Baja 01 _ Our Baja Motorcycle Vacation Starts Now

So this is a wilderness area in southern California , near the town of Brega Springs to the west of the Sultan Sea and it's a huge , huge , huge area .

The state park here is larger than the size of Rhode Island .

There are a lot of dirt roads , a lot of four by four roads to explore down here .

I've been here a couple of times and this is an area that I still have a lot more exploring to do in .

But I really enjoy it particularly this time of year when it's , the temperatures are really beautiful and there's just lots of exploring .

And one of the things I like the most about it here is that there is a ton of dispersed camping .

You can basically just go out and camp dispersed in the desert around here just about anywhere .

So the road in and out of here is pretty wide , flat , sandy road .

It's not too bad today , actually , it's pretty nice .

The sand is really compacted .

And so if you don't have a lot of sand riding experience , I think these are the kind of roads that you want to go out and practice on because they're not overwhelming .

But if you don't have a lot of experience , you know , you'll definitely , you'll get some and you'll feel like you're riding in the sand , but without being overwhelmed by the deep sand .

Some of the bigger challenges getting in and out of Sheep Canyon are the river crossing or really the creek crossing .

Depending on the time of the year , there could be more or less water in that creek .

There we go .

Yeah , we just stop here for a second and take a pause and enjoy this .

So , we're out here in an , right now , we're heading into Sheep Canyon .

We're going to go spend the night in the desert and cook a good meal and then get back on the road tomorrow and we're hoping that we can spend a week or two riding around the west here and maybe a little further south .

It remains to be determined how far we'll get .

But nonetheless , we've got a little bit of time carved out for this kind of adventure and here we are , this is the perfect time of year to be in the desert .

Like the temperatures are fabulous .

What would you say ?

Like mid sixties , low seventies at the height of the day ?

It's just gorgeous .

It is .

There is no better time to be rambling around out here and it's a fabulous ride .

Yeah , I'm actually working up a sweat today .

Riding on these back roads .

We'll get into our camp well , before sundown and we should be able to , to cook a good meal .

We've got some good food with us .

Should be getting up into Sheep's Canyon pretty soon .

Oh , that was quite to fall .

I'm out here looking for some extra wood .

It said no wood gathering was allowed back there .

Oh , hey , sweet , here we go .

We got a big nice pile of cut split wood .

That's some nice hard wood too .

This is gonna be a good campfire tonight .

There's no campfire ring .

So we don't want to camp in this area because we're not supposed to burn fires right on the ground .

So the campsite came equipped with these two picnic tables so we could invite like 30 of our closest friends over for dinner if they happen to be out here .

And I just set up this great new tent .

It's lovely .

Like two poles .

No fuss .

I love that .

And it only takes up half of a pannier as opposed to the other two person tent we have that takes up an entire one of my panniers .

So good purchase all around tent .

It's a two person tent and we didn't have a good two person tent , believe it or not .

I have one but it's 20 years old .

I bought it for a trip to Iceland in 2001 and I still have that tent , but it's getting a little , a little bit worn out .

So we got this good new tent here and we're going to try it out for the first time tonight .

We've got an awesome fire pit .

Sterling has a pile of wood that he scored from another campsite and all in all .

I think it's gonna be a lovely evening .

This is my first blow up mattress of my entire life and it came with this bag .

So you're supposed to like , gather up the air in the bag and then like squish it .

It's a very high tech .

We picked up a , a rib eye steak that we're going to be cooking tonight .

And in order to keep it cold on the way out here , we bought some frozen vegetables and so I took the frozen vegetables , put it right next to the rib eye steak here and wrapped it all up .

So it kept everything really nice and cold .

So the meat is good .

We've got some peas and carrots .

We're going to put into our , into our dinner tonight and we've got some cold sake .

Any time you can drink cold sake out in the desert is a good day .

In my opinion , let's just have a taste first .

I don't know how committed I am .

Give her , give her a try .

Hey , cheers , honey .

Over the lips .

Past the gums .

Look out .

Stomach here .

She gums .

Do you have to smell it first ?

Well , he probably should .

You know , we don't know what we're getting into .

It's tasty .

I'm on the fence .

Ok .

I'll work on this and until you come back for another one , I'll let you know if I like it or not .

When I finish this couple .

It's called me .

It's a really great way to make your kindling for your fire .

These are super fun .

We found these noodles at the little grocery store in Bre Springs and they're just like big fat , fully cooked Udon noodles .

So we'll be able to do these in the pot with some sauce .

And we got this fun looking Korean barbecue sauce .

I really love these packets because once it's done then you don't have a big jar or like anything to carry out with .

You just wrap this up and put them in your trash bag and easy peasy on the way home .

The peas and carrots .

We'll Sprinkle those in , um , the steak we can do on the grill .

Slice that up .

And we're just gonna have like a really yummy Korean steak barbecue over U noodles .

So it's a little bit of a Pan Asian dinner this evening .

Oh , yeah , warmed up is the way to go .

It's so much better .

That way it kills like the alcohol asters and it brings out the sweetness .

It makes it really yummy hardwood makes such a difference .

Oh , yeah .

That's done .

Chill with its juices for a little bit .

Oh , that's lovely .

Isn't that nice ?

Oh , perfection .

You gotta taste it to make sure it's good .

And this is a really good steak .

Oh , the sauce is yummy .

We woke up in Sheep Canyon this morning and it's been a beautiful morning .

It's going to be a good day of riding .

We're going to head out of here .

It's only about six or seven miles or so on the dirt road .

And then pavement will be in the town of Bego Springs where we can stack up , get a cup of coffee , maybe some lunch and supply some more supplies for tonight , wherever we may end up tonight .

But , uh , Eva is packing up the rest of camp here and we'll get the bikes loaded up and get back on the road .

Yeah , I always love when you have had a system for a while and you just do the same thing over and over and the things all go in the places when your system is brand new or you have a new bike or new luggage or a new piece of kit .

Like , you never quite know where to put it or what to do with it .

But like , once you've done it dozens of times , like you're just like , oh , yeah , this goes through here and that goes there and that buckle goes to that .

And I love that .

It's also really important that any compression straps that you use , that they go through something like you can send them down all day .

But somehow , unless they actually go through a loop or a strap or AD ring or something like that .

Somehow these can get out .

Panniers are 35 liters .

These are five liters .

So I've got a total of 45 liters and I like to keep my Hydro flasks in the back because they fit right here .

I have my cold water ready to go and drink .

And I also like that .

It has this built into the lid because then I can just use these buckles here to keep that secure and it's not going to fall out .

Ok .

Oh , ok .

You can come down , they're gonna tip over as long as no one gets hurt and bikes don't get broken .

Everything's ok .

We just pick ourselves up and we carry on and try to support each other along the way .

That was the hard part .

So this part here is pretty easy .

Look at that .

She's so far ahead of me .

Now , I don't even see her .

She probably wants to get as far away from the camera as possible .

There , she is going to come up to a little creek crossing here .

Well , honey , you're gonna have to put the camera down and help us .

Like I'm gonna get my boots all wet .

We're just outside of town now in the southern area where the metal sculptures are out in the desert and we're just scoping this area out to see if it would be a possible boon docking site .

I see a lot of people out here .

I'm not sure what the land status is here though , to be honest .

Well , this is our campsite .

We're here at the Anz Bego State Park .

This is a busy campground .

It's very well developed , well established .

They have toilets and showers and we just opted to come to this campground because they have the charcoal barbecue grills here and fire pits .

It's a developed campground .

But , you know , sometimes that's just the way it works out .

So that's where we're at tonight .

I'm glad we're in camp tonight and I'm looking forward to tomorrow because tomorrow will be another day .

We've got the barbecue grill .

We're going to cook up some salmon and then get back on the road tomorrow .

Oh , yeah .

That is ready to cook , for sure .

Oh , those are getting so good .

Oh , yeah .

That's perfect .

How is it ?

Is it perfect ?

The reason why we can do this is because we were so close to the grocery store because of the fresh salmon .

But we could have easily gotten a piece of frozen salmon and done exactly the same thing .

Way out in the back country .

I like these tongs .

The hills are civilized .

Oh , the salmon is perfect .

Mm .

Oh , my God .

That's him .

It's so perfect .

It's perfectly done .

You know , sometimes it's really good just to get off the bike and go for a walk , stretch your legs , get some exercise .

And that's what I'm out here doing today .

I'm hiking this trail .

That goes from the state park campground up to this palm tree oasis .

And as you can see , it's really , really beautiful up here .

There's a creek flowing down the mountains here with crystal clear cold water and all these palms around me in this little canyon .

It's , it's really quite an enjoyable early morning to be up here .

It's the true desert oasis up here .

Just beautiful .

I'm gonna go meet up with Eva .

She got us a hotel room because she has to work today .

So we're going to be in a hotel tonight and I'm going to go find out where she's at .

So this road right now is not too difficult .

It is kind of sandy .

There's some spots that are a little bit deeper than others , but generally speaking , I feel pretty good .

I feel pretty confident on this bike going through here .

I'm sure there's definitely a lot more harder roads in this desert out here for a late afternoon ride for just an hour or two .

This has been really relaxing and pretty enjoyable .

I ride out here on these kinds of roads by myself like I'm doing right now .

I generally take it pretty easy because I'm all alone and therefore I have tried to carry an extra margin of safety and don't get too reckless or too heavy on the throttle .

Just take it nice and easy and relax .

Enjoy the ride , the scenery .

Wow .

How neat is this look at this , this is the view from Fonts Point .

Looking back to the west towards Bego Springs .

It was really not too bad getting out here .

Like I said , it's only about three or four miles .

It's a sandy wash .

So that is definitely something to bear in mind if you do come out here .

But if you just want a little taste of Anza Bego State Park , getting off road riding around in some of this kind of country , get used to the sand , whatever bike you may be riding and , and get out to a really cool overlook of vista of these uh these bad lands down here .

So yeah , check it out if you're in this area .

And that's one of the things that I really like to do more and more as I've grown older and my motorcycle travels is , is go back to particular areas that I've really enjoyed and , and just get to peel away one layer of the onion at a time and explore a region in , in more depth and get to know it a little better .

And that's kind of what I feel like with this Enzo Borrego area .

Now that I've been here a few times , I'm getting to learn some of the details about this area , whether it's the , the roads that I like to ride on or the history or the culture .

Um It's a , it's a pretty vast area in all levels .

I mean , physically and geographically , it's vast over 500,000 acres here of , of area that you can camp in and ride in .

And then you add to that the cultural history here with the , the native Americans and the geology , ecology , et cetera .

It's pretty , pretty , uh , spectacular place and pretty fortunate to be able to come here .

It's only a day or so away from where I live .

Um , but it's late in the afternoon right now , Eve is back at the hotel taking care of some , some office work .

Let's get back on the road and head out of Fonts Point and back into Bego Springs .

There we go back at the pavement .

What she doing ?

Oh , I just fill up my water bottle .

Typical scene inside the motorcyclists motel room here .

We've got all of our gear spread out everywhere , or I should say all of Eva's gear because mine is already on the bike and packed and ready to go .

Starling said he wasn't in any hurry this morning .

And so I took that to be a literal statement .

You could not be in a hurry .

I'm not in a hurry .

I'm just , that's why I'm filming with my go pro .

You just busting my chaps took a nice shower and it looks like another gorgeous day in southern California .

All right .

Let's get this show on the road to see what today brings .

Well , typical BMW GS fashions .

We're parked outside of a Starbucks .

Now , Eva has to go into the Verizon Cell store and get her phone replaced because she's been mounting it on the front of her bike here .

And it's a known issue that the vibrations will cause the camera to go bad and basically ruins the camera's ability to take pictures .

So it's always a pain in the ass .

That's why one of the big reasons why I use a GPS because I don't want to mount my phone on the handlebars and have it get , get damaged .

Plus I just like the functionality of the GPS unit , the dedicated navigation system and then I can keep my phone in my pocket where it's safe .

Pull that out when I need to use it .

This road is called Coral Canyon and it's in southern California to the east of San Diego .

We need to get an adventure pass .

Apparently this National Forest in the way that it's managed requires an adventure pass as it's called when we got there .

Honey , these are our two official adventure passes allowing us to be in here for the evening .

We've got two choices , either bobcat meadows or Coral Canyon , Coral Canyon , campground fire restrictions .

We just can't have a fire .

That's the important thing to note tonight .

No fire figure .

It's a good time to get out the journal and jot down a few ideas from the day .

What am I drinking ?

Pink champagne , pink champagne on ice .

And then maybe I was subliminally thinking of Hotel California .

Because we're in California .

Is it possible ?

So right now I'm filming this with my second gopro .

I just bought another one .

So now I actually have two Go Pros .

And I'm also to be honest , just uh more interested in trying it out as kind of a vlogging camera .

They're just so simple and easy to use .

Um I definitely have my mirror this camera that I'll be breaking out for more of those beautiful scenic cinematic shots in the campground and things like that .

But for just your average run and gun during the day , quick , easy tell the story in a vlog format .

We're gonna try some gopro out for a while , try something different , see how that works .

That's one of the fun things about being a filmmaker and doing this is that it's always different .

You can always try out new things , new techniques , see how they work .

And I've been doing that for a long , long time .

So tonight , we stopped into the grocery store as we were getting set up to head out here and I picked up a head of broccoli and some mushrooms and some pearled cous co .

This is super yummy big giant cous cous nugget of goodness and some roasted red pepper garlic chicken sausage .

So I think this is going to make a lovely little dinner tonight .

So we'll saute all this stuff up first and then we'll set it aside spices , broccoli and mushrooms so that we feel healthy and then sausage and cous cous bone up .

It's hard to believe .

But we've been on the road for a week already .

And now with any luck , we're gonna take you guys on a journey to one of my favorite places in the world .

The next part of this trip is gonna be going to Baja .

And I tell you this trip has been really , really hard to get away from work to get away from the business .

We both just have so much going on .

But we carved this time out to go down to Baja and come hell or high water .

That's what we're doing .

We're gonna go down there .

We don't know how long we're gonna be down there if we're gonna be able to go as long as we want to .

But we're going , that's the long and short of it .

We should be crossing the border tomorrow .