92Shawman's 1992 3VZ-E SR5 Pickup

Thanks! You're coming up on your deadline, btw...

Ahhh I had forgotten the name of that one. I knew there were three passes on that day but could only remember hancock and tincup. Little tippy on it! And I missed photographing the really tippy parts...

 

Recently returned from New England. Such beautiful fall colors and snow! A nice change from forever sunny and warm San Diego.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Maine Fall Colors by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

NH-Maine bridge by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Portsmouth waterfront by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Now planning for the other edge of the continent...Baja in a couple weeks!

 

After 24 years of living less than an hour from Mexico, I finally made it to Baja!

On the first day, we made it down to San Rosario and camped out towards the ocean. I went closer to the ocean and found some sketchy abandoned buildings and walls so we settled for a less good camp, but one we were comfortable with.

The cooler, but weirder site:
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Where we ended up:
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The sunrise the next morning was amazing!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We left camp by about 730am, bought our first Pemex gas, and were on our way! We hauled all the way down to San Ignacio, where we turned south southwest towards Scorpion Bay. The road was really nice at first, but then turned slow so we couldn't stop for photos. We made it to the town of San Juanico just after dark, checked out the camp spots, were led to tacos by the police, then headed back to camp for the night.

That was pretty much the tone for the trip...hauling ass between places and not as much photo-taking. I realized that we didn't get many photos of the trip down, so I started taking more on the way back up.

 

Camp at Scorpion Bay!
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

I don't think we had a bad sunrise the entire trip...
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Driving on the beach!
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Headed up to the actual point in search of surf. @deadhed61, his brother, and @at_olw surfed while I ate breakfast and tried my hand at surf photography. Some of them came out pretty good!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

After the surf we headed back to town, ate more tacos at a better taco place, and took a local surfer's advice to head down to Punta Conejo for our next stop.

Pretty little dirt road to the point:
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Made it to camp just in time for sunset!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Name that album cover:
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Was this a surf trip?

 

Another amazing sunrise!

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The full moon was so bright for the first few nights that we didn't even need to have headlamps when walking around. So crazy! Eventually it started showing up in our sunrise photos.

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Birds!

Some plover species...black bellied? Haven't looked at the book yet...
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Savannah Sparrow by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

As we were eating breakfast, we watched the other surfers...and watched them catch only a handful of short waves over the course of an hour and a half, so we decided not to wait in the water for hours while each of us caught one wave and headed out.

Made it down to Todos Santos. Beautiful beach with no one on it! Stopped and swam for a little bit in the super nice water.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And then...we made it to Cabo! That was one of the primary goals of the trip. And the tacos there were delicious.

Timmy and Chris were signed up to volunteer in a pit for the Baja 1000, and we only had three days to get back up to San Felipe after taking three days to get down to Cabo, so we couldn't spend much time in Cabo (although it was a city...so not really our thing, anyways). We headed back up toward La Paz and made camp at Tecolote beach near Balandra Bay. Our first night on the Sea of Cortez side of the peninsula!

 

Sorta. Surfing was a goal of the trip, but got sidelined in favor of the "Drive to Cabo" goal when we realized how much time it took to actually drive to the southern tip... And the main inspiration was Chris and Timmy volunteering for the pit in the race.

 

Beautiful sunrise in a scummy pond on the beach

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Headed north and I started taking photos of the route. The mountains on the Cortez side were amazing!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Frigatebird!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And we made it up to Punta Chivato at the northern end of Bahia de Concepcion after a lunch stop in Loreto with some amazing and huge burritos. Timmy and I each saved half of ours for dinner, but that probably screwed us over because we each felt it the next day...but they were so tasty!

 

Our spot on the beach:
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Not the most level, but it worked just fine.

Another lovely sunrise, with the added benefit of having a pod of dolphins swim by!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And boobies flying around!

Blue-footed Booby by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Turkey Vulture by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And after years of trying to see a Crested Caracara, I finally photographed one! We had one that was very lost up in Davis a few years ago and another in San Diego right at the border in San Ysidro, but both left the day before I went to find them.

Crested Caracara by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Classic Baja driving

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Made our way up towards San Felipe that day.

Huuuge Saguaro Cacti
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Stopped at a beach near Punta Rosarito to check out the surf/wind conditions. If they were good we would've spent the night at the point and gotten some surf in, but the wind was horribly strong and the waves really choppy. So we just ate lunch before moving on.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Lots of washed-up shells and urchin skeletons

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We got into forests of cacti, joshua trees, and boojum trees! Such crazy-looking things.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The southern stretch of Highway 5, folks:
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Made it back to the gulf, and the habitat turned into almost entirely Ocotillo plants. Such a change!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Found a camp near Bufeo and called it a night.

 

Our camp...below sea level...

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

More Boobies!

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Continued north to get to San Felipe and then the pit location.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Much different habitat and elevation when we got up to the pit! Between 3000 and 4000 feet.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

After getting there, we had a few hours of time to kill, so we analyzed various antennas, bs'd, and napped in preparation for the long night of race spotting.

 

At about 9 we headed a few miles up the course to a little slow point in the course where we could spot race numbers and radio them in to the pit so they were prepared for when one of the ones on our service schedule showed up. It got so cold that night! My thermometer showed down to 34F, I think. Coming from lows that were consistently above 55, it was quite the change!

The first trophy truck came through after 1am, so that was exciting.
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

I was taking photos of numbers because the bikes and atvs would go by too fast, but only a few came out actually good/interesting.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Lol... had to include this photo. They certainly woke us up!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Some godly navigator
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Weight savings, right?
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Some went over the rock
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We got pretty tired after spotting all night...anywhere became comfortable
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Our setup
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I moved to a hill above the squeeze for the last few for a different perspective

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And then a helicopter came through...
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The pit was going to close so we headed back and spotted each other so we didn't get run over by trophy trucks coming up behind us. Then we decided we were tired and wanted real beds, so we headed north to cross the border for home.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Took us two hours to cross at Mexicali but we made it through no problem. The guy in front of me wanted me to push him with my steel bumper...on his tailgate...when he had stalled. No way was I doing that so he turned to the vendors and they gave him a legit push and got the truck started again. Then, of course, he had to add water to his truck or something literally 50 feet from the inspection point...and then they stopped him when the dog smelled something and they wouldn't let him through. Of course that all happened at a point where we couldn't get around him. We were so tantalizingly close! Luckily it didn't add too much, it was just annoying and everything after that was smooth sailing.

Got home at 930pm or so and crashed. Was a good plan, too, so we could have Sunday to recover and unpack.

It was a long trip, but with good company and fun experiences along the way. Now that we've done the trip all the way to Cabo, we know all of the other places we want to check out along the way for the next trip down there!

 

Looks like another great trip! Especially watching Trophy trucks bomb through the place at night

 

Looks like a awesome Baja trip! Nice pictures as always. Thanks for sharing.

 

Great photos Kevin!!!

These are my favorite from that day!!

 

Thanks everyone!

Hahaha, yuup. And the photo of our camp with you trying to get warm, Timmy perched on his rock, and Corey passed out. Pretty much sums up the morning!

 

You'll have to look closely to see the dolphin off in the distance to the left, but this is the only photo I got of the dolphins hunting.... I was actually hoping you got luckier then me and snagged a better one!?!?!?!

 

Mine was still pretty distant. I thought yours would be better, haha!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

I never got one with the telephoto, unfortunately. They started moving too far off by the time I got it out.

 

Lol! damn! guess we'll have to go back to get the right shot!

I was just happy to get the fish jumping out of the water. I didn't know I caught the dolphin until a few days ago. haha