TJ......SanFelipe,,peurtecitos....GozagaBay

.........had a good trip,,....but too short as always.
....it's actually warmer here in vancouver than north Baja these days,,,similar temperatures,,,stronger winds there,,but we went for sailing,,so that was fine.

....crossed in TJ,,,hit the fish market ,,Yummmm,,as usual
,,and on to the Hot Spring campground at Golfcourse road,s of Ensenada...........it's a great way to 're-humanize' after a long drive,,and re-frame into baja-mode!
........the hotspring road was in fine shape,,,there's absolutely NO worries for the ~30minute dirt-road drive with ~7 creek-crossings,each creek is well groomed with stones and level,,water ~4-6'' deep,,,I was driving a very loaded 2wd minivan,,have about 4-5'' clearance,,,-anyone- can make it,,,,and soooo worthwhile.....we had the place completely to ourselves.

.....finding,,and crossing to SanFelipe was a breeze,,finally replaced the rear shocks,,great pricing
...the town's pretty quiet,,,sounds like they also have lost their spring-break crowd ,,,so I don't envy all those businesses along the malecon,,sitting there day after day waiting for a customer,,,had an overpriced dinner there,,,recommend finding
local eateries in town,,,,,had a GREAT chicken meal at the S entrance to down,,don't remember the name of it,,,but it had a coke sign as it's main banner.

....driving south from SanFelipe,,as a wild-camper(find a nice spot on beach and camp),,I was sorely dissapointed with the blocked accesses all the way through Gonzaga Bay,,,but I guess it's much the same on the westcoast this far north,,,the great wild camping starts at Mulege.

.....the vado's between felipe and peurtecitos are something to behold!!!,,sure glad I replaced the shocks,,some vado's are not marked,,while others have a sign,,no dip!-I love baja!

...the road from peurtecitos almost to Gonzaga is among the -very best- I've seen in baja,,the drive finishes off with typical washboard,,and it sounds like it continues that way out to the #1,,,,,found the worst ride was to go sloooow over the washboard,,better to speed up!


...we ended up staying at the Beluga campground,, heard from a fellow that Rancho Grande was better in some way,,but was happy to stay put...once we got the pricing sorted out to $10/night seasonal rate,as Grande was charging,,,initially Beluga had wanted $25!...the caretaker at Beluga was very quiet and seemed a bit unfriendly,,but I assume he's an offseason caretaker,,,and prefers solitude.
.....the locals in Gonzaga are very helpful,,good fish-bargains from the many fishers,,,great fish or prawns every night!!

.....we had some really good sailing for 4 days,got used to the new boat,got some videos shot--objectives met('business' trip),,,and carried on back north---a bit cold at night to stick around longer,,woke up to 39degrees one morning!

.....drove out to Mexicali,,was surprised how difficult it was to find a calimax or other big grocery chain amongst everything else,,,missed stocking beans/salsa for back home!

........hopefully next year I'll cut a longer swath of time and get back to the south for a month or two,,always love baja!

....oh yeah,,my son was impressed to see that you don't have to pass through gunfire in TJ,,like he heard!!

Glad you mentioned the vados. Haven't been that way in years, and have been trying to get that way recently. All the news about the road improvements haven't mentioned the killer vados recently, so it's good to have a heads up.