The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Tim Steller column

May 28--My 8-year-old has been to Canada twice.

My 11-year-old has crossed the northern border three times.

But until May 16, neither of them had made the short, easy trip into Mexico. That's pretty strange considering the many times I've traveled there alone for work during their lives, and considering how much my wife, Patty, and I love the country.

Like a lot of U.S. parents of young children, though, we balked at the perceived risks of traveling into Mexico, even though I've long considered them to be overblown.

We're not the only ones throwing caution to the wind in a desire to catch some sea breeze.

When we traveled to Puerto PenascoMay 16 to May 18 with two other families, the town was well-stocked with U.S. and Mexican travelers. Over Memorial Day weekend, the place was packed.

The occupancy rate was 87 percent over that weekend, Hector Vasquez del Mercado, president of the local convention and visitors bureau, said via email. That was an increase of 15 percentage points over the same weekend last year, he said.

Another big weekend is coming up next week, June 5-8. The Circus Mexicus music festival, featuring Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, will draw thousands from the Phoenix and Tucson areas and fill the area's hotels again.

"It's pretty obvious that things are better than they've been in a long time," said Rosie Glover, who has an insurance agency and heads Rocky Point's visitor assistance bureau.

It seems last December's blow-up, in which members of the Mexican military fired from helicopter gunships into a condo on Sandy Beach, has been forgotten. Or more to the point, people apparently have put it in context as a singular event that apparently took out a problematic underworld player, Gonzalo Inzunza Inzunza, aka "El Macho Prieto."

Drug-war violence has been just one of the factors driving down the number of U.S. visitors to Rocky Point and other Mexican tourist destinations over the last seven years or so. But I've followed it avidly: An unusual home invasion in the well-to-do Las Conchas area in July 2012 was followed quickly by a major drug-war shootout in the middle of town.

Afterward, occasional battles occurred in out-of-town areas as traffickers jockeyed for position in what has become a lucrative smuggling corridor. This, of course, combined with the recession to keep American travelers at home.

But even those sporadic events have been overwhelmed by bigger forces. The U.S. economy is improving, the new Mexican administration has reduced the number of military confrontations with traffickers in public places and American travelers are just ready to go back.

I know it was a relief and a pleasure for me to finally show the kids even the little, Americanized corner of Mexico known as Rocky Point.

"We're seeing less of the reluctance and/or the fear than we have in a long time," said Grant MacKenzie, a real estate agent there.

That's also translated into rising real estate prices, he said. Rocky Point was overbuilt in the middle of the last decade, and when the recession and violence came in 2008 or so, prices began to crash.

Some structures were never completed, and their skeletons still mar the skyline. Other complexes were never more than partially filled. Only in mid-to-late 2012 did the market start to rebound, MacKenzie said.

Now the familiar old marketing pitches are starting to make some sense again.

"Where else can you get a condo on the beach for $130,000 to $150,000?" he said.

Not to mention our news in the U.S., with massacres occurring at a dismayingly regular pace, makes Mexico's violence seem no worse than we're already experiencing.

It makes people like my family and friends shrug our shoulders, pack our bags and head for the beach.

Contact columnist Tim Steller at [email protected] or 807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter

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