Clark White
Explorer
Thanks all! NothingClever, they are still holding up great, though I chose to take my friends old pair of Tourmaster pants as they have sip off legs exposing mesh which is much cooler for the tropics.
My Grand Vacation begins
- Thread starter Clark White
- Start date
Thanks all! NothingClever, they are still holding up great, though I chose to take my friends old pair of Tourmaster pants as they have sip off legs exposing mesh which is much cooler for the tropics.
Clark White
Explorer
Yesterday we went fishing about 15mi off the coast and caught about 15lbs Rock Bass and Trigger fish, most of which we will be taking back to my grandparents in Green Valley.
Today Forrest and I wen't over to Cholla Bay in a borrowed Jeep, had a Pina Colada, and took some pictures of the local pelicans.
Tomorrow we leave early to go back to Tucson, pick up a few last things like my new GoPro 2, have lunch and drop off fish at my grandparents, and camp out in the desert. That will probably make this the last post for a few days, as we will then head to San Carlos (finally heading south for real!) Monday and camp/hotel it up while we wait for Clay to catch up Wed.
Clark
Today Forrest and I wen't over to Cholla Bay in a borrowed Jeep, had a Pina Colada, and took some pictures of the local pelicans.
Tomorrow we leave early to go back to Tucson, pick up a few last things like my new GoPro 2, have lunch and drop off fish at my grandparents, and camp out in the desert. That will probably make this the last post for a few days, as we will then head to San Carlos (finally heading south for real!) Monday and camp/hotel it up while we wait for Clay to catch up Wed.
Clark
Clark
this is awesome! have a great trip and hopefully we'll see you in South America later this year.
this is awesome! have a great trip and hopefully we'll see you in South America later this year.
Clark White
Explorer
Christian, when and where will you be? And thanks!
The moon was impressively bright, so I decided to take some moon lit pics of the area from the roof.
One of Forrest I forgot to post earlier.
The roof of my friends house.
Neighbors
Looking north towards Rocky Point
Forrest workin hard on culling the 700 pictures that he's taken in the last few days. I'm about to teach him how to post, so hopefully you will get to see some of them!
Clark
The moon was impressively bright, so I decided to take some moon lit pics of the area from the roof.
One of Forrest I forgot to post earlier.
The roof of my friends house.
Neighbors
Looking north towards Rocky Point
Forrest workin hard on culling the 700 pictures that he's taken in the last few days. I'm about to teach him how to post, so hopefully you will get to see some of them!
Clark
Clark White
Explorer
Well we made it down to San Carlos last night. Getting our visas (tourist and moto) took over 2 hrs, so we didn't get here until an hour after sunset (not a fan of night riding down here!) but glad we push through. We are staying in Totonaka RV park, which is really nice; grassy spot, wifi, power, and showers with hot water. Other then maybe my girl friend, not too much more I could ask for! We rode hard yesterday, so no pictures...not that there is a whole lot to take pictures of along Rt15 anyway! This morning we got up and farted around camp for a while before heading out for breakfast and some exploring.
Camp...the picture was taken later in the day, and no, I didn't sleep in the hammock as it's too cold at night.
Our delicious breakfast!
After breakfast we rode around doing some exploring and looking for a good dive shop.
Playing with the GoPro for some time lapse shots.
Taking a look see at a new development going in on a beautiful little bay.
Almost all houses and gated communities had mass quantities of flowers growing infront of them, all deep red's, pink's, and purple's. This picture is true to color...
For lunch we decided we had had enough of spending $10 or more per meal, so we stopped by the Ley's down the street; we picked up some bread, cheese, donut and empenada, papaya, apple juice, and agave liquor (not Tequila???). It was delicious, though the bread needed something more then cheese with it, and I'm not going to lie, that agave crap is just that: CRAP. But we drink it anyways, it was $1!
Our spread.
The appetizer
After lunch I finally got around to setting up my hammock. I wasn't certain that it would work, but I wanted to try using my bike for one side of it. Turns out that as long as you have it set up all in a straight line, it works great!
My thought's on the matter...
And while I was loosing some water wate in the john, Forrest found he had the same thought's about this...
Tomorrow I lay in the hammock (Forrest gets to borrow my recliner this way) and kill time. At some point I have to go down and get fitted for SCUBA gear, but that's about all we have to do (maybe some fishing for lunch?) The third guy, Clay, was supposed to be here tomorrow so we could leave Thursday, but apparently he doesn't understand schedules. Mostly we don't want a specific schedule, but we were supposed to leave last Monday, putting us in Panama by now, but multiple changes later he agreed to be here tomorrow...that has now changed to Thursday. I had Forrest pass along that we head south Friday whether he's here or not, we've had enough waiting. The up side of this of course is that I get to go diving Thursday morning, and try out the GoPro underwater!
We'll see if i take any more pictures tomorrow, but for now, it's late and I'm passing out!
Clark
Camp...the picture was taken later in the day, and no, I didn't sleep in the hammock as it's too cold at night.
Our delicious breakfast!
After breakfast we rode around doing some exploring and looking for a good dive shop.
Playing with the GoPro for some time lapse shots.
Taking a look see at a new development going in on a beautiful little bay.
Almost all houses and gated communities had mass quantities of flowers growing infront of them, all deep red's, pink's, and purple's. This picture is true to color...
For lunch we decided we had had enough of spending $10 or more per meal, so we stopped by the Ley's down the street; we picked up some bread, cheese, donut and empenada, papaya, apple juice, and agave liquor (not Tequila???). It was delicious, though the bread needed something more then cheese with it, and I'm not going to lie, that agave crap is just that: CRAP. But we drink it anyways, it was $1!
Our spread.
The appetizer
After lunch I finally got around to setting up my hammock. I wasn't certain that it would work, but I wanted to try using my bike for one side of it. Turns out that as long as you have it set up all in a straight line, it works great!
My thought's on the matter...
And while I was loosing some water wate in the john, Forrest found he had the same thought's about this...
Tomorrow I lay in the hammock (Forrest gets to borrow my recliner this way) and kill time. At some point I have to go down and get fitted for SCUBA gear, but that's about all we have to do (maybe some fishing for lunch?) The third guy, Clay, was supposed to be here tomorrow so we could leave Thursday, but apparently he doesn't understand schedules. Mostly we don't want a specific schedule, but we were supposed to leave last Monday, putting us in Panama by now, but multiple changes later he agreed to be here tomorrow...that has now changed to Thursday. I had Forrest pass along that we head south Friday whether he's here or not, we've had enough waiting. The up side of this of course is that I get to go diving Thursday morning, and try out the GoPro underwater!
We'll see if i take any more pictures tomorrow, but for now, it's late and I'm passing out!
Clark
itamshredding
New member
Last edited:
That KTM 640 is one bad ***** Machine! I had a 1999 640 AdventureR I rode all the way to Guatemala from Michigan in 2007-08 and just left it there. To this day it is the most serious adventure buy you can purchase. I now have an Ole 1996 1100GS that isn't too bad either! Thanks for sharing!
Clark White
Explorer
So it seems like a lifetime ago since I updated this, but I just came to the realization that it's only been 4 days. Clay once again changed his plans, this time to meet us in San Carlos on Thursday rather then Wednesday, which was ok since I could then go Diving Thursday morning (Forrest went snorkeling). I took the GoPro with me on the dives, but turns out it looses all ability to focus underwater, so the video's really aren't worth the trouble of uploading. Clay never showed (big surprise at this point right?) saying instead that he would meet us in Mazatlan yesterday...you can guess how that went. In any case, we had a rather late start leaving San Carlos Friday morning as we really weren't in a big hurry and thought we had all day to get to Los Mochis. We had breakfast and last internet check at the marina before finally hitting the road around 1030am. The ride was good, but it took much longer then we had planned, and the tolls were beginning to suck us dry. We stopped for a late lunch of bean and cheese burritos we made on the spot from stuff we had picked up in San Carlos; it was delicious!
From there we continued south to Los Mochis where we stayed the night.
Riders eye view with the GoPro
Some scenery
We ended up taking much longer then planned to get there, so we pulled into town at dusk, and not wanting to ride around in the dark we took the first hotel we could find, which claimed to have internet and good security. Turns out, the security part was right, but the internet only worked if we sat on the ground outside the main office, and only for about 5min at a time; as consolation they gave us the jacuzzi sweet. Given as sore as we were, we put the jacuzzi to good use (they were a little concerned that we were not concerned about only having one bed...I'm sure the remains of a bubble bath in the jacuzzi didn't help their perception any in the morning!) After a decidedly heterosexual night, we left Los Mochis at the lazy hour of 9am and picked up breakfast at a taco stand at the first money suck (toll) of the day.
Un carne y un puerco!
Drinks came from the vender next door
While getting our Coke, some crazy guy came by and started ranting about how he could give us a meal for only 2 pesos; or maybe it was 2 dolores? He couldn't remember...
The cook
and her kitchen and helpers
My thoughts on her cooking skills...
We had been warned that south of San Carlos the Federales didn't patrol and it was Cartel controlled, but as yet we hadn't seen any sign of this with every toll having a half dozen heavily armed Federales with multiple patrols in between. This all changed quite rapidly. We had gotten rather used to seeing military and police trucks with high canvas covers for troops, so when we saw a grey truck similarly equipped, we didn't think much of; only when they passed (and smiled and waived I might add) we realized they were by no means military or police of any government. Knowing the heavy police presence at tolls, and that there was one coming up, we began to fall back a bit so as not to be involved in the potential shoot out at the toll 1km ahead...only when we got there, there was no sign of Federales, Marines, or Army, and they gunmen payed their toll and drove on...we were out of the Federal Zone! Due to no fault of the militia, that was our last toll. We decided we had had enough of paying the same as a large truck, so we got off and took the scenic road instead. At one point we decided we wanted to take an even more back road, which lead to lots of aimless wandering around back roads, lots of confused locals, and then a few amused locals when we ended up coming back the same way realizing that we weren't going to get anywhere that way. The ride was absolutely beautiful, and as expected the small towns were much more interesting then on the main toll road. Shortly before Mazatlan we encountered a heavily defended military checkpoint, then an almost as heavily armed Police checkpoint right on the edge of town. I apologize for not having any pictures to show of this ride, but we were trying to make time so I didn't have time to pull out the camera (I think I made up for that today...) We pulled into old town and found a caffe with internet so we could do some research on where to stay the night. Initially we were thinking the famous Hotel Belmar with advertised prices of $300 pesos ($25USD?) for a beach front suite, but in reality they are $450 pesos, so we are now sitting in the Hotel Lerma just a few blocks away (highly recommended for anyone looking for a cheap, $150 pesos, place with good secure parking and nice room!)
Today we wandered around, studied maps, did time to distance calculations, explored, and took lots of pictures. Not too much to tell, so I will just get to the important stuff with a few captions where necessary.
The start of old town
Apparently the artest had had enough, she looks rather disheveled and obviously not in the mood to continue working
Clark
From there we continued south to Los Mochis where we stayed the night.
Riders eye view with the GoPro
Some scenery
We ended up taking much longer then planned to get there, so we pulled into town at dusk, and not wanting to ride around in the dark we took the first hotel we could find, which claimed to have internet and good security. Turns out, the security part was right, but the internet only worked if we sat on the ground outside the main office, and only for about 5min at a time; as consolation they gave us the jacuzzi sweet. Given as sore as we were, we put the jacuzzi to good use (they were a little concerned that we were not concerned about only having one bed...I'm sure the remains of a bubble bath in the jacuzzi didn't help their perception any in the morning!) After a decidedly heterosexual night, we left Los Mochis at the lazy hour of 9am and picked up breakfast at a taco stand at the first money suck (toll) of the day.
Un carne y un puerco!
Drinks came from the vender next door
While getting our Coke, some crazy guy came by and started ranting about how he could give us a meal for only 2 pesos; or maybe it was 2 dolores? He couldn't remember...
The cook
and her kitchen and helpers
My thoughts on her cooking skills...
We had been warned that south of San Carlos the Federales didn't patrol and it was Cartel controlled, but as yet we hadn't seen any sign of this with every toll having a half dozen heavily armed Federales with multiple patrols in between. This all changed quite rapidly. We had gotten rather used to seeing military and police trucks with high canvas covers for troops, so when we saw a grey truck similarly equipped, we didn't think much of; only when they passed (and smiled and waived I might add) we realized they were by no means military or police of any government. Knowing the heavy police presence at tolls, and that there was one coming up, we began to fall back a bit so as not to be involved in the potential shoot out at the toll 1km ahead...only when we got there, there was no sign of Federales, Marines, or Army, and they gunmen payed their toll and drove on...we were out of the Federal Zone! Due to no fault of the militia, that was our last toll. We decided we had had enough of paying the same as a large truck, so we got off and took the scenic road instead. At one point we decided we wanted to take an even more back road, which lead to lots of aimless wandering around back roads, lots of confused locals, and then a few amused locals when we ended up coming back the same way realizing that we weren't going to get anywhere that way. The ride was absolutely beautiful, and as expected the small towns were much more interesting then on the main toll road. Shortly before Mazatlan we encountered a heavily defended military checkpoint, then an almost as heavily armed Police checkpoint right on the edge of town. I apologize for not having any pictures to show of this ride, but we were trying to make time so I didn't have time to pull out the camera (I think I made up for that today...) We pulled into old town and found a caffe with internet so we could do some research on where to stay the night. Initially we were thinking the famous Hotel Belmar with advertised prices of $300 pesos ($25USD?) for a beach front suite, but in reality they are $450 pesos, so we are now sitting in the Hotel Lerma just a few blocks away (highly recommended for anyone looking for a cheap, $150 pesos, place with good secure parking and nice room!)
Today we wandered around, studied maps, did time to distance calculations, explored, and took lots of pictures. Not too much to tell, so I will just get to the important stuff with a few captions where necessary.
The start of old town
Apparently the artest had had enough, she looks rather disheveled and obviously not in the mood to continue working
Clark
Clark White
Explorer
Jungle reclaiming a room...
This little girl was having a grand time dancing around in her chair right until I brought up the camera, then she was suddenly all business
I love the abundance of flowers here!
And the color of all the buildings is great too!
I'm a great fan of good door pictures, so I decided to start playing with those too (not something I have actually studied, so I'm learning as I go)
This poor little guy was sitting in a window, apparently convinced that something was going to come out of my camera and end it all...
Might have had something to do with the reason his house was bared and ringed with this stuff...
Tomorrow morning we start early, headed for somewhere Guadalajara way, then on to Guanajuato where we will try to stop in and see a ranch family my dad knows, maybe get one of the younger girls to give us a tour of the historic silver town. We will see how that goes as they have no warning that we are coming and are a very modest family with no phone or internet with which to contact them.
Clark
This little girl was having a grand time dancing around in her chair right until I brought up the camera, then she was suddenly all business
I love the abundance of flowers here!
And the color of all the buildings is great too!
I'm a great fan of good door pictures, so I decided to start playing with those too (not something I have actually studied, so I'm learning as I go)
This poor little guy was sitting in a window, apparently convinced that something was going to come out of my camera and end it all...
Might have had something to do with the reason his house was bared and ringed with this stuff...
Tomorrow morning we start early, headed for somewhere Guadalajara way, then on to Guanajuato where we will try to stop in and see a ranch family my dad knows, maybe get one of the younger girls to give us a tour of the historic silver town. We will see how that goes as they have no warning that we are coming and are a very modest family with no phone or internet with which to contact them.
Clark
crawler#976
Expedition Leader
Great photos Clark! I'll be keeping tabs on ya mate.
Clark White
Explorer
Thanks all! One of my main reasons for this trip is to take pictures, and to get better at photography, so any suggestions anyone has are much appreciated! I'm using a Nikon D300, my main lens being a 16-85VR or an old school 50mm prime, but I also have a 70-300 that I bring out when there isn't anyone around to notice the huge lens.
We are in Guanajuato, Guanajuato right now. Lots more pictures to post, but no time right now. Will be at an ADVr's house tomorrow and will probably be able to update pictures then!
Clark
We are in Guanajuato, Guanajuato right now. Lots more pictures to post, but no time right now. Will be at an ADVr's house tomorrow and will probably be able to update pictures then!
Clark
Scott Brady
Founder
Love it! A happy man
