SCMC in Baja for New Year'

Cary and I rode to Baja over the holidays, ultimately to Bahia de los Angelesand met our friends Christine and Slim Jim ... So the San Francisco Motorcycle Club had three members in Baja in the early days of 2013 ...

There was a winter storm going on when we loaded up the bikes in the Lower Haight on 12/22/2012 ... it took us four days to ride south, finally crossing the border at Tecate on Christmas day ... we spent a couple of nights at the hotsprings at Guadalupe Canyon Oasis ...

We found some sand on the way from the low road to the Guadalupe Canyon Oasis ... the sand was actually fun after we picked Cary's bike up and was only a mile or two ...

After enjoying the oasis for a couple of days we headed south for San Felipe ...

We stayed at the palapas at Kiki's ... where we ran into the famous Coco, from Coco's Corner ...

Coco at Kiki's ... mandatory Coco ADV RR photo ... :D

From San Felipe we went to Gonzaga Bay and then on to Bahia de los Angeles ... on New Year's Eve Slim Jim and I rode up to Mission San Borja ...

The stone church was finished in 1801 by the Dominicans ... you can see the scar on the mesa above the church where the stone came from ... it was carried by hand to the building site ... by 1818 the mission was abandoned ...

We returned to BoLA and met the Ena Riders, who were also staying at Guillermo's ... fun guys from Japan who didn't speak any English, and we didn't speak any Japanese ... an issue until we all pulled out our cell phones and showed one another pics of our racebikes ...

Then it was all party hats, lobster dinners and fiesta dancing ...

The whole town turned out for the fiesta and the band played til 4 am ... fun.

We had big plans to hit the road and make it back to San Francisco by Thursday night ... I'd been elected President of the SFMC in my absence at the last meeting of the year, and felt it was important to be at our first meeting of 2013 ... Baja had other plans for me ...

More proof we don't take ourselves too seriously ... world's ugliest club jerseys ...

We said goodbye to Christine and Jim, and headed north ... the most poignant part of any Baja trip ...

They soon ran us down on the cold, windy run to Coco's Corner ...

So we had coffee, Coke and Tecate, and said good-bye to Christine and Jim again ... The plan was to get to San Felipe tonight, the Grapevine Wednesday night and San Francisco on Thursday ... how do you make God laugh? That's right, make a plan ...

We picked up a nail ... Twelve miles north of Gonzaga Bay ... we got the wheel off and the tube replaced, but in the cold I could not get the bead of the tire back onto the wheel ...

Frustration and failure ... sometimes, that's Baja for you ...

It is better to be lucky than smart ... only twelve miles from help, we strapped the wheel to my bike and Cary rode back to Gonzaga Bay where our hero Jim took it into his room and had it mounted in five minutes!

Man of the hour, Slim Jim, and our fixed flat ...

All this was going on while I contemplated the sunset, and maybe having to walk home because I'd ruined the tire butchering the bead trying to mount it ...

As I was getting ready to set up the tent (we'd sent Cary back as it would be less of a loss if banditos abducted me) she returned and we soon had the bikes rolling back to Gonzaga Bay, a good dinner and a warm motel room ...

Helpful friends close by, and another sunrise at Gonzaga Bay ... Priceless ...

Baja, one; our plans, zero! Cary and I rode to Tecate, Palmdale and finally Parkfield, CA making it home in the rain the following day ...