David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Online
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Driving to Scammon's in the 1960's via Gonzaga!
WHALES AT PLAY by Slim Barnard
Found this single sheet travel guide from an unknown publisher and unknown date, in Choral Pepper's collections... Sponsored by the Southern
California Ford Dealers and Channel 4 (Los Angeles).
Would be interested in learning the date this was made... mid 1960's, most likely... Maybe the T.V. show ad would help: 'The Happy Wanderers' Thursday
7 pm...?
Interesting trip... It was faster to go from L.A. to Baja Sur via Mexicali and Gonzaga Bay back then... Hwy. 1 pavement ended before Colonet and there
was terrible washboard from there to past San Quintin. Then the Laguna Chapala dust bowl was the worst part of the old main road!
The old road south of Puertecitos was a 4WD trail over the steep grades... but still better than the main road south... until the end of 1973!
First both sides, then up close to read easier...
|
|
|
Russ
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6742
Registered: 7-4-2004
Location: Punta Chivato
Member Is Offline
|
|
Really interesting! Thankx
Bahia Concepcion where life starts...given a chance!
|
|
|
Diver
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4729
Registered: 11-15-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
I KNEW it was a FORD guy that discovered and explored Baja !! 
Must have been a heck of a trip back then.
|
|
|
noproblemo2
Super Nomad
Posts: 1088
Registered: 4-14-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Lobster, $0 .25 a pound!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: optimistic
|
|
In roughly 1963 Myron Smith and I purchased a kilo of fresh shrimp in San Felipe for $2.70 usd. What a feast we had that night in the mouth of Agua
Caliente Canyon below and east of Mission San Pedro Martir in the SPM mountains with Bud Bernhard and many others.
Them wer the days----------
Barry
|
|
|
makana.gabriel
Nomad
Posts: 115
Registered: 1-10-2008
Location: Honolulu
Member Is Offline
|
|
The Happy Wanderers
http://www.calgold.com/visiting/Default.asp?Series=400&S...
FAITH sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible!
|
|
|
Packoderm
Super Nomad
Posts: 2116
Registered: 11-7-2002
Member Is Offline
|
|
If the minimum wage is any indicator, I'd say those prices are right in line with the times. Min. wage was $1.00 per hour in 1960. It is $7.25 today.
The purchasing power is about the same if you take inflation into account.
Minimum wage through the years: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html
Remembering What a Buck Could Buy in the 1960s: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/remembering-what-a-buc...
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Online
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Thanks... anything more to pinpoint the date would be appreciated... other than buying that episode of Huell Howser's show... which I am sure is
AMAZING!
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Online
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Bump... to compare with getting to Scammon's today to see the whales!
|
|
|
watizname
Senior Nomad
Posts: 773
Registered: 8-7-2009
Member Is Offline
|
|
Wow!! "Every Thursday night and IN COLOR"
Watt will they think of next??
More Great Stuff. Thanks.
I yam what I yam and that\'s all what I yam.
|
|
|
willardguy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6451
Registered: 9-19-2009
Member Is Offline
|
|
slim and henrietta. slim had funniest laugh ever!
|
|
|
Vince
Nomad
Posts: 446
Registered: 10-17-2006
Location: Coronado
Member Is Offline
|
|
Looking for photos, but I will never forget driving across the Laguna Chapala in my VW van being buried in that fine silty dust. It plugged my air
filter and we had to clear it out. On the way down from San Felipe the old bus would barely make it over the steep grades of the road. I hear is
is much easier now and faster than the main road also.
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Online
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Vince
Looking for photos, but I will never forget driving across the Laguna Chapala in my VW van being buried in that fine silty dust. It plugged my air
filter and we had to clear it out. On the way down from San Felipe the old bus would barely make it over the steep grades of the road. I hear is
is much easier now and faster than the main road also. |
Vince, I am glad I was old enough to experience and remember Laguna Chapala in the pre- Hwy. 1 of Dec., 1973 days!
It was 1966, on our trip from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas (then back via the Mazatlan ferry from La Paz) in a Jeep Wagoneer.
The Grosso ranch was in the middle between the silt dust bowl and the dry lake bed. You had the worst and best parts of the old main road, right there
on each side of the ranch! You dropped into the silt, and it would engulf your vehicle like water pouring all over it. All you could do was take a
bearing on the trees at the ranch, a couple miles across the silt bowl, then drive blind in that direction!
On the other side of the ranch, you where on the dry lake, and for a couple of miles go freeway speed to blow as much dust off as possible. Then take
out your air filter and shake a bucket of dust out of it!!!  
My dad would not go that way again, the next year when we went to L.A. Bay for vacation... we went down from San Felipe over the 'Gonzaga Grades' (as
my folks called the steep 4WD hills between Puertecitos and El Huerfanito... forever changed by the 1986 graded road... and now a super paved highway
and 110 kph speed limit! What once took 5 hours to drive, now takes less than 1!
[Edited on 3-3-2013 by David K]
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
