…or is left into right? I really don’t know. If I were more educated, or even just a bit smarter I am sure I could use some Greek allegory to summarize the weekend we had in Mexico. But as it is I’ll just start telling my tale and see what happens.
The reason for the trip to Mexico was rest and relaxation, or my version thereof. The dates were chosen around the Baja 1000 race. My friends Jason and Darren were up for a bit of a kamikaze trip with me. Leave on weds after work, drive 1000 miles, cross the border on Thursday, take a bunch of pics in Ensenda, head to the desert and take more pics. On friday head to the ocean, and take more pics. On sat take more pics and head home 1200 miles from Ensenada and get home Sunday night. 3k miles of driving in 5 days with nothing but tacos and Tillamook Medium Cheddar to sustain us. Simple enough plan. Our execution however was riddled with problems.
About 11:30 on Weds night we ran out of gas 4 miles shy of the Chevron atop Chiraco Summit on I-10 east of Indio, California. I’d like to blame a lot of things. The slow as hell pump in Vegas that I gave up on after putting in 8 gallons after 15 mins. The closed gas station we passed before getting on I-10 mins earlier. Watching Eastbound and Down instead of the gas gauge. Truth is I just didn’t pay enough attention and we ran out of gas. So at 11:30 I walked back to one of those emergency phones on the side of the freeway. Had a tow truck sent out with 2 gallons of gas to get us to the Chevron and 90mins later we were back on our way and 3 hours after first stopping we were asleep on a tarp (thanks for the Ambien, Jason ) near Anzo Borrego State Park.
We woke the next morning, crossed the border at Tecate, had tacos for lunch with the Adobado tasting as amazing as I remembered it. Before long we were in Ensenada searching for “Contigency Row” and all the Baja 1000 racers. We struggled with traffic and finding a place to park. After finding a spot on a nice crowded street we set out, cameras in hand, for the pits, the SCORE dancers, latin hip hop and more tacos. 4 wonderful hours later, including what connoisseur Darren deemed the “Best Carne Asada” he’s ever had, we returned to a dark abandoned street with a lonely and burglarized Ruby Claire. The thieves actually hopped into a red Ford Ranger as we walked up. Shattered window (with a sticker purchased in Chile I don’t think I can replace), open door and almost every thing gone. Shitty. We made some phone calls to cancel credit cards, phones, then off to find the Soriana to pick up some new underwear, deodorant and toothpaste. I’d like to say it wasn’t that bad but they pretty much took everything but the fridge, the tools, one flip flop and a spare brake line. One of the humorous effects of the robbery is it pretty much left Jason and me dressed like twins.
Darren drove that night and we set out east of Ojos Negros looking for the race course and a place to camp. My new GPS was gone so we only had maps to work from. We slept well despite being one sleeping bag short. Luckily I had stuffed a down comforter and blanket into my roof top tent so we had enough warmth to go around. Sometime around 3 am it seemed as though an entire rout of coyotes decided to start a nice chorus of howls that went on all night and made Jason a little nervous down on the ground. The lack of light pollution made for incredible star gazing but unfortunately we were there too late to catch the Leonid meteor shower.
The next morning we scrambled around a bit to find a nice spot along the course to hang out and take pics. Before long a continuous stream of motorcycles and atv raced by on their way into the mountains. We moved up the course a bit to a nice wash with some great whoops shortly thereafter. We laid out a tarp and did an inventory of all our current possessions. It wasn’t pretty but we had food, we had the clothes on our backs and we were all okay. That is when we saw a helicopter on the horizon and heard the unmistakable rumble, or should I say howl, of an 850 horsepower V8 headed our direction. Ricky Johnson came howling at us at 95 mph. He entered the wash a bit skewed and then the fun began. I had spent time watching the 1000 back in 2007 on my way to South America. This was Darren and Jason’s first exposure to the amazing machines. The skewed truck came through the wash, left the ground and angled directly at the two of them, cameras in hand. (I was on the other side of the dirt road) They scrambled out of the way, after taking some photos, and were left with a rush of adrenaline and huge smiles on their faces. At that point all the concern over stolen tshirts and sleeping bags disappeared.
4 hours of race spectating, coke drinking, photo taking and laughter passed and we were back on the road headed to the ocean for some beach camping, night racing and relaxing. Then the real fun began, at least for me. Apparently my long and very fortunate run of hassle free adventuring was over. Less than 24hours after getting robbed the bad luck struck again. Slowly twisting down the mountain east of Ensenada, I fought my way around slow diesel traffic and relaxed locals with nowhere to go. As I came into a corner my attempt to slow Ruby came up empty as my brake pedal went all the way to the floor. I shutter to think what would have happened had the brake line let go two miles earlier or later. As it was the corner wasn’t that sharp, the road was relatively flat and there was a room to get off the road. So I downshifted and pulled the truck off the road and to a stop. A bracket had come off the front axle and the hard line had vibrated in half. Fortunately, and yes I realize how weird that sounds, but fortunately Darren had had the same thing happen to him on the Rubicon trail a few years earlier, so as he expertly and rapidly rigged up a fix I sat back and then the reality of the situation set in. I told Darren I was okay to drive but truthfully I was pretty freaked out. Not so much for me, but because of how closely I had come to injuring or possibly killing my friends. My friends who are husbands to wonderful wives and fathers to adorable kids. I basically wanted to break down and cry. I was feeling guilty about getting robbed and now my truck had almost ended our lives. Seriously two miles later it would have been impossible to stop the truck. (maybe I should sue Toyota to issue a recall since it seems to be the popular thing to do) Darren could tell I was not right so he offered to drive. Then basically told me he was driving. I never would have made it. With only one front caliper the truck would jerk violently to the left upon braking then after correcting for it, the truck would jerk back violently to the right when he let off all of this happening on narrow, twisty, dark Mexican roads. What I’m sure was four very long hours (for Darren) later, although the tacos, coke and chats with locals probably helped, we set up camp on a beach south of Erendira. 75 feet from the ocean, 30 feet from the course. Awesome.
The HID lights let us know a racer was coming long before they arrived. In a blink they were gone. Eventual winner Andy McMillin came by first in his trophy truck and the next 2 hours were full of blinding HIDs and roaring engines. Eventually I drifted off to sleep about 3am. At this point the bad luck was behind us and I slept well that night. Next morning came, a breakfast of coke and crumb donettes hit the spot and more racers filled the day with dust and photos. Jason took it upon himself to fix the brakeline with a spare my friend Eric had given me on my way to South America and I had just carried in my spare parts box. The fix maybe took 20mins. Not bad.
As die hard Toyota owners one of the goals for the trip was to see Ivan Stewart in the factory prepped Gen 5 4Runner. If you don’t know Ivan Stewart, shame on you, and you should quit reading and Google his name. After 6 hours of hanging out we began to think he had either passed in the night or had broken down. One racer had been by the last 2 hours so we packed up and decided, against better judgment to drive against the race course and take it back to the highway. The course was rugged but easily doable in a now healed Ruby Claire. As we began to slowly climb the hills away from the beach a red 4Runner came flying over the top of the crest. Sure enough there was the man. His honking horn and aggressive driving meant we just got the hell out of the way without being able to take pics. I’m starting to get long on words and low on sleep so I’ll make this short by saying we attempted to catch him as the course leap frogged (or is it lept frog) the highways. Eventually we found him 2 hours later back east of Ensenada yet again near Ojos Negros. Having achieved our goal we set out for the states and the ride home. More tacos (I think I ate 24 over the course of 3 days) a tank full of cheap gas and some churros purchased at border and we had sadly left Baja behind.
Remember the comment I made about leaving the bad luck behind us? About 2 hours into the states my exhaust crack became worse, as in sheared off the pipe and made the lumbering straight-six ring reminiscient of a Trophy Truck. (yes I realize that is hyperbole) A broken window and no exhaust makes for one noisy Land Cruiser. We spent the next day watching Long Way Down, Eastbound and Down for the second time and very little talking. We arrived home to a snow storm in SLC but the cloudless desert of Mexico wasn’t easily erased from our minds. The trip had it’s hurdles and made the self proclaimed ‘quick, cheap and dirty’ trip to Baja considerably more expensive but in the end it was all worth it. I’ll get pics in my gallery soon but just a few for tonight.
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