One of my favorite places and the place I seem to feel the most free is Baja and I hadn't been for a while. I haven't been able to afford racing and I didn't have the free time I did in college. I started gathering maps and checking water and weather temps to see where I wanted to go.
There was all the prepping,
I ended up settling on a loop because I know what a problem I have with sitting still.
Tuesday I literally ran out of the office as early as I dare. A whole 30 minutes early!!! (thats just sad) I was completely ready and I picked up Danica and we were off. Carpool lanes are great! We made it to a little town just on the US side of Tecate by 10pm and camped.
The next morning we did the windy road into Ensenada. Always exciting with the semis almost taking off your mirrors. Sometimes I've seen the fog so thick you can't see the hood of the car. I was glad it was not so bad today!
Ahhh Anthonies! Where you can find all of the baja legends and big teams with their families on a race weekend. Its a whore house. That being said, you walk in and get a table and they bring a free bottle of tequila over. (there is a whole story regarding that on a past trip... my brain hurts thinking about it) There seem to be a lot of single women standing around and occasionally they disappear with one of the gringos into the back... Its a completely weird feeling. Being in a whore house and seeing a family eating dinner at the next table...
Time for my favorite thing! Baja Carne Asada!!!!!
I can still taste them mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Nothing like a breakfast beer in baja!
The monkey even had a beer!
Some shots of Ensenada
I have to admit I was a bit envious of these guys doing a baja ride!
Just outside of Santo Tomas I was running on the 500 and 1000 course and memories of passing race cars and dodging civilians came to mind. I started ramping up my speed until I was catching the motorcycles just posted and wham! It was a bad noise. The truck still fealt fine, but I decided to pull over and check it out. I'm glad I did. The tire was loosing air like the arizona cardinals.
Plugged it up and we aired up and it didn't give me any other issues the rest of the journey. Apparently a large boulder got lodged between the tire and the fender well. Whoops!
Finally the ocean. What every arizonan dreams about.
We cruised south through fishing villages until we saw this.
And a couple minuted later camp was made right down in our own cove with no one else in site!
Except these guys
BRRRRRRR! IT was cold! Couldn't have been more than 70! Yikes!
We had our own tide pools near by,
We were freezing so we headed out early in the AM. We headed to an old favorite spot from prerunning the 1000 in the past called the old mill in San Quntin.
I could stay here for a while, but I didn't want to pay for much on this trip. The tidal swing will put these boats in the mud. Its fun to watch!
Last time I was here Robby Gordon flew into the little dirt airstrip nearby, grabbed some lunch and then headed out in his waiting 300k prerunner to run the course and then back home.
No need to bring your own dog, Mexico is always happy to lend one.
Nothing is waisted! Here a guys uses a jet ski with a slightly smaller motor, himself.
Kept heading south until we saw this gorgeous beach!
Perfect place to stay? NOT when I lost my keys to the car on the beach in all of that river rock for about 20 minutes and the tide had already come up enough to get them wet by the time they were found. I will now heed all of the advice and carry an extra set. Smashing my own window to get to some keys sounds minor when compared to being stranded.
With this bad omen we decided to head over to the Sea of Cortez side. 110 degrees and 90 degree water, sounds good to a phonecian! Lets go!
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