Somewhere in Baja this morning (post written on February 6).
This is not me; in fact my first time out in three years was hardly successful last night; one prone ride and feeling pretty tired from being out of shape.
Had great swim with goggles this morning, water 73 degrees.
Meeting totally great people, Mexicans and gringos, all tuned into the natural world, especially the sea.
One of my most important rules of the road is to ask someone where’s a good place to eat. I asked guy in gas station in Ciudad Constitución, he thought for a minute, and said “Tacos Santana.” Easy to remember.
Sure enough, it was run by a sisterhood of strong competent friendly women. Was great to watch them work and interact with each other and customers.
My total bill for two delicious tacos de maiz al pastor, a large horchata (rice/almond drink), and a tootsie roll for desert, was under $7. I mean, it was a completely satisfactory dinner for some one who’s been sitting for four days.
In the USA, when I find myself in a nondescript, not obviously cool town, I ask where’s the best hamburger.
If I put up a good post, should I not post again for a while? I mean, I’ve got a shitpile of interesting photos stacking up. Also, I wonder if hashtags are worth the bother.
Today (Domingo), went with my good friend of 36 years Chilón and his amor, Carolina, to the very interesting town of El Triunfo for a surprise birthday party for his older son César. We had beef tacos and birthday cake under the shade of mesquite trees.
In the first photo, left to right: César’s brother Daniel, Chilón, me, and César.
I’ve known the boys since they were very young and have seen them turn into fine strong young men, much like my own boys, Will and Evan.
Many of the people here are mountain bikers and desert runners.
A few other shots around El Triunfo.
After the spectacular Cataviña desert, I spotted a lone figure in the distance. Holy shit! I’m whining about driving and here’s a cyclist braving the traffic and loneliness and inhospitable elements out in the middle of nowhere.
I pulled over and so did he and we bonded immediately. He was full of good humor.
Fujimoto Tatsuhiko had recently ridden the full length of Alaska, then from New York to LA on Highway 66 (yah!), and was on his way to Los Cabos, thence ferry to Mazatlan, south to Argentina.
So far about 10,000 miles.
The doll was his “girlfriend,” a Japanese cycling effigy.
Bike is a 7-year-old steel Surly Long Haul Tracker, which he loves. How about that, all you guys with $10K carbon fiber state-of-art bikes and hi-tech camping gear?
He has no sponsors, saves money from his job as a nurse, and then takes off.
He is from Amora, Japan.
Kinda reminded my of Armand Basset, road wanderer / buddha encountered in the Nevada outback, shown on the last page of our book Shelter.
More info by googling “Fujimoto” “Tatsuhiko” “bicycle”
Photo of Ranchera on Naranjos Road rancho about 30 years ago. Below is much farther back.
It’s really unusual to hear about Baja this far back.
Hi Lloyd! My, how tasty a menu of treats your latest flyer presented Geraldine and me! You’re heading to Baja and I first flew down, with my dad piloting his trusty Cessna 180, when I was a junior in high school ~ 1954 ~ and our first stop was at Santa Rosalia for fuel which the sole attendant hand pumped from rusty 55 gal drums into our screened funnel. Dad was raised in France and his home apartment elevator was a classic engineered by Eiffel … so we were impressed to visit Eiffel’s chapel there when the French were mining … Muleje was a favorite overnight and when the prison was operating they freed the prisoners in daylight and on the honor system they returned at night. In the plaza ~ evenings ~ the boys strolled clockwise and the gals otherwise with amazing eyeballing etc. We flew to La Paz and visited, with dad’s insistence, “La Vista Hermosa” which was a whorehouse of renown … We set off for San Jose del Cabo, a tiny shrimper hamlet, and landed on a narrow strip strewn with white seashells and no other planes! We walked to the Rodrigues Posada, the only inn in town, with six, maybe eight rooms! The only gringos who visited there were occasional bill-fishers. There was absolutely NO development there nor at Cabo San Lucas … I’ve been doing Baja in my 17′ RV, a TDI VW Coupe and one winter, after the America’s Cup racing on San Francisco Bay, sailed down with the BajaHaHa cruise and hauled out and trucked home from Guaymas…
I believe we met thru ED STILES, an old buddy, or maybe HUEY JOHNSON whom I’d known in his school-teaching days in Boise before Nature Conservancy and TPL or maybe when you visited the PacNW inasmuch as I live at Rangerville … and Ranger and I went to the memorial pot-luck (Plenty POT!) for Sun Ray up Day Creek … and I know we sent you fotos of the Gnome Dome that the crew built at R’ville, in Alger!
In 1977 I homebuilt a snazzy cabin (#92) at Salmon Beach, under Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, built upon pilings in The Narrows and I’ve often wondered if you ever wandered down to Salmon Beach as it shows the creative flair of community love action.
Enjoy your adventures, Lloyd, and many thanks for catching your admirers up!
Hugs! George Jay, Rangerville in summertime, Oceanside in wintertime
Video of huge housing tract in middle of nowhere
Text written on January 29
Took off on my long-postponed trip to Baja today. Lots of traffic until I got to Interstate 5, then floated south.
Now at Harris Ranch, having dinner, then gonna sleep in truck in parking lot, and early morning, get latte and croissant (they have great bakery), then south to next stop, a little-known beach in Malibu before heading for border.
For those of you getting this for the first time:
Over the years, the list has grown — I’ve added anyone I thought might be interested — and there are now about 6,500 people getting these infrequent emails.
If you’re not signed up on the list to receive (that is, if you are reading this on Instagram or my blog), you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.
I like getting back to emails. Completely different from social media. These come in to you; you don’t have to open anything up. Old school, in a way.
When I send these out, some older people say “I got your blog,” They’re not going to my real blog, and I can reach them this way.
Like a lot of technical advances, we all rush in, and then step back and figure out what’s missing with the new technology. And then try to figure out how to incorporate some of the old stuff (that’s missing) in the mix. Like recording music — the limitations of digital recording vs. vinyl or tape.
It’s a chance for me to tell people what’s going on in my world, in a direct and more personal way than Instagram or my blog.
Sorry for the length of this. (The last one of these was over a year ago.) As I’ve said many times before, paraphrasing Blasé Pascal (1647): “I’d have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have enough time.”
I’m not big on broadcasting my personal life, but events of the past year have had such an impact on what I’m doing — now and in the future — that I thought I’d explain a bit here. I’m writing this for people who follow me in one way or another, so you’ll know where I’ll be “…coming from.”
In 2023, I lost my wife Lesley, my brother, and my two best friends, so I’m heading into new territory.
I’m coping — it’s a gradual process and I’m OK, but — without going into details — things are definitely different in my life.
Coincidentally with all this, I had decided I was weary of running a publishing business and was looking for someone to buy Shelter Publications — and this has just happened:
Richard Hunt and Molly Merkle of AdventureKEEN in the Shelter studio.
Photo by Elise Cannon
As of January 1st, 2024, AdventureKEEN is taking over the operation of Shelter Publications, which I have been running for 53 years. Another big change in my life.
They will keep everything functioning and I’ll be able to step away from the (ever-increasing) business and technical details of running a publishing company, and go into a new phase of communicating. AdventureKEEN will be the publisher, and distribution will still be by my beloved Publishers Group West book lovers.
AdventureKEEN is a great fit for Shelter. Some of their other publishers are Wilderness Press, Adventure Publications, and Nature Study Guides. Hiking, canoeing, cooking, gardening, backpacking, animals, tracking — all stuff I’m into: adventure. I feel very sympatico with everyone at AdventureKEEN.
And a big tip of the Hatlo hat to PGW’s Kevin Votel for shepherding this deal along.
When I finally disentangle myself from all the responsibilities of running a business and being an employer, I plan to start posting on Substack, doing better Instagram posts, and making videos for my YouTube channel — reporting on tools, how to do stuff, the beaches, the hills, skateboarding, cool people, and all the amazing things going on in cities.
I’m excited to be shifting gears. Like when I switched from insurance broker to carpenter in 1965. Or when I gave up after building domes for five years and discovered real building in the ’70s. A fresh outlook on work and life.
For some reason, disengaging myself from the business of running a company made me think of the ropes of entanglement in this drawing (by J.J. Grandville) in Gulliver’s Travels (1756). Cutting the ropes and bounding into a new phase of life.
On Substack, I can write, and as well post images larger than Instagram’s 3 by 4 inches. (I want my photos on a bigger screen.) Substack is for writers, and is kind of a combination email and blog. And that I can er, ahem, hopefully get paid for (by subscriptions).
I’ve been a communicator since the age of 3. “Hey Mom, look at this butterfly.” I’m a reporter at heart — have been since my high school journalism class, and then running a newspaper for two years on an Air Force Base in Germany (1958–60). I shoot photos constantly and everywhere.
I find the world — in spite of all the darkness nowadays — fascinating. People doing great (and often unnoticed and unheralded) things, plus homes, tools, vehicles, art, signs, etc. that I’ll record. I want to take you along with me — riding shotgun — seeing what I see.
In the ’80s, I loved journalist Charles Kuralt’s TV program “On the Road,” his 12‑year motorhome adventures traveling the back roads of America and filming people and places. I’m gonna get out in the world and report on what I run across.
I’ll be going into full journalistic mode, not just the intermittent reporting I’ve been doing in recent years.
Thanks to Christopher Ryan, writer extraordinaire (Sex at Dawn, Civilized to Death), prolific podcaster, and more recently Substacker (chrisryan.substack.com) for turning me onto Substack.
“I’m a man who likes to talk to a man who likes to talk.”
-Sidney Greenstreet to Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon
I figure to be rolling in these new modes by March–April, 2024. And I’ll try to do these newsletters at least every few months.
I figure I’ve got a year or so to see if this is gonna work.
I’m heading to Baja Sur in my 2003 Tacoma 4×4 (5-speed, 2.4 L, 4‑cylinder engine), with tent on top and foldable tarp for beach camping. Taking my old ten-foot Doug Haut Surftek three-fin surfboard and I’m gonna try to start getting back up on the board. Once I’m up, I’m OK. Looking forward to warm water. Also taking boogie board and fins. I’m gonna ride waves one way or another. Plus work on my crawl stroke, and some diving.
This will be my first road trip to Baja in 20 years. Los Cabos (the southern tip of Baja) has grown exponentially, but I plan to — as in the past — get outside the very narrow regions of heavy tourism — into the real Baja. Camping on remote beaches and in water-filled arroyos, visiting old mission sites, hot springs, remote ranchos.
For about a dozen years, I went to Baja whenever I got the chance, hanging out with my Mexican friends, and I came to love the people and the tropical desert of the Los Cabos area.
“It is impossible to account for the charm of this country or its fascination, but those who are familiar with the land of Baja California are either afraid of it or they love it, and if they love it they are brought back by an irresistible fascination time and time again.”
–Erle Stanley Gardner
I’ll be posting on Instagram as I travel. (I left on January 30.)
I shot this in San José del Cabo about 15 years ago. You have to know and love the real Los Cabos — the people, the tropical desert, the ranchos, the beaches — to appreciate how perfect this bug is for the area.
Parked down by beach a few days ago.
Would be perfect in Baja.
Gerry Miltenberger travels throughout Mexico in his pickup truck/camper, doing these wonderful drawings of his discoveries. I’ve encouraged him to do a small book on his travels.
Here he’s in Presa Cajón de Peña, about 30 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, in the state of Jalisco.