If you had told me the best scenery of this trip was going to be Baja I would have laughed at you.  Copper Canyon, Oaxaca, Tulum, Pacific coast, I would have laughed in your face.  Boy was I wrong.  I can not believe how cool this place is.  It must have been getting rain here, because every thing is green and in full bloom.  All the cactus have flowers on them, all the bushes are full and the ground looks Iike a carpet.  The mountains are spectacular, with the water as a back ground I am totally in awe.

I lost my partner Gary this morning, he hurt his hand and foot while falling off his bike yesterday and wanted to take a day to recuperate.  Plus I wanted to cover some ground today and got 618 miles in.  My hands are a mess, that many miles on a big single may be too much.  The vibration and the cold have them working very slow.  They are getting better now that I’m talking about the cool stuff I’ve seen today.

Yes there were huge open plains where the road ran straight as an arrow, but once I got looking closer, I noticed the ground was covered with flowers.  Tiny low growing flowers that went on for miles in every direction, not a bush or a tree or a cactus in sight, just flowers, very nice.

Cross a mountain and the next side would be completely different.  I saw a new kind of plant today, it was skinny and grew straight up, no branches no forks just a straight trunk with yellow fur looking stuff on it.  I’m sure if I had stopped for a closer look I would have seen it was covered with thorns or spikes like every thing else here.

Then it turned into a forest of cactus, every kind I have ever seen all growing thick.  A few miles later it is nothing but the stately Saguaro cactus, billions of them, as far as the eye could see, it was a sight.

Then it turned to giant boulders, every where boulders.  Then it seemed to turn to a alpine meadow, I checked my Cyco-Active GPS and I was over 2,000 feet!  Then it dropped back down to sea level then back up.

I’m afraid Gary may have trouble in his future too, he was way over tightening his chain, so it would stretch to fit.  Well if you do this enough, you will find the weakest link.  He didn’t have any extra master links or repair links, so I hated to lose his company, but….  He was also going to have a problem with gas, his tank gave him about 160 miles.  Today, gas was 226 miles apart.  My bike ran in on fumes and it has a huge tank.  So Gary, if you are reading this, better get a can for gas, you will probably need it.  As far as the chain?  Read the book, it requires some slack.  I hope you make it, it was a long haul.

I got a note from Chuck, so I’ll paste it here:

I really didn’t want this adventure to end but sure feels good to come back in to the US!  It would be fitting if Charlie Old boy were here to high five a great trip, but consider this a high five and a knuckle hit to everyone that have kept us company on an aw some adventure around and through Mexico!  A great thanks to Charlie for inviting me along for a week…..Couldn’t have picked a better travel partner with his Greatfull Dead spin on events!  As I wound down towards Nogales the temp was toasty so I stopped in for one last mexican meal and coke.  Waitress could’nt speak any english,  for the first time I was very glad, then she brought over an english menu in addition to the spanish…Oh well I guess am to close to the border.. trip over…When she took my order however form the english menu she pointed to the spanish menu and drilled out that beutifull spanish language which I did not recognize a word of and I just said SI! …Awe the trip is not over…I’m going to get one last meal in which I do not really know what I’m getting!  Ya! Life is Good!

Paid about fiddy bucks in tolls…Not to bad…but worth it if the trip is over and no real beaches to stop at.  Just lay on the tank behind the wind screen and pin it.  I’ve really been taking it in on this whole Mexico trip without pushing my Orange gal to hard, but now I let the 9fiddy gal stretch her legs on home!  Yaaa!  Cruzed at just under 160cliks (100mph  5M RPM) and got lucky with the Feds!

Took in the Mazatlan 300 on Saturday with bikes & quads starting at 8am and buggies at 10am which I will put together a race report later.  I did just cross in at 4pm…I think Sunday….Left Mazatlan after a quick swim in the surf at 3 pm when the leaders had finished.  Gonna see if I can get a hold of either Kent Nichols or Star for a hook up in Tuscon/Pheonix now.

Would’ve like to have hooked up with Chalie again for a couple of laughs but I know baja is great…I knew however that baja really deserves a seperate journey and with funds tapped would not have done it justice for me.

Later..Chuck Sun back in the USA!

Pretty cool huh?  I’ll cross the border tomorrow, I’ just south on Ensanada,  I’m freezing and Chuck was hot.  It must be the big old Pacific cooling things off here.  Chuck was going 100mph and I was rolling along soaking in the scenery and looked at my speedo?  48mph!  I will definitely come back to Baja, I am so surprised.  I want to call Tim Morton and book a trip with him soon.  I think I want to bring a real dirt bike back though, after that rough road yesterday, I don’t want to ride a dual sport bike here.  Tim Morton knows all the good trails and I’m coming back.  Three places I want to visit again.  San Miguel de Allende,  Puerto Escondito and the entire Baja Peninsula.  Man the Sea of Cortez is beautiful,  I can see John Steinbeck and Doc motoring along and collecting specimens,  man I want to do a sail boat trip of that coast.  Just seeing these things make me want to see more.  Main land Mexico was beautiful but after a while it all became to look the same, then Baja was such a contrast.

Okay, that’s all I can think of now, my mind is still vibrating from the 618 miles I rode today.  I’m trying to reach Super Hunky, he lives near here and if I can I would like to stop in and visit him.  I ran in to a guy at a gas station today.  He said he knew Malcolm Smith and some other names, he was going to give me his business card and I saw he had a KTM card, it was Joe Barkers card and we both went Ohhhh, Joe Barker, it was funny.  Oh while I’m thinking of it, I was on the bike for 6 hours straight this morning before I stopped for lunch.  I stopped for gas but did not get off the bike.  Then I wound up with 618 miles for the day, that should be a good testimony for my Bill Mayer Saddle.  There is no way I could have made this trip with out my Bill Mayer, the best addition to my bike.  My Aerostich coat just gets cooler looking every day.  I turned my Enduro Engineering hand warmers on cause they do.  My Sidi boots fit nice, my Works Enduro Rider suspension sure soak up the bumps and handle the turns well.  Yesterday I was doing a little mental wining:  “Well my shock spring is about 15% too light, my rebound is about 38% too light, fork compression is good but the rebound is too light.”  Well then I got behind Gary on his Suzuki 650 in stock trim with a bunch of luggage tied to it.  I quit wining pretty quickly.  The KTM is one heck of a machine, I would not consider another brand, I would like a 950 for sure, but maybe a 700 twin would be cool too.  You know, big motor but cut all the fat, that would be rockin!

Okay I’m going to take a hot shower and go to bed, I’ve got a long day tomorrow, and should be back in Boise in the next three days or so.  Please keep the letters coming, I enjoying hearing from all of ya.  Don’t forget to subscribe to Trail Rider Magazine and you are always welcome to kick me down a few bucks on the Pay Pal account on the photo album page. Oh, shop repairmanual.com and Pro Moto Billet for all the good stuff.

Later

Charlie