Still, I like it.....and in a Baja where there are hundreds of flashy painted, 1/4 million dollar race trucks the old camo Dodge, henceforth known as the Gorilla Express is the most memorable vehicle on the peninsula.
I spent the whole trip thinking up some lettering for it. The 'Can You See Me now?' phrase wrote itself. All commercial trucks in Baja have "Servicio Particular" written on them somewhere. I figured that the Gorilla Express should be designated with 'Servicio Peculiar'.
All in all the Dodge performed beautifully. There were some rattles and the right front tire grated on the fender under the most extreme deflection (funny the left one never did rub...hummm). It was great to have hauling space for creature comforts compared to Motorcycle camping. It was also great to not be falling off my dualsport bike. Ha.
The 10 miles per gal,....not so great. :( I also hauled a Jumpstart battery pack to run things around camp, like a computer, camp light, radio or whatever. To that end I packed a 110v florescent aux light. The light bulb was about 2' X 1/2" in dia. I figured that prolly drew less than nothing for amps, but neither of my inverters would run it with out tripping their overload circuit. That was disappointing.
Here's my jumpstart unit...complete with air compressor and 100 watt inverter.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
After trying the florescent light one night and it failing, we used flashlights to make camp and cook dinner....not realizing that the battery pack had it's own light. Duh...
I did have a dash light bulb wired for a cig lighter that I was able to read my book in my sleeping bag with. I don't have a suitable head lamp. :(
I cut up a small fuel additive plastic bottle and coupled with a small vacuum cleaner nozzle made an air mattress inflator with the G E's exhaust. Worked good, blew the mat up in under 30 seconds. Click on photo for video.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
The GE has dual exhaust which are plumbed together. It won't blow the mat up unless a rag is stuffed in the other exhaust pipe. that took me a while to figure out.
I might try that, plugging one exhaust, when inflating my mat with my Sabre, street bike.
Back to the trip report...........
The wind blew all night at the Beach. I'd set up the wrong way so the wind was blowing into the top of my bag. Every time I woke up, I'd think about turning around to the other direction, but in the end, I just chose to live with it.
Kinda peculiar, that both Tam and I noticed. As we sat in camp early in the evening the temps took a drop to unpleasant.....but when the wind came up it brought a much warmer air mass with it. That made the wind much more tolerable.
The wind died in the morning, and our day on the road started with a much nicer drive, now that the air pressure had been dropped while struggling to escape from the bottomless sand pit from last evening.
From Gonzaga Bay the road goes inland 40 miles, past Coco's Corner, to the pavement of Hwy 1 (the main road from Tijuana to Cabo). This section of road is the pits. It is a large gravel/rock road base. When the rocks aren't rattling your teeth out the washboard road is. In Baja you just have to take what the road gives you. We slowed down and enjoyed the desert scenery on the way to Coco's. Mexican patience is a good thing.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
An example of Baja grafiti...no rock is safe.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
25 miles and a couple hour of travel had us at Coco's Corners. Lotta info at
http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=cocos%20corner
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
Coco was away at Guerrero Negro geting some operations on his leg stubs so that he can wear prosthetics. We visited with Guiermo Groso who was running the place. Guiermo is the grandson of Arturo Groso that I met when I was a teenager at Lake Chapala before there was a paved road. Lake Chapala is 12 miles away from Cocos. Also Guiermos aunt is running a small cafe at Chapala. Some families don't stray far from their birthplace.
Guiermo also told us that Mama Espenoza of El Rosario fame is still alive at 102.
http://www.bajalife.com/elrosario/mama.htm
You could photograph all day at the memorabilia at cocos....here are a couple...
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
a 1948 photo at a beach in Ca
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
From Coco's we rattled out way on to Lake Chapala and hwy 1.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
Once on hwy 1 we decided to go visit Bahia de Los Angeles for a look see. Pavement was a welcome change. It was only 30 miles to the LA bay turnoff then 42 miles to the actual bay.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
We had a nice lunch at a hotel on the beach. We ran across a 10 man/woman group of German tourists there.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
After lunch we decided to go visit San Borja mission
http://pets.webshots.com/album/557999120pdMXry
The road to San Borja off the LA Bay hwy. Those tall Cirio trees abound in the area.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
The desert forest began increasing in growth as we climbed in elevation.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
Some Cirios don't stand so tall.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
It was getting late, and we felt that an early camp was warranted. Another beautiful night with a campfire under the stars was spend in utter peace and amazement. Before we went to bed the German tour group rolled by on their way to the mission. We hadn't actually met them yet, but we already felt like old friends.
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| From Baja travel, Mar 2011 |
We didn't arrive at San Borja that night, but it was only 10 miles down the road. Tomorrow would be soon enough.....
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