Baja Road Trip: The Final Days...

After a round of hugs and promises to meet up with our new “beach family” again, we left Playa Coyote and crossed the peninsula to the Pacific side. We had 5 days to reach San Diego where Hayden and Heather would be getting on a plane to fly straight home to Bellingham – a brilliant $68 solution Heather had come up with to save Hayden the agony of an extra 26 hours in his carseat.

Ninety percent of our time in Baja has been spent on the Sea of Cortez, and we’ve been longing to find some more special beach on the Pacific side, so we were stoked to hear about Laguna Ojo de Liebre, or Scammon’s Lagoon, the busiest whale birthing area on the entire Pacific seaboard.

Accessed through the salt evaporation ponds south of Guerrero Negro,

the beach at Scammon’s consists of low sands dunes, bird-filled estuaries, and a Joshua Tree-filled desert landscape that has a peacefulness about it all that won us over immediately. It’s a protected area, and campsites are spaced generously so two dozen-or-so sites span well over a mile of beach.

Still, the first night we were the only ones there, and we filled our time birding on the beach with binoculars and a field guide (Whimbrels and Marbled Godwits are ubiquitous), turning the binocs toward the lagoon’s south side to see, at any given moment, a dramatic display of gray whales spouting, spy-hopping and leaping so huge splashes erupted out from under them, and chasing a tireless Hayden through the dunes as he crawled and belly-slid over the sand through fits of laughter. Needless to say, we were smitten with the place, and vowed a longer stay next time.

Next we set out for a surf beach we’d discovered back in ’99, Santa Rosalillita – just a few hours to the north. Miles of dunes stretch to the south of this perfect right-hand break, and miles of tide-pools, near-shore islands and sea caves stretch to the north. It is a surfing, paddling, hiking, snorkeling, and-on-and-on-playground of the highest order, and we were immediately transfixed. For all its charm, there’s no shortage of heavy wind and blowing sand, and for two days we relied on the “don’t bite all the way down” rule to avoid grit-grind in our teeth.

When the tide is out on this beach, it’s WAY out, leaving a perfectly groomed, flat, hard-packed runway that Hayden just couldn’t get enough of.

We played kickball for hours. And when we pulled out two days later, we vowed to spend the better part of a week there next time as well.

Our date to get back to the States was upon us, and we cruised north for the border. We always enter and exit Baja at the Tecate border crossing, Tijuana’s infinitely less frightening, less crowded, and in fact downright pleasant sister-crossing a few clicks to the east. It fed us into the desert wilderness about 45 minutes out of El Cajon, where we holed up at a Best Western that first night for hot showers, a carpeted floor for Hayden to crawl around on, and close proximity to several dozen stores and restaurants.

While on the web one morning in Baja, Heather had brilliantly discovered an option for her and Hayden to skip the 26-hour drive back to Bellingham, and booked a $68 plane ticket that would take them both from San Diego, non-stop, right into Bellingham. We had only to kill the early Sunday hours basking on a beach until I could drop them off at the airport at 4:30 p.m., then I’d “dirt-bag” my way home with the van. Easy enough…

We drove through San Diego straight for the water, and hung a right when we saw a sign that read “Beach Access.” Pulling up to a security guard stand, I told the guard “We’re looking for the classic ‘San Diego Beach!’”
“This is it,” he said. “Free parking, too!” Yahoo… this was going to be easy.

With 23 feet of sea kayaks sticking out the stern of our van, I always back-in park to keep our boats from getting crushed by a passing truck. I’d just shifted into park when the guard came roaring up in his golf cart… “No back-in parking!” he said.

What the hell?

“You’ll be ticketed unless you turn your van around.” I pointed out the 8 feet or so of protruding kayak, and how it would seriously interfere with the flow of traffic in his parking lot. He wasn’t buying it, and it was with a twinge of sadness that Heather and I looked at each other with the realization that, “We’re not in Baja anymore.”

In the next few hours, our first full afternoon in the U.S. included such “re-entry” follies as:
o Hiking unsuccessfully for over a half mile in search of a simple bathroom on our “classic San Diego beach” only to have to eventually load back into the van and drive to find one;
o Finding a parking ticket on our windshield for parking in the boat launch area with our excessively long load of kayaks, (the ticket indicates, “Vehicle is without required trailer for this parking area.”)
o Collecting a photo montage of half a dozen different “NO” signs followed by such restricted activities as:
o “Launching or beaching vessels of any kind” (on the beach, 100 feet from a boat ramp)
o “Practicing golf” (???)
o “Smoking” (on the “public” beach – the one without bathrooms!)

Nevermind, though. We ultimately survived re-entry, Heather and Hayden made it home safely on the plane, and I pulled in yesterday morning without a hitch (after making it out of San Diego). The rejuvenating, empowering experiences we had in Baja outweigh the quirks of re-entry a million times over. And as we get back in the groove of life in Bellingham, gear up for this next race season, and plan some closer-to-home adventure trips this summer, our feelings can be summarized in three short words: “Stoked on Life!”

~In the Spirit of Compassion and Adventure~

Heather, Brandon and Hayden