Baja 2016: Day 2!

Wow, where to begin…

How does 381 miles, crossing Baja’s Vizcaino Desert, and doing it all on 12 RX3 motorcycles sound to you?

Let me back up a bit.   It was just two nights ago that we had our departure dinner at CSC.   As part of the pre-ride safety briefing, I assembled a PowerPoint presentation to bring everybody up to speed.   While I was riding across Baja today, I thought it might be a good idea to include the slides I presented to our team at that dinner to help you understand what we are doing.   Backing up, this was the slide for yesterday, when we rolled down from Azusa to Ensenada…

Okay, so that was yesterday.   Here’s what we did today…

It was an intense riding day today.  We were up at 5:00 a.m., we found a 24-hour restaurant in Ensenada, and as planned, we were on the road at 7:00.   We covered about 130 miles before stopping for lunch in Baja’s iconic restaurant, Mama Espinosa’s.

Here’s a photo of Fathi, Doina, and Willie.  Fathi and Doina are doing this ride two-up on Fathi’s RX3.

Good buddy Dave, adding a CSC Baja 2016 decal to the zillions adorning the walls in Mama Espinosa’s.

Here’s a shot of the crew at lunch today.  From left to right, it’s Dan, Dan, Mark, J, Dave, Gary, Keith, Mike, Fathi, Willie, Doina, Sara, and Juan.

My favorite at Mama Espinosa’s – their chicken burritos!

We stopped to visit the ruins of the Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá.  It was built in 1769 and what you see below is all that’s left of it.  Getting out there involved some pretty gnarly roads, and quite a few folks dropped their bikes in the soft sand.

You might think dropping your bike would be a source of embarrassment, and when it happens, it probably is.  But that changes quickly and predictably.  The guys and gals at dinner tonight were actually bragging about who dropped their bike the most.   I think we’ve had something like 10 bikes go down so far (and this is only Day 2).  It’s pretty funny listening to the conversations at dinner.  When someone drops their bike, the first reaction is “did anybody see me do this?”  By dinner time (and with a few Tecates), the stories and the laughter start.   We sure have a good bunch of people on this ride.

Here’s Baja Mike’s battle-scarred bike…

We had a great dinner this evening.   I opted for the house fish filet dinner, which was sea bass, and it was delicious.

If you look at the map of Baja, you’ll see that the peninsula forms a hook jutting out into the Pacific Ocean here in Guerrero Negro.  Because of that, a lot of stuff drifting down from points north washes up on the Guerrero Negro shores, and the restaurant at Malarimmo’s has a bunch of it hanging from their ceiling.  It’s a cool display.

After dinner, we walked back the hotel.  I snagged this shot of the bikes put away for the evening…

As I said, it was an intense day.   Tomorrow is laid back.  We’re not having breakfast until 9:00, and then we’re going whale watching at 11:00.  I’m going to help Juan change his oil earlier in the morning.   We’ll get back from whale watching around 3:00, and then we’re just going to hang around Guerrero Negro.  If everything goes well (and I know it will), I’ll have some great whale photos for you tomorrow.   Maybe we’ll even see the Great White Whale.   We’ll see.

That’s it for now.   I’m beat.  It was a good day and I’ll sleep well tonight.

Like always, stay tuned!