2010 Baja 1000

[COLOR="DarkOrange"] My 2 friends Bruce and Ian (from Cincinnati and Denver) invited me to go spectate the '10 Baja 1000. I couldn't resist the offer.
I used to be the guide for these guys, but last year they went without me as I had some medical issues, and they have shown that they can teach me some routing tricks now.
I think they have been there 4 years now or so.
They can usually get a week in Baja plus a few travel days. Ian stores the 2 DR400s in Denver. Bruce flies in and they haul the bikes to Westmorland, near El Centro Ca.
That's where I'd make my connection riding my DR350 from Oceanside Ca. We planned to camp when possible or necessary, realizing that spur of the moment rooms would be hard to find with all the race personnel/activites out along the course.

To that end I left Oceanside a 11am on Sat the 13th of Sept. That would give us 5 or so days of riding before the race on the 18th. We would try to get as far south as Loreto...... Catavina was the boy's furthest penetration up till now.

My trips never really start till I cross the mountains east of San Diego when I'm headed east. I always get a pic from a view point on the Montezuma Grade just west of Borrego Springs.
Way in the background you can see some Salton Sea.

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From there it was 60 more miles to Steve Horvath's home where the boys would leave their truck. It's always fun to ride thru Ocotillo Wells, and note all the off road activities. I was feeling on top of the world, and looking forward to riding in Baja once more.
Here we are a Steve's, locked, loaded and ready to roll. Ian and Bruce are on low mileage DRZ400 and I'm on a pretty well used DR350. I feel pretty good about the DR as it's never let me down in the 30000 miles I put on it.

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The boys pulled in at 3pm and we intended to make San Felipe that night. After changing some money to peso and crossing the border at 4:30 we realized there would be a little unwelcome night riding before we pulled into Pete's Camp just north of San Felipe some 130 miles away. Little did we know how much.
We found our way thru Mexically just fine. Once out of town the traffic wasn't bad. Bruce was leading at about 65mph. That was about as fast as my DR liked to run. Occasional passes would cause spurts to 75 or so. At about 40 miles from the border, On one such spurt my bike tried to respond, but went dead instead. The moment I gave it the throttle it lost all power.

I was running 3rd, and coasted off the road to a stop. It was 5:30, and absolutly dark by now. The boys didn't miss me right away. While I waited for them, I found the bike would idle, but take absolutely no throttle. I found that it would speed way up if I pulled the choke on.

Hummm, I must have sucked summat up in the main Jet, Damn. Bruce and Ian came back in 10 minutes. We decided that I'd ride it with the choke on....maybe whatever was in there would work it's way free.

So I rode with the 2 bikes following for a couple hours holding the choke on with one hand. It was a bitch as the choke handle is pushed off by fuel lines. My left arm was dying. We made it to the Ensenada turnoff at 25mph short of Pete's.... I'd been avoiding the tow rope because a lot can go wrong on the end of a strap, but we decided to tow it the last 25 miles which worked out pretty well. I have a welded in spreader bar on my Handle bars where I can hook a rope dead center which made keeping my bike under control very easy.

We pulled into Pete's Camp at about 9pm. They were still serving dinner, which hit the spot.....and to Boot they had the Pacquiao vs. Margarito fight on a big screen TV. We watched the whole thing over a few cervezas.
Bruce, left, and Ian

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Pacquiao kicked the other guys ass. Then it was off to camp on the beach for the night.

Work on the carb would be done in the morning. We awoke to a nice sunrise

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Time to start work

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It took a half hour to get the carb out...

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While I worked away....Bruce and Ian enjoyed Breakfast. :(

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We hooked up with ADVrider pit crew of Trey 650 and SummerinMaine in the morning at Pete's
Jason, Left, Wayne, center, and me

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Wayne, Jim and Jeff

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Jim's baja cruiser, camp set up

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Frist thing I did was pull the carb, and then the main jet. My heart sank when I saw that it was clean. On Carburater I'm a C- mechanic. What now???
Well, A little more investigation showed that the c-clip that holds the metering needle to the vacuum slide had broken and dropped the needle. I was able to bend a piece of bailing wire into a u shape, then hammer it flat with a hammer that I borrowed from Jim, for a Jackleg Kludge repair. The bike ran like a new one when reassembled.....well, it still burned oil. :D
We were on the way to LA Bay by 8:30am.[/COLOR]

On to LA Bay
Unlike the misery of being towed last night in the dark, running free in the sunshine along the Baja coast south of San Felipe was delightful. There wasn't any real plan. We'd just follow our whims and see what happened.
Bruce and Ian had breakfast at Pete's Camp while I fixed the carb.....I don't often do breakfast so really we were on the same page. We'd do lunch in Gonzaga. First we stopped by Camp Virgel, 30 miles south of SF. An old friend, John Wright, lives there.
John's near my age, and was practically a Baja legend in the early days of the class 11 and Baja Bug 1600cc class of the early '70s. John was home and we visited for a half hour. He suggested that I do NORRA's Baja 1000 Rally next May. It could happen. John Pays about a grand a year for the lot that his house of 30 years stands on. It was $300 a year back then.
We had to hit the trail.... zipping down the new blacktop road below Puertocitas brought thoughts of the pros and cons of progress in Baja. It's sad to see the old ways go, but the Mexicans can surely used the new road to their advantage.
The weather was 75 and just enough breeze to blow the dust away. It couldn't have been better. We came to the end of pavement. The 30 miles of dirt on the way to Alfancina's at Gonzaga was refreshing.
We went into the beach on the road south of the air strip. That was a mistake. We had to cross a deep sand section of about 50 yards which I had to struggle thru to cross to Alfancina's road......but the fish tacos at Alfancina's was worth the hassle.
We were 5 days ahead of the race so we only ran into a handful of prerunners. We ran into Raymond on a KLR who was from Tacoma. He was running by himself so we invited him to have lunch with us. It turns out that Ray has an old Honda V4. I have three of those, and one of them is my street ADV bike.

From Odds and ends

Raymond was a hoot. Our group got to talking about the teenagers that were left behind as the dads went to Baja for a few days or in Raymond's case a few weeks. They'll be lucky if there's a house left to go home to. :rofl
Looking out Alfancina's cafe window.

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We left for Coco's corner by 2pm after we had gassed and watered up at the Gonzaga store.

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Here KLR Ray as we meet again at Coco's

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We made a quick tour of Coco's place, and ran into a bunch of prerunners. some in buggies and a bunch on bikes.

Note the unmentionables art in the rafters :evil :evil

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A little Bike art....

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Some of the equipment

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Note that the chic is sitting on Coco's lap. :freaky

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Coco lost his second leg below the knee last year but it hasn't slowed him down any that I can see.

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We needed to get on the road. It was 20 mile to Calmuije Wash, and another 20 miles to the pavement to LA Bay. The riding up to now has been fast. It would slow down some now, and Calmuije Wash was an unknown. We only had a couple hours till dark. Calmuije wash is a sandy (sometimes mucky) wash that always has some water running in it.

Out there in no mans land before the wash.....the shadows are creeping over the road. It a race against the dark now.

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I don't have any pictures of the C Wash. I was too busy picking my bike up. I have about 50lbs on my bike behind the seat, and I couldn't handle the soft sand in the wash. I biffed it down in there about 5 times, I think. I got my leg caught under the bike a couple times.
One such biff showed that I'd lost something. I had my beloved Skooby Doo back pack bungied on the back, and not long after we left Coco's Corner I'd lost it, then 20 miles later at my first biff down in Calamuije Canyon I noticed it was gone. At first we thought of going back after it.
We had no idea where in the last 20 miles of bad road it would be. Bruce went back a mile of so and stopped anyone he saw to ask if they had seen it.....sure enough a Forerunner came by that had picked it up.
That was a stroke of good luck.....but that happens all the time in Baja.
There's a lot of good folks on the trail.

Luck got me thru there without any injuries.....unless you count a half dozen contusions. :cry
Guys on bikes were passing me a double or triple the speed that I could muster. One such rider passed me on my right at 50mph, but he got on the left side of the rut which threw him down right in front of me. I couldn't have had 15 feet between me hitting him. I made a swerve to the other rut, and biffed it once again. I managed to jump free of the bike that time.
He apologized all over the place, and wanted to help me get my bike up, and made sure I wasn't hurt. Then he was gone like a flash.
The whole incident couldn't have lasted more than a minute. Later I caught myself wondering if that really happened.
By that time we were out of the south end of the wash. Dark wasn't far way. It took an hour of night riding to get to LA Bay. We were feeling like a motel room for the night, but none could be had. So after dinner in a nice cafe we found the free beach camping, and set up for the night.

Day 3 to San Ignacio
We woke to another sunny day. Have I mentioned yet that the 3 days so far have been perfect?

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I started my coffee water with my latest hi-tech camp stove. It'll burn anything. Paper, twigs, alcohol, gasoline,......

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I have to get the next size bigger cup so that I can cook meals as well as coffee in it....and it will fit better on the fire can.

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The beach at LA Bay. Those islands out there are what protects The bay from heavy seas and makes it a nearly perfect harbor.

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There must have been a 100 free camp sites where we camped which was Bay side about a 1/4 mile south of the traffic circle with the boat sail sculpture. Questionable banos for sure.

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We had breakfast and gassed up then took off for San Ignacio on the race course. The ride south out of LA Bay is a nice ride. BTW, we were counting our blessing as we were flat free so far.

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Somewhere down the way in a cactus forest about 20 vultures were sunning themselves. This one was holding his wings out for the several minutes that we watched them.

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Here's the scene at the turnoff to San Francisquito or El Arco. We chose to go to El Arco as we were trying to get further south this year.

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Finally we head into the hills toward El Arco.

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The last time that I was in El Arco was during a prerun preparing to run a CJ7 Jeep in the Baja 1000 about 1978.

From Biography

This is the last climb to El Arco's altitude. The road is much better than it was 32 years ago. :freaky

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We pulled into El Arco at around 1pm. I was aghast at the downsizing of El Arco. 30 years ago there were cafes, a nice dirt airstrip, some town on both sides of the canyon that goes thru town.....there was even a machine shop. Now there is 1/3 that.
We asked a wood cutter for a cafe. Nope, but he did show us where we could get a soda.

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Here's the lady that ran the place....and a local who was hauling a horse. Look at that Buckle...... BMIT (Big Man in Town)

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We wandered around the junk yards, and wondered at the worth of some of the relics out there, if they were in the states.....but finally we were back on the trail to Viscaino at Hwy #1.
The road was good for the first 20 miles out of El Arco, then we got into 5 or six miles of baby heads, and some poof dust before we escaped to the asphalt to San Ignacio. I biffed it again in the dust, grrrr. I was really ready for some easy riding. That only left about 40 miles of pavement before we reached in San Ig at 4pm. The first time this trip that we didn't drive into the night. We were getting smarter. Yeah right. :lol3

We went straight to the La Posada and procured a 25$ room. Woohoo. Everything else in town was $70. Fischer who owned La Posada was the grandson of the original Fischer who jumped ship in Santa Rosalia during the 1st world war, and settle in San Ig to spend the rest of his life.

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Then we went to the square to photo the quaint old city that was founded right around 1700.

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A friendly federale took this photo.

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Then we went to 'Rice and Beans' for dinner. R&Bs is truly the off road social center of San Ig. ...and they serve good food too. I had Chille Rellenos that were great.

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R&B can line you up with all the whale watching that you'd ever want.

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You can also learn how to build your next race car.

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A few beers later and here is what you have. :freaky :freaky

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After that it was time to get to bed.....there would be more riding tomorrow.

Tribute to the Boys
My ride partners, Ian and Bruce, are stand up guys. The best that America has to offer. They both are raising families responsibly. They're hard working. Bruce has an electrical contracting business in Cinci, and Ian is a construction project manager living near Denver.
They remind me of a couple of Glenner's neighbor's sons from Colorado. Damn good men. :freaky :freaky
But more than that, they are loyal red blooded American men of the best order. I can't say that I wouldn't have completed this ride without them, but they sure made it easier for me. Every time that I had a biff one of them soon showed up to get the bike off me or help lift the bike back up.
I think I more appreciated the 'matter of fact' type of help. They just did it, and expected no big thanks. I think they like having me along for my BS stories of the good old days.
If you're reading this, Bruce and Ian, Thank you, big time.

There both pretty good riders too. I don't think either of them dropped their bikes on this trip.......and there was some talk one night over beers of riding next year's Baja 1000. Heh he, we'll see.

On to Mulege
We went back to R&Bs for breakfast. The real draw there was the 'puter with internet connection sitting on the bar for patron usage. That was major handy. I got a message out to my wife, and the boys made contact with their home bases.
It was Tuesday and the race would be on Thursday. We had to decide where we wanted to watch the race. Down here anywhere the riders would be coming thru in the dark, no good for spectating.
We figure that we had to at least be north of here at Gonzaga Bay to catch the fast guys in the daylight. We could ride for 2 more day and then use Thursday morning to get set up for watching at Gonzaga.

Today we'd ride the pavement to Santa Rosalia and Mulege, and return to San Ig for the night again.....hoping to score another 25 dollar room at Fischer's La Posada motel.
The ride to Santa Rosalia is a beaut. Winding down the hill past the 3 Virgins mtns with the view of the gulf out ahead is as good as it gets. Santa Rosalia is a mining/working town. We stopped for a walk-about.
This was the best thing we found.

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There was a parade of a few hundred walkers blocking a road for a while. That turned out to be a protest of the mine workers for some disagreements.

Here's a local biker.......

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We soon moved on to Mulege......entering town from the north shows a hint of the oasis that Mulege truly is.

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We road straight thru town to the light house and found that the dock at the lighthouse had been destroyed back in '09

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From the lighthouse looking west

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We talked to this guy about fishing. He said the yellows were beginning to bite......but there wasn't enough time to go fishing. Next time....

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There's a beach bar/cafe right on the beach. We decided over a beer as we watched the beach scene, to return to San Ig .
We moved up town to buy some souvenirs and have lunch.

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The mother of these three was standing behind me. She was holding another and there was a bun in the oven. I guess these folks don't have much to do down there. LOL

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It was time to buzz back to San Ig. We got our hotel room back at La Posada, and were greeted by this troop of hoodlums. They loved our bike and putting on our helmets or twisting the throttles....good kids.

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Back at Rice and Beans we got a bit touristy....

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or

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or worse yet...

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Later that night we had beers at a Cafe on the town square. This was the TV show COPS racing team. They had 4 cars in the race. Great guys, answering all our questions.

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While we sat there a 61 yr old guy with Geezer Racing on his shirt told us that the Geezer team was racing a 450 Honda in the over 60 class. They don't have an over 70 class...thankfully.
He said that he had been in every Baja 1000, all 43 of them. Wow.

Also as we sat there 2 ADV riders rode up. Troglodite and Samantha (I think) rode up for dinner. They were great folks. They were planning to be in Baja for 6 months. My hat's off to them.

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Wednesday to Catavina
After breakfast and an email session at R&Bs in the morning we left for a pavement ride to Guerrero Negro. Our plan was to actually ride the pavement to about 40 miles north of GN, then take a pave road to the pacific ocean at Santa Rosaliito.

We did go into GN for a look see. We accidentally took a road north from the west side of town. It ran us about 5 mile north and then nconnected us to Hwy 1 about a 1/2 mile north of the Baja Norte border check point. Darn, we missed that checkpoint. We'd have to get it twice next time down there. :evil

Santa Rosaliito, Is a man made harbor on the Pacific......supposedly to put in and take out boats going from the Pacific to the gulf without having to go around the tip, as there is a paved road from there to LA Bay.

Way to the left in the picture there's a small store that sell gas from drums. The place doesn't look very busy with the boat put and take.

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After gassing up at that store to the tune of about 4.50 a gal, we headed north along the coast to sea what we could see. We expected to resurface on Hwy 1 near Chapala Dry Lake.

They were cleaning their catch, and the birds were loving it.

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I didn't catch any......

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We rode about 60 mile along the beach like this.

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Leading to Cono point, we chased a coyote along here...

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There was a fish camp at Cono point...and a small volcano cone there.

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We left the beach for the 50 mile run over to Chapala at about 3pm. Some of that 50 would be a few miles of poof dust. I dreaded that, but it didn't turn out to be too bad with work arounds for the worst dust holes.

There was 10 miles of this cactus forest.....In the evening sun it was stunning.

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While we were riding along here we took a break, and I found a good place to sit down. There's nothing better than a good old barrel cactus. :rofl

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here's the secret........my Dual Sport Touring Seat.

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I strap this seat to my ass for dualsporting.....it's good in a cactus patch as well.

From Frame straightener

We still had 30 miles to Hwy 1 and a couple mtns to boot. We rode a half hour into darkness before the paved road, then the boys want to go 40 miles to Catavina to get a room. Bruce had his heart set on a room at the upscale Desert Inn there at Catavina.
That wasn't to be as they were booked solid,....but a 1/2 mile up the rode was a lesser motel with 35 dollar rooms. More my style. :wink:

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After getting a room we went back for summat to eat.

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In the morning the place was packed from the late arrivals last night.

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We only had to ride to Gonzaga today to watch the race. We had plenty of time as the racers wouldn't get there till noon or so......

Race Day
We got up and out the door fairly early. There was only 80 miles or so to Gonzaga. We had time for breakfast at the local cafe, then we busted it to the store/gas station at Gonzaga.

We stopped at Coco's at about 10:30am. The smart talk, there, was that the first bikes would be at Coco's around 11am. We needed to get a move on.

We were at G B at 11 waiting with anticipation. The 11 oclock number turned out really to be a little after 1pm for the first bike. We had time to go get fish tacos at Alfancina. Yum.

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The folks from the store had built a4 ft hight ramp so that the contestant would show us a spactacular Jump.....and for those racers with the balls to not lift, it was quite a sight.
You have to remember that the contestants hadn't seen this jump. For them to blindly know that they could handle that ramp at top speed was over the top. Maybe not so much inside the cage of a race car, but for the motorcycles to do that jump at top speed was awesome. I didn't figure out how to get a good video till the fast bikes were already past us.

Here's a couple example



I liked that video so well that I layed down on the course to get this one....


We hung out at the jump in front of the store till Dark.

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They've expanded the store there.......I guess they are getting ready for more business as the new pavement approaches.

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Even fresh Coconuts could be had....another guy was selling ice cream bars.

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Here' Vildosolo, the overall winner. He was 'hauling the mail'.

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Someone else........

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As evening approached, our thoughts turned to dinner. We had several recommendation to try Papa Fernande's cafe 5 miles to the north.........

Papa Fernandez' and Friday
Dark was closing in fast and most of the fast cars and bikes had come thru. There was an average of 5 minute between racers now. Locals told us that we could get to PF's by alternate routes rather than going on the race course.
Good, we tried that. A condition that plagues off road racers is dead calm wind that won't blow the dust away. We had had that condition from about 4pm that afternoon.
It is like driving in the heaviest fog that you've ever seen. It slows the racers down to half or less of their normal speeds. As we tried to find the 'work around' to PFs the heavy dust hanging in the area made finding our way difficult, as well.
We wandered around out there, and one time dead ending into the bay between Alfancina's and PFs. We took another trail and that put us on the course for a 1/2 mile of so.
Eventually we got off the course and were on PFs entry road. We made it to the cafe only to find out that it was closed. I guess all hands declared it a holiday to watch the race.
So we decided to go back to Alfancina's for dinner. We backtracked, and found a less race course way back.
At one point we rode up to a 20 person group of spectators on the edge of the course. I pulled up to verify my choice of roads.
I said to the first person that walked up, "is this where dinner is being served?"
I half expected a, "get the hell out of the way" responce, but instead a nice older gent came up to me that turned out to be 'On Any Sunday's' star, Malcolm Smith. I reconized him in an instant.....he's a classic.
And then, unexpectedly, a beautiful desert nymph came up to each of us with a BBQ'ed garlic gulf shrimp. Damn, that was good. I didn't think it would be in good taste to beg Malcolm to adopt us, so I just asked for the closest way to Alfancina, Which he obliged us with.
With desert nymph memories dancing thru our heads we enjoyed more fish tacos at Alfancina's......and a few cervezas for good measure.

About 9pm we rode out south, and found ourselves an empty spot on the beach for the night. On the way I managed to get stuck in some sand where I couldn't quite make it over some rocks. Damn, how did that happen. The boys came back and saved me. If I'd have been by myself, that is where I would have spent the night. :)
In the morning we awoke to this scene.....another perfect day.

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We broke camp and headed back to Afancina's for breakfast and to see if anyone had any race results.
About a hundred feet from where we camped Summerinmaine had also camped. I stopped for a quick chitchat...then on to Alfancina's.
Almost no sooner than we sat down for breakfast than Malcolm walked up to talk racing (Malcolm has a house there at Alfancina's).

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Amazing Ricardo came by and got me to shoot his picture with Malcolm.

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While Malcolm was there, Ian had lots of Baja single track question for him. Malcolm is the nicest guy ever. Malcolm also told us who were the first several race vehicles into La Paz for the finish.
He also told us the story of Alfancina's recent passing (her kids run the place now), and at the Memorial ceremony that was held out front on the beach that a rare Blue whale came into the harbor and swam around at the ceremony to celebrate her life.
Memorial held here

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We had heard and he confirmed that there were commonly a dozen or so huge whale sharks in the bay, and that they enjoyed swimming with them, and that his wife took videos.....and further, that he's show us some of those vids if we would stop by his place after breakfast.....
After breakfast we did just that and stopped at Malcolm, only to be welcomed by that same desert nymph from the night before....she was even more lovely in the daylight. She informed us that Malcom was out chasing the whale sharks on his jet sky with a group.
Life is pretty good if you're Malcolm Smith.....or for that matter, me, Ian, or Bruce.

So there wasn't much left to do but start the 100 mile trek back to San Felipe. We only had 30 miles of dirt before we hit pavement so we were scheduled to be in San Felipe by 1pm. We had all the time in the world to make a leisurely trip today.
I decided today would be a good time to show Ian and Bruce the hot springs at Puertocitos. 20 years ago Puertocitos was run by a man who started the place. You could just ride up to the hot spring located in the lava rock at the bay shoreline. Then he died and his daughter took over.
She immediately doubled everyones rents and started charging to use the hot springs. I guess that's more progress. :cry
I haven't been there since they started charging 5$ each, but to show the boy's, I was prepared to pay the 5$ today. We pulled in to pay the fee.... The nice lady was ready to collect the fee, but told us that it was high tide and that the pools would be flooded with cold water. Dang, that was bad timing, but it was nice of her to tell us, so we moved on to the Cowpatty (Bar and Grill) just north of town for a refreshment.
The Cowpatty is a source of good cold beer, and local info.....always stop there if you can.

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They have some relics

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We moved up the road 30 miles to John Wright's place. His dad and mom (Bud and Peg) were there this time. We visited, and I showed off my leg's damages from the trip....so far. Oddly enough it wasn't sore....it just looked bad.

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Then we moved on to San Felipe where we got a palapa at Kiki's RV site.
View from our Palapa on the north end of SF proper.

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I choose to sleep in the soft beach sand.....so did Bruce.

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We did the rounds down town for dinner and a few drinks. La Iguana comes to my mind as I think back on the night.....oh yeah and losing 3 out of 5 pool games to a tatoo'd female hustler at 'Al's'........Better just forget about all of that. :freaky

Tomorrow (Sat) we would head home. Bruce had a plane reservation to Cincinnati, and his real life. Ian had a presentation in Kanab Utah on Monday for a 7 million dollar project, and I was just due home, in general.

The trip home

We all broke camp to another beautiful day......although my wife in San Diego said that it was scheduled to rain. A couple locals said it was to rain as well, but it didn't look like they were going to be right.
We rode up to Pete's camp to have breakfast and see if there were any ADVriders hanging around. None, so I told the boys that I'd head to Ensenada on Hwy 3, and we said our goodbyes.
When the time came for the split we touch gloves and I peeled off to the west and they proceeded to Mexicali. Damn, I enjoy riding with Bruce and Ian. No doubt, we will have another adventure......we did talk some of the Continental Divide Trail. Maybe next June or July.....we'll see.

I had imagined that I'd split up north thru the pine forest and Laguna Hansen, but after gassing in Via Trinadad, I was beginning to think 'fastest way home' not scenic route. After all I would hit 1500 miles by the time I got home.
I stayed on Hwy 3 to Ensenada. There is a mtn range 20 miles before Ensenada. That's where it started a light rain. Crap if I'd gone thru the piny trees I'da missed that rain.
I wasn't geared for rain, but what the hell, it wasn't cold yet and I'd be home around 4pm.
I took a detour that goes to the north side of town and misses miles of traffic lights. But I found out that some of last years storms took out a bunch of 4 lane so I was having to ad lib a route out there, and it was raining harder nearer the coast. My jacket was beginning to leak to the inside. There were lots of small rivers in the streets requiring 6" deep fords.
Soon I was lost out there. I was just trying to find a heavier flow of traffic, and hoping that those folks were trying to cross town. At one point I had to climb a dirt foot path to get to a street with traffic on it.
I was rewarded for that by soon seeing the Ensenada reservoir which I new was on the right route. I continued to follow traffic till I could see I was on one of the streets that heads to the north out of Ensenada.
Things began to look up. If I was right I only had to go about 10 more blocks to be out of the crowded down town and out of the worst of the cross traffic. Then I could start worrying about getting cold from the wet.
As I thought back there were a half dozen other route that I could have taken home that would have been better.
I was accelerating into the center of a 4 way stop street, when a lady came at me from the side. I had a split second to think, oh Shi....before she hit me on the left side of the bike at 20 or 25 mph. I knew it was going to be bad.
Here's where I lost any idea of what happened as I flipped thru the air to find myself laying on the ground some 30 ft from the bike. I hadn't been knock woozy. I just was disassociated with which way was up or what direction I'd been coming from. I was totally confused.
A man who saw it came running to see if I was hurt. By that time I was standing up, and looking for places on my body that hurt as well, but there weren't any. I seemed to be ok.
The man helped me get the bike up and out of the street. I saw damage to the compact car that had hit me. I saw a hole in my alternator cover. The bike wouldn't start, and an oil line was leaking badly when I cranked the motor.
Soon the police were there talking to the hitor and me. I knew I was in deep shit as I'd passed on Mex insurance like I always do. So the police loaded me and the bike into his pickup and we went off to the police station to sort this all out.
My vision in the rain was bad peripherally, which is where she came from. I don't really know if she ran a stop sign or not......but that isn't really important. If you don't have Mex ins it is going to cost you, regardless of right or wrong.
The cops were helpful and polite. They filled out a report and explained to me that they could get her car fixed for 500 dollars and other than that I had to pay 200 dollars fine for not having insurance.....
I got about 600 dollars out of an ATM machine before the machine went tilt and quite issuing me money. I needed about another 100 bucks to be clear.
The cop understood how atms stop spitting out money after a while and said that I could pay the rest of the money when I came back to get my bike. He also said he would run me over to Pitufo's moto repair shop, and make arrangements for the repair.
The bike repair man went and got my bike, and they have it now. After making the repair arrangement the cop dropped me at the bus station.
I only had about 30 dollar cash on me. I got a ticket to the border for 12 dollars and a bus was to leave in about 15 minutes. Cool, It was about 4:30 then.
I had to take a piss and asked where that could be accomplished. A 50 year old small Mexican that was to take the same bus, pointed at the bano. He loaned me 3 pesos in coins for the coin operated door. What a nice guy. I changed a 10 peso coin and paid him back....and I had to force the money on him.
So the bus and I left Ensenada with my new friend aboard. I was wet as a dishrag and relieved to be getting out of town and on the way home. It was a pleasant 1.5 hours ride up the coast.
The weather front was clearing up, and my heart rate was beginning to get back to normal.

From Baja 1000 10

The bus let me off a mile from the border, and I was carrying my 50lbs of wet packs. I took a cab for 3 buck to get me within 1/4 mile of the border. I had to walk from there to go thru the walk thru border crossing.
While standing in the border line I took a picture of this munchkin.
Damn, that an example of all that is good about this world........

From Baja 1000 10

The border guards saw the flash of that picture and came to get me to destroy that picture......but my camera LCD had quit working so I couldn't delete that picture. The guy made me promise to delete the picture when I got home....that was reasonable, I thought.
Soon I was on a train to get to Oceanside.....it was time to call Dee to have her pick me up.
It had been quite a day.