Baja Bound from a Redneck's Perspective

Discussion in 'Trips & Events' started by reg71, Nov 16, 2018.

  1. duccmann

    duccmann Member

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    How’s the ankle now?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  2. reg71

    reg71 Poser Staff Member

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    Day 5 continued

    As I was saying, we weren't sure how we could get in touch with TC since his coverage was so poor and we hadn't received any comms from him. After that, we decided to just call it and roll on in to a hotel rather than get caught riding at night again. My lights aren't the greatest anyway, and Randy needed to rest the foot.

    We got all our stuff unloaded and met the manager/cook/housekeeper/handyman/bartender. It was actually pretty easy to meet all these people because it was one guy! He promptly began feeding us margaritas to treat Randy's injury.

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    Now, after Randy had had a margarita or 2 we decided to order, and since I hadn't had fajitas in some time i ordered them. Now Randy's idea of Mexican food prior to this trip was Taco Bell so he had never heard of fajitas. Maybe that's why he's looking at them like this.

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    But once he dug in, he left that plate spotless. We checked with the manager about when breakfast was served and he said, "when are you waking up?" So we scheduled a time and headed back to the room to relax and try again to contact TC. Or maybe we contacted before supper. Anyway, it was at the hotel when we finally got word.

    Sometime after getting to the hotel I received a text from an unknown number. But when I scrolled back through past messages I figured out it was TCs wife. I told her where we were and said I can't find TC and have no way to contact him to which she replied he's in Oceanside. So now that we know he's ok, we can relax and get back to drinking.

    You'll recall that I had picked up some medicine called Don Julio Reposado a couple days back to treat Randy's ankle so we proceeded to polish that off.
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    Little did I know that Randy had found a wrap for his ankle. Now, those of you familiar with ACE brand will think this is an ACE. It is not, it is some cheap Mexican brand, but it's better than nothing. Don Julio helped me wrap.

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    And then I got so much crap from all my nurse friend's on Facebook, I closed one eye and redid it and told Randy to stop picking at it.

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    Now, I have mentioned the bathrooms in Mexico earlier. Don't get me wrong, this hotel is actually pretty decent, but it is obvious they don't want you tossing the paper in the toilet. It's obvious because the TP can double as wallpaper and is thicker than the thickest Charmin you can buy.

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    We enjoyed our stay at Punta Colonet, and we were even happier at having stopped when we ran into road construction on day 6 that would have definitely had us riding into the dark if we had tried for Ensenada.

    Day 6 finds us waking up in Punta Colonet.
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    As you can see it's still a ways from Ensenada. About 115 km to be precise. Apparently it's one of the highest agricultural producing areas of Baja and we can confirm seeing lot's of greenhouses and such. It's named after some English sailor.

    Anyway, as mentioned we ran into a road construction issue north of Colonet but south of Ensenada. I can't seem to find it on the map, but the traffic was back up for a couple miles. Fortunately, many places in Mexico have side roads that are dirt so I went up ahead of the line of cars to see what was going on, and the highway worked told me I could wait up there until the line of traffic came through so I went back and once again Randy got to do some off-road riding, but we skipped way way ahead of everyone in cars. Once through construction, Ensenada was a short trip.

    We rode right downtown and Randy finally picked up some vanilla which he had been looking for for a while.
    I don't seem to have any pics, but here's google street view of approximately where we stopped.
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    Now, I'm having a good time. I like Baja. It's not for everyone, but I always enjoy it. I talked to Randy and told him I wanted to stay another night, but that I wanted to try for a place in Tecate. Well, you'll see later why that didn't work out. But, before that could happen, we had to go through wine country. That's right, baja has a wine country.

    We headed north and then caught 3 AKA Ruta del Vino. At this point, I am just cruising along looking for a place to taste wine in Baja and eventually find this place.

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    It's very quaint and the owner is very friendly and his English is pretty good so it was an ok stop, but it was $15 per person for tasting only 4 wines which is a bit steep IMO.

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    After that, we headed on over to Tecate to try and find a hotel, but it's still very early. I saw one place that looked ok, but it's so early and there isn't much to do so I just keep tooling along following the signs for the border and the next thing I know we are lane splitting up to the front of the line and crossing over into the good ole US of A. It was probably the fast border crossing I have ever done although Trump was standing at the border calling us rapists. Just kidding. I think he was busy tweeting from his porcelain throne.

    We go to the money exchange and I probably give them the smallest amount ot exchange evr. I think I got $6 back. It was good for Randy, though since he had over exchanged.
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    I inquired about a place to lunch and received directions to this Barret Junction cafe which was pretty decent. Time for some American food. I had tacos.

    Just kidding. I had a chili dog.
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    Then after discussing with Randy, I wanted to find a place closer to LA but not deal with San Diego traffic. We decided on Temecula. I have never been there that I knew of, and still don;t know much about it, but it was further north and mostly avoided city traffic. We found our way to a brewpub to have a beer and scope out the hotel situation.

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    We enjoyed our brews and I was able to find us a hotel right across the street. Randy's only instruction was ground floor and close to a bar. I think I succeeded.
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    Our door is to the left and the bar is the open sign in the distance.
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    Bonus, it has a pool and a hot tub.

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    After a quick soak, we headed to the bar and grill for another go at margaritas and fajitas. Friendly staff.
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    We are now somewhere around 1800 miles riding since leaving Sacramento.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2018
  3. reg71

    reg71 Poser Staff Member

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    ok, gotta take a break for a while. I keep exceeding pic count and losing content. I'll come back this afternoon or tomorrow talk about Day 7

    ----EDIT----

    Ok, I'm back. Where were we? Ah yes. Saying goodbye to Randy.

    You'll recall I had wanted to get closer to LA so that I could visit Terri and also as a side bonus I get to piss off Derstuka and ScubaLong for going around LA without visiting them. So I told Randy where I was headed and left him with contact info for Derstuka so he could go and visit San Diego.

    At this point, I wasn't sure if I'd see him again until Sacramento.

    Anyway, we said our goodbyes and I packed up and rolled through Old Town Temecula.

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    From there I headed on up into the hills for a 'secret' way across the mts that Derstuka told me about. It looked like this on google maps (see below) and had a place called "Ortega Falls" which sounded cool to me. Score!

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    It's AKA Ortega Highway. Anyway, I plotted my course for Ortega Falls figuring it would be something cool to check out on the way to Hell-A.

    Somehow I lost my pics, but I stole some from the interwebz.

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    And I even found a panoramic which I was sure I took, but I seem to have lost.
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    Needless to say, it was a decent road and the views were A-OK. The only thing lacking was the falls. I got to the point on the GPS where it said there were falls, but I didn't see them anywhere nor did I see a sign so I proceeded on to Bellflower or Norwalk where my wife lives. It's on the boarder so her school is is Norwalk but her condo is in Bellflower.

    Anyway, I hung out for a day and she had a big event at school the next day so I decided to try and meet up with Randy on his was back to Sac. I had told him before that Harris Ranch on I-5 would be a little further than halfway back for him on his trip and break up the monotony so I figured he'd head there. I texted him and told him I was going to try and meet him there.

    I was much closer so I had to figure out how to waste some time. I also started much earlier than him because I'm insane and wanted to bitch at all the traffic in LA in the morning.

    So plans made, I headed out to kill some time and hopefully arrive at a similar time to Sir Randall. My first thought was, "Self, let's just head over to Hwy 1 and cruise up that way because it'll be scenic."

    Well, after half an hour trying to go 10 mi, my second thought was, "Self, what are you a friggen idiot? Let's get the hell out of this god forsaken place."

    I eventually made my way to 405 and then to 101 and headed out of town when I noticed the sign for the Reagan library. I thought, why not. Well, now I know why not. It's because they aren't open early in the morning when I typically get going and it goes against every fiber of my being to just sit somewhere with a group of people for 45 min waiting for something to open.

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    Well, I walked around snapped a couple pics, then jumped on the bike and headed for Ojai. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hwy 33, it's your loss. It's one of those rare roads in southern CA where you can ride the twisties virtually alone. There are tunnels, a decent incline, curves so sharp that you can see your back tire if you look to your side, and I have never seen an LEO in the several times I have ridden it. Mostly because it doesn't go anywhere!

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    In this last pic, you can see Hwy 33 way off in the distance. This is looking back from the way I came. You really should try this road if you are ever heading to the central part of Cali on a bike. It truly helps you forget what a Hell Hole LA is.
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    Now, from there you work your way back out of the mountains (I have often found snow up there, but not this day) and then you find yourself in nowhere (AKA Taft).
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    I know some of my viewers had no idea that Cali had oil, but yes, the tree hugger state also has a significant amount of oil production.

    From there I simply gassed up and made me way through circuitous route back out to I-5 and up to the rendezvous. Now I was a bit early so I polled all the local hotels and contacted Randy who seemed to be about 2 hours behind me on I-5 and we decided on the Travelodge.

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    you may scoff at our choice of cheap digs, but honestly we had been staying in Mexico and this was a nice as anything we stayed in there except the suite, AND this was cheaper. So i stocked up before Randy arrived and went to check out the pool.

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    Now, I probably should have worked my way gradually into the pool, but I figured it would be cool and I'd never get in if I did so I jumped on in.

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    I quickly learned why I was the only person in the pool and I was back out of there in under 5 min I guarantee! By the time Randy arrive, I made no mention of visiting that icepond!

    I was pleasantly entertained while I waited for his arrival.
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    For those of you who aren't trekkies, nevermind. For those of you that are, you understand.

    The rest of the night we just goofed off. I know we ate somewhere but can't remember where. I remember breakfast we loaded up for the short trip home and had some high quality breakfast grub:
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    From there, it really wasn't too much of a trip for us after all the miles we had done. We just headed up to I-5 and stopped for the obligatory Sacramento proof pic for the Canadian.

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    My total mileage at this point was about 500 tacked on to the 1800 or so so 2400 mi give or take since we left Sac. Not too shabby. Some days we went too far, some days we could ahve gone farther I think. After doing this ride and getting down to baja, I can say

    well words mostly. I can say words.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2018
    34468 Randy likes this.

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