Mulege Mission – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Joe Berk

The New Year hits tonight. The years keep rolling by and it’s time for my 2024 resolutions. I’ve made a few, and with your indulgence, I’ll share them here.

I’m going to continue to hold my tongue (and my keyboard) on all things political. I’ve never seen anyone read a social media post or a blog or listen to someone with an opposing viewpoint and suddenly exclaim, “ah, now I understand…of course you’re right, and I was wrong all along…” Nope, the era of intelligent political discourse ended in the 1960s with the Vietnam War protests. Back then, and now, everyone is convinced their opinion is the only true path. I’m never going to call anyone ever again a leftwing idiot or a rightwing idiot, partly because of this resolution and partly because I hate being redundant.

I’m going to stop getting upset with people at the gym tying up machines while screwing around on their cell phones. Nope, you can sit on a machine and text to your heart’s content. I’ll just move on to another piece of equipment. Someday, though, when you’re standing in front of the Pearly Gates, you’ll have to answer. And I’ll be there. Just in case there are any questions.

I’m going to lose weight. The answer is to use that calorie tracker on my cell phone and exercise. Really. This time I mean it. I want to be skinny like Gresh.

I’m going to cook more, but in line with the resolution above I’ll eat less. I do a great barbequed salmon, a marvelous Italian meat sauce, delicious stuffed shells, a wonderful chili, incredible stuffed peppers, a great wild pork sausage and mushrooms casserole, tasty chicken tostadas, and a few others. I want to try making my own chile rellenos this year and find at least three more dishes to add to my repertoire.

I’m going to sell a few guns. I own too many to enjoy and more than a few that I don’t shoot. It’s time to convert these investments into cash and let others have some fun.

I’m going to ride my motorcycle and my bicycle more. I’ve slowed down on my riding quite a bit in the last three years. Part of it is the pandemic…law enforcement on our public roads has dropped to nearly nothing, and there are too many people driving like maniacs out there…speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, and screwing around on their cell phones. I’ve been hit by cars twice in my life while on two wheels (once on a motorcycle and once on a bicycle), and I don’t care to add a third bone-breaking event to my resume. But I haven’t been riding enough and I want to get out and ride. Get my knees in the breeze. You know the feeling.

It’s time to put more pork on the table. I’m going to do at least two hunts in 2024. One will be a varmint hunt for coyotes in Arizona with Baja John; the other will be a pig hunt with my 6.5 Creedmoor (location to be determined). If you’re a vegetarian or fundamentally opposed to hunting, you have my permission to skip any blogs I write about these events.

I’m not going to buy any more watches. I came across Segal’s Law last year, which holds that a man with a watch knows what time it is, but a man with many watches is never sure. I’m the guy who’s never sure, raised to an exponent.

I’m going to do Baja again, most likely in March so I can see the whales, eat a chile relleno in San Ignacio, and visit Javier at the La Casitas in Mulegé. I think Gresh wants to go, too. Maybe we’ll get our other ExNotes writers in on the action. You’ll read all about it here on ExNotes.

I’m retiring, for real this time. I’ll still write for the ExNotes blog and Motorcycle Classics magazine (I enjoy writing for both and I never viewed either as work), but I’m done with everything else. It’s time.

There you go…my 2024 resolutions. How about yours?

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CSC 150 Mustang replicas parked in front of Mulege’s Las Casitas Hotel. Yep, we rode down there on 150cc bikes!

I have several places I like to stay in Baja, and one of those is the Las Casitas Hotel in Mulege. (Mulege is pronounced Mool-a-hay, with the accent on the “hay” syllable; it’s not mule-lidge as I sometimes hear gringos say.) I could give you directions and an address for Las Casitas, but it’s really not necessary. Mulege is a small town along Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway and the Las Casitas Hotel is easy to find. Just take a left into town under the arch as you’re traveling south on the Transpeninsular (the main, and in many cases only, road through Baja), head into town, and sort of bear right when you come to a fork entering this interesting little village.

Looking into Mulege from Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway.

My good buddy Javier is the hotelier at Las Casitas. He’s a guy about my age, we became friends as soon as we met, and he’s just a plain old good guy. You know what I’m talking about. Sometimes you meet somebody and you like them immediately, and for me, Javier is a guy like that. That photo you see above with the Heroica Mulege arch? It was erected to commemorate the actions of a small band of Bajaenos who held off a large group of invading seaborne soldiers. I was telling that story at dinner in the Las Casitas one night and I couldn’t remember who the invaders were. “It was you, the Americans,” Javier reminded me, and we all had a good laugh.

Las Casitas has a bar and a restaurant, and if you’re traveling with a group, Javier has no problem setting up a world class meal to keep the gang happy. I’ve had seafood dinners, chile rellenos (my favorite Mexican dish), and more. Javier does a great breakfast, too, and the coffee is superb. The real treat, though, is the fresh-squeezed orange juice. It’s worth riding the 700 miles south just that alone.

A dinner in the Las Casitas on one of the CSC Motorcycles rides.

Chile rellenos, as prepped by Javier and his crew. Wow, were they ever great!

Las Casitas has a tropical feel to it, and that’s not surprising as Mulege is damn near in the tropics (the Tropic of Cancer, the northern edge of what officially constitutes the tropics, is just a few miles further down the down from Mulege). The hotel rooms are arranged in two rows with an enclosed courtyard, and Javier’s okay with parking the bikes in the courtyard at night just outside the courtroom. It’s really not necessary as there’s little crime in Baja (and on more than one occasion, infused with sufficient amounts of 100% blue agave Tequila and the inevitable accompany bottles of Negra Modelo, I’ve left my motorcycle parked on the street with no problems). But it’s a nice touch to be able to bring the bikes into the courtyard.

In the Las Casitas courtyard with the bikes. Javier is the second guy in from the left.

The little town of Mulege is an oasis along the Rio Mulege, and it’s one of Baja’s date-farming centers. It would be a crime against nature to not stop at Mulege’s ancient mission, 1700s-era church still in daily use.

The Mulege Mission. It’s one of a small group of 300-year-old missions dotting the Baja peninsula.

Inside the Mulege Mission. It’s still on active duty as a working church.

Date groves along the Rio Mulege, as viewed from an observation platform at the Mulege Mission.

Writing this blog on this fine Friday morning, I am realizing I need to get my knees in the Baja breeze again. Maybe that feeling will pass, and maybe it won’t. We’ll see.

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