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December 19/20 - Saturday/Sunday
    Finishing my masters meant that I had to get out, get away, get far away, for a couple of weeks. I have this love/hate relationship with Mexico and am fascinated with the culture and history. On the other hand, it's not the safest place in the world, but Mexican prisons are only slightly worse than my apartment. Baja seemed to be a good compromise. It was far and it was in Mexico. Butch Hays seemed agreeable to the idea of at least going half way down the peninsula. So, I ordered my Instant Mexico Insurance, got a letter from BMWNA, packed the appropriate papers and headed out. Keep in mind while reading this that I can barely speak a few words of Spanish, let alone spell them.
The old Iron Butt bug instantly reasserted itself, but the choice wasn't clear. I'd already done the 50cc thing and the Bun Burner Gold thing, so I was looking for something new. Either way, I'd start the run with a policeman's signature and blast out to the left coast.
    Leaving at 1:00 A.M. on Saturday, 12/19/98, the weather was good. Lake City wasn't the 19 degrees it was a couple of years ago, but rather a tolerable 50 degrees. Keep in mind that I'm from Tampa and anything under 45 degrees causes certain appendages to drop off.
    It took 500 miles and 7 hours to get out of the state. That equated to almost 1,700 miles in 24 hours. Then, I entered Louisiana. It's now starting to rain. Fortunately, the Louisiana Department of Highways isn't letting a little thing like pouring rain stop them. I-12 is not moving. Is lane splitting legal here? Let's find out. There's only one problem wrong with this concept. One lane is 4" higher than the other lane. It make for interesting lane splitting. An accident is slowing down traffic even further. Fortunately, it's at an exit. I jump down the exit ramp and up the on ramp. Now I-12 is down to one lane around Hammond and they're laying asphalt! I'm watching, since I'm not moving, hot asphalt being laid in puddles. Yeah, that will last. At the next rest area I get off and put on some rain gear. A trucker recognizes me as the biker who was lane splitting. He tells me that the highway patrol is looking for me. Oh, that's just GREAT! I suit up and blast west. Whew, a couple of hours later and I'm in Texas.
    My schedule, whatever that is, is now officially behind. Fortunately, there's more construction in Houston. On the other side of San Antonio darkness settles in which lowers the posted speed limit by 5 mph. I plug along and hit more construction in El Paso. Fortunately, I'm coming through at night which is the only time to hit El Paso in terms or scenery. The lights of the city are quite attractive. You'll have a different opinion of the city in the daytime.
    New Mexico and Arizona have speed limits of 75 mph and it's nice to be moving again. By the time I hit California, the winds are starting to pick up. I watch the town of El Centro blow over me. This is not a good sign. As I hit the mountain passes west of San Diego I'm beginning to think that this ride is becoming "interesting." The road sign tells me that there could be high winds for the next 63 miles. Well, I haven't had much sleep and think that I must be hallucinating when I read that.
    The wind is very, very bad. I've ridden through Hurricane Erin one summer, had 50 mph winds on the top of Mount Washington, but these winds are starting to get my attention. Changing lanes isn't a problem, changing lanes when you want to is the problem. I'm leaning over 45 degrees, but I'm not going around a corner. It's starting to get darn cold, but I'm afraid to take my hand of the handlebars to turn on my electric jacket. Fortunately, the radio has decided to pick up some Mexican radio station, but I can't change that either. The only positive part is that my teeth are now chattering in time to the music.
    I'm watching a hawk trying to negotiate the winds. There's something wrong with this bird, then I notice that it's flying upside down. I glance over at a camper I'm passing. We don't need to say a thing as our white knuckled grips and wide-eyed looks say it all. We watch a rental truck slide over to within 1 foot of a 1,000 foot drop. Guardrails would be nice. This whole time I'm thinking about the saying on my Iron Butt licence plate, "World's Toughest Riders." When I stop, I'm cleaning out my shorts and ripping that licence plate off the back of my bike. Mommy?
    Coming out of the mountains things start to calm down. Let me say though that this "warm, sunny, southern California" business is just a bunch of marketing hooie. It's cold and cloudy. I pull into Butch and Esther's place around 3 P.M. PT and they aren't home. Oh well, they've left me a note and I head for the shower. That night we have dinner with several club members and have a great time.

December 21- Monday
    We run errands on Monday and I decompress. The Motoport Store is about what I expect, but they don't have the boots I hoped for. Butch and Esther sign the papers on a new van for Esther's floral business (she has a lot of talent) and Butch and I head to the Mexican Consulate for our visas. This turns out to be extremely easy. We show them our passports, sign some papers and get a 180 day visa with multiple entry for $0.00. On top of that, there was only one other person in line in front of us. It sure beats doing it at the border. Just down the street Butch buys insurance and we are ready to head south.

December 22 - Tuesday

    Most of the towns along this section of Hwy. 1 have speed bumps that will make you cry. The bottom of our bikes scrape as we go over them. We hit Vincent Guerrero and decide to stop for lunch. I'm armed with the "agua minerali" phrase and am determined to stay healthy on this trip. Being a vegetarian is not the easiest thing in Mexico. Everything comes with Pollo (chicken) or Carne (meat). I get the grilled cheese and get my first surprise. Grilled cheese isn't a sandwich, but is a plate of melted cheese with some tortillas on the side. Cool. Lunch turns out to be the same price as what you'd pay in the states.
    With Montezuma's Revenge on our minds we head out. We've been encouraged to stop for gas often, which we do. South of El Rosario the real Baja begins. We had planned to stop here for the night, but couldn't find a suitable motel, so we elect to push on. One thing we don't want to do is ride at night. There are enough cows and donkeys along the roadside to convince us that this isn't a good idea. Butch refers to the livestock as traffic control devices. 
    The scenery is starting to become great. We are in the mountains in the heart of the peninsula. The view in either direction are outstanding. Butch has done a great job of leading us. As we get close to Catavinia the landscape is dotted by huge boulders surrounded by cactus. With the sun going down we are taken by the beauty. A few miles down the road we pull into Catavinia for the evening.

      The motel is La Pinta and is a chain of motels in Baja. They are of reasonable quality, but have some shortcomings. We pay $80.00 US for the night and get 3 TV stations, a heater that doesn't work and a clean room. We must have the same room Doc had because the shower lives up to its billing. We eat at the motel restaurant and talk about our plans for the next day as we fall asleep.

December 23 - Wednesday
    Butch gets hot water with good pressure out of the shower this morning. Whom did he pay off? It's cold with frost and cloudy. Shouldn't it be warmer by now? We head out before 7 A.M. and continue to ride down the heart of the peninsula. We didn't fuel up the night before because the only gas that was available was from 55 gallon drums sold by children. Fuel mileage has been down with the Pemex, but the bikes are running well.
    The scenery continues to be outstanding, right up until we say the dead burro along the side of the road. This was done last night! About 80 miles from Catavinia we run into a construction zone. Up until this point the roads have be very good and not at all like the other roads I've experienced in Mexico. A few miles further we pass an overturned tanker in a wash. There are many washes across the road, but they are well marked. Only a couple have had water in them.
   

As we come out of the mountains we open the bikes up. I've never done speeds this high so consistently with little fear of reprisal. We set the speedos on 90/95 mph and continue at this speed for hours. In Guerrero Negro we stop for lunch and pass into Baja Sur (southern Baja). There is a very impressive checkpoint with many soldiers. We've been stopped several times on the way down and occasionally searched, but the stops have been more than tolerable, as is this one. There's a nice statue commemorating the border.

We pass by the Volcano Las Tres Virgenes which is a breathtaking site. This must be an ancient volcano, because the lava fields and the volcano itself are well-weathered

    . A few miles further and we're in St. Ignacio which is, literally, an oasis in the desert. We take a short detour to the mission and find a quaint town. Children try to sell us bags of dates. We give away all our candy and gum and take lots of pictures. As we are looking through the pictures later we notice that one of the children has a syringe in her hand.

    In Santa Rosalio we get our first views of the Gulf of California. This is a somewhat industrial town and we pass through quickly. Before long we are passing through Mulege which is another oasis town. On the next trip I would spend more time exploring here. The best roads and views of the trip are south of Mulege. I can't fathom how beautiful it is here and have only seen vistas like this in Nova Scotia. The roads are better than Deal's Gap or the Devil's Highway and would be a lot of fun if we weren't loaded down with gear. We ran into another couple of BMW riders and these are the first bikers we've seen on the trip.

    The next stop for the night is Loreto and I'm instantly in love with the town. In true BMW Biker fashion, we find the town bakery. Bueno! Mucho Bueno! We get another room at a La Pinta right on the beach. The next trip I would take advantage of the 4 day discount package they have for the La Pinta motels in Baja. The sun goes down on a great view. Life is good.

December 24 - Thursday
    Butch and I are both worn out. I've got a schedule to keep if I'm going to make it back to Florida in time. We spent the night trying to decide how we would spend the next couple of days. It would have been very easy to stay in Loreto. On the other hand, La Paz looked interesting and riding down to Cabo San Lucas seemed the right thing to do. We decided to head south and see what happens.

In La Paz we stopped for lunch. La Paz is the largest city in Baja and the capital of southern Baja. The air quality is very bad, but the location is wonderful. The most road construction we saw was around this city. As we sat in the open air restaurant downtown, overlooking the Bay of La Paz we were feeling quite content. There were a lot of Mexican Navy men walking the streets, but we didn't see any ships. A very new, black truck drove by with some well equipped and dressed military types in black uniforms drove by. They looked like a U.S. swat team, and sent a tingle down our spines. What was their function? A few minutes later a motorcycle cop drove by. He was a dead ringer for a Chip and we wondered if any of California's bikes were missing. The uniform was even the same.

      Cabo was very disappointing to me and much too touristy. We stopped at a hotel that was certainly well beyond our means and weren't even acknowledged at the front desk. This was the hangout for the "beautiful people" and I wasn't interested. We came to see the real Mexico. One of the keys that we weren't in the right place was the amount of grass planted everywhere. Instead we opted for a motel on the outskirts of town for the evening. This was the first time I've ever been given a checklist of items in the room. Butch and I spent several minutes counting things like 4 forks, 2 spoons, 1 coffee maker and 17 art objects which included lamps or all things. I'd be glad to leave and wouldn't recommend staying the night in Cabo.

December 25 - Friday

     We stopped at the same restaurant in La Paz for breakfast, mostly because it was the only place that was open. Breakfast was much better than lunch and we even had a couple of Flans to top things off. Perhaps the best item was the orange marmalade that was served as a condiment. We had to get a container of that for the rest of the trip. It's freshly made (as is everything else in the restaurant) everyday.
    Outside of La Paz we hit our first unmarked construction zone of the trip. One second there was road and the next there wasn't. Between the cows and times like this we would give our brakes a workout. About 25 miles north of La Paz the RT turned 100,000 miles. I had to stop and celebrate this big event. There are only two miles on the odometer I will remember, this one and turning 36,000 miles in New Foundland. I thought that would be a heck of a place to be out of warranty.

    In Loreto the bakery was closed! Oh, heaven help us! On top of that, the La Pinta was closed. Strike two. We ended up at the Oasis motel, which turned out to be a good choice. The views were again great and the Mariachia Band was a nice touch. They were tuning up right by the bikes. We had Chicago Pizza in town at a small restaurant owned by a women who moved here 12 years ago. I'd love to hear her story.

December 26 - Saturday
    The ride up to Catavinia makes for the longest day, but has the best scenery. We stopped south of Mulege for breakfast on the beach and ate the rolls and marmalade from La Paz. A lot of people in Rvs camp right on the beach and this is the place to set up a tent. We fed the birds and just vegged out for awhile.

    On the way north we saw several accidents, all involving SUVs. These roads were not meant for high centers of gravity. We were getting a little silly on the way up. I pulled alongside Butch and did my couch potato imitation. Butch thought I was telling him to speed up. So, the next thing I know we are going well over the ton for the next hour. I couldn't understand what had gotten into Butch. He had been saying that it was tiring on the RS driving 90 mph and here we are doing 100+. Oh well, I was comfy and the miles were disappearing.
    Back at the Baja California, Baja California Sur border the Federalis asked Butch if he could speak Spanish. Keep in mind that Butch has a great set of earplugs. The next word I hear from Butch is "Si." My jaw dropped as I listen to the border guard launch into sentence after sentence in Spanish. Butch is nodding his head like he understands. The guard could be asking him if he's got guns or drugs and Butch is agreeing!!!! Man, we're going to jail. Amazingly, everything was ok. When we asked the guards if we could take their pictures, they didn't want anything to do with it, so we sheepishly drove away.

 December 27 - Sunday

     Butch comes back thinking I just needed a break. When he sees that I'm not smiling and looks at the rim, he understands the predicament. Yes, I could have told him and Spanish and he would have said "Si" and meant it this time. So, what could we do. We could rent a truck and haul the bike north. Butch could go home, get a truck and come back. Or, we could pull the wheel and see if we could get it pounded out.
    The other problem was that this was Sunday. The mechanic north of town was closed. In town the local police told me of someone that might be open. I went to his house. He took a very large hammer (mallato as Butch learned) and pounded out the dents. Amazingly the tire was holding air. I've got a new respect for these soft rims. It's the bend, but don't break philosophy I admire. Within an hour the tire was remounted and we were again on the road. Having PJ1 tire balancing fluid in the tires helped a lot and the ride wasn't bad at all. The bike handled well in the curves and we were able to make good time.
    Instead of exiting the country at Tijuana we took Hwy. 3 north of Ensenada and crossed at Tecate. There was hardly a line whereas we noticed a long line when we entered at Tijuana 6 days ago. In the U. S. Butch had a hard time remembering that we weren't in Mexico anymore and that there were things like radar, airplanes and Highway Patrol up here. Finally, with high fives, we arrived at Butch's house.

December 28 - Monday
    I needed a day to unwind before I headed east and home. Butch showed me how to do the external fuel filter modification on the RT. My filter now resides under my seat. I also got new rubber installed on the rear. I could have probably made it home, but why chance it. Some used rims were purchased from Eurotech, but I elected to ride home on the bent ones. After an oil change and a throttle body synch the bike was ready. Oh, by the way, the zero=zero mod just does not work on this RT. Three of us have tried, with little success. The idle remains way to high. After yet another great meal at the Hay's hacienda, I hit the sack with dreams of palm trees and Florida.

December 29/30/31 - Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday
    Just after midnight PT my internal clock went off and it was time to leave. The weather was cool and by the time I was in Yuma, AZ I was putting on the electric pants and socks. Yes, outside of Tucson I did run out of gas again and ended up pushing the bike 1 mile to a gas station. Not one person stopped to help. The RT ran out of fuel after 218 miles. I have been getting lower fuel mileage and attribute the problem to the cooler plugs (Autolite 3922s) that I just installed. I'm going back to the Bosch plugs. After about 1,100 miles I stopped in Ozona, TX for the night. The next night I'd sleep in Gulfport, MS and then, finally, at home.

    I had a great time! Thanks to Butch and Esther Hays for their hospitality and kindness. Butch is a great riding partner and, apparently, very fluent in Spanish.

    I've heard a lot of bad things about Mexico. On the mainland, I believe that they are true. Baja is a different story. I would not hesitate for a minute to ride there alone. It's a wonderful place full of nice people and great scenery.