On the Baja Once Again

We left El Centro, CA ten-ish,  after a brief stop at an ATM and the local Starbucks. Driving west on Interstate 8 was unimpressive, although it brought back memories and a chuckle of Linda driving the ill-fated VW bus from San Diego to Pheonix with virtually no brakes. 

About 1/2 way to Tecate we turned off on old highway 94. A much more interesting road through the Campo Indian Reservation.  A great twisty road though pleasant country side. I surmised that the Campo tribe must have been good negotiators. They seem have held onto the best land in the area. As opposed to ending up with the parts the white men didn't want... just an unscientific observation of other reserves we have traveled through.  Enough of my opinion.. getting back to the trip...  

From a point coming down the hill toward Tecate, while you could still see over the fence, Tecate looked like any other sprawling Mexican city. We couldn't see any smoke or hear any gunfire. From the time we crossed the Canada/US border until I chatted with a fellow in the hotel parking last night, everyone told us not to go to into Mexico. This includes the border guard at Roosville. She ranted about dangers, then pulled us over for a closer vehicle check.

So far in Mexico everything has been quite the opposite. At the border we drove right though the "Nothing to Declare" lane and stopped at the Migración  office lot to fill out a tourist card. We had hoped to stop at the Aduana to get a vehicle permit  but this service has been discontinued at the Tecate crossing. Hopefully we can that straightened out in La Paz because they won't let us on the ferry to Topo without one. We change some US dollars to  Pesos at a small booth on the corner, one block straight down from the border crossing. It gave us fair rate of exchange. Everyone at the border was friendly and helpful.

Approaching the Tecate Border Crossing

The street straight from the border crossing. Turn left at the church to go to Ensenada.

The road (Hwy 3) from Tecate to Ensenada is currently under construction from just outside Tecate for about 30K. It is slow going but passable. Once we were past the detours the road was good and got progressively better as we approached Ensenada. Hwy 3 intersects the autopista from Tijuana a few miles north of Ensenada. From this point the traffic was quite a bit heavier.

The detour around construction on hwy 3 was a little rough at times.

But the road improved.

Zoom in on this photo to see typical passing. There is a red car approaching the white car passing on a double yellow line. It doesn't look too bad but there is another car ahead of the dark car. The white car is passing 2 cars.  He made it. I was slowing down waiting for the fireworks... we are just wimpy passer, I think.

We had found an interesting looking hotel on line prior to arriving in Ensenada but once we located it we decided that it was not what we were looking for... too fancy and too isolated. We ended up down town at Hotel Villa Fontana de Ensenada. It is in the hotel district. There are many nice hotels on this street. All reasonably priced at this time of year.  We walked around for a while and ate at a sidewalk restaurant near the hotel.

Turning into the Villa Fontana courtyard.

BTW... my apologies  for the quality of the photos These were all taken from a helmet cam mounted behind the windshield of the bike using a wireless shutter release.

Heading down the coast toward El Rosario tomorrow...

Two Long Days

Kalispell to Vegas

Allegiant Air got us to Las Vegas again.. No frills but they did assign us seats??... row 6. Since we didn't have any checked baggage, after deplaning, we bee-lined it for the taxi stand only for find a queue about a kilometer long! Friday afternoon on Halloween weekend is not the best time to arrive in Vegas.. Halloween in Vegas? As if this place isn't freaky enough already! We retrieved the bike from the storage unit with less trouble than expected. It was a tight fit. The bike fired up and we threw everything in the bags and headed for the Best Western. We stayed at a hotel "off the strip" this time. It saved a bit of cash for the hotel room. We walked to the strip but the area around the hotel was a bit sketchy so we cabbed it back. We are done with Vegas. The first few times the strip was "interesting" now it is just plain "weird".

Vegas to El Centro, CA

After spending a few hours trying to get organized but most getting grumpy we headed south. A nice sunny day 12C in the early morning warming to close to 30C by later afternoon. There were strong and gusty west winds all the way to El Centro so it wasn't a very relaxing ride and 500K is a long day for us.

We followed old Route 66 along the west shore of the Colorado River for a good part of the trip. South of Needles the scenery becomes quite nice. Green fields and tree along the river. There is a lot of irrigation in south eastern California. The sand dunes that extend essentially from  Yuma to El Centro are huge and they are a Mecca for dune buggies, quads and dirt bikes. There were thousands of people churning up the sand on this Saturday afternoon.

The affects of the financial crisis are much more obvious here than they are in BC. It is not uncommon to see boarded up banks, businesses and stores. One gets the impression that the "middle class", though not extinct, is definitely a threatened entity.

We are about 130 K from Tecate. Tomorrow morning we will head for there. Hopefully we can get vehicle permit and  tourist cards without too much problem and head down toward Ensenada.

The Multi Leg Motorcycle Trip

The 1st Leg:

This year we decided that rather than take a long trip we would try a multi-leg trip. The advantage being that we could venture far from home, by motorcycle, yet still be at home when Linda's store is busier, Christmas, the better part of the ski season, grandkid's birthdays, etc.

The first part of the trip took place in August. Starting from Fernie, we drove both the car and the motorcycle to Kalispell, MT. We parked the car and traveled south and west on the motorcycle to the Oregon and California coast. The weather on the coast was unseasonably cool, so we headed inland north of San Francisco to Auburn, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and then through Death Valley to "Lost Wages". We left the MC and some of our gear at a storage facility near the Vegas airport and flew back to Kalispell.

I didn't blog this leg of the trip because we didn't have room for the laptop. However, this one of the best MC trips we have had. We traveled at a relaxed pace(average 270K per day) and visited many interesting and few rather spectacular places. See Photos below...

The 2nd. Leg:

Tomorrow we are flying back to Vegas to pick up the bike and head for Mexico. Our planned route takes us across the mexico border at Tecate and down the Baja to La Paz. We are stopping off at a few fishing villages on the way down the Baja that we have not visited before. In La Paz we have arranged a 2 week home stay and Spanish course. Then we will take the ferry from La Paz to Topolabampo, visit some friends in Guamichil and work our way down towards Puerto Vallarta.  We will be  leaving the bike at a storage facility near  PVR and flying back to Kalispell on December 1st.  The 3rd. Leg will  start when we fly back to PVR next Spring....  Anyway, that's the plan!

Here's a few pics from the 1st. Leg of the trip from Fernie to Vegas

At a rest stop around Lake Tahoe, CA

The 650 Suzuki Loaded

Camping at Sunset Bay, OR

We started out camping but it was a pain-in-the ass getting everything packed up and making it fit on the bike each morning. We decided sent the camping gear back to Eureka, Montana after a few days.

The scenery on the Oregon coast is pretty spectacular.

More Oregon coast.. near Coos Bay

Redwood Forest, CA

Yosemite N.P.  Spectacular! But would be too busy in the summer.

Death Valley, California