Welcome to The Hotel California

Since I have been on a 70's pop song titles kick, this one was a natural.  We had breakfast at the beautiful Hyatt Marina Resort in La Paz and headed out on the highway towards the little town of Todos Santos, home of the ORIGINAL Hotel California - since 1947.  Now, obviously, the Eagles song has given them a LOT of notoriety and business, but the hotel really has nothing to do with the Eagles.  Just a beautiful little boutique hotel in a southern Baja town.  I asked the Canadian owner if "...you can check out any time you like, but you can NEVER leave."  She replied that,  "You can indeed check out, but you will never WANT to leave!"

We shopped a bit in the gift shop, had some espressos, and lit off on the trails towards Cabo San Lucas.  Today's weather was absolutely spectacular with indigo blue skies, dry, warm weather, and a bit of a breeze to blow the dust away as we rode.  The trail was 80 miles, more or less, and was...surreal.  That's the only way I can describe it.  Dirt bike nirvana:  Steep, technical uphills and downhills spaced out with fast, smooth, sweeping corners and cool water crossings.  It was over WAY too soon as we rode a bridge over a four-lane highway, dropped onto a busy dirt road by the airport, and rode into Cabo.

After a typically terrifying ride through Mexican city traffic, we suddenly turned onto the beach, and waiting for us there were the rest of our Chris Haines crew with canopy set up, beers on ice, and bags laid out so we could change out of our dusty riding gear.

All too soon, our Mexican friends delivered us and our gear to the BEAUTIFUL Villa Del Palmar hotel, hugs & handshakes all around, and they were off to take trucks, trailers, bikes, and rental gear back up to the Chris Haines shop in Lake Elsinore, California.  I cannot say enough about how awesome these four men are:  If any of us needed ANYTHING, one of them scampered off and came back two minutes later with what we needed.  Oscar, Pepe, Arturo, and Ramon literally define the word "service".  Great guys, great riders, and great friends.  I would ride again with them anytime.

I am typing this from the sports bar at our hotel and I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that our trip is finally over.  I have dreamed about doing this for many years - and to accomplish riding 1,250 miles in six days with my two brothers, my nephew, and two old racing buddies just overwhelms me.  I was literally in tears as we crested that last mountain and saw the city of Cabo San Lucas in the distance.

The trip has been everything I hoped it would be and so much more.  Trying to reflect on all the things we have done and places we have seen will take some time.  I plan to write a blog entry tomorrow with my personal thoughts on the Baja peninsula, the flora and fauna, and the people.  I hope you have enjoyed my nightly missives and that you will check in again in a few days.  Isaac, Peter, and Chris all wore GoPros for most of the trip.  They are going to edit these long videos down to short bites and I will do a final post with a whole lot of these condensed videos that should really give you a good taste of the type of riding that we have done for the past six days.

It has indeed been EPIC.

And right across the street?  Of course.

Another of those ubiquitous shrines.  I thought this one was pretty awesome.

On the beach at Cabo San Lucas!

Three VERY happy brothers!

Our awesome digs for the next couple nights!