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Mr. Bills
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What is a reasonable drive time from San Felipe to Bahia de los Angeles in late December?
Please excuse the question if it has been asked and answered anytime since the storms of 2018 washed out sections of the road.
I am trying to calculate a reasonable drive time from Pete's Camp north of San Felipe to Campo Archelon in Bahia de los Angeles. Five vehicles, all
2005+ Nissan Xterras, with the "usual" stops for food, fuel and photo opportunities (trying to balance competing interests and arrive at the
destination before dark).
The route is Mexico 5 through Puertocitos, Gonzaga Bay, etc. to Mexico 1. The date is in late December.
Any and all help is appreciated.
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Tioloco
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As long as there aren't any storms that damage the road again, I say 5 hours is comfortable.
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bajabuddha
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Late December you're all the way out of daylight, and also for every extra vehicle you have the exponential "Charlie Foxtrot Factor" of milling
around, chooting the chit and getting rolling again.
So get an early start, take all day and enjoy the ride. 
[Edited on 9-10-2019 by bajabuddha]
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
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Mr. Bills
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Daylight is definitely a concern. Sunrise in San Felipe on 12/26 is 6:35 am and sunset in Bajia de los Angeles will be 4:43 pm.
My thought was to leave Pete's Camp north of San Felipe no later than 8am. Think we can make the "usual stops" and be in camp in Bahia de los
Angeles and set up before sunset?
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David K
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San Felipe to Puertecitos is 1:30 max. There are 10 unpaved detour miles. 52 miles.
Puertecitos to Gonzaga Bay is 1:00 with 9 short detours around washed out bridges. 45 miles.
Gonzaga to Hwy. 1 (Laguna Chapala) is 1:00 or less. Mixed paved and unpaved, 35 miles. Coco's Corner is on the older route that most take.
Chapala to the L.A. Bay jcn. and on to L.A. Bay is about 70 miles, so 1:30 max.
Total time driving estimate: 5 hrs. about 200 miles.
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Tioloco
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Mr. Bills- You will have no problem unless you get stuck in the Cowpatty vortex for too long.... 
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AKgringo
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Sometimes I enjoy driving in the desert (reduced speed) under a full moon, but your travel dates will pretty much be under very little, or no moon!
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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Mr. Bills
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To David K:
Thanks for your detailed response. I am reading your articles in anticipation of this trip, which will complete a bucket list item I didn't know
was on the list until I was invited to participate in the upcoming trip in December.
In 1965 my family and a few other jeeping families from my home town camped at Nuevo Mazatlan south of San Felipe during Easter break, long before Don
Luis planted any trees. [I saw your photos in one of your trip reports] I think I still remember how to get there - drive south from San Felipe to
the sulfur mine and turn left.
I remember Don Luis well. He visited our campfire one night after the adults had gone to bed and regaled us for several hours with alcohol fueled
stories and bad singing in Spanish and broken English, waving an old revolver around in one hand and a bottle in the other whenever one of us would
try to leave. He finally dozed off and we escaped to our tents. My mother talked about our evening with Don Luis until the day she died and I'm
sure if you mentioned Don Luis to my brother and sister they would rattle off the story with no hesitation.
What makes the upcoming trip a bucket list event is my memory of driving to Puertocitos at age 15 to find gasoline and regretting that it was as far
south as we would get. I vowed that I would someday make the drive all the way to Cabo San Lucas, and now 54 years later I am getting the chance.
[Edited on 9-10-2019 by Mr. Bills]
[Edited on 9-10-2019 by Mr. Bills]
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David K
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Great to read of your Nuevo Mazatlan encounter. While I never referred to him as Don Luis, we were very close. He called my parents "brother Eduardo"
and "sister Lynn" and tequila was a bad habit he had, indeed.
He originally lived by the sand dunes in an ocotillo shack. An American built him a plywood home where he was until he left for good around 1980.
Javier, the new owner, continued using the house.
Luis had a dog named Corsadio and others. Luis had a wife around 1972 named Felicitas but only as long as he didn't drink anymore!
One day, the owner of La Roca (Eduardo) came by with tequila and... Felicitas left Luis.
The last time I saw Luis Castellanos Moreno was on a San Felipe sidewalk, looking bad, in 1989. He perked up when I reminded him of who I was and my
parents names... He perked up. Vaya con Dios Don Luis!
See my Nuevo Mazatlan page www.vivabaja.com/nm
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Mr. Bills
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| Quote: | While I never referred to him as Don Luis, we were very close. He called my parents "brother Eduardo" and "sister Lynn" and tequila was a bad habit he
had, indeed.
He originally lived by the sand dunes in an ocotillo shack. An American built him a plywood home where he was until he left for good around 1980.
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Don Luis lived in the ocotillo shack when we first visited in 1965. [Maybe it was 1966?] We called him that because he told us he owned the beach. I
had been taught as a child to address important people as Don when traveling in Mexico and it seemed to me that someone who owned an entire beach was
important enough to deserve that title. He seemed to like it, more so when he was drunk.
We had transported plywood and other lumber to built an outhouse and showers for our time there. [One family in our group had an ownership interest in
C&E Lumber just east of La Verne CA]. The structures were torn down before we left and the lumber used to start building his house.
Although my family traveled to Guymas the next year for Easter break rather than Baja, I am told that the same group of families from La Verne
returned to Nuevo Mazatlan in 1967 and continued construction of Don Luis's house with the plywood and other lumber they brought with them. It may
well have become a family project. I will have to track down someone in the family and ask.
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David K
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Did you know the Lemke (Lemke?) family who had the little house on the hill 1/4 mile south? It is now El Sahuaro. They drove Jeep Gladiator pickups
and owned a grocery store in the L.A. region... as best I recall.
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David K
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Luis owned from the high tide line back to the sulfur mine, he would tell us. That might be because that was where the 'highway' was? Luis was so
excited about a new highway coming ("very soon") as soon as the route was surveyed in 1974. There where white painted rocks in a big cross every so
often along the route. It was very close to the coast compared to the old road. Well, the new roadbed didn't arrive until 1982, after Luis was no
longer there.
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Mr. Bills
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Quote: Originally posted by David K  | | Did you know the Lemke (Lemke?) family who had the little house on the hill 1/4 mile south? It is now El Sahuaro. They drove Jeep Gladiator pickups
and owned a grocery store in the L.A. region... as best I recall. |
No, I did not. That was a very long time ago and I can't picture a house anywhere close. I don't remember any Gladiators either, but when I was
there in the mid 1960's the original Kaiser Jeep Gladiators had only been in production for 2-3 years.
Maybe some other memories of Nuevo Mazatlan will return when I pass through in late December.
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David K
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This was in or around 1967. They were red I think. My dad's vehicle was a 1965 Kaiser-Jeep Wagoneer with the Rambler V-8. It was great and took us all
over Baja without any failures other than gear lock out by the shrimp boat near today's Bahía Santa María. The Lemke's rescued us after I walked to
get them to help, about 2-3 miles.
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Mr. Bills
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| Quote: Originally posted by David K | | This was in or around 1967. They were red I think. My dad's vehicle was a 1965 Kaiser-Jeep Wagoneer with the Rambler V-8. It was great and took us all
over Baja without any failures other than gear lock out by the shrimp boat near today's Bahía Santa María. The Lemke's rescued us after I walked to
get them to help, about 2-3 miles. |
It is a small world indeed. We missed each other by a year.
My dad's jeep was a 1965 Kaiser Jeep CJ-5 with factory V-6, one of the first to be sold. We didn't give a second thought into cramming a family of 5
into it and traveling into Baja towing a '46 Bantam jeep trailer with two weeks of gear and supplies. Today it seems nuts to put that many people in
a jeep.
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: Originally posted by Mr. Bills | Daylight is definitely a concern. Sunrise in San Felipe on 12/26 is 6:35 am and sunset in Bajia de los Angeles will be 4:43 pm.
My thought was to leave Pete's Camp north of San Felipe no later than 8am. Think we can make the "usual stops" and be in camp in Bahia de los
Angeles and set up before sunset? |
one day drive time is fine....
days are short in december, so why you sleeping in until 830 am? get up when sky begins to lighten, wolf down some yogurt, granola and fruit, fill up
your thermos with coffee, and be driving before sunrise.
if sunrise is 635, it's light enough to see by 0600
Woke!
“...ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America
will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Prefered gender pronoun: the royal we
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advrider
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I think we did it in seven hours last December, stopping at Coco's for a visit and a few stops to look around.
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Mr. Bills
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I will be 69 at the start of this trip and breaking camp at the first hint of light doesn't have the allure it once did. Neither does yogurt and
granola. 
But I'm with you on the thermos full of coffee.
Realistically, getting this group packed and on the road much before 8 am will take exemplary cat herding skills.
I'll shoot for a 7:30 departure.
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BajaRun
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5 Vehicles... Figure 30 mph average. If taking Frog Canyon figure 20 mph average.
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David K
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Frog Canyon is Calamajué Canyon... (I think someone cleared up for me in the past?). It is a more interesting route indeed and you can see where the
Jesuits first built their final California mission (in 1766).
[Edited on 9-11-2019 by David K]
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