge crowds of 120,000+ visitors at one of several giant viewing parties at the beach or in one of the parks, but the traffic was so bad and slow moving that we decided to head out of town towards the center of totality.  We were hoping for a spot on the beach, not really believing we would find the perfect spot, but we still looked.  We drove east, south, and then back to the beach southeast of Mazatlan.  We passed a minor dirt road leading out to the beach and drove down it, taking a chance we could reach the water.  It became too sandy for our rental car for the last few hundred yards, so we parked next to a few other cars and walked the last little bit to find .... the perfect spot!  There were no more than twenty people within a mile in either direction along the shore, with a wide sandy beach and beautiful open skies.  We were even treated to paragliders flying by after the eclipse, just like we had experienced in Tennessee at the 21 August 2017 solar eclipse.

 
DJI Aerial Photos of our 'perfect spot beach' for the solar eclipse

We drove back through Mazatlan after the eclipse, and stopped at Faro Mazatlan, one of the highest lighthouses in the world. Chris hiked to the top of the lookout, at Mirador de Cristal.  The hill has a great view of all of Mazatlan, and is inhabited by lots of cats.  This lookout had hosted one of the big eclipse viewing parties earlier in the day, so there were many eclipse signs at the top. We had dinner at Panchos in Mazatlan; it was actually just lots of margaritas and nachos, but it was still very good.

Faro Mazatlan Hike

View from Faro Mazatlan

We took the 150 toll-road for most of the way back to Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday, 9 April, and then got off onto the coastal road just before reaching Tepic.  We visited San Blas, where there was a great viewpoint overlooking crocodiles.  A short while after leaving San Blas, the "coast road" moved away from the coast and the travel was so slow that we re-joined the 200 toll road for the final forty miles back to Puerto Vallarta.  We checked into our all-inclusive resort, and enjoyed the pools and restaurants for the next four nights.  We flew home on Saturday, 13 April.

Morning view from our room in Mazatlan

     
DJI Aerial Photos at our Puerto Vallarta Resort