Greetings!
I have been lurking on this board for a while and have really enjoyed reading everyone else’s trip reports I thought it was time to share some of my own. this trip was pretty tame compared to what most of you are doing, but I hope you enjoy it. I also posted this on the Baja Nomad board so you might have already seen it there.
Oh yeah, I used the insurance carrier recommended on you trips to Baja page it worked great, no problems.
This is a trip report from Last weekends adventure to Baja, My Friend Jason and his wife Jenelle rode down with My son Max and I in the “SS Valdez” 97 Land Cruiser
We crossed the border at 6:45 on Friday morning. And promptly missed the turn for the toll road, driving thru Tijuana with the tent trailer wasn’t to bad, but when we were driving over the hill to get to Rosarito and the toll road. We hit a pot hole, more like a pot pit! Almost ripped the step of the trailer, I had been looking at that step for a couple of weeks saying to myself that I should take it off its to low etc… well Baja took care of the step, I’m lucky it didn’t fold back into the tire.
Arriving in Ensenada we could see lots of race trucks and chase vehicles but I couldn’t find parking for the Land Cruiser and the trailer. I didn’t try very hard and continued down the coast to our camping spot. This turned out to be the only thing I regret about the trip. I’m really bummed we missed Race/Tech and Contingency.
When we arrived at the town of Erendira about 200 miles south of San Diego we turned north and set up camp past Coyote Cals, small hotel run by an American. Our camp was at approximately race mile 220. After setting up camp the rest of the day was spent exploring and goofing off. At this point we realized we had plenty of time and should have spent it checking out the trucks back in Ensenada. Oh well we’ll be back in November!
Around 4:00 in the afternoon a Mexican family pulls up in a Jeep Cherokee their car is packed full! bicycles on top, boxes of fire wood strapped on top of that they drive by use look around then park a little way’s down the bluff from us (like 50 yards) while the kids are setting up camp the father (Sergio) walks over to say hi. He say’s we have been camping here for 20 years to watch the 500, we say wow that’s great… Then he points to the ground where we are parking and say’s we have been camping right here for 20 years to watch the 500, we spent the first week in may camping here…We say hey no problem we can move you guy’s should have your spot, Sergio starts laughing and say’s I’m not asking you to move I just wanted to let you know you have picked a great place to camp. Enjoy!
We spend that afternoon playing catch football and baseball with Sergio’s family buying wood from another local that stopped buy etc.. cooked a nice dinner then off to bed with dreams of Helicopters and race trucks.
Saturday more of the same some perch fishing lots of tide pooling, while we were checking out the critters Sergio’s mom was collecting mussel’s I’m thinking to myself how is she going to cook them steam, bread and fry etc.? while we were watching the races I asked Sergio how she was cooking the mussels he said ceviche later on he stopped by the trailer with a bowl there was even Octopus in it. Definitely one of those time when you smile, take a bite, say thank you, realize that it tastes pretty good, take a second bite, third then you’re like stop hogging the ceviche…
My neighbor in SB loaned us his race radio so we could follow the race progress via weather man and BFG pits. Having the radio really made the day, it was great to know what was going on, my 10 year old son learned some new words from the weather man, (I had to explain what a “Richard cranium” is) I can only imagine what the kids are saying on the 4th grade playground this week. (Probably the same things I said as a kid)
The Race WOW! from the first motorcycle at 1:00 till the end. we totally enjoyed watching each and every competitor. When a trophy truck would go by without its front clip we would speculate on how it happened etc. watching the quad rider get passed by a class one car then riding the next mile looking over his shoulder every 2 seconds, you could see he was just waiting for the next car so he could get back to racing.
The only bummer of the whole day was. What are people thinking? Why do they think they should be on the course? We saw so many close calls.
At around 6:00 at night we are sitting on the inside of a slight but blind corner between two long straight sections we look up and hear comes a VW bus going the wrong way on the course right when we hear the sound of a trophy truck coming at us fast, we start yelling at the driver of the bus pull over, pull over etc.. the bus stops on the track on the right side of the road after a blind corner and he wont move off the course. I’m like no way is this happening.. I stand up and start the universal sign for slow down (palms down like I’m doing push ups) the race driver is not slowing down I start making the motion faster I can see the drivers eyes, he hits the brakes slides around the corner then drives off the road to avoid hitting the bus. Simply amazing. Then there was the kid on the quad riding the wrong way on the track, he decides to play chicken with a Trophy Truck he lost! we had to help him get his quad out of the bushes….
Baja Bug #552 with driver Danny Ledezma was pitting in front of our camp. We stayed up and talked with their pit crew for a while, I went to bed at 10:00 but my buddy Jason stayed up and at 12:00 he woke me up so we could turn on the race radio, the 552 team was having trouble with theirs. Jason talked to the weatherman and found out the car was still racing and we should stay on site. They came by at 1:00 or so. We got to wipe off head lights and look for anything broken etc. while the real pit crew filled the car with gas. We found out they had broken a stub axle before the first check point and lost 4 hours fixing it. I was surprised at how upbeat and positive they were after such a set back. I see they went on to finish 4th pretty cool.
Oh yeah, at 1:00 Sunday morning this Toyota corolla with a big Lyon logo on the side stops by, these two guys get out and start asking questions, where they are on the race course? have we seen such and such style car? It turns out they are claims adjusters from Ensenada looking for a spectator who drove into a ditch. I can’t imagine my state farm agent leaving the house on the weekend let alone late Saturday night.
The drive home on Sunday was uneventful except the long wait at the border.
Here is a link to some of the pictures Jason and I took. We have a lot more if your interested.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=72qgr8a.apvuy2pe&x=0&y=-wa9pvi
Cheers,
Matt
I have been lurking on this board for a while and have really enjoyed reading everyone else’s trip reports I thought it was time to share some of my own. this trip was pretty tame compared to what most of you are doing, but I hope you enjoy it. I also posted this on the Baja Nomad board so you might have already seen it there.
Oh yeah, I used the insurance carrier recommended on you trips to Baja page it worked great, no problems.
This is a trip report from Last weekends adventure to Baja, My Friend Jason and his wife Jenelle rode down with My son Max and I in the “SS Valdez” 97 Land Cruiser
We crossed the border at 6:45 on Friday morning. And promptly missed the turn for the toll road, driving thru Tijuana with the tent trailer wasn’t to bad, but when we were driving over the hill to get to Rosarito and the toll road. We hit a pot hole, more like a pot pit! Almost ripped the step of the trailer, I had been looking at that step for a couple of weeks saying to myself that I should take it off its to low etc… well Baja took care of the step, I’m lucky it didn’t fold back into the tire.
Arriving in Ensenada we could see lots of race trucks and chase vehicles but I couldn’t find parking for the Land Cruiser and the trailer. I didn’t try very hard and continued down the coast to our camping spot. This turned out to be the only thing I regret about the trip. I’m really bummed we missed Race/Tech and Contingency.
When we arrived at the town of Erendira about 200 miles south of San Diego we turned north and set up camp past Coyote Cals, small hotel run by an American. Our camp was at approximately race mile 220. After setting up camp the rest of the day was spent exploring and goofing off. At this point we realized we had plenty of time and should have spent it checking out the trucks back in Ensenada. Oh well we’ll be back in November!
Around 4:00 in the afternoon a Mexican family pulls up in a Jeep Cherokee their car is packed full! bicycles on top, boxes of fire wood strapped on top of that they drive by use look around then park a little way’s down the bluff from us (like 50 yards) while the kids are setting up camp the father (Sergio) walks over to say hi. He say’s we have been camping here for 20 years to watch the 500, we say wow that’s great… Then he points to the ground where we are parking and say’s we have been camping right here for 20 years to watch the 500, we spent the first week in may camping here…We say hey no problem we can move you guy’s should have your spot, Sergio starts laughing and say’s I’m not asking you to move I just wanted to let you know you have picked a great place to camp. Enjoy!
We spend that afternoon playing catch football and baseball with Sergio’s family buying wood from another local that stopped buy etc.. cooked a nice dinner then off to bed with dreams of Helicopters and race trucks.
Saturday more of the same some perch fishing lots of tide pooling, while we were checking out the critters Sergio’s mom was collecting mussel’s I’m thinking to myself how is she going to cook them steam, bread and fry etc.? while we were watching the races I asked Sergio how she was cooking the mussels he said ceviche later on he stopped by the trailer with a bowl there was even Octopus in it. Definitely one of those time when you smile, take a bite, say thank you, realize that it tastes pretty good, take a second bite, third then you’re like stop hogging the ceviche…
My neighbor in SB loaned us his race radio so we could follow the race progress via weather man and BFG pits. Having the radio really made the day, it was great to know what was going on, my 10 year old son learned some new words from the weather man, (I had to explain what a “Richard cranium” is) I can only imagine what the kids are saying on the 4th grade playground this week. (Probably the same things I said as a kid)
The Race WOW! from the first motorcycle at 1:00 till the end. we totally enjoyed watching each and every competitor. When a trophy truck would go by without its front clip we would speculate on how it happened etc. watching the quad rider get passed by a class one car then riding the next mile looking over his shoulder every 2 seconds, you could see he was just waiting for the next car so he could get back to racing.
The only bummer of the whole day was. What are people thinking? Why do they think they should be on the course? We saw so many close calls.
At around 6:00 at night we are sitting on the inside of a slight but blind corner between two long straight sections we look up and hear comes a VW bus going the wrong way on the course right when we hear the sound of a trophy truck coming at us fast, we start yelling at the driver of the bus pull over, pull over etc.. the bus stops on the track on the right side of the road after a blind corner and he wont move off the course. I’m like no way is this happening.. I stand up and start the universal sign for slow down (palms down like I’m doing push ups) the race driver is not slowing down I start making the motion faster I can see the drivers eyes, he hits the brakes slides around the corner then drives off the road to avoid hitting the bus. Simply amazing. Then there was the kid on the quad riding the wrong way on the track, he decides to play chicken with a Trophy Truck he lost! we had to help him get his quad out of the bushes….
Baja Bug #552 with driver Danny Ledezma was pitting in front of our camp. We stayed up and talked with their pit crew for a while, I went to bed at 10:00 but my buddy Jason stayed up and at 12:00 he woke me up so we could turn on the race radio, the 552 team was having trouble with theirs. Jason talked to the weatherman and found out the car was still racing and we should stay on site. They came by at 1:00 or so. We got to wipe off head lights and look for anything broken etc. while the real pit crew filled the car with gas. We found out they had broken a stub axle before the first check point and lost 4 hours fixing it. I was surprised at how upbeat and positive they were after such a set back. I see they went on to finish 4th pretty cool.
Oh yeah, at 1:00 Sunday morning this Toyota corolla with a big Lyon logo on the side stops by, these two guys get out and start asking questions, where they are on the race course? have we seen such and such style car? It turns out they are claims adjusters from Ensenada looking for a spectator who drove into a ditch. I can’t imagine my state farm agent leaving the house on the weekend let alone late Saturday night.
The drive home on Sunday was uneventful except the long wait at the border.
Here is a link to some of the pictures Jason and I took. We have a lot more if your interested.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=72qgr8a.apvuy2pe&x=0&y=-wa9pvi
Cheers,
Matt
