Slow Baja - David Kier 50 Years Of The Transpeninsular Highway

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Today’s show is with Slow Baja Alum David Kier. This is David’s third visit to the show and today he joins us to talk about the 50th Anniversary of the Transpeninsular Highway. Kier began exploring Baja with his parents in the mid-60s. In 1966 David’s father took the challenge to drive to La Paz in their Jeep Wagoneer. Sitting between his folks on the front seat –his copy of Gerhard and Gulick’s Baja Bible in his lap, young David was given the responsibility for navigating for the entire trip. He diligently watched the slowly turning odometer, and took note of every passing kilometer marker. They made it to La Paz and as was the custom at the time, put the truck on the ferry to Mazatlan and drove the paved highway back home to San Diego. David was hooked! That epic trip spurred a lifelong affinity for history, maps, off-road exploration, and a deep desire to help his fellow Baja traveler. To that end, in 1973 as a high-schooler, David released his own guide book to Baja and the still under construction Transpeninsular Highway. Since then, David has made countless trips to Baja. He was a consultant on the Benchmark Maps Baja Road and Recreation Atlas and writes a regular travel feature for the Baja Bound Insurance Newsletter. His book BAJA CALIFORNIA LAND OF MISSIONS is in its 13th printing. Learn more about Baja and David Kier here: https://vivabaja.com/ Follow David on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vivabaja Going to Baja? Get your Baja insurance here: https://www.bajabound.com/quote/?r=fl... More information on Slow Baja Adventures: https://www.slowbaja.com/adventures

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. You know, I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja's right for you. Well, you've got to check out the Adventures tab at slowbaha.com.

The slow Baja is from February 23rd to March 1st. It's a slow roll from the beautifully rustic Rancho Labayota to stunning San Ignacio and back up to sunny San Felipe. We're going to have a one full week to explore some of my favorite places and meet some of my favorite people. We're going to have two nights in San Ignacio and everybody's going to get to go whale watching. You know those gray whales in the San Ignacio Lagoon are noted for their curiosity and friendliness. So be prepared for them to get up close and check you out. And I'm proud to say, I'm going to be doing.

doing a little giving back on this trip. My friend Matthew Schnitzer, the founder of Barbers for Baja, you know the great work they do, sending kids to college. Well, he's on board, and we're excited to launch our new project delivering desperately needed baseball gear to teams and coaches up and down the peninsula, and we will make our first gear donations on the Slow Baja. You know, it's not the longest, or the largest, or the most miles. It's the slowest and the best miles, and hopefully the most smiles. Okay, for more information, check out the Slow Baja at Slowbaha.com. to ask questions, you can always reach me through the contact link at slowbaha.com. And remember, the slow Baja is open to four by four vehicles of any age. Got a two-wheel drive that you think

can make it? Well, let's talk. Once again, that's the Slow Baja, February 23rd through March 1st, 2024. Help me keep Baja slow on the slow Baja. You know, I'm a minimalist when it comes to Baja travel, but the one thing I don't leave home without is a good old paper map. My favorite is the beautiful and I mean beautiful Baja Road and Recreation Atlas by Benchmark Maps. It's an oversized 72-page book. It's jammed with details. It brings the peninsula's rugged terrain into clear focus. Get yours at Benchmarkmaps.com.

In fact, get two. One for your trip planning at home and one for your Baja rig. Hey, big news. Benchmark just released the second edition of the Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. They are always striving to improve these maps. And they've added a bunch of new features, a bunch of places of interest, including the Chenet Legacy Lodge. It wasn't on the first printing of the map.

It's there now. It's awesome. You can see it right there in Perseboo. Get your brand new second edition of the Baja Road and Recreation Atlas from BenchmarkMaps.com. And while you're at Benchmarkmaps. You've got to check out all their other atlases. I think they're up to 17 now, including British Columbia. They've got folding maps.

They've got digital maps. They've got giant wall maps. My favorite, and I've got it up on my wall right here at Slow Baja HQ, is the 30. inch by 46 inch Baja wall map. It's so great to just look at one thing to see the entire peninsula there. I love it. Benchmarkmaps.com. Slow Baja approved.

Well, hello. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Max, Jeff, Bix, Zeke, Dan, and Bear. For one spectacular week, we were the Magnificent Seven. At least that's how I want to remember us. Anyways, these guys shipped three beautiful land rovers out from New England for the full, slow

Baja experience. And I won't lie, we had a magnificent time. If you're interested in your own Slow Baja experience, I'd love to discuss creating a private guided tour just for you. Okay, got other news that I'm super excited to share with you. We've teamed up with Barbers for Baja. Now you know them for the great work they do sending kids to college. Well, they're a legit 501C3 charity now, and we are stoked to announce our new project supplying teams and coaches in Baja with the baseball gear they desperately need to play ball. Now, you know, I've been lucky. I've got to watch my own son play baseball for 20 years now. From T-ball, all the way up to AAA, I've seen firsthand the life lessons, grit, determination, humility, and resilience that playing baseball can teach. Help us,

help the dedicated baseball coaches of Baja to keep kids on the field and out of trouble. To make a tax-deductible donation to our baseball program, please go to Barbers for Baja, dot org and make sure to write baseball in the donation notes and stay tuned to slow baha for more on this exciting program once again to make a tax deductible donation of support go to barbers for baha dot org and make sure to put baseball in the donation notes thank you today's show is with slow bahaha alum david keir i think this is david's third trip to the show and today he joins us to talk about the 50th anniversary of the transpendants of their highway now it's hard to believe that prior to the completion of the highway at the end of 1973, to drive the length of Baja was a feat so rare and monumental

that those who completed it felt compelled to write a book about the experience. Now, Kier began exploring Baja with his parents in the mid-60s, and in 1966, David's father took the challenge to drive to La Paz and their Jeep wagoner, sitting between his folks, right there on the front seat of the old Jeep, his copy of Gerhard and Gulloch's Baja Bible in his lap, young David was given the responsibility for navigating for the entire trip. He diligently watched the slowly turning odometer and took note of every passing kilometer marker. Well, they made it. They got all the way to La Paz, and as was accustomed at the time, they put the truck on the ferry to Mazatlan and drove the paved highway back home to San Diego. Needless to say, David was hooked. That epic trip spurred a lifelong

affinity for history, maps, off-road exploration, and a deep desire to help his fellow Baja traveler. To that end, in 1973, as a high schooler, David released his own guidebook to Baja in the still-under-construction Trans-Peninsula Highway. Since then, David's made countless trips to Baja. He was a consultant to the benchmark Maps Baja Road and Recreation Atlas, and he writes a regular travel feature for the Baja Baja Bound Insurance newsletter. His book, Baja California, Land of Missions, is in its 13th printing. Well, David's my go-to guy on every obscure road or root question, and without further ado, here's David Kierer on the fifth. 50th anniversary of the Trans-Peninsula Highway today on Slow Baja. We want to eat the mic, as they say.

Eat the mic. Keep talking, David. We're reading the mic here, looking at a bunch of books that date back to the early 1970s, and plus a map that was in one of the book and came in three separate pieces unfolded on the table here so we can quickly glance at how the new highway ran through the peninsula of Baja, California, when it was completed. in December, or actually founded, open. It was, how do we say it, inaugurated on December 1st, 1973. The highway was actually physically completed in November of 1973.

Well, I think I got you dialed in, and that's a pretty good way to start the show. So welcome, David Kier. Use whatever you like out of that. Nice to have you back on Slow Baja, buddy. It's great to be here. It's great to be here at your place, and we, We're looking at a whole table full of great books. Your own book that you made as a high schooler, the oldest book on the table.

Here's the Lower California Guidebook by Peter Gerhard and Howard Gulloch. Gerhard and Gulik, right? Yeah. How do you pronounce that? Gulik. Gulik. I don't know if it's Norwegian or not, but G&G for short. G&G.

Well, and that was the Bible, so to speak. The Baha Bible, many people called it that. Yeah, I was a kid, but boy, I was admired by it. You could read it and see exactly where you were as you drove down the old dirt roads of Bah. And if you looked at your odometer at a fork in a road, and you knew exactly where the next fork in a road was that you wanted to turn onto based on what the guidebook would tell you. Well, I think it was Malcolm Smith who memorized this for his first run in 1967,

and memorized the book and gave it to Jayne Roberts and told him to memorize it and he didn't. Did he follow the rising moon that time and ended up on the coast of Bahá? Yeah, he ended up going east west or west east, yeah, and then running out of fuel and what have you. So, yeah. Great story. There we go. Hey, well, the reason I was interested in talking to you today on Slow Baja is 50th anniversary of the completion of this highways this year. It's amazing how fast the years go by.

I'm stunned at looking back at half a century from the time that I was a 15-and-a-half-year-old kid riding with my folks in our station wagon down the peninsula to go to Loretto for a fishing trip. And we had assumed by mid-1973 that the highway would be close to being completed and we could easily drive a few dozen dirt road miles, probably construction road miles, and lo and behold, there was a lot more dirt miles back then, and they did an amazing job at completing that section of the highway so quickly in just a few months in 1973. Yeah, well, tee it up for me. The road was built from south to north, and north to south, and they met in the middle.

Right, there are two road crews, basically, and each section had several companies involved because it was just a wildly large project for any company or country to build a highway through, what we know is the most rugged peninsula on earth. And they did that final section, which was basically Sancontine on the north in San Ignacio on the south, all in 1973. Pavement was to Santa Rosalia going north from La Paz, completed at, about 1972, but the rest of the distance was probably the roughest part yet to go, and that was all done that finally last year.

So we have the cruise from the north actually didn't move nearly as fast as the cruise from the south. Why that is, I'm not sure, probably political, but basically the highway had originally ended in the 50s and early 60s just north of Colonnette, or about 80s. six miles south of Ensenada. And highway going north from La Paz ran about 100 miles before it became just a rough-graded dirt road, wash-boardy-graded dirt road. And all that 800 miles in between those two points was quite an adventure. And I was fortunate enough to experience it when we drove it in 1966 in a Jeep wagoneer.

So flash forward to 1973, and the pavement moved south. from Colonnette, well, it was south from Colonnette to San Quintin by the beginning of 73, and then from San Quintin to a location about 10 kilometers south of Catavina at a place called San Ignacito is where the crews from the north met up with the cruise coming north from the south. And there's a monument there. There was a nice brass plaque announcing the meeting of the two crews, kind of like the golden spike on the railroad going across the United States. Unfortunately, that plaque was removed by someone, and so the owner of the cafe there across the street from the monument painted his rendition of what was on that plaque on the monument.

Unfortunately, he got the year wrong. You put 1972 at the bottom instead of 1973, but other than that, it pretty much says that this is where the crews met each other. Not surprising that he got it wrong and not surprising that David Kier knows the right answer. If I ever need to get a date right or know the right answer, I go straight to the cure. Well, your family has history driving, as you said, the road before completion. And your father bought, your father was a dentist and he bought four-wheel drive vehicles because he loved Baja and he loved fishing. And so he would drive around in San Diego these days, everybody's driving a four-wheel-wheel. drive vehicle. But in those days, he must have been a real outlier.

Well, he just did whatever needed to be done to have the result that he wanted. And he wanted to get these fishing spots that one of his patients had told him about. And it turns out his patient was a former coworker of Howard Gullick at the Lower California Guidebook. And he would tell my dad about these great surf fishing places. And he said, but you need to have a Jeep to get to him. And my dad said, well, I've got a wife. and a little boy, and, you know, that'd be too uncomfortable to ride in a Jeep. And he said, oh, no, no, no, Jeep makes something called a wagoneer. It's got air conditioning and a V8, and you can put all your camping gear in air.

And so it probably was the next day my dad went out and bought a Jeep wagoneer once he learned about him. And soon after that, we were taking trips to Baja. Yeah, and you were the one sitting in the front seat in between mom and dad, had the lower California guidebook in your hand. Yep. And you were the trip navigator. Yeah, that was a fun thing for me to do, maybe to keep me occupied, but they'd say, asked me to read what was coming up next.

So I would look at that, and if there was a fork in a road to take, my dad would tell me his odometer reading, and I got to do a little bit of math, knowing that, you know, 4.8 miles ahead, there'd be another fork we'd have to turn on or whatever the case was. And additionally, it had a lot of history in there, too. Like, there's a mission up ahead. So I learned about the missions pretty,

early on. And that became a lifelong fascination, didn't it, David? It did. Well, you know, it kind of waned and came back again, and I did a high school paper on the California missions, and I decided to do it. Well, Baja was California first, so we'll do it on the Baja California Missions, and that was my high school paper. And I kind of like had missions in my mind much more solid after that.

And then, of course, you're aware of my book I did in 2016, which is still in production. The 13th printing was just made and was delivered last week, actually. Fantastic. Fabulous. Fabulous. That's amazing. 13th printing. So, David, you had said that we had lunch earlier and we were talking about some of these details.

You'd said that as the highway grew closer to completion, your dad thought, well, I'm done with the four-wheel drive. I just need to get a station wagon that's going to be much more comfortable. extra gas tank, air shocks, and we'll go in style because the road's paved now. Yeah, well, we knew it wasn't completed, but we figured, gee, this late in the day, this was like summer vacation in 1973, there wouldn't be that much of any rugged parts, any parts that needed four-wheel drive, and the station wagon with the modification of an extra fuel tank and the air shocks could handle whatever dirt roads probably were all graded, that remained between point A and point B of the highway construction.

But as it turned out, there was a lot more dirt roads that summer, and including many, many miles of the original dirt road to La Paz, or what we call the Baja 1,000 Road. And that was a surprise to us, but we made it through. And it's a great memory to have. And, of course, I wrote my first book, if you want to call it a book, a handwritten guide called Baja on the Transpenter Highway after that summer 1973 trip. Yeah, I would categorize it as a booklet, but you've put an awful lot of work into it.

There's an awful lot of detail there. Yeah, I can't help myself sometime. I just a detailholic. And I said, well, you know, it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. So everything's in there. Yeah, so dive into that. You realized there was a gap in the amount of information that was coming in, and the in the amount of information, the accuracy of the information, and the timing of the information,

and you decided to fill that gap. No one knew, or no one publicized anyway, where the exact route of the highway, the new highway would be. And since I'd been on the old road of my folks when I was younger in 66, I was very interested as to the route of the new highway. Would it be on top of the old road? Would it be, you know, alongside of it, or would it be a completely different route? And so that was my big interest. And, you know, between El Rosario and really Ciodad Constitione or Ciodin Cerentes, that whole section is where the really new highway was very different from the old road and in many areas.

Sometimes it was right alongside and sometimes it was far away. So I was interested in that. So I recorded anything I could look and see that looked like it was from the old road and from also just reading the Lower California Guidebook over and over again. you know, knowing what rancher was over that hill and thinking I spotted it from the new highways as we drove along, I could see like worry-waring relation between old and new, and they're recording the mileage at that point. So that's kind of what became my road guide of 1973. Pre-satellite, pre-GPS, pre-D-Nternet, pre-computers.

Yeah. You were really trying to figure this out and trying to get it absolutely as accurate as possible. Yeah, that's just my thing, accuracy. We all make mistakes, but I try to have as few as possible and identify to see them or identify, I like to make sure they're fixed. So talk about that again in your booklet that you made, the Baja and the Transpeninsula Highway by David Kieran. How old were you when you started on this?

That was 15. You're 15, okay. And your 1966 trip, how old were you when you took that one? I was like around eight. Okay. Yeah. So how did your parents deal with you trying to, you know, gather this information and fact check this information?

And what does, what does benchmark say? You're trying field-checked for accuracy. You were trying, striving. Yeah, they- Striving for accuracy. Well, it gave me something to do. And they were probably impressed, I guess, with what I was doing. And they were wonderful parents in that they supported my,

my addiction to Baja California as a kid and then on. And so anytime there's an opportunity to go to Baja, like even after I got my driver's license, my mom would want to come along and we'd go check out a mission or whatever, go to her beach. So there's a lot of trips still with my folks after I turned 16. But, you know, my first trip was just a school friend and I, when I was 16, that was just after the highway was completed.

I had wanted, as a kid, to be able to drive the Baja Highway, I mean the Baja dirt road, I'm sorry, the whole thing before it got paved, before it got ruined, quote, unquote, in my thinking. And unfortunately, the highway beat me to it. I turned 16 in September of 73, but my first chance to drive it alone was not until the next April during spring break of 74. And that's when I happened to meet Louisa Porter, who was the publisher of the Baja California Bulletin magazine.

And we met each other at Catafina, and that's where our relationship. that began and she said that she wanted to have a road guide in a special edition of her magazine and wanted to know if she could use mine that I had produced, you know, the previous year in 73. And I said, well, it's, you know, it doesn't show the new highway complete. It shows it under construction. But my dad heard about this. And he said, well, heck, we need to take a trip down to the tip. So you have all the information for the whole new highway.

So you can do that for Luis Supporters magazine. And so in the summer of 74, this is a couple of months after I met her at Catavina in April of 74, my folks did a trip all the way to Cabo. We came back up through Toto Santos, which wasn't paved yet. And then over to L.A. Bay from the Highway 1, which also wasn't paved yet. Just a mile or so from the highway was paved to make it look like it was all paved. But once you went over that hill, it was all unpaved until many years later. So we did all that.

And plus I had done other trips throughout. Baja, been to Mike Sky Ranch, went down there for this first score, Baja off-road race, which was called the Baja Internacional, what most people call it Baja 500, when score ran it. It was called the Internacional. And so I had a lot of other dirt roads besides the main road to put into the guidebook, to this new 1970. It was Christmas of 74, New Year's 75.

was this Baja California Bulletin version of my guidebook. Where is that? It's right here in front of me, hiding into this map. So that's that one there. And that's my mom with the fish there on the cover with a Dorado. Yeah, special edition featuring. Out of Nicolito, South of Loretto. And the man there holding the Dorado for her is Ramon Villalé, Vialajo, I believe his last name was.

and his family developed Huncalito as it is still today and quite a little community down there now. A lot of stories, I'm sorry, I go off on a tangent here. No, they're really great, and to have that firsthand experience of driving the highway in 66, driving the old road in 66. Look what's on the cover of my 174-75 guidebook. Yeah, why don't you tell me about what that is there on your thumb?

Well, that's mission, I just kind of realized to myself, So that's Mission San Ignacio. Of course. And what's on the cover of my mission book? That mission. San Ignacio. What's the proper name for that? It's a rather long one, isn't it?

Well, it's mission, let's see, what we call, noestro, signor, San Ignacio de Caracaman. Yeah. It's a Coaching Me word, and I don't speak Coaching Me, so. Right, and I don't remember coaching me very well. Hey, so getting back to the trip that you took, the seminal trip that you took, sitting in between your mom and dad and the wagoneer,

and they were probably maybe just humoring you, trying to keep you quiet in those days when you didn't have satellite radio or CD players or whatever we have, all the modern distractions now of tablets and everything in the car. And so you're reading the Lower California Guidebook, and that had first come out in the 40s, correct?

No, it came out in the 50s. 56 was the first edition. I thought it was 48, so it came on 56, and then it was rapidly updated. And a 58 second edition, and a 62 third edition and a 67 fourth edition. And then they had a printing in 1970. And that was the last because now the highway was,

after that the highway was finished. And then Walt's, I'm sorry, Howard Ullick's coworker, Walt, another coworker, Walt Wheelock, who had the La Ciesta Press of several small books about Baja. He took it upon himself with Howard's blessing to revise it with the new highways in Baja, taken place. So in 1975, created the Baja California guidebook.

Gotcha. So that trip that you took with your parents, can you even begin to break down that experience? You're on dirt. Tell me which sections were paved. We'll start there. You're talking about the 73 trip now. No, no, no. We're talking about the 66 trip. Ah, okay, the 66 trip. The payment ended about... The gleam in his eyes. The gleam in his eyes.

Ah, the 66. What a great way to get your kid into a a dose of Baja fever. The trip, the pavement ended about, I think it's 86 miles south of Incenada, just a few miles before coming to the town of Colonnette. It had ended there for several years, I think around 1951, and then this was 1966, still ended there, and it was a long, straight, grated dirt road ready for paving, but never got paved, at least for many

years, that went straight down to past San Quintin, and the grading kind of faded out as you got close to El Rosario. And then the old original, basically a two-track through the Baja Desert, all

away until you got to San Ignacio, and then you got basically like a graded road again of sorts to go to Santa Rosalia that the El Boleo copper mine company had built probably in the 40s or 30s. And there was those steep switchbacks that went down the mountain,

the Quastodellian Inferno, the grade to hell, down to the sea level. There's two sets of them, as you know, it still is today, has paid, but a different route slightly. And then in San Joseilla to Mulej was a pretty smooth graded road, probably from the, there again, from the Baleo Company. And then past Mulehe, it was a hand-built road along the Cliffs, on Conception Bay, Baye Concepcion, and then back to kind of a typical two-track desert road, and the route went through San Jose and San Miguel de Comandou, not through Loretto.

Loretto is kind of a dead end. You could get on south if you went up to San Javier mission because in the 1950s they built that road, and then from San Javier get out to the road to La Paz. But we went through Comandu and then hit that long, long, long street. straight graded road coming north from La Paz. It's one of the longest straight sections of graded road, I think, in the world. Maybe the second longest. I think I read that somewhere, if it's true or not, who knows.

And pavement actually didn't happen until we got, I think it was around where the town of Santa Rita is, around 100 miles from La Paz, then all of a sudden we got blacked up. And paved to La Paz, and then going south of La Paz, the pavement ran for 10 miles, and then ended. and construction was kind of active there, going south through El Triunfo, San Antonio, and ended around San Bartolo before you got to the coast at Buenos Aires,

Buena Vista, I'm sorry, Buena Vista, Las Palmas, what today we call Los Berlis. And then it was basically a two-track dirt road from the all the way to Cabo San Lucas, is the Jeep Road. Two-track, one lane wide. Can you imagine that? To Cabo San Lucas was just a dirt track like that.

that. And it was just a fishing village, a Cabo San Lucas, so the cannery. Amazing. Truly amazing. Well, that trip in 66, if I recall, your parents took a ferry to Guaymas to get back. Well, actually, a 66 trip with a ferry went to Mazatlan. And because after we got to Kabul, we came back up through Toto Santos, because I made a loop that way you could see both sides of the peninsula. There again, all dirt roads. And from Toto, back to La Paz was a graded two-lane wide dirt road until we hit that paving that came 10 miles south of La Paz. And then from La Paz, the ferry was only about a year old. I think 64 or 65 it started, and we took that ferry over to Moss at Lawn, is the only route it took,

and then drove up the Mexican mainland side to get back home on a paved road. Now, the ferry from Santa Rosalia to Guimis, that began in 72 when the pavement had reached north from La Paz to Santa Rosalia, and when we did the trip in 73, when the highway was under construction, we went down to go to Loretto, basically do some fishing, and then, of course, instead of taking the highway back home as originally planned, with so many dirt, dusty miles, we decided to take the ferry from Santa Rosalia across the Guimis, so we could come home on the paved road, a bit more relaxing, less dusty. Yeah, longer, but not longer.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to put myself in your dad's shoes saying, well, David, you've got this opportunity to illustrate a book. You better find out, you know, we better go all the way down now that the road's been built. And touch on this again and kind of open it up for me. You felt that it had been ruined. Your Baja Mountain, you're, you're, you. the Iger, the, you know, the, the, the, the summit that you were climbing. Had an elevator now. Yeah, it'd been ruined. Yeah, I guess as a kid, you know, or someone I wanted to drive the original dirt road before I turned, when I turned 16, to be able to drive it because, you know, I did with my folks as a passenger.

And once I could drive it, you know, like being in a Baja 1,000, I wanted to drive the route. And so, yeah, it was paid before I could, before I could drive. but I was 16 years old. And that trip, we went to, it was a spring break for a week, so we decided to make a big loop trip out of it. I decided, I planned it, of course. And so we went down as far as Calamoway Canyon turned off and came back north through Gonzaga Bay and San Felipe,

made a loop trip that trip. Yeah, so I had that original road. Before Highway 5, the road to Gonzaga Bay was, Very rough. Probably rumored to be the worst road in Baja California, so I did drive that, so that was kind of neat to experience. And I had been over that road of my folks on our first trip in 1965, so from San Felipe South to Bayos-Lois-Gonzaga. And that was like low-range, four-wheel drive crawling up and down these steep, rutted out to volcanic ridges between Puerto Citos and Elverfinito was the steepest, roughest part. And that took several hours just to do that

you know, 20-mile section of dirt road. Well, I just read recently in somebody's reports from their childhood of bumming around the east side of the Baja Peninsula in the 60s that Trace Virgins and I think his dad called it the Five Hookers. It was that rough. Yeah, I've heard Trace Maria's, the sisters, probably different terms. I always consider to be more than three, though. It seemed to be five or six maybe.

And Cliff Cross's guidebook, he does an excellent map of the grades. Let me flip that open while we're talking because he did such a good job of illustrating how bad it was there south of Porte Sitos. And making quite a deal about caution. This is a road that should be done with a high traction. There we go. Let's see. Only traction vehicles and trucks should travel south of Perticitos. and he has six grades listed here as either rocky, steep rough, highest one, shrine at the top, deep cut,

and that's all between Pertocitositos. There we go, in San Luis Gonzaga. So he illustrated it properly of his map from 1970. You spent a lot of time on that part of the peninsula. Your family seemed to spend a lot of time there. We like the goal. I mean, I like it, and my folks like to think better because we thought the fishing was better, although we had great fishing on the Pacific side too, probably because it was warmer.

We just love warm weather, desert, and a lot of times it's too hot for people, but not for us. I mean, heat was just an attraction, and the water being warmer in the summertime, so you didn't get that. When you stepped into it, it was like walking into a bathtub. Yeah. Yeah. But the beach is sand beaches. The beach by Alfonsinas, we camp there. And, of course, the beach is south of San Felipe.

We used to camp, of course, at Nuevo de Mazzalane. The original was called Agua de Chale, and the founder of Nuevo de Mazzalana, a man named Luis Castellanos Moreno, just embellished anybody who came there. He built Cabanas, or Cabanas, however, it's called, out of Okatios and cardboard for people. will have a shady place to camp on his beach,

and then eventually took branches of a salt pine tree in the arroyo near his house, a tamask tree, and stuck those in rows and watered him from his well, the well called Agua de Chale, and grew the forest that you can still see to this day that's at Nueva Masatlan. And he was so proud of that. And Luis was there from, gee, early 60s to late 70s, I'd say. It was last time I'd seen him there.

before the camp had new owners, a fellow by name of Javier and his family, I believe, run it since then. And they made into really still keeping it a campground, which is unusual because most of the campos south of San Felipe are private home developments and not really campgrounds, not really campos. So Luis's Campo Nuevo Mazelan still lives today as Nueva Mazelan with tree camping, big beach, and now they have little casitas. that you can stay in there too. I saw on their webpage. And again, your family spent some time there, and then you, in your adult life, you like Shell Island. Yeah, so we, I used to go to the north edge of Bayeia Santa Maria,

a shallow bay, which is just north of Nueva-Maselan. I would park at low tide and walk across the lagoon inlet that's there to this long barrier island beach that stretched forever and ever all the way to Persebu, or they call it Laguna Persebu, which is on the other end. And we go along and collect seashells and just admire the pristine beach of northern people on it. It was like, wow, this is great. How can I camp here? And it actually took me, well, gee, what was it?

A couple of years before I discovered a route to get onto the island at low tides. There's salt marshes and brush, and you really couldn't see anything. a definite as a road. And you want to be careful where you drive there because the mud can become quicksand and take you away if you don't have the right spot to go to. So finally found a route because I saw someone camping there and I walked across the lagoon and asked him,

how did you get out here? And the secret was out. So that was in 1978, and I've been camping there almost exclusively since then rather than that in a way of a Masatlan or another Campo. But occasionally the high tide is so great that I don't risk driving into the water to get to the island, and so I still camp in Nuevo Mosa Lawn. Yeah.

Yeah, well, no campground's worth the price of a pickup truck. That's it. We're going to take a quick break right now to catch in a word from Baja Bound, our sponsor. Your friend in mine, Baja Baja, will be right back with David Kier on Slow Baja. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border, and when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance.

Their website's fast and easy to use. use, check them out at Bajabound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Big thanks to my new sponsor Nomad Wheels. They stepped up and sponsored the Slow Baja Safari class at the Nora Mexican 1000, and I don't know if you've seen the pictures, but Slow Baja is running a set of 501 convoys in utility gray, and they look pretty damn sharp. They were a little shiny. I will admit that they were a little shiny when I got them installed at Basil's Garage just before the Noramexican 1000, but after, I don't know, 3,800 miles from Baja dirt, they look perfect, they really do. Nomadwheels.com. That's right. Check them out, reflecting a minimalist

approach to off-road travel. Nomadwheels.com. Well, we're back with David Kear, talking about the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Trans-Peninsula Highway. David's referring to a a rather large map on his wall, looking wistfully over at the highway. Let's talk about the president, the administration that finally got this monumental task. That's a good story, yeah. When he was running for president, he drove the old Baja, well, the road that was at the time, the only Baja road, and asked the people of Baja California, what did they want from his new administration if he got elected? and they all said build us a road.

And so he kept his promise. How about that for a politician? And I, let's see, so he was in office from 70 to 76 or whenever the range is there. They run, they have six-year terms in Mexico. And by golly, he got the road completed. I mean, things were going underway, but he really was the big push to get the highway finished finally. And, of course, you. near Guerrero Negro, at the 28th parallel, which is the dividing line between northern and southern Baja, California.

The north has been a state for many years, and the south was still a federal territory. This giant eagle, 135, 140 feet tall, stylized eagle was built as a monument to the completion of the highway. and there hundreds of people gathered to hear and see President Icheverria inaugurate the highway. So it was officially opened on December 1st, 1973. And did the predicted hordes of people come when the highway was built? I think they did because there was a lot of photographic proof of streams of motor homes and campers and trailers heading down. And it overwhelmed, obviously, the gas stations and the services that weren't quite in place yet. As you may be aware of the government built what they called paradores every so often along the most desolate part of the peninsula where there was no infrastructure yet.

So the first parador was located south of San Quintin right near where today's, Hotel Missillon Santa Maria and Silito Lindo's driveway are along where the old highway went through there. And that was the first part of it. It was a gas station, a rest stop, a cafeteria, and a trailer park nearby. Plus the hotel was an El Presente at the time before it became a La Pinta, then a desert inn. And then now it's the Missione hotels, Mision Cotel. Santa Maria at this place because the bay is called Santa Maria Bay. The next bar door was at Catavina, which wasn't even there before the highways built.

Catavina was the name of an abandoned rancho near the more, the active ranches of San Luis and Rancho Santa Inez, which is a very popular place because the Baja 1,000 in the old days used it as a checkpoint. And so Catavina was kind of born from the highways construction and there was the hotel a trailer park, the rest stop, a cafeteria. And the next parador was at what they called parador Punta Prieta. And today that is the junction with the highway to Bahia de Los Angeles. And that was the only parador without a hotel.

And had the other, though, had the cafeteria, gas station, trailer park. The next parador was at the Eagle Monument, which it called Parador Parallel or Parallelo. Baintheocho, 28th parallel, near Guerrero Negro, and there was the hotel, trailer park, gas station. And then the final and last parador was at San Ignacio. I guess they felt the town hadn't grown enough yet to service the horde, so the modern gas station cafeteria, and then in at the oasis, the hotel was located across the river.

And then there was a couple minor mini-paradorers, and one was at San Agustine, which is, of course, between El Rosario and Catavina. And I think one was at what they called today, Nueva Rosarito, at least the gas station, was there. Neither one or in existence any longer. And was that the El Presidency line that had the hotels? The hotels were all called El Presidency. Yeah, they were all the El Presidency chain hotels.

And in I think the 1980s or early 90s, they became the La Pinta hotels. so a different hotel chain took it over, and then they became the Desert Inn hotels, and a couple of them are still called Desert Inns, I think. And then in the two in the North, the San Quintin one and the Catavina one are called Hotels Mission, Mission Santomria, and Missio and Catavina.

And then the other ones, you know, halfway in at the Eagle Monument, and the one down to the one down, and well there was an L. Presidenti in Loretto. It used to be the Plias, I think the Plias Loretto, and I'm not too sure what it is now. It was a La Pinta also. So, yeah, the hotels went through different ownerships and name changes.

Yeah, but, you know, thinking about that those were built for, you know, to service that traffic on the highway in 1974, 1973. Right. Pretty nice hotels. Yeah, yeah. Well, they expected, you know, the Americanos had, you know, lots of money and they'll come down and they'll spend the money. And I think they were overwhelmed, surprised at how many came down with campers and trailers

and not using hotels but needing campgrounds. They did have a lot of campgrounds, but I think that was the bigger popularity was camping. But in that how frugal many Americans were, maybe, more frugal than they expected, perhaps. Yeah, I think it was Henry Manney from Road and Track Magazine did an article about going to the bottom of Baja in an RV and saying basically, you know, you can, you don't need to stay at a hotel. You can do it in your RV. And RVs obviously were on the rise. That was a great period for RV expansion.

Right. And what better bucket list than Baja. Mm-hmm. True. I didn't catch it earlier. I was thinking about this when you were describing the road. And I believe it was in Beheia Concepcion. Is that the road that's often you see in the 19.

60s AAA guidebook where the road is right on the edge of the bay. Yeah, exactly. There's almost no altitude or elevation of the roadway from the waterway. Right. The mountain comes right to the water in a lot of Bahia Concepcion, of little exceptions. So that was like hand-built. And as I heard a story that the prisoners at the former prison in Mulehe were the labor force behind that, building and gave them something to do, I guess you'd say. And that was a hand-built road along the cliffs there.

And that was obviously the original Highway 1 before road construction came through there between 1970 and 73. And as we ping pong and you say hand-built road, I think of the road on Highway 5 where for many, many years, one family sort of took it upon themselves to maintain that road. On the road south of Portisitos to Gonzaga Bay, there was a man. I actually never seen him working, but his wheelbarrel and shovel were parted with a donation can. So, yeah, it was around, I think, in the area today is called Cinco Islas, Five Islands, between there and like Oki's Landing. Yeah, and so he would work that or have his... his paraphernalia there as if he were working that.

Sure. And take donations. Yeah. That's a Baja lore or Baja legend, but it... Do what you can't. I've actually seen one of my guidebooks is a photo. I think in Cliff Cross's book is a photo of him with his wheelbarrel. And I say, I only saw the wheel barrel.

Maybe it was siesta time. Yeah, could have been. Could have been. Okay. Well, so high hopes, you thought that they were going to destroy your... Your, your, my ability to drive down the Baja on a dirt road. Yeah. And so you had planned for a dirt road bomber as your first car, as I understand,

or at least your parents had said, David's probably going to Baja. We should get him a Baja capable first car. Can we talk about that a little bit? That seems absolutely nuts in this era of helicoptering and snow plowing parents trying to keep their children absolutely safe and everything that's a hazard. out of their way. But tell me about your first car, David. They totally trusted me in Mexico.

They felt that I knew so much about Mexico, more than them anyway, because of my studying the peninsula and logging the roads and all that. They had no worries at all about my safety or my abilities down there, and they were able to convince the other boy's parents that went with me when I was 16. And the next boy, when I was 17, who happened to be a 16-year-old, a year younger than me, on that second trip, the second spring break in 75. No, they totally trusted me.

My first vehicle was a Myers-Manks-bodied dune buggy, Volkswagen-powered dune buggy, with a roof rack on it, and it actually had side curtains that could be added or removed depending on the weather and the amount of dust I wanted to eat. So all my camping gear could go on top of it, and we intended to trailer that down behind the station wagon. So we had an off-road vehicle where the...

station wagon couldn't go now that my dad didn't have a jeep or a four-wheel drive wagon any longer and when i became sick and i had driven that obviously it was one probably the car learned how to drive in and uh when i was 16 i just became my vehicle to drive to school in and do these baha trips in with their blessing and so that was my first car from uh from that 73 when i turned 16 to mid-75 when my father, bless his heart, bought me a Jeep. And so I was, you know, extremely lucky kid. Do you remember anything about the acquisition of that? It was a Myers-Manks, wasn't it?

You know, I'm not positive. There was a brand name, Myers-Mex, but it was a Myers-Mex style. Yeah, it was a Magst style. Fiberglass. Yeah, it was an orange-red, fabric. Well, my pictures, you can see the pictures of me with it on one of my trips, I think, when it's 15 or 16. It almost looks like it's enclosed.

So there's a roof rack. Right. As you said, side curtains. And it was pretty deluxe for a buggy. It had a roll cage in it and it had steering brakes because it actually was used in an off-road race. The former owner told us it was in the Ruff-Brigo Rough 100 race that was in the desert of East San Diego County. And I guess that's what the turning brakes were for. Of course, you know, that gives you the added traction of a.

by you're breaking up a loose spinning tire, it transfers. It's like positraction, but manually, manually, manually operate pause traction if your tire spins trying to get up a steep grade. And I climb those deep Gonzaga Bay grades, obviously not with a four-wheel drive, but because the dune buggy was light, had large tires on the back, and it was easy to do in a dune-buggy.

I had no problem climbing those four-wheel drive grades in that buggy. So as a dune-buggy owner-driver, did you have an affinity for what Bruce Myers, had done and setting the fastest time, you know, from La Paz back to Tijuana and that all of that hoopla that led to the first off-road racing in 67? You know, I'm trying to think if that was really imprinted in my mind too heavily. I mean, I probably was aware of it. But off-road racing, hmm, it's hard to say because I did go to the first Baja 1,000 to watch

with my dad when I was, I guess I was 16. That was November of 73. So I was aware of the racers. like, you know, Mickey Thompson can't buy us because he wasn't in that race, but he went down to watch it. I think he tried to get into it, and for some reason his truck had some issue because he had the race truck on his trailer. So Mickey Thompson was there.

Imagine Danny Thompson was with him there. I asked Danny about, do you remember that 73 race camping, you know, past Ojos Negeros, and he didn't quite recall it. It was a long time ago. And it was just a, fun thing for sure and you know I didn't get into racing more until I was offered a chance to work a pit and that was probably in the 78 Baja 500 or Baja International when we're camping next to a pit team and he said hey we'd like to hold a fire extinguisher for us and I said sure because I looked like

I wasn't doing much I guess and I became involved with a group called the Los Campionis racing team out of Vista north San Diego County and from there I became a co-driver in the Baja thousand in a pit captain for several races in the late 70s early 80s. Yeah, I remember seeing a picture of you in a Dotson 510 or something. Yeah, that was a class. But then I was class six, which was production two-wheel drive sedans and Dotson, sobs, you know, whatever kind of sedan you had, you know, roll caged out, big tires, but pretty much looked like a passenger car.

And that was a class I was in. Yeah, and getting back to that 73 race, that was the last, Well, that was the one-year sort of independent effort by the Mexican government. Can you talk about your experiences there? You had a Super 8 movie camera. Yeah, right. A lot of people watched that. I've noticed on YouTube.

It's on there, and a link to it, it's on my VivaBaha.com website. You can see in the media section that it's like three minutes long, I think. You had a Super 8 projector. I think my brother-in-law loaned it to me and went down there with my dad and I. We camp just after the pavement ended. about five miles or so east from Los Negros, because the race that year went from Ensenada to San Felipe and then south. And we parked just after the pavement ended,

and there's some big rocks. And you can still see this day. So there, there's where I was. We parked and camped on top of the rocks or camped and sat on top of the rocks. That morning cars from all over Insanada or wherever it came, and it was quite a little city there to watch the race. and I did that videotape that Super 8 movie, added some era-style music to it.

So it sounds like you're watching on any Sunday or something fun from the 60s or 70s. And that was great. Yeah, now I've watched it a few times. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll admit to running your numbers up, getting some distractions in. Yeah, good stuff.

Thank you. So Pete Springer, Slow Baja alum Pete Springer and Bill Sanders, won their class in a 1973 Toyota Land Cruiser. Toyota Land Cruiser that had been converted to propane. Propane. So must have had a massive tank behind the... Pete, yeah, Four-wheeler magazine.

It was their company truck, if you want to call it that. And Bill Sanders was the publisher-editor, Four-Wieler magazine. And Pete was just a great mechanic all-around guy. And it was so funny because I ran, I never met Pete in person. But I, through the Internet through Facebook, I started associating with them and talking with them. And he couldn't believe that I remember it was a propane-powered Toyota.

And I said, yeah, you were in that propane-powered Toyota that won the class in 73. And he was kind of like, well, you knew that? Yeah. And it turns out that Pete and my brother-in-law went to school together. Amazing. Amazing. Well, you know, if you haven't listened to that interview with Pete Springer, Pete and Bill were friends. Pete was a mechanic and a welder, and he lived in a camper behind his dad's shop.

And I think he said he made $2.50 an hour in those days, and he wasn't quite worth that. But he had this opportunity because Bill Sanders had the vehicle, which they had converted to propane because of the fuel shortage and the high price of gasoline and the gas guzzling nature of a Toyota land cruiser, which gets about 10 miles to the gallon folks. They converted this thing to propane. And then they said, well, what are we going to do with it now? We've done our articles on, yes, this is popular. This is possible. We've done the series of articles. So Bill was able to acquire the Land Cruiser from Toyota for the grand fee of $1.

And Pete somehow received $300 and had one month to assemble the class-winning vehicle. So he had all the vendors that he could get free stuff from and schlepped the truck around to. to various manufacturers in in Southern California to get the free goods, the advertisers of the magazine. And then he did the assembly and did the testing. And, you know, he said they just basically went slow enough not to break it and fast enough that they won. Right.

It was a great story. And I remember, well, I was a subscriber to Four Wheeler Magazine throughout most of my life, I think, for many, many years. Well, let's get back to the subject at hand. So from that very first trip on the paved highway where it wasn't quite all paved, how did Baja evolve for you and your family? Again, going back to 50 years ago, 1973, December 73, the hoopla. Well, when you see the peninsula and you see different places that you camped at or went to or fished at,

you kind of find out places you'd want to go back to again. And I suppose the area south of Loretto was a biggie for my folks, as we've been there a couple times. Mission San Javier, my mother loves seeing. And, of course, I dug it too. So I've been there several times back before there was any new road or paved road to it. And Bahia de San Angeles, Gonzaga Bay.

You know, you just go back, but mostly, you know, south of San Felipe. When my dad passed away, the fishing gene didn't quite hook with me as much as it was hooked to him. I enjoyed fishing with him and my mom, and it just kind of didn't really kind of carry it on with me. Me, it was just off-road driving, off-road camping, writing books, writing maps, absorbing, and transmitting what I absorbed so others could help others enjoy or discover. places that they could explore more because no matter how detailed I can give a map or show a map or write about when you go it doesn't spoil it because you go you see more things you see different things the things I saw will look different to you and you'll experience different things and I can't possibly give you the amount of interesting places and events in any kind of book or

wording or podcast. You've got to go yourself, see what I've been to if you want, but use it as a guide to go beyond where I've been and go deep and learn about the people and the places and the food and the culture and the history. And I'm just teasing you of whatever I write. I'm not spoiling it at all, I promise you. Not spoiling it at all for me. That's for sure. Cliff Cross in his many many, many books, his guides. I think the one that I recently dove down the rabbit hole on was in the 1974 that has information about the highway. And he said it can be driven in 24 hours.

So from top to bottom. And I still think that's kind of an accurate, you know, yeah, it can be. I don't know if I'd recommend driving it, but I always say it can take three days if you're driving kind of, you know, all day from top to bottom. What do you say about the distance? And once you're now default as you've spent well over 50 years driving up and down the peninsula, so let's get into that and we'll wrap things up. You can definitely drive it in three days and probably can drive it in less than three days.

My question be why and what's the hurry to get to the end of Baja? Why not enjoy what's in between the two, the top and the bottom? Cabo San Lucas is an interesting, beautiful, busy city. And I'm more of a country guy. I like to get away from cities, so that's not my attraction. So I say, hey, don't be such a hurry to get to the end of Baja because you might pass everything else that is Baja. And that's why you should take your time, should enjoy it,

or at least spend one leg of your trip if you're going to Cabo because you rented a condo there or whatever, use either going down or coming back as a way to see the peninsula and go off these side trips. Look at these towns. Look at these villages and you just might be surprised at what you come across. Go out to Bayasuncione and let Sherry Bondi show you what her town has to offer. It's just an amazing place with fishing, fossils, and fantastic people. You go to Bahia, Los Angeles, and you'll experience this most fascinating museum.

that has all the artifacts of the area, the natural history, and see the natural history, go out and explore the mission nearby San Borja, see the Las Flores Silver and Gold Mine Center where the railroad engine that's now in the town park used to sit. And you can follow those railroad tracks as they head south into the desert to where a cable tramline but gold and silver ore down from the top of the mountain. It's all amazing. Everything you see down there has a fascinating story to tell and learn about. And I can't get enough of it.

I can't ever stop wanting to go to Baja, even though my body may prevent me from going to Baja. So, David, from your personal affinity for seeing the world in a very linear manner and creating your own maps from the time you were a kid following the G&G and the lower California guidebook when you were sitting in between your parents on the front bench seat of the old wagon ear to drawing your own hand, handmade maps and your addendum to what was happening. So people would have accurate up-to-date information. And then seeing your own maps being published in a guide, it's all very heady stuff for a youngster. And fast forward to your guidebook that you put together for Baja Bound that's not out yet.

And then the stellar work you did for benchmark on their Baja, California Road and Recreation Atlas that just had the second edition come out. Can you tell me a little bit about this brand new benchmark and what people need to know about how to read a map? Open it up. It won't do any good sitting somewhere in a bookshelf. You got to have it with you. You've got to have it open. And before your trip, go over your route. Look at what's there. See the things. The benchmark, Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas has historical sites listed. It even has the root of the El Camino Real from Loretto, North to El Rosario plotted on there if you want to do a little hiking or see where it crosses the highway. On my website, it actually has a page with the kilometer markers where the El Camarreal crosses or joins with Highway 1 or other roads in Baja. So, yeah, get a bit of history.

Obviously, I'm fixated on the missions, the El Camino Real, but also on old mines too. And much of that is shown in the Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. So use that, use it as a plotting tool. And, yes, the second edition just came out. it was an answer to people who saw little changes or little things they wanted to add to it or things that was missing. For instance, the Almanac came out, I mean the Almanac, I'm sorry, the Baja Atlas came out in, it was May of 2021. Well, in April of 2021, Coco moved his corner. And I was able to get that edit into them before the book went to print.

and so the new Cocos Corner was on the Baja benchmark Atlas before anyone else had known it because that was right like that next month and some people said, hey, the original Cocos Corner is no longer is missing from it. They should show that too. It's a historical site. And of course, that's a great idea.

So guess what? The second edition has the original Cocos Corner on there as well as the new Cocos Corner. It really is amazing to me how open, benchmark is to improvement and to change and to add more information in as long as they can accurately vet it. They're a great group of people that they're very open to input and receptive and yeah, anything that they can help make the book better, they're interested in having done.

They were very receptive of all my suggestions and they took most of them to heart and did and I was very jazz that they mentioned me in the book, and I'm happy to help them anytime in the future. Well, David, I think we're going to leave it right there. Where's the best place for people to find what you're doing, your websites, your social media? Sure, vivabaha.com is my website, and there are links to my two Facebook groups.

I've got a Viva Baja Facebook group to discuss that webpage or just to chat about camping and off-roading, and I also have a Baja Missions Facebook. Facebook group, which is even larger, discusses historical locations in Baja California. So not just the missions, but also the mines, the El Camunerreal, the petroglyphs, and pictogras, fossils, anything historic. Yeah, well, I enjoyed our conversation about your work on the missions and your book. You said 13th printing in that book?

Yeah, about that. That's amazing. I just do not a whole lot of the time because I'm self-published. But when my distributor, which is Sunbelt books down in Chula Vista, says, they need more and they have to they feed amazon my book uh i print more for them but i sell them directly myself and i'll sign the copies if you buy them from me at vivabaha dot com and uh otherwise get them from sunbelt or get them from any place that you buy your book set they'll get them for you all right we're going to leave it right there david thanks for uh telling us some stories about the construction

of the transpenincentular highway and recounting your personal memories of driving it before it's completion and after it's completion and sharing some stories about your dad and the family 73 family wagon, the air shocks and the second gas tank. I like the way your dad thought. Thank you very much. It's been a great joy talking with you today. All right. We did it, buddy. Well, I hope you enjoyed that show with David Kier. He is such a wealth of information. He's a guy who really, really enjoys sharing it, too. So if you follow him on social media or you go to Avivabaha.com, he's got a lot of stuff there, and he's very happy to tell you all about it. So hit him up.

David's a good guy. He's my go-to guy, as I said, for all the obscure road stuff, root stuff. Just talked to him about my slow Baja trip for February, and he helped me out with some stuff on the east side of the peninsula. If you like what I'm doing, if you like these conversations, getting to meet people where they are, drop a taco in the tank. If you still got tacos jingling around in your pocket this time of year, drop one in the tank.

It really does help me keep the show going. And it's so important doing this thing. I don't know how you say it in Espaniel, but I am doing this thing on a shoe string. So your donations of support really, really do help. And if you don't have any tacos, I get it. I usually don't either. So you got a second, do me a solid and drop a five-star review on Spotify or Apple or share the show with a friend. The Spotify Year Enwrap told me that 71% of my listeners came this year.

Somebody sent them a link to the show. That's amazing to me after three years, 130 shows. that somebody sends a link out and somebody else new listens to the show, and Spotify tracks that and then tells me about it at the end of the year blows my mind. So, hey, you know you've got friends who love Baja. They might not even know that I do a show. So share Slow Baja with them. All right. And share some Slow Baja stuff with them. I've got some cool stuff in the shop that Canvas, deluxe canvas shopping bag is really great. I just took one to New York with me this past weekend. super, super handy. Zippered top, zippered security pocket inside. It'll go to the beach. It's pretty big, too, pretty big.

Got some hats over there, got some t-shirts, patches, stickers, of course. So share a little slow-baha joy with one of your slow-baha friends. And to sum things up, you know, Mary McGee, she had a birthday this week, off-road Hall of Famer. That's right. She had a friend Steve McQueen who loved the desert and implored Mary to go riding with her out there. said, Baja's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever made to slow Baja? Without a doubt, it's my Sheal Man seats. You know, Toby at Sheelman USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended Averio F for me and Averio F XXL for my navigator, Ted, as Ted's kind of a big guy. And Toby was absolutely right. The seats are great and they fit both of us.

perfectly. And let me tell you, after driving around Baja for over a year on these seats, I could not be happier. Shieldman, slow Baja approved, learn more and get yours at shielman.com.