Baja Video FINALLY

It only took me 7 months to go through all of the photos and videos that I took during our 5 days in Baja, but I'm finally done with the compilation video!  A lot of the video footage that I took wasn't very useful as bugs seemed to get stuck on the lens shortly after we would start riding, but I found some clean video to use.  It was awesome to work on this video and relive this amazing trip.  I smile every time I see the pictures and videos.



Here it is!

Finally another ride!

So work has been kicking my butt since I've been back from Baja. Things are moving pretty fast and I've been working some long hours, so unfortunate my weekends have been for chores and housework rather than riding. After a very frustrating week this week, though, I made sure I got a much needed ride in this weekend. Even though it was a short ride, it was still very therapeutic!!

I was on the RX3 and Blake was on his GSXR 750. Before we could leave the house our phones started connecting to each other's Sena headsets, so we had to play around with them in the driveway for a bit. While fixing the headsets a neighbor came by, who happens to ride a KLR and her husband rides a Tiger, and I finally got to meet her for the first time. She was mentioning that she hadn't ridden for quite a while as her husband has been away on the weekends and she's just not very confident on the KLR if something were to happen since she's not mechanically inclined. I showed her the RX3 and told her to swing a leg over it and she got a huge grin on her face and said "this is the kind of bike I've been looking for as it's the perfect size and I could pick it up if I had to."  I told her that I could have picked up the bike by myself when I dumped it in Baja had I not been in sand. She seemed very impressed with the bike and mentioned she was thinking of going on a ladies camping weekend with some other adv riders in July and told me to look into it. Sounds right up my alley!  So she continued on with her walk and we finally got our Senas sorted, so we left the house to go eat some breakfast at a local Cajun place not too far from us, Henry's Louisiana Grill. I forgot to check to see if they were even open for breakfast before we left, so we decided to ride around Red Top Mountain and just do lunch at Henry's. My gas light was blinking as we pulled out of the driveway, so we ride to the closest gas station to fill up. While there, 4 other bikes pulled in prior to heading out for their rides. This reinforced the feeling that it was going to be a great day to ride!!  We were almost backed over by a lady in a BMW backing out of her spot at Dunkin donuts, but Blake gave her the customary good driver salute and we scooted around her. We successfully pulled out of the gas station for the start of our adventure. 

We "thought" we knew some back roads to get us to Red Top so we headed off on our bikes for about 20 miles before realizing we had gone a different way than expected. We decided to just turn right on one of the bigger roads as we knew we had to get north and we're heading west, so we took a chance on a road that dumped us into familiar territory. We took our time riding through the state park and enjoying the beautiful weather and when we got to the other side and were faced with taking the interstate to Henry's, we decided to turn around and head back through the state park to some roads we knew and take back roads again. After riding mostly interstates on this bike for 5 straight days in Baja, it was a completely different ride having the bike in more of its element on the back roads at slower speeds.  We pulled up to Henry's and parked across the street as the Main Street parking can get a bit hectic. We walked into Henry's carrying our helmets and were swiftly seated and then greeted by Henry himself. He threw some Mardi Gras beads around my neck and welcomed us back and then told us that in the future we can leave our helmets with the hostess and wished he was out on his bike today. It's so nice to be so welcomed as a rider in an establishment. It's surprising how many times I've been treated differently because I have my helmet in my hand.

I begged Blake to let me order a serving of beignets and much to his hesitation he agreed, not knowing what they were. The waitress brought us some complimentary biscuits and gravy and asked if we wanted beignets, to which I quickly replied "yes"!!  We also ordered our meals and then snacked on the biscuits and gravy. Even though I've been raised in the south, I have never been a fan of gravy. I'm just not a huge fan of anything flour or roux based. However, this gravy was amazing! It was almost a mix of gravy and Alfredo sauce and it had bits of bacon and andouille sausage in it. It was drool worthy. Then the beignets came. A petite plate with 6 puff pastry pillows stacked on it completely covered in powdered sugar. It was beautiful! It also looked like the potential for me to make a massive mess as I am so clumsy! One sneeze or giggle and Blake would be looking like Powder (bonus points to you if you get the reference) Lol. Luckily we had no incidents with the powdered sugar and our food came out right in time before we inhaled the remainder of the beignets. Blake has eggs with boudin over fried Cajun potatoes and I had scrambled eggs with bacon and Cajun cheese grits. It was so much food that we could barely finish half of our meals, so we decided to box up the remainder and take it home. The only thing about that decision is that it meant we had to cut our ride short so the food didn't get all nasty in my top case (thank goodness for those stock bags- they are so handy)!

Biscuits and gravy

Beignets at Henry's in Acworth

I've never spent much time in downtown Acworth so we decided to take a walk down the main drag to see what was there. We walked by this interesting bookstore/coffee shop and decided to go in. When you walk in you are greeted by the cheerful owners and then immediately are surrounded by old war and military books, collectibles, and memorabilia. There's also an upstairs section with more genres and true little coffe shop tucked in the back next to their cast iron pans and Dutch ovens for sale. This was a neat, eclectic little place and I lost myself in it. The owners offered us a table to set our helmets on while we browsed through all of their collections. With Father's Day coming up, we figured this would be a great place to do some shopping!  We found the sections that we though our dads would like and ended up buying them each a few gifts. I also bought myself a cast iron cookbook and have decided I will return in the car to purchase a cast iron pan for myself. I've always wanted one like my dad has, but the one time I bought one, I promptly ruined it by cleaning it incorrectly. Now I know better! As we were checking out one of the owners offered me a sample of their butter rum coffee, brewed locally in Marietta. It smelled divine and tasted great, but I was running out of capacity to carry much more home, so I decided I would buy a bag of their coffee when I returned to buy my pan. He then grabbed a small bag of butter rum coffee and handed it to me and smiled and said "thank you for your business!"  Yep, it's little gems like this that remind me why I try to stay away from some of those larger chain stores. I will definitely be coming back here. 

Front spot for the RX3

We walked out to the bikes and tetris'd all of the books and leftovers into my luggage (with no problem) and we decided to have an adventure home. We took the road the opposite direction from where we came and figured we'd find a road that we knew sometime, but after riding for about 15 miles we realized we had no idea where we were. We knew we had to go south and east to get home, so we made a few turns and somehow got to some interstate signs. On the way to the interstate, I saw a Yamaha logo out of the corner of my eyes and told Blake we had to turn around. He got a little frustrated as it was starting to get very hot outside, but he was very sweet and turned around for his crazy wife. I couldn't explain to him what I saw, I just told him where to go. We ended up pulling into a parking spot at a chickfila and we just sat in utter amazement at what we saw. It was a man-made pond and had these zip line looking things hooked up all around and the zip lines were pulling people on wakeboards around this man made pond that was fille with jumps!  It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen!  I snapped a few pictures so I could do some more research on it once I got home. It was awesome, though. Wake boarding without needing a boat... Pretty cool idea of you ask me!

I like the "bunny slope" for beginners on the left

Terminus Wakeboard - will need to look into this!

Once we started getting uncomfortably hot sitting still, we decided it was time to call it a day so we jumped on the interstate to go an exit or two until we found a road that we knew as we still had no idea where we were. We got on the interstate and got up to speed, but after a few minutes of cruising at about 65ish, the bike developed this crazy wobble in the front end. It almost felt like it was about to launch into a full tank slapped, so I rolled off the throttle and once I got down below 60 it sorted itself out and ride fine. I told Blake I had read about another guy having this same experience, but what baffled me is that after riding for over a thousand miles on almost all interstate in Baja at average speeds of over 60, I never encountered this. It was bizarre to say the least and the only thing I can think of is that we had let some air out of the tires before we left, so maybe we had let too much air out?  I'm not sure, but will need to look into this a bit more. As for the rest of the time on the interstate, I kept it below 65 and didn't experience the issue again. The next exit was a familiar road so we got off the interstate and back to side roads. I was a bit uncomfortable on the bike as that wobble definitely shook me up, but after a few minutes on the back roads I was feeling completely comfortable again. We took some great twisty roads back to the house and had a great remainder of our ride.  Once we got home, we parked the bikes in the garage and unloaded the luggage. 6 large, hardback books, a small bag of coffee, and 2 togo containers fit with no problem. We were Actually a bit amazed with the capacity as we thought we had misjudged the sizes of a few books. 

Overall it was an eventful, non eventful day, made even better by standing on the pegs while going over bumps and then listening to Blake moan while going over them on his GSXR. Lol. I still love this bike so much and have so much fun on it! I will need to do some more research into that high speed wobble and it's also time for me to do my first valve adjustment, so keep an eye here for updates on that!

Cross Country WITH an RX3

The original plan was to ride cross country ON an RX3, but that didn't quite pan out as I'd imagined due to time restraints and underestimating speed limits and crosswinds on remote stretches of interstate.  So... I loaded up the RX3 into a 16 foot Penske box truck after my amazing 5 day adventure in Baja and here is a quick post about our cross country journey from El Centro, CA to Atlanta, GA.

I was hesitant to make the call to not ride the bike, but I was stressing out about safety concerns and not being able to make it home in the timeframe I had available, so I ultimately decided to rent a box truck and haul the RX3 home in the back.  I was very nervous about loading the bike into the truck by myself, so Blake gave me the great idea to use AAA to tow the bike to Penske (65 miles from El Centro, CA in Yuma, AZ) and have the tow driver help me load it directly from the tow truck.  So I called AAA and had them tow my bike and everything worked out perfectly!!  I had stressed out for hours in the morning trying to decide how to get the bike home (ship it, ride it anyways, tow it, etc...), but when this worked out so easily with the box truck, I knew it was meant to happen this way and it helped ease my mind.  I still was pretty disappointed with the original plan not working out, but this definitely helped.

My great tow truck driver!

Loading the bike from the tow truck into the box truck

Once I was all loaded up, I really didn't have a lot of time to spend on the road before dark, so my mom and Blake helped me figure out where to stay on my first leg of the cross country trip, which ended up being in Tucson, AZ.  I checked on the bike after checking into the hotel and it was still standing, but my good friend Dan recommended that I put a couple more tie downs on the bike, just to ensure it stayed standing, so I took his advice.  I used 7 of the 8 tie downs I bought.

The RX3 all strapped down and ready for the rest of our journey

The 2nd day was my "tourist" day, so I stopped by Tombstone, AZ on my way east.  For those of you that know me, you know I like my ghost shows... so I did a tour of the Bird Cage Theater (which is supposedly very haunted) and enjoyed being a goober remembering scenes from my ghost shows inside the building.  Tombstone is such a cool town and I'm glad I listened to my new friend Justin's recommendation to stop there.  I didn't make it to the super amazing town of Bisbee, though, Justin.  Maybe some other time ;-)  On my way to my hotel for the evening, I kept seeing signs for "The Thing" and Blake told me that I HAD to stop in to see "The Thing", so I did.  I spent my $1 to walk through the little museum and see "The Thing", and it was totally worth it.  I highly recommend you stop by this roadside attraction on your next trip through Arizona.  :-)  I was hoping to make it to San Antonio this night, but there was absolutely no way I'd make it, so I stayed in El Paso for the evening.  Blake was nice enough to give me a spectacular view of the strip club next door.  LOL

Horse and carriage tour through the streets of Tombstone, AZ

All shady "Ladies" of Tombstone

Bird Cage Selfie (no ghosts present)

"The Thing" is a must see when travelling through AZ!

The Thing Selfie!

Wednesday, day 3, was to knock out some mileage and try to get back on some sort of a "schedule" like I had originally planned for myself when I was going to ride the RX3.  It was a tough day as the wind knocked the snot out of the truck.  I spent the entire day fighting to keep the truck upright and on the road.  At one point in time I even had my hazards on and was going 60mph in an 80mph zone simply because I was struggling to keep the truck in a single lane when going much faster. I was originally planning on being in New Orleans this night, but now I was just trying to get east of San Antonio.  I made it half way between San Antonio and Houston to a little town called Columbus.  I stayed at an Americas Best Value Inn that was infested with gnats and had no working internet, but the mom and pop steakhouse next door definitely helped take my mind off the rooming situation.  That was the first sit down meal that I had eaten since leaving Mexico 3 days prior.

My first sand storm

There was some gorgeous scenery

Day 4 was a shorter day as the only thing I wanted to do was to stay on the beach and relax as an early birthday present to myself.  Blake helped me find an amazing hotel room in Biloxi at the South Beach Hotel and I enjoyed the most relaxing part of my trip!  I rolled into Biloxi around 3:30pm, immediately walked to the restaurant next door and sat on the patio on the beach with a fruity drink and ate raw oysters and a low country boil.  It was definitely worth the long hours the day before!  I also took a cab over to the Beau Rivage because I had been there when I first turned 21 and had grand memories of this high class hotel, but going back made me realize that it just didn't have the same grandeur as it once did.  Gambling just seemed like a waste of money to me now and the premises just lacked that "wow" factor that it once had for me.  It was a nice trip, but I think that'll be my last time there.

I just wanted to listen to the waves... it was glorious!

Day 5 I took advantage of another shorter day and slept in until 8am!  It was great!  I packed up my things for the last morning and loaded everything into the truck.  I made sure the bike was still doing good (as Louisiana interstates are some of the bumpiest roads I've ever driven), and then we got on the road heading for home!  Unfortunately, there was a deadly plane crash on Interstate 285, which was affecting ALL Atlanta traffic and would be for hours, so I decided to head North through Alabama and then East into Georgia, then take back roads for the rest of the trip home.  It worked out great and I barely hit any traffic, even though I was going through the Atlanta vicinity right during rush hour.  I made it home and was greeted by Blake in the driveway and 3 balloons on the mailbox: 1 said Welcome Home, 1 said Congrats, and 1 said Happy Birthday.  Yes, there was much to celebrate!  So much so that we drove to Taco Bell, I had a couple tacos, and then I passed out in my own bed for the first time in almost 2 weeks.  I live such an exciting life.  LOL

Today I unloaded the truck, returned it, changed the oil in the RX3, gave it a quick wash, and then let Blake ride it around the neighborhood before I took it out for a spin myself. Home at last!!

It's HOME!!

Baja route via SPOT tracker

I was running my SPOT tracker while I was riding Baja and so I wanted to post up how our route looked via the SPOT page.  Mind you, I was still learning how to operate the SPOT, so for the first few days it may look a bit funny.

If you've never heard of the SPOT tracker and services, it's worth checking out.  It's a GPS device that tracks your location in 10 minute intervals and has come in very handy in multiple situations for us.  Here is their website if you'd like some more info:  https://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=101

Baja Day 1 - Azusa, CA to El Rosario, BCS

Baja Day 2 - El Rosario, BCS to Santa Rosalia, Baja

Baja Day 3 - Santa Rosalia, Baja to Guerro Negro, BCS

Baja Day 4 - Guerro Negro, BCS to San Quintin, BCS

Baja Day 5 - San Quintin, BCS to El Centro, CA (Azusa, CA for the rest of the group)

I left CSC on Day 1 with about 40 miles on my bike and I loaded my bike into the box truck in El Centro, CA with over 1,500 miles on it.  We cranked out some mileage down in Baja and I had the time of my life!!  I also now have the most fun bike that I've ever owned!  Yay for adventures!!

As with all good things

So this morning I had to make the difficult decision to tow my RX3 back to Georgia rather than ride it back.  After my experience on the interstate last night, I was very concerned about my safety on the bike on the interstates.  Average speed limit is 80mph throughout a lot of the midwest and my RX3 was struggling to stay at 68mph in the winds, so I think it's just safer for me to tow it rather than ride it.  If it wasn't just me, then I'd be game.  So as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

So I spent all morning trying to figure out how to get the bike back to Georgia.  I could ship it and fly back to GA, but it could be days before a company could pick it up and I had no where to store it.  I could rent a pickup truck or cargo van and load it in the back, but no rental car businesses allow one way rentals on pickup trucks or cargo vans.  I could rent a small trailer to tow the motorcycle with, but none of the rental SUVs have trailer hitches.  My only other options were find a friend relatively close by and leave it with them for a shipping company to pick up or rent a small box truck and haul the bike back in the truck.  I decided that after spending all morning making phone calls and getting frustrated with the dead ends, that I would just go ahead and rent a box truck and continue on my road trip back to GA with my bike.  UHaul was quoting me an INSANE amount of money for a 10 foot truck, but Penske cut their price in half for a 16 foot truck to go from Yuma, AZ to Atlanta.  My only concern with the box truck is that I won't be able to load the bike by myself.

I called Blake to discuss my options and he mentioned that when he got his tow from AAA, they loaded the bike from one town truck to the other via the beds of the truck and that sparked an idea.  I asked Blake if they could load the motorcycle into the back of my box truck direct from the bed and he said they probably could as long as I got one of the higher box truck decks.  I know that Penske has higher decks as UHaul prides itself on it's lower decks.  I decided to call AAA to have them tow me to the Penske in Yuma and to help me load the bike into my truck.  Thank goodness everything worked out perfectly as my truck driver helped me load the bike directly from the deck of his truck.  We got the bike all tied down in the box truck (it looks like a spiderweb in there, I may have gone overboard with the tie downs, but I wasn't going to let that bike fall over) and I got on the road.

I decided to only go a few hours down the road as I was pretty tired.  It was a good thing I rented the truck as I couldn't imagine riding the motorcycle as tired as I was.  Blake was nice enough to find a hotel in Tucson for me to stay at and I pulled in around 6:30pm.  I checked into my hotel room and then I did a load of laundry as I only packed enough clothes for about 4 days before I had to rewear something... and it's been 6 days since I left Atlanta.  ewwww lol  Now I have clean clothes, I'm caught up on my blogs.  I am no longer doing an adventure ON my RX3, but I'm having an adventure WITH my RX3.  Oh, and I ordered way too much chinese food delivery for dinner and only ate about a third of it.  I didn't have lunch today so my eyes were much larger than my stomach.  It was good, though!

Baja Trip: Day 5

Sorry for the delay in my post!  I had quite a long day yesterday and when I made it to my hotel, I just passed out.  :-)

Day 5 in Baja, our last day in Mexico.  We woke up to go to breakfast at the restaurant attached to the hotel, but we found out that they stopped doing breakfast a month ago.  *sad face*  So we decided to saddle up on the bikes and head just a bit out of town to a breakfast restaurant that John W recommended.  Abe had scouted out a better way out of the hotel that didn't have as much deep sand, so we followed him out of the parking lot.  He was right, it was much better!  I was trucking along on some hard packed dirt and then the next thing I know I was on the ground with the bike on top of me, pinning my left foot under the bag.  I hit the kill switch and tried to remove my foot, but it didn't budge.  I gathered my thoughts and realized and I could probably push the bag up with my other leg to get enough room to pull my foot out.  Thank goodness this is a relatively light bike (minus the 2 weeks worth of stuff I had packed on the back end), as I was able to lift it to get my foot out.  I stood up and tried to lift the bike, but I was in a good 3 inches of sand.  My good friend Eric walked over to me and helped me pick the bike up and get it stable.  Come to find out I hit the one 15 foot patch of deep sand that was on this better route and it got the best of me again!!  Oh well, chalk it up to more experience (and to the fact that I won't be riding in sand anytime soon on street tires)  LOL

I think I got the 2nd crash on my GoPro, so I will post the video as soon as I can get it uploaded. 

I got back to the road to meet up with the rest of the group and we rode about 2 miles down the highway to the restaurant.  When we got there, I realized how sore I was from this last fall.  I saw the first fall coming so I had time to react, but this one caught me off guard and I felt it.  I wasn't injured badly, just had deep bruising on the top of my left foot, which made shifting pretty awkward, but I was going to push through it and get back into the US.

After lunch we split into 2 groups.  One group was going up to Mike's Sky Ranch, which was mostly dirt roads, and the other group was heading for the border.  I was in the group that was heading back towards the border.  Let me tell you, I will be happy if I never have to drive through Ensenada again.  They are doing construction downtown, so they have their 6 lanes of traffic condensed down into 1 lane each way and there were stop signs every quarter of a mile.  This made traffic horrific and very awkward to navigate with a group of 10 motorcycles.  We tried lane splitting, but inevitably continued to get split up or have to wait in traffic.  It was definitely not the highlight of our trip.  lol

Once we finally made it through Ensenada we turned off to head towards Tecate and the vineyard that we were going to eat lunch at, Cafe Naranjas.  The wine country was absolutely stunning and the roads were amazing!  I had to catch myself multiple times just staring at the vineyards and wondering how this little piece of Mexico was hiding just miles away from where the majority of tourists visit.  Our lunch was phenomenal.  The portions were humongous and the food was incredibly seasoned and flavorful!  If you're in Baja, be sure to check out this hidden gem and this region... you'll be glad you did!

After lunch we headed for the border, with a quick stop at an overlook for some pictures.

Our group successfully crossed the border with only one guy getting his bike searched (John must have been a suspicious looking guy- lol).  We pulled over after passing through the border and waited for our group to all make it through and to take a break before the final stretch home.  This is where I said my goodbyes to my amazing new friends, as I'd be splitting off in just a mile to head east to continue on with my journey.  I couldn't help but shed a tear as I hugged them all and said goodbye, as I knew that might be the last time I would see some of my new friends in person.  These guys have a special place in my heart and I am so thankful that I got to meet and spend time with each and every one of them.  Once the goodbyes were all said, we all saddled up and rode our first mile back in the US together and then I split off to go East on Highway 94 while the rest of them went West.  The first thing I needed to do while on my own was to find a gas station, as they are few and far between.  Luckily there was a gas station just a few miles down the road, once I made it through some amazing twisty passages.  Boy did I have a big grin on my face while riding down through the mountains, though!

After fueling up, I continued on towards El Centro, CA to my hotel for the evening.  Once I made it down out of the mountains, I started experiencing the wind.  Holy moly were they not kidding with all of the wind advisory signs!  I got the snot knocked out of me and the poor bike was struggling to maintain a steady 67 mph pace, even though the speed limit was 70 mph.  I had semis and cars buzzing past me, and to be honest, it scared the crap out of me!  I battled the wind for the entire last 45 minutes of my ride and I rolled into the hotel parking lot right as the sun set behind the mountains.  I checked in to my room, unloaded my bike, bought some food from the hotel store (frozen lasagna, snickers ice cream bar, and a gatorade), and then I passed out after eating.

As I reflect back on my Baja trip, I remember the amazing riding, the wonderful friends, and the memories that I made with my new RX3.  I definitely have a love affair with this bike, as it was a rock throughout everything I put it through.  It is 100% my new favorite bike in my garage (sorry to my other 2 yamahas), but I am just absolutely in love with it!  I cannot wait for the many adventures to come on my amazing new RX3!!

Baja Trip: Day 4

Today is another short day, which is good because Justin, Joe, Abe, and Juddy are staying in Guerro Negro to help Justin get a nut to fix his front sprocket issue.  Even though his "fix" was incredible, it still needs to be fixed.  The rest of the group will head out towards our hotel in San Quintin.  We will be doing less than 300 miles today, but we will be riding the amazing twisty roads just south of Mama Espinosa's in El Rosario, which I could honestly ride every day.  They have some of the most spectacular twisties that I've ever ridden.

Our first rest stop of the day was at the intersection that splits off towards Bahia de Los Angelos.  We stopped here on our way down because it was scorching hot, but today was quite the opposite.  It stayed overcast all morning and was very chilly, which was a welcomed changed from the blazing hot temperatures we'd been riding in over the past few days.  We hung out for a bit and I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the local flora and fauna.  Desert plants are so neat looking!

After that stop, we headed on to Catavina and stopped at The Hotel Mision Catavina.  This is surely a diamond in the rough.  I wasn't able to see what the rooms looked like, but judging by the attention to detail they paid to the common areas that I saw, I would hope that the rooms would match that cleanliness.  Joe looked into us staying here, but the prices were almost double the prices we were paying for our other hotel rooms, which was ok with all of us.  Here are a few photos I snapped of the Hotel Mision Catavina.

We collectively made the decision to skip lunch in El Rosario and just ride straight on the our hotel in San Quintin, the Old Mill Hotel.  We were all looking forward to unloading the bikes and taking it easy, plus John said that there are some local shops in the area and I am DESPERATELY wanting to buy a Mexican blanket to bring back home.  I think that would be a great token from this trip.  Well, it turns out that we made an excellent decision in coming straight to the hotel, because it was 2-3 miles off of the paved road on a dirt road.  And little did we realize that a section of that dirt road was deep sand and silt.  We were all doing fine in the gravel and dirt, but as soon as we hit the sand I watched 3 guys in front of me going into pretty gnarly tank slappers and then crash and shortly thereafter I did the same thing.  4 of us in total crashed in the sand.  Come to find out, when you get into sand you are supposed to stay on the gas to keep the weight off the front wheel, but I did the exact opposite because I got scared and I rolled off the throttle, which caused the bike to take me on a wild ride for a few seconds.  I thought I captured it on my GoPro, but come to find out my SD card was full so the camera shut off before we hit the dirt road.  *sad face*  That would have been some awesome footage!!

I survived my crash and we got all of the bikes back up and I duck walked the bike through the rest of the sand and on to the gravel section.  Once we all got to the hotel we did damage inspections.  Greg tweaked his ankle pretty good, so they were checking to see if it was broken or just sprained.  "Luckily" it looks to be just sprained, but I hate it that anyone got hurt.  He was the only one that seemed to have injuries resulting from the crash.  I somehow ended up on top of the side of my bike, but I also had a death grip on my bars so I think it slung me over the side of the bike and I was just laying on top of it.  During my incredibly graceful mechanical bull ride, I tweaked the engine guard on the left hand side of the bike and it was pressed all the way up against my plastics.  Luckily, one of my new RX3 friends, John from Washington, found a piece of angle iron and, with the help of a "few" more guys, he was able to bend the engine guard back out and away from my plastics.  I have some scratches, but that adds character and will just be where I put my fancy Baja Inaugural Run sticker that CSC gave us all!  :-)

As I was unloading my bike, I noticed that there was a local artist set up near the ocean and when I looked I cheered out for joy as she was selling some blankets!!  I quickly unpacked my bike and then went over to inquire about a blanket.  Neither she nor her daughters spoke much English, but I spoke enough Spanish to get by.  They were asking for $10 for a blanket, so of course I bought myself a very colorful one to remember this trip by (or as one of the Johns put it "to pad my fall when I'm leaving this hotel tomorrow.)  *On a side note, let me tell you how glad I am to have made my new RX3 friends.  They are all such amazing guys and are so nice!  They have kept me smiling and laughing this entire trip!

After I bought my blanket, I met the guys for dinner at the hotel's restaurant and I ordered the molcajete de pescado, had a margarita, and the finished up with splitting some churros and fried ice cream with the guys.  A well earned, incredible meal! 

As the sun was starting to set, the other group still hadn't made it to the hotel and we were getting concerned that they might have issues in the sand on the way in if it was dark.  Luckily, right as the sun set we heard some engines coming up and there they were!  The better news was that none of them crashed in the sand and that Justin had his nut!  :-)  They went over to the restaurant and to watch the big fight with the rest of the group and I decided to come up to my room to catch up on my blogs and to get an early night of sleep.  My adrenaline has worn off now and I'm exhausted!

Plan for tomorrow is to catch breakfast at 7am and then roll out around 8.  It's a 4 hour drive up to the border of Tecate (per Google Maps) and then I will split off from the group once we cross the border and will head for my hotel, which is still tbd.  Greg gave me a great recommendation for a hotel, but I will see if it works out tomorrow once I'm back in the States.


Goodnight my friends!!