Day 1
With all of the last-minute mods complete on my truck, I started gathering my camping gear. I was about to mount up an Eezi-Awn 1400 that we had at work when Mario from Adventure Trailers asked if I wanted to test out a new roof top tent on the market: La Hussarde from NaitUp of France. When in the stowed position it resembled a Thule cargo box. One interesting feature was a small area for storing sleeping bags & pillows, which was accessible even with the tent closed. So we mounted it up to the rack on my truck. Another important piece of gear was the seatbelt harness for my dog. I secured around his chest & shoulders like a regular dog harness, but had a loop on the back for a seatbelt to pass through. It allowed him enough room to move around some in the seat, but safely buckled in.
I had originally wanted to start driving south the evening of December 21st after finishing work, but reconsidered since I didn’t want to be driving alone at night, and tired. So I ended up leaving town the next morning around 10am. I didn’t have any set agenda for my time in Baja except for meeting up with a friend in La Paz one of the last days of December. She would be riding her motorcycle solo around mainland Mexico, then taking the ferry from Mazatlan over to La Paz. So my drive south would be pretty open & flexible. The drive from Prescott, Arizona to Potrero, California that first day took about 7 hours. It was rainy & cloudy about 75% of the time, so I was definitely looking forward to some sunshine on the beaches of Baja. On the drive out, I practiced shooting video with the GoPro Hero camera which I had only used a few times prior. I tried mounting it on a few places around my truck, so that hopefully I would get some good footage later on in the trip.
I had a moment of dejavu when heading up the mountain pass on Interstate 8 getting close to Highway 94. The fog thickened and the rain got worse, but this time driving in the Tacoma it was nowhere near how bad it was a year earlier on the motorcycle when I got into camp that evening in the rain & sleet, hands & face frozen. This year the visibility was so bad at one point during the fog that I could only see about 25 feet in front of me, slowing my forward progress tremendously. I must have seen about 8-10 Border Patrol vehicles along that stretch of 94 to the Potrero campground, and it made for a rather eerie scene given the weather conditions. I arrived to camp just after dark, and was one of maybe 3 vehicles. There is an excellent state park there which makes for a great launching point into Baja, being less than 30 minutes away from the border crossing at Tecate. Since it was dark, cold and raining when I got to camp, I didn’t bother to set up the stove & cook dinner, so water & a granola bar it would be for dinner. Thankfully the tent was super easy to deploy (30 seconds), so I didn’t get very wet. And my dog Carter knew the drill on how to be carried up the ladder from many previous trips camping with an RTT. We heard quite a few coyotes howling nearby that night, so I’m sure my dog felt safe being up high and not in a ground tent!
click ‘Next’ below for Day 2
