10,000km from Minnesota to Cabo and Back in the Green Machine

[nbutze]

I have been meaning to post this for a while, but of course when we got back it was a whirlwind of catching up! We took an epic trip from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota to the bottom of Baja and back to Minnesota! just over 10,000 km.

The trip started out as being a run at the BajaXL Rally (officially we finished 5th, but they only scored the first 2 days because the race kinda got shut down by the government)(long story)(will tell you about it around a campfire somewhere)


G at home ready to go on the trip. Just got done with a full engine and suspension service, new king shocks, and all kinds of stuff.

ARB Compressor installed under the seat

Some last minute brake pads. Man am I happy we did that

This was the only test drive we did after having almost everything apart on this G. Just a quick climb over a frozen rough dirt pile.

The G is all loaded up! We were going to leave early Tuesday morning, but the energy was high and we hit the road after dinner and made it across North Dakota to Dickinson. (best to do this drive in the dark)

 

[nbutze]

And the trip begins! Next morning woke up early and made it to Bozeman for lunch at the Rockin R on Main Street.

Next was onto one of my favorite stretches of road in the world between Bozeman and WestYellowstone
Fun Fact.... my dad got a speeding ticket at this spot in 1989 going 142mph on his way home from picking up his new 911 Turbo in California. Paid the ticket on the spot and kept going. Oh have the times changed.

A couple cool picture spots around West Yellowstone

And we ended the day with an evening of luxury at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. I highly recommend staying there if you get the chance. What a cool place.

 

[nbutze]

Started off the next day with a quick hardware store run and feeling what would hoped to be the last snow we would see for a few weeks. It was -20F when we left home!

We had to make an obligatory stop and get the G wagon blessing from the master Bill Rader/Bill Rader Motorsports at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He was working on some pretty cool rigs!

Finally some sunshine


some good dashboard sandwiches!




We made it across the border and the first stop was the local hand wash in Tecate. $2.40 they washed the G inside, underside, outside! It was salty and needed it!

The boys at the carwash liked the stickers! They were keen to put them on their car's ASAP!

Got all signed in, numbers on, GPS Tracker powered up. Ready to meet the others in the gang!
Had a great first evening meeting some great people.

The Slow Baja "guy" was there of course with Tequila Fortaleza! Check out his podcast "SlowBaja" on iTunes. Really good stuff.

This would turn out to be the best night of socializing. Everyone was there, everyone was excited for the rally, maybe a little nervous and so ready to DO THIS!

Little did we know, this would be the last time we were ALL together.

 

[nbutze]

Well, now was the time for the BajaXL Rally to start. For those of you that haven't heard of this rally before it is a navigational rally from Los Angeles to Cabo and back to LA. This year because of COVID restrictions for crossing the border into the USA some European competitors would not have been allowed in the USA. This navigational rally has two categories. Racing and Touring. Of course... we went for the racing. You can learn more about the rally at www.bajaxl.org

The race is on!

One of the first checkpoints/tasks a team selfie up on the hill.

We found some remnants from the Baja 500

The first of the "dry lakes"

 

[nbutze]

We made it through all of the tasks and hit the highway right at dark. Now one of the most memorable moments of my life was about to happen. . .
We pulled off the highway to get to the campsite for the night.
There were 3 last checkpoints in a row. We had to keep our average speed at 81km/h and they were straight in line with each other. Easy peasy.

It is now pitch dark out. We have been on the trail all day. Racing through the desert.

Lesley says... "no no no you missed the track. There is a trail straight across this flat area to the checkpoints"

I didn't even think about where we were and what I had seen on the map earlier in the day... The Diablo Dry Lake. It had snowed a foot of snow 4 days before. Of course it melted and it was no longer a "dry lake" This is where you can make a really bad decision in a heartbeat....

Of course. I turned around and hit the trail. I see a couple of cars had driven down it. Looked like a good road/trail.

I am getting up to 81km/h and cruising along. This is when I started loosing speed. . . My lovely navigator reminds me: "You need to go faster! You need your average to be 81!!!"

I respond...
"I am trying to go faster, my foot is to the floor and we are slowing down"

This mud is like nothing I have EVER seen before. It is slinging. I am so scared to run the windshield wipers because it will turn into pure grease. I am going slower and slower. My foot is 100% into the floorboard with just the gas pedal in between...

Then I see the first truck's track that turned around. Now we are following a washed out trail with no fresh tracks. I feel like I am going too slow while the wheels are spinning too fast to take the sharp turn around.

Lesley is praying to the good lord even though we haven't been to church since confirmation...
I am really thinking that we are going to end up sleeping out here. Nobody around for miles and any racer with a half a brain cell left wasn't going to come out here...

I started to pull a broad U turn. Now we are no where near the road. It is softer and worst than before. My foot is still 100% into the pedal to the metal. My leg was actually cramping up from pushing so hard and the temperature gauge is getting close to the red.

This is it.

We are ALMOST to a stop, when I see these little islands of tumbleweed. I said in my head "either we are going to sleep here in this pile of bush, or we are going to get a little speed." Well... I dipped the front passenger tire over one edge of the tumbleweed and it brought the tires slightly above the mud and we got a little boost.

Then hit a pile with the left tires. A little faster.

Now I am just bouncing from bush pile to bush pile heading back towards the direction of the main road.
The G is getting some more speed and less load as the engine is now bouncing off the rev limiter.... The temp gauge is deep into the red now...

And there we are... The road. It is smooth sailing. We get up and out of the lake bed and thanked the good lord. Gave Gerry the G Wagon a couple slaps on the dash for a good time and let him idle his way down in temperature a bit. WOW.

We made it to camp and little did we know, we were one of the first race teams in. Quite a few touring teams, but racers were still out there.

We were booming with excitement and thrill when we got to camp. The G is not nearly as dirty as expected, but my wheels are inside the flairs. We waited until the following morning to clean the windscreen.

 

[nbutze]

Good Morning a solid 24*F. We came to Mexico to get away from the cold! It was a chilly first night of camping.

We whipped up some oatmeal and prepared to hit the road.

We found out at breakfast that the Diablo Lake claimed the night from a few competitors...
Some Hungarians got stuck out there and blew the radiator hose off their Ford Raptor. They were able to repair that and get un stuck (how I will never know) but in the midst of trying to get unstuck they ran out of gas out there.

Another team took their transmission out while getting stuck. They slept out there. Note... the photos in the daylight digging out are... the next day.


Here was our race sheet from day 1 as you can see some references from the types of tasks and things you must do. It is not just rolling into a checkpoint to collect and go. As the days went on, the challenges got tougher.

For example on day 2 we had to find this old (what I assume is) a sulfer mine. Inside one of the trenches was a number painted. We needed that number, so we had to get out and climb around until we found it.

Then run back to the truck and head to the next spot



The trails are rough. The day before we were in parts of the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 race course. The whoops are ridiculous. We totally under estimated them by not tying our stuff down as tight as we should have. Absolutely love the Front Runner Stratchets, but we found the limit of their elastic. . . The limit is Baja. You need real hard ratchet straps.

 

[nbutze]

Obligatory stop at CoCo's Corner.

You better sign the book!

 

[nwoodworth1390]

Rad adventure!

 

[Ace Brown]

Great adventure. I’m ready for more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[nbutze]

Day 3 of the race is on. We actually got to a little town close to the official campsite at about 19:00 and there was a sign in front of this cafe "best food in town" after bouncing around all day we surrendered and had a nice dinner and a couple of drinks. Slow Baja guy and some other racers showed up and it turned into a good time. (see tequila and beer photo above)

As we were finishing up. A Mexican fellow approached from the other side of the restaurant and identified himself (in Spanish) as the chief of police. He wanted to know who is the organizer of this rally, where the camp was, and how many cars were in the rally. Luckily I didn't speak much Spanish and the guys that did were crafty in their wording. It turns out these are pretty common questions for an official looking for a bribe. The guy was a little creepy and we were a little worried he would follow us out to the camp ground where all the cars were. Also... we may or may not have had enough tequila to make us sleepy and the $25 hotel room looked pretty good, the shower sounded amazing.

Next morning we went out to the campground and made breakfast. Then hit the trail


We finally see some water after 2 days in the desert.
We had to go to this fishing village and identify what these skeletons were. I think Dolphins?

How many blades are on the windmill? We asked the rancher and he didn't know, but luckily some other racers rolled up and I saw them hanging their phones out the window and I figured it out. None the less it was fun to talk to the rancher. He said nobody has been driving by since Covid. He was really out in the middle of no where and sadly I don't have a picture with him, but we had to keep rolling on.

 

[nbutze]

And now... you will see why this report is in the Expedition Report and not the Event Report... 3 of our 15 days on the road were part of the Baja XL Rally. The Rally is what got us down there, but now you will see what happened...

As we were blasting through the desert we got a text from my mother on the Garmin inReach. She was on facebook and saw all kinds of posts about a checkpoint where they were going to detain all of the people in the race and possibly impound vehicles because they had determined we were in an illegal street race. Well.... momma bear was worried about us down in wild Mexico and of course texted us only the worst of the worst info.

None the less we were out in the desert and we ripped off our rally race numbers.

As we rolled into the check point just North of San Ignacio we saw some of our friends! Stopped. and detained. $***!

So, as we had a foreign license plates we were pulled into the lot.

This little dude chain smoking cigarettes toting around his big rifle (I think an HK?) was keeping the Peace. I think he may have been nervous or maybe he smokes like that all the time. He was walking around yelling into his cell phone and sometimes at people.

Really the mood was pretty calm. Yeah, a little dude walking around with a big gun was a little scary to some Californians that obviously didn't have gun safety class in school. They made out that it was a little bit worse than it was. The guys didn't want any harm from us. Mexican officials are not as bad as you have heard. They want to keep drugs and the "narcos" out and the tourists in. Sure, sometimes they want a little taco money from you in exchange for not getting a speeding ticket, etc. but $5.00-$20.00 and you are on your way. I almost wish it was that simple in the USA. Or like the good ol days in Montana (dad's speeding ticket referenced in the beginning of this post)

So, no matter what you heard on the internet, the BajaXL Rally was very safe. Everyone had a COVID test before starting the race (all were negative) and everyone wore masks in the camp. The officials were very strict about it. The official start and finish and all announcements were made by CB Radio. So nobody had to leave their car ever when around the group of people. I absolutely applaud the organizers for doing everything they could to keep our people safe.

The Mexican officials want to keep their people safe. Mexico was and is open for tourism, but not organized events. The organizers of the BajaXL explained their case earlier in the week to an official in North Baja and was approved to hold the rally (I don't know, but I believe some money exchanged hands)(viva la Mexico) but South Baja is ran by Cabo money and our little off road event isn't going to fund what they want. . . (this is my theory only)(but it is an educated theory) So Baja South wasn't going to let this event happen on their watch. They wanted to make sure EVERYONE knew it too. . .

So, the little guy on the phone.... He was calling all the news reporters to get their butt's down here for a picture.

My wife is now about 4-5 Selzers in as we have been held up for 2+ hours... when we get the news.

All of the Race Cars are getting a police escort up to Guerrero Negro in North Baja. About a 3 hour trip. They had another check point further North where they got the rest of the racers.


Here is the picture the Mexican officials went through so much effort to get...


They wanted a picture of all the race cars getting turned around to head North to put in the news paper and tell all of the other race organizers what can happen if you don't pay the right people. It is true that the Baja XL didn't have a permit to have a race, but this isn't a race like the Baja 1000 this is a GeoCaching adventure that requires you to follow the laws. You will actually be deducted points if you break the speed limit!!!

None the less. The officials got their news stories

In English:

Authorities in Baja California Sur say no to 10-day Baja XL Rally

The annual off-road race is known as an “anything goes” event, with few restrictions. But in Baja California Sur, nothing goes this year.

mexiconewsdaily.com

And we even made it into another news story with the G. Here I thought the guy was just happy to see us and snap a picture. Turns out... he wasn't. They were watching us through every small town. You can't outrun the radio.... and for sure not the iPhone with 4g connectivity.

Link to the story in Spanish: https://www.elvigia.net/general/202...ArLHZ_Mfn7irk0Tkn2QpqbZpC_KZfrjgzsqjLWUD7M4Bw

 

[nbutze]

Well, the good news is that we followed the organizer's instructions and kept our mouth shut. When asked if we were racing we respectfully denied we were racing, rather we were touring. This is a bit of a white lie, but no matter how you look at it we were not racing at that point in time we had removed our stickers.

This is when the Baja XL ends and the Expedition begins.

We were allowed to head further South through the checkpoint while all of our Amigos were escorted 3 hours North.

We continued on. Onto some magnificent scenery. Our hearts were pumping as we feel like we just snuck into North Korea or some forbidden place.

We trucked on to the official campsite of the night on Bahia de Conception. When we got there it was pitch black and not a soul in sight. Just a few wild dogs. It was a little creepy and super windy. We still had a lot of energy, but no wifi or cell connection to check in with the rest of the teams. We hadn't heard anyone on CB or HAM in 3 hours and so we decided to continue on to the next town which was Loreto.

I punched in city center of Loreto and we would figure out from there.

Well at the City Center we found a hotel. The sign said "No Vacency" and we had now been on the road 14 hours... it was time to get a bed. Camping alone in a Mexican town is not something I would recommend and I asked the bar tender nicely and he checked with his boss. . . Turns out they had the Honeymoon sweet for $120. I couldn't give him the money fast enough. Even though I felt like a bit of a softy going to a hotel again tonight.

It was worth it.


They kept the bar open for us and while we were putting our stuff in the room they whipped up some amazing tacos for us. Sat down at our table and they were ready! This meal and 6 Margaritas (probably needed only 4) was a topping $12.50 and I tipped the kid $10 for staying late as we were the only people in the whole city center. He hung out with us and about fell over when I slipped him a $10


The little hotel had a gated parking lot right next to our room. We thanked Gerry for his safe ride today and called it a night.

I have blown a lot of pistons in my short time on earth, but never have I ever pushed a vehicle as hard as I did in these 3 days. The roads are the roughest you have ever seen and to keep up to those ford raptors you have got to hustle. Someone told us they saw all 4 wheels off the ground at one point when we passed them in the whoops.

We must thank the good King Shocks and the extra buffers keeping us from bottoming out. The ride was not very rough, but the clanging of all our stuff rolling around was painful.

So, the next morning we worked hard at strapping everything down better.

Do you spy a piece of Baja 500 Race Car?

 

[nbutze]

As the fine young lady at Loreto hotel makes us breakfast we are checking facebook, BajaXL race site and email.

Everyone is posting where they are, asking where everyone else is, and posting photos of their broken trucks.

I must say, those first 2 days were HARD on equipment. We saw many broken shock mounts, busted frames, then the Canadians who got their ram stuck out in that lake bed took out their transmission. I can't knock the organizers too bad because we all knew what we were getting into, but that lake bed should have been given a warning. I think it took too many people out of the rally real quick. Sadly this is when we realized we weren't going to see the rest of the group ever again. Some of our favorite people were still coming down. Some people were going home and here we were feasting on some huevoes.




So, as we are sitting there we notice that all of the GPX coordinates have been given to us for the Day 4 of the race. We swallow our coffee and decide... Lets do this!



It is a little bit scary as now we don't have the security of knowing someone we know is coming up the trail behind us. Now we are on our own in Baja and we have to make it work. This is what it is all about right?

So, the expedition to explore Baja at our own pace begins with a refill on diesel and water. Some snacks for the road.

 

[nbutze]

Alright, I have to go to work. More story telling later. Here are some pictures though.

 

[AbleGuy]

Wow, thx mucho!

This is a Great and Interesting story...and so far, this is one of the better documented and well shot expeditions appearing on here. During these pandemic times when so few folks have gotten the chance to get outside and explore, reading your experiences today was inspirational and an absolute delight.