Located 297 miles south of the US border, Cataviña makes for a good spot to stop after your first day’s push into Baja. You might also try to make it all the way to Guerrero Negro, but that’s another 140 miles. When traveling in Baja through the mountains and all the small towns from Ensenada to El Rosario, you can’t grind out big miles like you can on a US freeway. And, trust me on this, you don’t want to travel at night in Baja. A 300-mile day in Baja when you’re starting at the US border is a good day, and that puts you smack dab in Cataviña.
Cataviña’s location on the Baja peninsula.It’s a full day’s drive from TJ to Cataviña.
What’s cool about Cataviña is that it is in one of Baja’s boulder fields, as depicted in the big picture at the top of this blog. Those are just flat wild…the stark landscape, the giant boulders, the Cardon and Cirio cacti…it’s all impressive. The boulders were formed by wind erosion, which is kind of amazing. I didn’t believe that at first, but I checked with one of my Cal Poly colleagues in the Geology Department (I’m a retired university professor) and he confirmed it for me. Wow.
That’s a Cirio plant in front (the long thin one), and a giant Cardon cactus behind it, all in the boulder fields of Cataviña.
There’s only one decent hotel in Cataviña and it’s the Hotel Mision Cataviña. It’s gone through a number of name changes in the 30+ years I’ve been traveling in Baja (the La Pinta, the Desert Inn, and maybe one or two others), but the hotel has stayed the same and that’s a good thing. The Hotel Mision Cataviña has a good restaurant and bar. It also has a nice swimming pool, and that pool has been just what the doctor ordered for me and my friends on more than a few occasions riding Mexico Highway 1 through Baja.
Parked in front of the Hotel Mision Cataviña. I’ve toured Baja on all kinds of bikes. The blue Triumph Tiger was my ride on this trip.My friends and I once rode all the way to Cabo and back on 150cc CSC Motorcycles Mustang replicas. You can read about that adventure here. We spent the night in Cataviña.
At around $80 a night it’s a bit pricier than most other Baja hotels, but it’s still inexpensive by US standards. There’s really nothing else in the Cataviña area for either hotels or restaurants other than a concrete-floored hotel on the other side of the highway. We had to stay in that other hotel once when the Hotel Mision Cataviña was full. That was more than 20 years ago and my wife still mentions it when she gets mad at me. Take my advice on this: The Hotel Mision Cataviña is where you want to stay.
One the Hotel Mision Cataviña’s coutyards. It’s a classy place.
I enjoy eating in the Hotel Mision Cataviña’s restaurant even if I’m just passing through. If you let the staff know you’re in a hurry, they’ll get you in and out. If you don’t, things kind of run on a Cataviña pace. That’s cool if you’re staying for the night; it’s not if you’re trying to make Guerrero Negro. I’ve done that, but it is a very long day. The restaurant and bar have kind of an arched brick roof in the dining room. It’s fun. As you might imagine, they are well stocked with Tequila and Tecate.
Joe Gresh enjoying chicken tacos during a brief stop at the Hotel Mision Cataviña restaurant.They look good, don’t they?
If you’re traveling with a bunch of guys and you don’t mind sleeping 8 or 9 to a room, the Hotel Mision Cataviña built a separate just to the north of the main hotel and it has a dormitory style room. I don’t know what it costs, but it’s got to be (on a per head basis) cheaper than one of the double rooms. The rooms are nice. The place is clean, it’s air conditioned, and its comfortable. The only issue with the new building is that the hotel runs a diesel generator all night, and if you stay in the new building, it might keep you up.
Fuel is less of a concern today than it used to be. We used to buy bottled gasoline from enterprising guys by the side of the road, but there’s a convenience store just across Highway 1 from the hotel now with gas pumps, so I think getting gasolina today is less of an issue.
If you would like to know more about the Hotel Mision Cataviña, you can do so here.
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Shortly before the pandemic began, Uncle Joe and yours truly borrowed two Royal Enfields from Royal Enfield North America and toured Baja. One was the new 650 Interceptor, and I liked it so much I bought one when I came home. The other was a 500cc Bullet, and, well, you might want to read the blogs to understand how we felt about it. Truth be told, the Bullet was probably better than we perceived it to be (that was because the dealer did a half-assed job prepping it for us). Nah, that’s not fair (it implies the dealer did half of what he should have). But there’s no expression for 10%-assed, and even that might be giving the dealer too much credit. But I don’t want to spoil the story for you. You can get to the Enfield adventures here.
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I miss a lot of things about our pre-COVID days, and one is the foreign travel. I love heading to exotic cities all over the world, and one at the top of my list is Bangkok. I’ve been there a few times on assorted secret missions. These photos are from a blog I wrote for CSC Motorcycles a few years ago, and I thought I would share them here.
Soi Cowboy (“soi” sort of means street) is a famous Bangkok road that played a role in the movie Hangover II and another movie named, well, Soi Cowboy (a movie I haven’t seen, although I’ll look for it). It’s sort of an entertainment district with a lot of clubs. There were a lot of photo ops centered on two of my interests – food and two-wheeled transportation. With that as an intro, here we go.
These guys in orange vests are motorcycle taxi dudes. They carve paths through traffic as if it wasn’t there. It’s an amazing thing to see.One of the many food carts and clubs on Soi Cowboy.Another food cart. I had my Nikon D3300 (a relatively small but incredibly capable DSLR) on its “auto ISO” setting, which basically means it runs the ISO up as high as it thinks it needs to be to get a good shot. Some of these photos were at ISO 12,800.Scooters and small-displacement motorcycles dominate Bangkok. Here are a few scooters lined up on Soi Cowboy.More Thai street food.A look down Asoke (that’s the street name) from a pedestrian overpass. Soi Cowboy is just off of Asoke.The Bangkok grand prix.Good buddy Kevin and friend. Rain? Not a problem!A Thai SUV.A Thai taxi scooter in action. Scenes like this are common throughout Bangkok.
One more thing, and that’s a video I shot just off Soi Cowboy showing the scooter action in vibrant downtown Bangkok. It sure was fun.
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Man, it was cold. It was the coldest we would be on our 18-day, 5000-mile ride around the western United States. Yellowstone National Park was our destination and we wanted to arrive early. Baja John was doing the navigating and the trip planning, and we were leaving early that morning out of Cody, Wyoming, at 5:00 a.m. to beat the tourist traffic in Yellowstone. I had an electric vest; our Chinese and Colombian guests did not. I knew they had to be hurting. I had my vest dialed all the way up and I was. Did I mention it was cold?
So, about that big photo above: That’s Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. There are something like 10 waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve only seen the one above. That means I have at least nine reasons to return.
Back to the story. I did mention it was cold riding into Yellowstone that morning, didn’t I?
Following Baja John into Yellowstone. That trip was 6 years ago, and I still get cold looking at this photo.Another shot entering Yellowstone National Park from the east. That’s Baja John in front of me…we were dressed for the cold, but I think our guests found it to be a little colder than the weather they are used to in southern China.
The trip was a wild one…18 days on the road with a dozen guys from China, two from Colombia, and all on free motorcycles provided by Zongshen via CSC Motorcycles. CSC was the importer, I was the go-between spanning the CSC/Zongshen interface (and two continents), and while we were arranging the initial shipment Zongshen asked if I had any ideas to promote the bikes in the US. Wow, did I ever!
In Zongshen’s main offices, with key Zongshen execs viewing photos from my rides in the US and Baja. Sue grabbed this photo and it’s one of my favorites. Without realizing it, I was selling those guys on giving us 15 motorcycles to ride around the US. This looks like a staged photo. It’s not.
That ride became the Western America Adventure Tour, and it was a hoot. I mean, think about: Every angry and ignorant asshole on the Internet was condemning Chinese bikes and here we were, with 15 of the things just arrived in America, setting off on a 5,000 mile ride from So Cal to Sturgis, west across the US to the Pacific Ocean, and then riding the Pacific coast back to So Cal. On that epic ride we didn’t have a single breakdown and that was giving the Internet trolls meltdowns. It was a grand adventure.
But I digress. Back to Yellowstone. On our ride, we hit every National Park along the way, and Yellowstone was one of the best. Prior to that ride, I’d never been to Yellowstone and I had always wanted to see it. And for good reason…it is (in my opinion) the quintessential National Park. Yellowstone is surreal, with sulfur-laden steams and ponds spewing forth, majestic views, waterfalls, bison, bears, deer, elk, wolves, geysers, and more. It was a first for me. I was a Yellowstone green bean.
When we entered Yellowstone, we arrived so early the gates were unmanned and we entered for free. But it had been a long, cold ride in from Cody and we were nearly out of gas. My fuel light was blinking as we entered the park and I didn’t know for sure if there would be gas in Yellowstone. John felt confident there would be, and he was right. I saw the Sinclair sign up ahead, but before we got there, we had a close encounter of the bison kind. We were cruising along at about 30 mph, and all of a sudden I noticed this locomotive next to me. I was too slow to realize what it was until I was alongside, but our chase vehicle driver John (we had two Johns and one Juan on this ride) grabbed this photo…I had passed within 10 feet of this monster!
Just as I went past my big buff buddy above, he exhaled. In the frigid Yellowstone air, fog came out of his nostrils. It was like riding alongside a steam locomotive.
Here’s another cool shot in Yellowstone: The Continental Divide. We had crossed it several times on the ride to Yellowstone already, but I think this is the first time I stopped for a photo.
Sometimes the photos almost take themselves.
One of the many attractions in Yellowstone is Old Faithful. Here’s a shot of the geyser in its full glory.
It was one of those motorcycle rides that was so much fun it made me feel a little guilty. (That’s a Jewish thing; maybe some of our Catholic readers will understand it, too.) I felt bad because Sue wasn’t enjoying the trip with me. So I fixed that. A few years later Sue and I hopped in the Subie, pointed the car north, and a few days later I rolled into Yellowstone National Park again (this time with my wife). Naturally, I grabbed a few more photos.
Peering into the valley carved by the Yellowstone River.Ah, the bison. This was really cool stuff.Click. Click. Click.A photo of Sue in the Subie photographing a bison.Wow.
I’m not a geologist, but geology seems to me to be a pretty interesting subject and there sure are a bunch of geological things in Yellowstone. Like the bubbling and burbling pits and pools you most definitely do not want to fall into.
You get the idea. In doing a bit of Internet research on Yellowstone, I came across this Yellowstone map. It is a good way to get the lay of the land up there in Wyoming, but visiting Yellowstone National Park would be even better.
You can learn a little bit more about Yellowstone as a destination (and how to get there) by reading an article I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine. It’s a cool place and I’ve never met anyone who felt like visiting Yellowstone was anything other than a marvelous experience. Trust me on this: Yellowstone National Park belongs on your bucket list.
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One more thing…if you’d like to learn more about the RX3 motorcycle and our 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, you should do two things: Buy yourself a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM, and watch Joe Gresh’s video:
You guys remember good buddy Sergeant Zuo from the Dajiu and Arjiu ride across China (Dajiu and Arjiu are me and Joe Gresh, as christened by our Chinese riding buddies).
Zuo hiking the Ma Ya Snow Mountain in China at an altitude of 4,500 meters.
Zuo is a great guy and he and I correspond regularly. He wrote a guest blog, and here it is (first in Chinese, and then followed by an English translation).
What, hey…you don’t speak Mandarin? Well okay, then…here you go!
Night Rain and Autumn Breeze 2021
Remnant Lotus Feixue Leiyin Temple Dihua Sese Dinosaur Bay
I think I should go around, lead the horse out of the trough, the weather is very cloudy and the temperature is very low. Very often, loneliness becomes a good friend without even a single speaker. It’s not like someone said, “Lonely, only geniuses and lunatics have it. You are lonely at best.” I don’t know if I am lonely or alone. In short, I think I should go to Hanauma Bay Geopark for a dream, and Leiyin Temple for the memory of distant places.
It seems that this is the first time since the new junior three (Seccoron RX3s) started to run this far, more than 1,000 kilometers. Leaving the city, the sky seems to be fluttering. After all, it’s a heavy snow festival today. Oh, the sky is slowly getting cold. I can feel the coldness through the helmet at a corner. The coldest time is here, I’m really I’m afraid, it seems to be extremely cold this year. The temperature has dropped. There are not many cars on the road.
The new small three has a good power reserve and easy handling performance. It feels that the low temperature grip performance of Tenson tires is better than that of Zhengxin tires. The auto-sensing headlights are very powerful when entering the tunnel. After running-in to 1000 kilometers, it is time to run at high speed. After the speed reaches 120km/h, it is still not pulled up. After all, the mileage is only 1000 kilometers. It is better to bear with the top speed. People are so selfish, and their cars are always cautious. When I gave the manufacturer a test ride, the stalls turned red.
In the cold weather, the Daxiong Hall also hung a thick curtain, whether the Bodhisattva is afraid of the cold, there is no one in the clean Leiyin Temple, the incense is still, the solemnity is still, there is still a slight pain in the forehead when I kowtow again, in fact, the Bodhisattva Forget it, gods, no one can save anyone, knocking one’s head and chanting Buddha’s name is to eliminate one’s greed, hatred, infatuation, jealousy, and slowness. Obviously knowing that there is no bodhisattva. If you want to have a bodhisattva, you will also go to the temple for the sake of the health of the Buddha. If you have to give a reasonable explanation for refuge, it is to give your own soul. Find a home, let loneliness no longer be lonely, let wandering no longer wander, let Qiannian can travel through time and space, maybe this is the Bodhisattva, maybe this is the Buddha, but I really like the quietness of the temple, and I like to be with that statue. The Bodhisattva looks at each other and likes to hear the sound of chanting Buddha.
The remnant lotus in the pond of Hanauma Bay shows its sadness as always. There are just a few snowflakes falling, and the rustling flowers. The swaying wind is more of an unspeakable past. My friend said He likes the rustling Dihua, which is the background of life, just like the vast and desolate western environment.
Standing and riding slowly on the trail, surrounded by ponds, remnants of lotus, Dihua… the environment, you can quietly hear your heartbeat, the soft engine sound still startled the unknown big bird, and stopped Xin Xiaosan by the railroad. Looking at the tunnel from a distance, for so many years, still for the youth and recklessness of the past.
—- 2021.12.07 Lanzhou Snow Festival
If you’d like to know more about our ride across China (and it was a great one) you can read the story in Riding China: Running with the Cult of the Zong. Don’t wait for the movie (although there have been a couple of YouTubes on our grand adventure riding through the Ancient Kingdom, which you can view below).
Highway 395 closed yesterday just north of Bridgeport due to snow. I know that road well. I’ve ridden it a bunch of times and it’s a favorite, but wow, the weather can turn on a dime up there. Once you leave Bishop heading north, the elevation goes up abruptly, and in the next 30 miles or so it can go from cold to damn cold mighty quickly.
Highway 395 in warmer times. As I recall, temperatures were in the triple digits when I shot this photo around Manzanar.
I once rode my KLR 650 up to Lake Tahoe on a press junket and the weather was okay. Moderate, not too cold, nice riding weather on the roads in and around Tahoe. The ride home was something else, though. Tahoe is pretty high in elevation and I dropped maybe two or three thousand feet coming down the mountain to Highway 395. That’s when the cold really set in. I had good gear on, but no electric vest, and the cold was brutal. I stopped at the Bridgeport Inn maybe a hundred miles down the road and went in for breakfast. Well, that’s not entirely true. I went in to warm up, and I wanted to just sit there for a couple of hours sipping coffee after breakfast. It worked, but it took a while.
The KLR 650 on Highway 395, with the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the background. It was cold going north; it was way colder coming home. This is an interesting photo – you can see the moon peeking out just above the mountains.
You know, the funny thing is that another hundred miles or so south when I rolled through Adelanto on the 395, it was so hot I took most of that gear off. The temperature had gone from near freezing on the 395 north of Bridgeport to nearly 100 degrees down in the desert.
The KLR 650 was a good road bike and a great traveling companion. I rode it all over Baja and through a lot of the American Southwest. It’s gone down the road now (I sold it to a friend of a friend who may still have it). Good fuel economy, it could touch 100 mph on a good day, and the thing was just comfortable. The ergonomics were perfect for me. It was was one of the great ones.
I remember the bad weather rides way better than any of the ones with clear skies and moderate temperatures. That ride back from Tahoe will stay with me for a long time.
Baja is a motorcycling paradise and I have a bunch of favorite destinations there. Seven of them, to be precise, although truth be told, I like everything in Baja except for Tijuana and maybe La Paz and Loreto. That said, my favorites are:
Tecate
San Quintin
Cataviña
Guerrero Negro
San Ignacio
Santa Rosalia
Concepcion Bay
Here’s where they are on a map:
So what’s so great about these places? Read on, my friends.
Tecate
Tecate is the gateway to the middle of northern Baja, and it’s the easiest point of entry. Both Tijuana and Mexicali are too big and too complicated, and the Mexican Customs guys are too official in those bigger cities. Tecate is a friendly place. The last time I picked up a tourist visa in Tecate, the Customs officer tried to sell me salsa he and his family made as a side gig. That’s what the place is like. I love it.
If you’re into fine dining (not as in expensive dining, but just great food), it’s hard to go wrong anywhere in Baja. Tecate has some of the best, from street taco vendors to Malinalli’s to Amore’s. I could spend a week just in Tecate. It’s that good.
Uncle Joe Gresh with street tacos in Tecate. Wow, were they ever good.The buffet at Malinalli’s is regional, awesome, and inexpensive. It’s a hidden treasure.Dos Joes’ motos on an Enfield expedition that took us through Tecate.The Tecate brewery dominate the Tecate skyline and is visible from just about anywhere in town. A can of ice cold Tecate with sea salt around the rim and a bit of lime juice…life doesn’t get any better.
San Quintin
San Quintin is 186.4 miles south of the border on Baja’s Pacific coast. It’s usually a quiet ag town that has a lot of things going for it, including interesting hotels, good food, and Bahia San Quintin. The Old Mill hotel and its associated restaurant, Eucalipto, is my personal favorite. The hotel is about 4 miles west of the Transpeninsular Highway, and what used to be a harrowing soft sand ride to it is now easy peasy…the road is paved and riding there is no longer a test of your soft sand riding skills. The Eucalipto restaurant is second to none.
What could be better than an ice cold Tecate overlooking Bahia San Quintin after a day’s riding in Baja? We once saw a California gray whale from this very spot.
A man, a motorcycle, and Mexico….the sign on the Transpenisular Highway pointing toward Bahia San Quintin and the Old Mill Hotel. The bike? That’s the 650cc Royal Enfield, perfect for riding Baja. But then just about any motorcycle is perfect for riding Baja.Bahia San Quintin at dawn. It’s an awesome spot.Uncle Joe enjoying breakfast in the Old Mill’s Eucalipto. It is an exquisite restaurant.
You’ll notice at the top of my scribblings about San Quintin I said it is usually a quiet town. The one exception for us was when there was a labor riot and we were caught in it. The Mexican infantryman about 80 miles north of San Quintin told me the road was closed, but his English matched my Spanish (neither are worth a caca), and without me understanding what I was riding into, he let me proceed. It’s not an experience I would care to repeat. But it’s the only event of its type I ever experienced in Old Mexico, and I’d go back in a heartbeat.
The Cataviña Boulder Fields
Ah, Cataviña. Rolling down the Transpeninsular Highway, about 15 miles before you hit the wide spot in the road that is Cataviña you enter the boulder fields. Other-worldly is not too strong a description, and if the place wasn’t so far south of the border it would probably be used more often by Hollywood in visits to other planets. The boulders are nearly white, they are huge, and the juxtaposition of their bulk with the bright blue sky punctuated by Cardon cactus.
Pastel geology. The area really is as beautiful as the photos depict it to be.
I get a funny feeling every time I enter this part of Baja. Not funny as in bad, but funny as in I feel like I’m where I belong. I once rolled through this region in the early morning hours with my daughter and she told me “you know, it’s weird, Dad. I feel like I’m home.” She understood (as in completely understood) the magic that is Baja.
I like the area and its stark scenery so much that one of my photos became the cover of Moto Baja! I grabbed that shot from the saddle at about 30 mph on a CSC 150 Mustang replica, which I subsequently rode all the way down to Cabo San Lucas (that story is here).
You should buy a copy or three. They make great gifts.
Every time I roll through Cataviña with other riders, the dinner conversation invariably turns to how the boulders formed. When I was teaching at Cal Poly Pomona, I asked one of my colleagues in the Geology Department. He know the area as soon as I mentioned it. The answer? Wind erosion.
Guerrero Negro
The Black Warrior. The town is named after a ship that went down just off its coast. It’s a salt mining town exactly halfway down the peninsula, and it’s your ticket in for whale watching and the best fish tacos in Baja (and that’s saying something). I’ve had a lot of great times in Guerrero Negro. It’s about 500 miles south of the border. You can see the giant steel eagle marking the 28th Parallel (the line separating Baja from Baja Sur) a good 20 miles out, and from there, it’s a right turn for the three mile ride west into town. Malarrimo’s is the best known hotel and whale watching tour, but there are several are they are all equally good. It you can’t get a room at Malarrimo’s, try the Hotel Don Gus.
CSC RX3 motorcycles at the Hotel Don Gus. We used to do annual Baja tours with CSC…those were fun times and great trips, and introduced a lot of folks to the beauty of Baja.What it’s all about…getting up close and personal with the California gray whales. They are in town from January through March.Tony, taco chef extraordinaire. You might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.It’s worth the 500-miles trek to Guerrero Negro just to savor Tony’s fish tacos. You might think I’m exaggerating. But like I said above…I’m not.Man does not live by fish tacos alone, so for breakfast or dinner, it’s either the restaurant at Malaririmo’s or the San Remedio, a block north of the main drag into town. You won’t be disappointed at either.Sue’s photo of a Guerrero Negro osprey enjoying some sushi.
After you leave Guerrero Negro and continue south, the Transpeninsular Highway turns southeast to take you diagonally across the Baja peninsula. About 70 miles down the road (which is about half the distance to the eastern shores of Baja and the Sea of Cortez along Mexico Highway 1) you’ll see the turn for San Ignacio. It’s another one of Baja’s gems.
San Ignacio
San Ignacio is an oasis in the middle of the desert that forms much of Baja. The Jesuits introduced date farming to the region hundreds of years ago, and it’s still here in a big way. Leave Guerrero Negro, head southeast on Mexico Highway 1, and 70 miles later you run into a Mexican Army checkpoint, a series of switchbacks through a lava field, and when you see the date palms, turn right.
An oasis is usually formed by a volcano, and when a volcano is done discussing politics, it forms a lake. That’s the San Ignacio volcano and its lake, visible on the left as you ride into town.The San Ignacio church, built as a mission in the 1700s, dominates the center of San Ignacio. It’s a beautiful spot, one of the most photogenic in all of Baja.Another photo of the San Ignacio Mission. You’ll want to grab some photos in San Ignacio.Dates? Nope, not on that trip, but dates are one of the things San Ignacio is known for. I’ll bet they are delicious.
San Ignacio has a town square that’s right out of central casting, there’s a little restaurant that serves the best chile rellenos in all of Mexico (I’m not exaggerating), and the place just has a laid back, relaxing feel about it.
Santa Rosalia
You know, this town is another one of Baja’s best kept secrets. As you travel south on Highway 1, San Ignacio is the first town you encounter after traveling diagonally across the peninsula. Folks dismiss it because it’s an industrial town, but they do so in ignorance. There’s a lot of cool stuff in this place.
The ride into Santa Rosalia a few years ago with novelist Simon Gandolfi, Arlene Battishill, J Brandon, John Welker, and yours truly. That’s a dead fish I’m holding. We did a round trip to Cabo San Lucas on 150cc Mustang replicas, just to say that we could.
One of the things that’s unique about Santa Rosalia is the all-wooden architecture. The town was originally built by a French mining company (Boleo) and they built it they way they did in France. Like the Hotel Frances, which sits high on a mesa overlooking the town and the Sea of Cortez. I love staying there.
The Hotel Frances. It used to be a brothel.
There’s a cool mining musuem a block or two away from the Frances, and it’s worth a visit, too.
The mining museum in Santa Rosalia.
There are many cool things in Santa Rosalia, and one of the best is the Georg Eiffel church. It was designed by the same guy guy who did the Eiffel town.
Santa Rosalia’s church. It’s an unexpected delight. And I’m not even Catholic.Inside Santa Rosalia’s Georg Eiffel church.Stained glass. Photos ops abound in Santa Rosalia.
I’ve heard people dismiss Santa Rosalia as a gritty, industrial place not worth a stop. Trust me on this: They’re wrong. It’s one of my favorite Baja spots.
Bahía Concepción
Concepción Bay is easily the most scenic spot in Baja. It’s just south of Mulege (another delightful little town, and the subject of an upcoming ExNotes blog). Bahía Concepción runs for maybe 20 miles along the eastern edge of the Baja peninsula. I’ve seen whales from the highway while riding along its edge, the beaches are magnificent, and the photo ops just don’t stop. The contrast between the mountains and Cardon cactus on one side and the pelicans diving into bright green water is view from the saddle you won’t soon forget.
On one of many rides along Bahía Concepción, good buddy Joe Lee and yours truly rode our Triumph Triples. This is a favorite shot of mine.Besides “wow,” what can I say?World-famous novelist and motorcycle adventurer Simon Gandolfi andn yours truly on 150cc scooters. We were on our way back from Cabo San Lucas when we stopped for this Bahía Concepción photo. Hardtail 150cc scooters. Up and down the length of Baja. I think about that ride every time I see a GS parked at a Starbuck’s.
So there you have it: My take on seven favorite spots in Baja? How about you? Do you have any favorite Baja destinations? Let us know here in the comments sction!
You’ve probably seen the movie Ferrari versus Ford a few years ago about Enzo Ferrari, Henry Ford II, Carrol Shelby, and the 24 hours of Le Mans. As flicks go, it was decent show. Ford GTs are cool and so are Ferraris, made even more so by their stint in the police show a few years ago where a Ferrari Testarossa shared top billing with the two actors who played the good guys. That show had one of the greatest intro scenes ever:
I didn’t know why that show and the Miami Vice sound track was playing in my mind repeatedly for the last day or so, and then it hit me: Joe Gresh posted an old passport photo on Facebook. Take a look and tell me what you think:
Gresh is a Jeep man, though, through and through. Like me, I think he’d have a hard time even getting into a Ferrari. Hence the title of this blog.
A bit about the Ferraris on Miami Vice. It’s shades of Long Way Around all over again, you know, when those two dilettantes who call themselves adventure riders wanted to borrow a couple of KTMs and do a show about going around the world on motorcycles. KTM wouldn’t cough up the bikes, so BMW stepped in with their GS ADV bikes, and Starbuck’s parking lots haven’t been the same since.
Something similar happened on Miami Vice. Its producer asked Ferrari to give them two Testarossas and the answer was no. So they had two kit cars made up using Corvettes as the base car and Enzo went nuts. He sued the kit car company, but in the end, he coughed up the two real Ferraris so Don Johnson could be authentic. Not as authentic as Joe Gresh in a Jeep, but more than he would have been otherwise.
One more thing about Miami Vice: A lot of big name actors got their start on that show. Take a look:
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All good things must come to an end, I suppose, and Newcomb’s may be one of those things. I just read that this iconic roadhouse on what may be the most famous moto road in So Cal is on the block. The article also said that Newcomb’s has been shut down for months…another casualty of the pandemic. Ah, let’s hope the right somebody buys it and brings it back to its former splendor.
Truth be told, it was the ride, and not the Newcomb’s restaurant that made Angeles Crest Highway something special. The food was okay and the service was always outstanding, but the real attraction was the Newcomb’s parking lot and the ride to get there. Ferraris, MV Augustas, vintage bikes, Jay Leno…you just never knew what you’d see out there. That was always worth the ride.
Hiya, Kenny!
I wrote a Destinations piece for Motorcycle Classics magazine on the Angeles Crest Highway and Newcomb’s Ranch a few years ago. I’ve ridden the Crest many times, and I don’t think I’ve ever ridden by Newcomb’s without stopping.
You can approach Newcomb’s from either end of the Angeles Crest Highway. The Crest, or California Highway 2, can be picked up off the 210 freeway just north of Glendale (which is just north of Los Angeles), or you can get on it in Wrightwood at the northeastern end on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s a delightful ride.
I have a lot of stories about rides on the Crest. I led a bunch of CSC Motorcycles company rides up there, I’ve ridden it a lot with my geezer moto buddies, I’ve seen more than a few crashes (by others) up there, and I even went ice racing up there on a Triumph Daytona once. Good buddy Bryan (who is fast approaching geezerdom) and I started out from the Wrightwood end one winter day and we soon noticed we were the only two people on the road. Then it got cold. Then it started snowing. Then we realized the bikes were moving around a bit more than usual. We were riding on ice. And we faced that age-old question: Do we admit defeat and turn around, or press ahead in the belief warmer weather lies ahead and things will get better?
Being redblooded American engineers (read that any way you want), Bryan and yours truly pressed ahead. We stopped at Newcomb’s, and we were the only ones in the parking. We went inside to warm up and the folks who worked there were astonished. How did you get here? On our motorcycles, we said. But the road’s closed, they said. Wow.
Newcomb’s. An American and So Cal icon. Let’s hope it comes back to life soon.
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Sleepless in Seattle? Nah. How about awake in Ankara?
I’ve had a few secret missions to Turkey and I love the place. When I fly in to Ankara, I usually arrive at 2:30 a.m. over there. That would be 4:30 p.m. back in So Cal, so I’m still usually wide awake after flying through the night (it’s 12 hours to Istanbul, and another hour to the capital). Hence the title of this blog.
Maybe I was a Turk in a prior life. But then I’ve sort of always felt I was Mexican in a prior life, too. I love Mexico (especially Baja), but here’s something you probably didn’t know: I love Turkey, too. And it’s weird…as far as I know, there’s nobody in the Berk family tree from Turkey. But my last name, with it’s unusual spelling (B-E-R-K) is a common last name in Turkey. When I’m over there and I pay with a credit card, folks frequently ask if I’m a Turk. Berk the Turk. Go figure.
Ankara is one of my favorite cities in Turkey, and like the rest of the country, it’s a photography Nirvana. I’ll share a few of my favorite Ankara spots in upcoming blogs, and I thought to get the ball rolling I’d share a few from the airport ride into downtown.
I’ll have a few more in future blogs…the Ataturk Museum, Old Ankara, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, and more.
Turkey would be my dream ride. They sell Zongshens over there, and the 250cc RX3 would be perfect for a ride across Turkey, I think. Someday.