For the longest time, I’ve wanted to ride my motorcycle down to the tip of the Baja peninnsula. I’ve been up and down the California coast on the 1, the 101, and the I-5 (and a crapton of other general touring around), and Baja always seemed like a particularly rewarding, and challenging, mid-length tour.
I even tried to do it once, only to get rained on by the time I got down to San Diego, and to underestimate how long it would take to get down and back. I chickened out and stopped short, having covered only the southern part of US Route 1.
So when my sister laid out her plan to drive down and do some camping in Baja and back up the coast, my immediate response was, “In!” Meet in Baja, and make it down to the tip of the peninsula at Cabo San Lucas.
The plan overall: over three days of driving make it from my home in San Francisco down to the very tip of Baja Sur, and then turn around and ride back up slowly, enjoying the lovely white-sand beaches on the eastern coast of the peninsula.
Today was Day 1 of that ride, San Francisco to SoCal.
I’ve done this route a number of times for various other reasons, so it doesn’t hold much mystery for me any longer—while many folks extol US-1, I’m perfectly satisfied burning it down the I-5 as quickly as possible.
As expected, this was a particularly hot, dry, and dull ride all day. The California Central Valley is perhaps dryer and hotter now than it’s been in recent history; the product of a widespread and record setting drought.
I even had to dodge a tumbleweed today.
Trucks use this primarily for hauling things up and down the coast, so there’s plenty of traffic, and construction to boot. No fun to be had today on the ride, except for the sake of riding (fast) in and of itself. (And it should be said that the I-5 can certainly allow speed-demons to sate their palates.)
Tomorrow sees the entry into Mexico, and if I’m lucky, as far down the coast as El Rosario, or perhaps even Gurerro Negro.
We’ll see what time I get up.