El Cajon to San Felipe (and around) trip (10/20)

My wife is a regular at Pete's Camp poker run that happens every October. As of early September, the organizers told us that this event was still a "GO", despite the COVID travel restrictions. So we rented a house in El Dorado Ranch and planned to go (also hoping that all of the border travel restrictions would be lifted by then as well).

Unfortunately, the poker run was cancelled. I had a few "essential" items to do at my wife's uncle's property down there, so we rolled our non-essential off-road expedition trip into an essential work trip.

I had also taken up a collection of items from friends and acquaintances to donate to a contact of mine in San Felipe. I know that a lot of people had been affected by COVID, lack of tourism, lack of jobs, etc.. So we wanted to do our part to give back to the community. I collected over $400 of cash donations and probably $600+ in goods donated.

Three couples towing trailers with UTVs. Left San Diego about 10AM on Thursday AM.



Very quick drive to Mexicali. We entered at the west crossing. We wanted to get our FMMs, so we pulled as far in to the left as we could. However with three trucks and trailers, we basically were blocking anyone else from going into the customs parking lot. We went inside and easily found the INM desk.

Although I believe the agent was on his way off to a break, so was slightly agitated when 6 of us came up for our FMMs. When attempting to pay, the INM agent had me pay him directly, "cash only". He made change out of his wallet.

He also would not allow some in my group to get the free, 7 day version. He claimed that due to the pandemic, they were not issuing them, as that would be a sign of a "non-essential" trip. This didn't make sense to me, since there's plenty of essential reasons that would be under 7 days, but rather than try to argue (we we're triple parked with trailers out front), the party just paid for their 180 day version (again, with him making change from his wallet), and we went on our way.

Our FMM is stamped, signed, and marked as valid for 180 days. As we proceeded south through the inspection gates, we got the standard request for trailer and UTV registration, and then they began looking in the bed of the truck. Realizing that our three vehicles were now blocking the inbound lanes into the COUNTRY, not just the customs office, they promptly stopped any meaningful searching, and quickly hurried us along.

We continued on south through town. No issues going through Mexicali.

The checkpoint at El Chinero was painless; similar to the inbound lanes in Mexicali. They seemed to not want to hassle with all three of us.

We stayed in a house at El Dorado. The community pool was open, but you had to report your name and age, and have your temperature taken before entering. Masks were required at entry.

Similarly, MOST every restaurant seemed to be as diligent, if not more-so, than in the US about masks, hand sanitizing, etc. There were a few exceptions, where there seemed to be just big groups and "hangouts". Lots of gringos and lots of Mexicans. I didn't seem to notice much of a discrepancy trying to "profile" who would or wouldn't be wearing masks and social distancing. Everyone was good, and everyone was bad.

Friday morning, we decided to go explore southbound. We went south of town on what I believe is called the "Old Puertecitos Road"? Basically following the pole line road with the wells south past the road to Percebu, past the sulfur mine, down into Matomi Arroyo.



We then went out to the highway and proceeded south to Puertecitos, HOPING that the PEMEX was open, since we would have been pushing the limits of our UTVs to get back to town. Fortunately for us (not so fortunate for the attendant -- who I believe we woke up from his nap), the PEMEX was open and we fueled up.

None of us had been to the hot spring pools at Puertecitos, so we went to check that out. They do NOT let UTVs drive out there, so we had to hitch a ride from what appeared to be a 12 year old kid driving an old isuzu. He was very excited about the couple buck tip that we gave him. We then enjoyed a refreshing time at the water (though a hot summer day wasn't the best choice of days to go to the hot springs -- it was more of a tourist thing than a real good idea).



We proceeded back to San Felipe via the highway, which is amazing. GREAT paving, great striping, reflectors... WAY better than most of the roads in Calexico that we had to traverse to get INTO Mexico.

We stopped at a taco stand in town, had some amazing tacos, then went back home to enjoy drinks and the pool. However, when we were about 5 miles from home, one of the UTVs broke a rear CV on his UTV. We limped him back home, and some feelers out to some contacts in San Felipe to see if anyone had a spare part. We realized though that we were probably going to be down one vehicle for the rest of the trip.

Saturday was the day that the poker run was SUPPOSED to have happened. I had the course from a couple years ago plotted on my GPS, so we decided to run the course anyway -- our "mock" poker run. We expected to see others out there, but saw NO one. After a very fun 60 miles, we went back to the house. Somehow, after 60 miles of off-roading, fun doing all sorts of stuff... I got a flat tire (ripped sidewall) on the TURN IN to El Dorado. So boring! I swapped out the spare, but was pretty bummed.



We then decided to head down to Percebu for some "bowling" and ceviche. Once we got down there, they were CLOSED. It seemed odd for them to be closed. It was a very busy Saturday afternoon. TONS of people camped on the beach, but no signs of life at the restaurant or bar.

We took the beach and highway back to town, grabbed some dinner, and called it a night.

Sunday was the big adventure. We decided to go to Mike's Sky Ranch and back. Looked to be about a 200 mile loop. We proceeded out the beautiful paved road that runs along the south border of El Dorado. Once we got to Laguna Diablo, I commented to Leana that it was odd how the makeup of the minerals and dirt actually looked like the ground was WET in the "dry lake bed". We were running along at a very good clip, when all of a sudden, we began to be pelted with mud clods, and I see wet, muddy ruts ahead of us. Seeing as I'm only in 2WD, I did NOT want to slow down. In my mind, I thought, "there's tracks here.. someone has made it through".. So I kept going, but I immediately radio'd to our other UTV to NOT proceed. The path got worse, and worse, and worse. Both of us were completely drenched with mud, there were times where our RZR was pitched at about a 45 degree angle, just trying to keep going, and a couple moments of COMPLETE blackout conditions, due to the amount of mud coating my sunglasses.

Finally, we got to a high, dry spot, and I was able to stop and assess the situation. The try lake bed was pretty much a LAKE. As I looked further ahead, there were literally sections that I saw where the water appeared to be entirely across the lakebed, and not just puddles on the surface. Actual deep water. We crossed our fingers, put the car into 4WD, and headed back the way we came. Same situation as before. There was about 20 seconds, where I couldn't see a THING, but decided to just keep going, hoping that we're going the right direction and could get out of the mud.




Once clear of that, we circled back around to the north east, and followed the nice, high-speed, graded road that was at the base of the mountains on the east side of Laguna Diablo. This took us all the way out to Highway 3.

We headed west, and went all the way into Valle de Trinidad for fuel. Once we fueled up, we went back EAST on highway 3 to catch the road up to Mike's. This was a very fun ride. We didn't see a person the whole way up. Once we got to Mike's, it looked like a ghost town. No guests, no one at the bar or restaurant, and two employees sitting at a table next to the pool. We asked if they were open, and they graciously ushered us in. Our group ordered a few beers and sat down to relax by the pool. They asked if we were hungry, and offered to cook us lunch. They brought out some amazing burritos for us. After buying a t-shirt and leaving a sticker, we were on our way back down. We took the other route from Mike's that took us northwest directly to Valle de Trinidad. This road was ABSOLUTELY amazing. So much fun on a UTV. Great turns, jumps, and some good long straight-aways. We got back to town, topped off on fuel again, and then proceeded back towards San Felipe. We avoided the mud on the ride home.





All-in-all, this was a 201.3 mile day, and SO much fun.

The next morning, we hit the car wash, and we were quoted $15 each to clean our mud-coated UTVs. That was a STEAL, so we agreed. An hour later, we came back to our spotless rides. WELL worth the $.



Our drive home was fairly non-eventful as well. It should be noted that Google Maps tried to take me to the SENTRI lane on our return. Luckily, I was paying attention to the signs, and navigated around to the regular entry lane. Border wait on Monday at about 2PM was 40 minutes. When coming to the gate, the US border agent was friendly, but didn't even ask us any questions. Just scanned our cards, waved, and sent us on our way.

Overall a FANTASTIC trip; one of the best off-roading trips I've had.

Quote: Originally posted by Bajaboy

I could not believe all the trailers headed south with rigs.

I only contributed to 3 of them!
On our entire 437 miles off-road, I don't know that I saw ANY other UTV.

Quote: Originally posted by aburruss

Quote: Originally posted by Bajaboy   I could not believe all the trailers headed south with rigs. I only contributed to 3 of them! On our entire 437 miles off-road, I don't know that I saw ANY other UTV.