Bday Tow Job!

29848 kms on the dial
 Ahh the luxuries of living out of a tent, today I write this from the inside of an abandoned fish processing plant that sits down a long sandy trail on the cusp of the ocean in, well, pretty much the middle of nowhere. I had a nice little spot set up right on the beach last night and a huge windstorm picked up today and after forty five minutes of holding onto the tarp and tent so they wouldn’t blow away I finally dropped the tent poles, took out the spare tires from the inside and rolled the rest into a big ball of mats, clothes, pots and a stove. Strapped it to the back of the bike and scrambled through the sand to this fish shack and set up shop. From bliss to blast in a moments notice!

 I had a birthday in the last week; I prefer to have them out of the country. For one I usually have a better shot at remembering them and two it gives me the chance to make sure I’ve got a trip lined up for the start of winter each year :)
 It was great; I got all kinds of things. First thing was a super sweet hammock from a guy who was also out on a birthday bike trip. He worked at a correctional facility in the USA, broke up with the wife no so long ago and used to be in the army. He had a lot of steam to blow off to say the least.
 Next up I was invited to dinner at a Canadian guys house, Al Perrot (spelling?), who lived just up the way. If I got my details straight he’s in his mid seventies, has raced in the Baja 1000 fourteen times on a dirt bike, as recently as the last few years. Rode a motorbike to Argentina from Canada, owned a Honda and Harley bike shop a various times and now “has a couple million in the bank”. He had me and a couple of his friends over for steak dinner. They pretty much all grew up on dirt bikes, I rode my first bike a few years ago and I was way outta my B.S. league. So I took to listening to some colorful stories of dirt bikes, x-wives and car / bike accidents. When your in your seventies you’ve got a lot of stories.
 Next I got to open a wee gift bag that had been given to me prior to departure, it had a smattering of sweet stuff including KLaiR and mines newest riding companion, Stan. Stan scored a killer spot on the handlebars with a green scarf. He’s into monkeying around so we’ve been getting on great.
 Lastly I got a tow job from a VW hippie van. My camping neighbors had me over the following night, a retired couple out for a tour from California. He was an interesting kat, was also in his seventies and had lived all over the planet, draft dodging, working in art, wineries, sailing and on and on. Kind of reminded me of myself at that age.
 

​  So the steady warning is to “never drive at night in Mexico”! I’ve done this now three times over the course of a decade or so and had problems exactly every time. The first time the road we were on wasn’t actually finished and we went flying off the end and into an embankment blasting through a bunch of sand and dirt. The next was on a highway heavily treed on both sides and we clipped something that eventually started moving on the floor of the van, we thought it was a snake and came to a screaming halt at a busy bus stop in a small town. We hopped out and started clearing everything outta the van to the bewilderment of the folks at the quite little bus stop. Turned out to be a big black bat we’d knocked out and was slowly coming back to life, everyone was surprised. Then most recently was on my 100ft drive home from the neighbors camp to mine on the bike. I was cruising the beach and I hit the break too soon in the sand then punched it and buried the bike up to the engine in sand. So I got a birthday tow job from the neighbors Craig & Rose in the VW hippie van first thing in the morning.
 Ahh never a lack of birthday gifts to remember.
 
 
30199 kms on the dial. Just before Baja Norte turns to Baja Sur, Mexico.

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