Slow Baja - The Desert Dutchmen Fly And Drive The BajaXL Rally With Style

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

Marshall Kramer, Jamie Wolgemguth, and Craig Dieffenbach are The Desert Dutchmen; on today's Slow Baja Podcast, they break down their drive of the 2019 Baja XL Rally. The trio from Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, began building a 2000 Jeep bought on the cheap from a relative. The build progressed at a glacial pace, and the trio moved to Plan-B. They booked a modern Toyota 4Runner from California Baja Rent-a-car in San Diego. In preparation for the 3000-mile drive, they shipped a ton of spares and specialized off-road equipment to the rental agency office. The folks at CABaja became quite concerned about their intentions for the vehicle. After an hour of tense discussion, the team put down a $5000 deposit and were on their way. Kramer designed a stunning logo and applied a complete (removable) graphics package to the truck, which set them apart from the other BajaXL Rally teams. They sported matching team garb and, at least in my mind, earned multiple gold stars for their efforts. Follow The Desert Dutchmen on Instagram Follow The Desert Dutchmen on Facebook

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. Slow Baja is brought to you by the Nora Mexican 1000. Do you have a 4x4? Do you want to see off-road racing up close and personal, join Slow Baja on the Savvy Safari 4x

led by off-road racing legend Kurt LaDuke. The Savvy Safari class is a great way to experience the happiest race on Earth. For more information, check out www.orgna.com. That's www.w N-O-R-R-A.com. Hey, it's Michael Emery, and I am delighted to be on a slow Baja Zoom call with the Desert Dutchman. We're talking about the Baja XL. These guys were a lot of fun on the 2019 Baja XL, and I'm sorry they're not going to be on the 2021 trip.

And I was just trying to find folks out there in the world of the Baja XL family that could break it down and explain to folks what this event is all about. Since you guys flew out from Pennsylvania, rented a forerunner, covered it with fabulous graphics, and looked like you were having a good time every time our paths crossed. I just wanted to have you introduce yourselves and tell them the Slow Baja world how you guys in Pennsylvania decided you're just going to do this thing down in Baja and how it all came together. So take it away. Sure thing. Hey, this is Marshall. This is Jamie Wogamuth and also a member of the team. And we're all we're Alex from the same town, Schaefer's town. We live within a half a mile each other. So it wasn't hard to get together. Shafers Town, PA, not next to Baja. Correct. Yeah, and the other side. Yeah.

All right. So we've got Marshall, Kramer, Jamie Woolmoguth, and... Craig Diefenbach. Hey, welcome to Slow Baja, guys. So whose idea was this? I'm going to say it was mine. Yeah. Definitely was Craig's.

Yeah. So I don't know. I was sitting at work one day. and it was, I found Baja XL two days before the original one started. So that's 2017. Yeah, 2017 sitting at work one day. I found it on the computer. And I was like, oh my gosh, can I make it?

You know, and obviously with two days until the start, I wasn't going to make it. But the next night, actually, yeah, that night I started formulating a plan to make it to the next one. So yeah, I grabbed three really good friends who live in town, Marshall, Jamie, and our other friend Tom, who unfortunately couldn't make it then. And I was like, hey, I got a really fun idea. And these suckers all said, yeah. And tell me about your friendship a little bit. How far back does it go and what other sort of adventures briefly do you guys entertain? So I don't know, briefly, and I don't, I know Craig and I are sitting side by side, so I know we're just taking off each other, so I don't want to take from Jamie,

but Jamie grew up across the street from me, and we've had, you know, our friendship for a long time, and myself and Craig, we actually went to spring break. in Cancun together. So that was a one of our. You say spring break. I say senior week. Oh, that's right. These guys are all older than me.

I picked older or more responsible people. Well, it sounds fun either way. Yeah, so that's probably where one of our first adventures started. But we all travel well and we've all been doing a lot of things together in different capacities for events. and get-togethers and expedition, stuff like that. Craig and Jamie have been doing a lot of motorcycle riding, you know, pre-COVID. Yeah, I think that might be one of the reasons that some of us came to mind to Craig. Craig's been an Induro rider, which takes some organization and some, you know,

keep your head on right to get through things. And Marshall did a, what year was that? Marshall that you did the 16 16 you know a road rally through a northeastern United States

and which can I ask yeah for sure that was it was called the fireball run that was an Amazon syndicate kind of thing that was 10 days 5,000 miles

through New York, PA, Virginia, and then the New England states as well. In what sort of vehicle, Marshall? We had a, Jamie, what was it? That was it, you were there when they... Yeah, it was like a Chevy crossover, some sort of a trail, like a trail, the trailblazer. Gotcha.

All right. Well, had anybody had any Baja experience? I did. My wife and I actually have a time share down in Cabo. So we've been down there quite a few times. And the one time, well, we did wide open Baja twice. Oh, there you go. All right. On the class 10 cars, it was amazing. It was awesome. Great experience. I highly recommend it. So we did that twice and got to kind of be comfortable in the area. So then we started running a G. and exploring more while we were down there. So yeah, I was down, I don't know, five or six times ahead of this. I'd been to San Diego, but I've never seen a cactus. You know, I mean, I'm a California.

I went to college in San Diego, so we just went to Baja because it was next door, and that's like, you know, where kids in the Northeast would have gone to Canada to go drinking. We went to Baja because that's where you could go drinking before you're 21. I just associate vacations in Florida for folks who live in or the Caribbean, depending on what your tax bracket is, for folks who live anywhere in the Midwest or the east or what have you. So to get to Baja isn't something that I would expect. So that's why I was heading down that path. So we've got a little bit of Baja experience. Somebody found this crazy event on the computer.

Sounds like some old friends said, yeah, why not? and then take me through which one of you is graphics. Is that Marshall? Are you the graphics guy? Correct. All right. So for the folks listening, these guys showed up at the Baja XL at a beautifully decked out, modern-ish, maybe a 2010 or 2012 forerunner, but fully done, thoughtfully done,

spectacularly done in graphics. So let's get right on to, you know, the mindset. What got you down this path of like, you know what? Let's fly out there and run a truck and do it all up. That was actually plan B. All right. So whose vintage scout didn't make it? Good thinking. It was, I guess, was a vintage Jeep Cherokee, I guess we'd say, Craig, but it was That's a thousand Cherokee. Yeah, we were talking about what vehicle we might want to use when this whole idea came up. And one of Craig's relatives had a tenant who had left him high and dry, but, you know, blew out of this apartment and left a Cherokee behind. Sounds like you said, Craig said, hey, I think I can get one pretty cheap here.

So I think he dug up the title and we gave like 600 bucks for this thing. and started working on it, and that was the plan. And then how did that unravel? Like a ball of twine. As Craig mentioned before, he came upon this idea literally two years before the 2019 event, and only having that little bit of time, we ran out of time before when it came time to be at the 2019 event.

We worked on that thing for how many nights, how many hours. and we're cutting it up and weld it up. You think for four guys that live within two miles of each other, we could have gotten together more often. You know, like life and I got three little kids and everybody else has kids. The two years went quick. And then we had trucking plan to Vegas.

So the plan was we were going to fly into Vegas. The Jeep was going to be sitting in Vegas waiting for us. I had all the arrangements made. And when I called the trucking company back to, confirm and get it all scheduled, they like totally backed out on their price. And it went from 800 bucks to like two grand. And it was like, okay, well, that's, that's not going to work. So luckily, Jamie thought far enough in advance and was planning plan B, with, you know, and that's, that's where the forerunner came in. There was a company that I think that Baja

Excel was actually promoting that was the only rental company in California that would allow you to take one of their rental vehicles anywhere in Baja. So I struck up a conversation with them, started pricing some things out. And one night we planned a meeting and I said, okay, here's an idea. You know, just kind of laid the whole thing out, compared it to our current budget versus what this might cost. And it just made more sense. So I said, hey, let's fly out and just get our vehicle. Yeah, I think you definitely came down to the budget because we were all, you know, we all had our increments put in there, our portions. And then once we figured out, Jamie found that we could get a, I think it was a later model in that.

I think it might have been like a 15, a 2015 Toyota four runner. And as soon as we knew we could confirm that and rent that, the other partner, Tom, Jamie and Tom, you guys were going around getting schematics of the forerunner so we could do all the graphics. Yeah, that's right. Jamie, yeah, pictures and text messages. Him and Tom were at the beach on vacation together, and they were going on like night missions and measuring random forerunners. Yeah, we actually were, yeah, we would go and find one in a parking lot and measure it up because Tom was going to do the graphics, how to make sure everything fit. So, you know, we're taking dimensions off of other people's forerunners to make sure it's going to work.

So, yeah, Tom actually laid out the initial graphics for the forerunner. And then I developed the logo and got all the large, like the, like the Baja Excel logo and everything and just transformed all that into vector print files and turned everything into large format that Tom could print out at work. and so we actually had that all packaged and shipped out to the rental company and that's I don't know how much time we have or what is 24 hours too long for a podcast to tell this story but but we started well from the day we decided that we were going with the forerunner we just started purchasing and shipping stuff directly to the the rental company which they weren't too happy with once we found out once we got there

Well, we filled their business with Amazon boxes when we arrived. We arrived and they weren't too happy that we found out. And one of the reasons was that they were seeing some of the stuff that was arriving at their shop and saying, why do you need traction mats for our rental car? So they got a little suspicious that this was more than just a drive-through Baja, casual drive-through Baja, and we had to do a little bit of negotiating. to convince them that we weren't going to bring their vehicle back like the rental car and jackass. Yeah, no, I get it.

The company that you rented from? California Baja, I think it was. Yeah, it was an acronym like Cal Baja. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I don't, I didn't see their name floating around this time. I think Andrew had promoted them last time. But they had rented to another participant.

There was a European team that came over. They got a wrap ball. What's that? Another one got a forerunner too, but they showed up. They showed up in a, what's the rental car you can get like a, you just pick up rent from anybody. And they show up in like an Austin Martin or something. Yeah, they rented some exotic vehicle right off the airplane and showed up. at the rental agency, yeah, right, with like a...

Yeah, Austin Martin's a Rana car. But, you know, they, yeah, they were nervous. They thought that we were racing their forerunner from top to bottom as fast as we could go, and we tried to convince them that we were in the adventure class, not the racing class. And we spent a pretty sweaty hour, I think, talking to them because we were very concerned that we weren't going to get out of there

with a vehicle. but I gave up. I was already looking through Craigslist. Like Jamie's negotiating and seeing if his credit card's big enough to get us this vehicle. And I'm just in the back guys. And I'm like, look, man, this for 500 bucks, we can go buy this right now and still go. Yeah. That's where I was at that point. I'm like, we can, we're still doing this, whether they give us a car or not. I love the spirit. Yes, exactly. You know, I had some discussions with my, my friend Jeff Hill at Baja Bound Insurance because Andrew had contacted them way back when about being the official insurer of the event. And I think when you have Hungarians contacting an

American insurance company that sells Mexico insurance and they're talking about rallies and people renting vehicles and this and that. And, you know, I think, I think my buddy Jeff just said, I'm not sure if that's right for us. Let's see how the first one works out. It's understandable. I mean, they, you know, they've got a big investment in their fleet of cars, and they're going to hand you the keys and send you out in the desert, and they don't know you.

And they apparently weren't very familiar with the Baja. Well, nobody is. familiar with the Baja Excel. They were familiar with Baja, but not the Excel because obviously there are different categories. Yeah, and it's new and it was new and it's Hungarian. And, yeah, I mean, a lot of people just don't, didn't get it. Yeah. So I'd agree with that.

I didn't get it until like day three or four. Yeah, so let's get into that. How do you, how would you, how do you, how have you describe this event? to friends and family. Good question. Let me back up quick to Baja Bound. Insurance? Yes.

Are they still doing chapstick? Oh my God. I found a Ziploc bag with about a dozen chapsticks under the seat of my land cruiser. Maybe right after Christmas, it was like the greatest gift ever. That stuff is the bomb. It's amazing. It is in my pocket right now. You can scrape it off your lips two hours later and it's like a nice little dessert.

No. No, it really sincerely, astonishingly is great lip balm. And what a great marketing gimmick. Yes, I have about a dozen. If you need some, you can text me your address and I'll be sending it out tomorrow. But yeah, I'm bringing more of that down. Baja Bound is not the official sponsor of the Baja XL. I'd like to announce that.

But Baja Bound is the best Mexico insurance and has the best lip balm. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruisers out of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Your website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Glad we took care of that housekeeping. But yeah, I mean, how do you explain it?

Yeah. Anybody? Like I mentioned, you know, doing the other. the other road rally, I kind of had an idea of, you know, how the days might go. But, you know, listening to your other podcasts, you know, the Baja is, it's something different. It's its own little place in the world. And so trying to explain that and the landscape and that type of stuff and the stuff you traverse, that's probably the hardest thing to explain as far as the country.

camaraderie and working together in the day to day, that's probably, that's probably easier than trying to explain, you know, the back road to the Baja, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's what I often tell people when they, you know, because a lot of people followed us on Facebook and, you know, Marshall did a great job keeping us up on social media during and after and so on. And so you end up finding out a whole lot of people we're actually watching. And when you, you know, when you go to describe it to them, it's hard to do because very few people have driven the length of the Baja Peninsula. It's flyover country. And it's just amazing to, you see people's faces when you say, well, we drove from Los Angeles to Cabo. You drove. How far is that?

Well, it was 3,000 miles round trip, you know. But I think the most fun, you know, the driving was kind of grueling, but I do think the most fun was, as they said, the camaraderie. because it's kind of this foxhole mentality. Everybody's in it to, you know, you can't have a weak link. And number two, I think that the best part of the experience was there were people from 25 countries there. And as you know, Michael, you know, every night was a party and it was a giant international party. I mean, that, you know, the Korean contingent had that giant tent every night. And we were eating, you know, silkworm larva and swordfish.

or whatever they caught. They were learning about fine tequila as well. So it was a very international, uh, educationally, uh, rich event. Yeah.

That's part. Absolutely. You know, that group there, they stayed up like every night and fed the last people in at camp. Like if you came in a two, three, four in a morning,

you still had a hot meal. Yeah. Amazing, isn't it? It was. It was incredible. You know, and Andrew has it figured out where,

he gives you he gives you a roadmap to an it's just an incredible adventure and he gives you a roadmap and like goals and you can take that and do with it

whatever you want you know like you know some people quote unquote raced it if that's your thing you can do it if you want to hit

every taco stand on the way down you can do it um you know he just he gives you a good framework for whatever kind of adventure you want to do. You want to eat 123 tacos in 10 days.

I could try. I could try. 60 maybe is good. So that taco story, and that was something I wanted to touch on going back to the rental car. If you don't mind, guys, knowing, like Jamie had mentioned, I was trying to do our best. to keep everybody back home up to date with social media. This is Marshall, so we're getting the name associated with the voice for those listening at home. So I'm trying my best to keep everybody up to date back home and online.

And but our little snafu at the rental car company, we didn't want to post anything too outlandish or out of hand or. That's right. And we, and honestly, we didn't. It wasn't, not without exaggeration, but when you're in the Baja, it's completely, you are out there. There's no question about that. We did a photo dump when Jamie, when the insurance or the whatever ran out on Jamie's credit card like seven days after the event, there was a huge photo dump to Facebook.

They had a $5,000 hold on my credit card, Michael. And after that, Marshall just let them fly. But so in the meantime, You know, the first, I mean, well, the whole 14 days, it looked like we were just drinking tequila and eating tacos. And it's like everybody back home are like, you guys aren't even racing. You're on vacation. Well, I mean, little did they know. I'm like, we have stuff coming.

But we had to like kind of play nice just until we got home and got our monies back to really show what the trip was like. How did you guys approach the Baja XL rally as a rally? Were you in the touring category or were you in the racing category? Touring. Touring. Yeah. Not as much because our paths did cross a couple times. So we were about as slow as you got in that event, which is why I had Slow Baja painted on my soft doors just to set the bar as low as possible, having driven a couple of high speed vintage car races before in slow things.

it's good to be the, you know, the fast guy and the slow thing. What, how did you figure out what your route was going to be each day? And what GPS, electronic navigation, paper maps, how did you guys sort that part out? Well, we thought we had it figured out, you know. I bought, how many GPSes do we take guys? I took at least two. I bought two to take them along. And I bought the maps, you know, the download map that,

they offer and all of that thinking, oh, we are going to be wired and flying, right? And just never really figured all that out. We had the paper maps, and I'll let Marshall describe how he really did it, but it all came down to his phone and the GPS antenna that's internal in smartphones. And we did some pretty amazing crossroads from one side of bah to the other. And sometimes we were the leader. Here we are the guys from, you know, 2,500 miles away and we're leading a pack. So how'd you do that? For folks who aren't really familiar, when you say you did crossroads, that means you're on a dirt farm road, a washboard, dirt, whatever you're going to find from one paved road to another paved road, correct? Is that what we're talking about?

Absolutely. See you. Yep. Okay. I just want to set the stage for folks who haven't had that lovely experience. And in my car, in my, my old 50-year-old land cruiser, that's 30 miles an hour tops. And it feels like you are an absolute maniac flying down the road. So I don't know how fast you could go in your more modern forerunner. But that's not a fast way of traveling. Right. In a rental car, like 25 miles an hour on those roads feels fast.

Yeah. No, so we're in the same boat. I mean, 30, I feel like I'm on the edge of death flying. Yeah, I think it was, well, I think I think what really had it figured out, so I, again, from traveling and another, on another side note, to make a, to make a short story longer, that summer before my family and I drove across the country and I are in our Jeep and, you know, just using Google Maps. But you have to be proactive and you have to download the areas just so, you know, you can be off, you can be off signal, you know, off the grid, but as long as you

download the map from Google, you know, you still have connectivity, you still have a visual. So I had experience doing that. And the one of the first, one of the first getting to Mike's Sky Ranch, Craig wanted to, we wanted to stop at a, a point along the way. We wanted to stop at the racers. Oh, like Casillas Memorial. Yeah. And, you know, we're getting out there. We thought we had all the stuff pinned and set in the GPS and kind of we weren't sure of ourselves. And there was no other tracks going to find.

And I punched it into Google onto my phone. And like it literally took us right to it. There was a couple farmers out working the field. I don't know what they were doing legitimately. But, you know, huge language barrier. And we're trying to explain what we're doing. The farmer comes over and he just takes us into basically the underbrushing woods and takes us to the memorial.

And I think from that going on, we kind of understood that this, you know, Google Maps might be pretty advantageous for us. And probably did 90 to 95% of our traveling through, our directions through Google Maps. We abandoned the GPS pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, GPS is just too modern for me. I've got to

maybe I'll figure out how to download the Google Maps to my phone before I go, but we're Baja Almanac and an old AAA map and a couple of headlamps is how we're doing it in the old Slow Baja. Hey, so I'm not sure we've really adequately

describe the people, the vehicles, the terrain, the scenery, the food. Give me the play by play. How did you, how did you experience this event? Who did you find yourself driving with day after day if you found this, you know, the same folks day after day? And what can you say about, you know, Bahia de Concepcion or the other stunning spots that this event, you know, puts you into? I'll just talk about the food for a second. can. I mean, I said 123 tacos and that was an actual number. We were counting tacos.

Right, guys? That's an actual number. And I think we missed some. We were being conservative. We didn't count the first ones. And we just, you know, Marshall has this knack for just wanting to stop at the smallest place you can find. I mean, it's the way he travels. And so we would do that. And I forget the one, the one, you know, over along the Sea of Cortez. It was south of San Felipe. It was one of the early days. And we stopped at this. It was after the washboard road. Remember the washboard road?

Is that Altona's Camp? Yeah, Scorpeon Bay. We were on the west coast. Scorpio Bay, that's it. And so we stopped there because we wanted fish tacos. And we stop at this shack where this, you know, a couple is running it. And we're like, fish tacos. No, no, no.

We don't have fish. No fish today. I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the water. You know, and I'm like, no fish. beef tacos, but the most memorable thing about that was that they, to make the guac for the taco, they went around the back of the shed and we heard the generator fire up so that they could run the blender to make the guac. Wow. Now, you don't have a fresher taco than when somebody fires up the generator to run the blender to make your, you know, your fixings.

I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah. Another thing, well, again, with Google Maps, I've pinned so many places, restaurants and gas stations. So we knew where we were going. And I'd be like, hey, about two miles up here, there's going to be a taco stand on the right. And they're like, what the hell? And there's the taco stand. But yeah, food turned out to be, you know, a huge delight and a huge highlight of the trip. You know, getting back to the people, you know, when you get into town. I mean, you guys are departing from Takate this year, if I'm not mistaken, it's not doing the start from LA.

No, no. But the night when we got into town, pardon me, we caught up and met some people just at the procession. You know, you get your room and you're getting prepared. And you know, you're in this big parking lot. And that's when we started meeting the other teams, the other members and the other. the other people. And, you know, I think that gave us a good idea of how this is going to go

just because the people were so genuine, same interests. You're all there for the same reason. If you're not looking forward to, you know, an adventure through the Baja, you're not in that park amount. Absolutely. Absolutely. And looking back on that, actually, Marshall, the people we hung out with for 10 days in Baja are actually the people we met the night before in the setup day in the parking lot. I mean, it was, it was firefighter Jim and Wilson and Heather and Brooklyn and Wales. And, you know, those are the people that we actually, just by proximity, it's, hey, we're getting our vehicles ready next to each other. And then we spend the next 10 days crossing paths and teaming up.

That's just funny how that happens. That's a super solid group because again, 140 vehicles and youths throw out firefighter Jim and Heather and Wilson and, you know, it just made me realize like, oh, we love all three of those teams. And we, you know, again, bringing up, we were definitely bringing up the rear in Slovaha,

but we ran into Heather and Wilson the first night at, um, they ended up at the El Coyote Ranch after Mike's was sold out. And they had to go down the gnarly, gnarly road from from Mike's to El Coyote. Wilson sent me the picture yesterday of them getting the Jeep fix the next day. Yeah, and somehow they made it. I don't know what they did.

They backtrack. They came back. And anyways, the quip that he made, because we saw him at breakfast. We didn't see him the night before. We saw him at breakfast. And it was like,

hey, you're in this event. Oh, hey, you know, we get the introductions down. all that. How'd you get here? Oh, well, he came from mics and like, I just thought my stomach dropped. It's like, oh, you came from mics. You guys were more. But and then he relayed the story and it was awful and the whole thing. And then he said, ah, you know, then we, you know, caught some Wi-Fi and watched a movie on Netflix and got some sleep and we're having a great day. When are you guys leaving? And, you know, like, follow us out. And we were just moving kind of at a slower pace, but I'm like,

these guys are going to be fun. Like Wilson and Heather, totally unexpected. Super fun. Oh, they're some of my great, I talk to Wilson pretty much every day. That's, I mean, it's so amazing. Super fun. Yeah, invited me out to do the Gambler 500 in Oregon last June, or two June ago, I guess now. And it was amazing.

It was fun. That gets me to the people and lasting friendships. You met some folks. Who do you, did you have some takeaways from this where you say, like, these are people that we're going to keep in touch with? and keep doing fun stuff with, you know, down the road. Absolutely. 100%.

Yep. Yep. I think we're all in a still in a group text with Wilson. You know, every now and then you just hear from him out of nowhere. Or you comment with him on Facebook and it's like no time passes in between. You know, you just pick up where you left off on every comment. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I'm in a book exchange with Phil Ticelli with the guys,

the guys that were in the old blazer. So we ended up sort of on the same pace with them. And it's funny that you threw out Phil's name because I feel quite close to Phil now. And we ended up catching them on a morning in Pescadero just south of Toto Santos and said, hey, you guys know a taco stand around here? And it's like 11 o'clock in the morning. So it was kind of early for tacos. But we hadn't had breakfast.

So it was one of those things. and they said, oh, yeah, right here, we ate here yesterday. Hey, you guys want to have tacos? And we were, I don't know if it's, you know, if we were stereotyping or what, but Ted and I were calling their truck the almond brothers. You know, all straggly hipster dudes, you know, just cool. They're cool guys. But I kept saying to Ted, the amount of concentrated talent in that truck, Ted,

I'm going to tell you, those guys are not average dudes. They are interesting, interesting dudes. I can see it. know, as a photographer, I could just see it. So we ended up in this taco stand kind of before the stand opened, but they opened for us. And then it was just, you know, like an eight or 10 year old girls, the waitress and the mom and dad are cooking. And we brought in a bottle of Fortaleza. And so the six of us, the four in their truck and the two in our truck, I think we solved every problem in the world that day. And we drank the entire bottle. And we had great tacos.

And, you know, whatever it costs us, you know, 12 bucks or something. something for lunch. And I thought, like, we need to be on the same pace with you guys for the rest of the rally because these guys are our guys. We, we filmed Marshall had this idea where he filmed a short video while we were on our trip, like from start to finish, just little clips. And they did a scene with us where they were driving the, what was a Brick Blazer? Five Blazer and 80s. Laser through water puddle. And we were all filming it and having a great time. Like, yeah, they were awesome. They were. I got just, you know, one of the things we did, when you say about the people,

one of the things about the people is that everyone's interesting because this is what interesting people do. These are not sheltered people that are going to go and jump in a, you know, 40-year-old vehicle or 50 or 60 in your case, you know, and drive 3,000 miles, devil may care. You know, you know, those are interesting people that do those things and they find their way and they make their way and they improvise and whatever it takes. So from the start, you know you're going to be with interesting people. And the second thing that we had a lot of fun with is, you know, you can't remember everybody's first name. This is impossible. You know, you're meeting dozens of people at a parking lot at one time.

And so we got onto this little game where we would name somebody by like their appearance or a visual. Exactly what I did. We had the nickname game going the whole time. Yeah. And, you know, when we talk about Brooklyn and Wales, I mean, that was the, if you remember the purple Tacoma, the, there are the blue Tacoma that they brought from Brooklyn. I mean, we just called, his name was Phil, right? Was it Phil? And Leaf.

Yes. But it was Philip. It was Brooklyn and Wales. And I called her whales because she only came on because her boyfriend promised her she'd see whales. So the guys you're talking about Phil DeSeli and something. Let me just jump in for a second because I always said to Phil, I always just said to, yes, sorry, with the Tacoma from the brand new Tacoma from Brooklyn. I always just yelled to them, hey, Brooklyn. Yeah, right.

And then the guys you're talking about in the Blazer, that was Wales. I'm sorry, Waldo. ZZZTOP. ZZTOP. ZZTOP. So Waldo was JG because he was always wearing that knit cap, I'm assuming, right? Bingo. So we did this the whole trip.

I mean, it was so much fun because you could rattle off 20 people and all three of us knew exactly who you were talking about, but you didn't have a single first name. You've got to hold a conversation. You need to know, so you just use the visual. What's funny is once you start realizing every other team is using the nickname method, now you can communicate with everybody. And it just seemed like, yeah, it was working. Yeah, we have flannel was with Brooklyn and Wales too.

Yep. Flannel? Flannel. Flannel. Yeah. Was that Matt Sertion? Who was that? It was.

Yeah. Matt wore flannel shirt a lot of the time. You know, one of the other ways. The Jokers in Slow Baja. Were they just Slow Baja? It was. I think so. That was pretty easy.

Yeah. You had asked a question earlier about who we hung out with. And one of the other things that situated us with a certain group is that Craig's a motorcycle mechanic. And so Brooklyn and Wales and so on, they were with those two guys on dirt bikes, Jim and England. Yeah, the British guy. And they had a couple of breakdowns. And Craig brought a whole bunch of tools, shipped them out there and had the knowledge and so on. And so we found ourselves one day we spent a pretty big part of the day,

a large part of the day, helping them to fix their bike. The one had a broken engine case and a couple of things. And I think England couldn't get his bike started. And so, you know, Craig became their de facto mechanic. And as a result, you end up, you know, tailing each other all day long. And so that's how we got really close with them. And so that's something that's very hard to describe to people. who aren't, you know, it's not, I don't want to say you're in the trenches or this is, you know,

that sort of experience, but you've had a, you know, an experience. And, and these are people that you would do anything for. And Craig, I just, I'm thrilled that, you know, you, you ended up, and these are folks that, you know, I can recall quite clearly from a couple years ago, England would drink tequila. The other rider would not drink tequila. That's how I classify them. ad guy i don't i don't remember his name jim somebody ad guy is who i referred to him in my nickname head um ad guy didn't drink tequila the brit did drink tequila and so you were fixing their brakes huh craig yeah yeah and and it just all worked it was it was crazy and you know so the day we were fixing their bikes uh we were in a gas station parking lot the first time just after we came back

for came down from mike sky ranch and we were in a parking lot with the that's like day two yeah day two with the almond brothers and we watched the local federallis roll in and like quick run into a house and like shotguns out like run into a house and we're just sitting in the like the parking lot of a gas station eating gas station tacos and ice cream and and they come out with the the person they were looking for and drive away and it was just like oh my word did that just happen you know did that did that just go down um yes it did stories like that like we were in the campsite one night and you know to go back to what jammy said about interesting people um we kept hearing this noise and the lights in the campground would dim

so we go to investigate and here they're putting motor mounts in a balbo yes you remember that the constitution they're like so what was it like i'm like all right i'm going to tell you this we were in campsite cutting them out of a tire or something right a vespah tire motor mounts and a lot of a vespita tire did anybody mention that there are two dudes on vespas on this event were there i missed that when you stopped and looked at what was going on you're in Mexico you're doing this and there's four other countries helping yeah oh yeah the guy from finland a new Volvo's like the back of his hand and he's fixing the car. Yeah.

And it's like, and then they look at you stupid and they're like, really, I can't make this shit up. No, they're making a motor mount at a party after drinking a lot of tequila and eating tacos for a Volvo wagon. Hey, there's a Volvo wagon on an off-road, you know, event in Baja. So a Volvo wagon in Martinelli racing schematics. and you're using a used VESPA tire to make a motor mount. Let's start there. New story. To us, that doesn't sound strange anymore, does it?

No, I come to expect it now on places I go. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of firsts, you know, when that same, that same, we were at the, it was the RV resort that night, and we got a kick out of, you know, they turned out the lights. So, you know, one of the staff was going around with a ladder, a step ladder, and just going around on screwing all the lights in the RV park, and that's how the lights went out that night. You know, that's one way of doing it.

Hey, you know, we glossed over the fact. I forget which one of your gang here is in a book exchange with Phil, to Selly. So let's back up to that. For those who don't know Phil to Selly, Phil to Selly sketched a cactus with a spare tire in it that became my logo when I saw it in his sketchbook and I said, hey, can you send me that? I would love to use that as my Slow Baja logo. And he's kind of a, he's kind of a dude. He works for Tyler the creator, this, you know, crazy. L.A., you know, I hate to say the word rapper, but he's quite an entertaining musician, and Phil is his super designer who designs all of his stuff. So that's the kind of guy. I hate to say

it, Phil, maybe I'll have to edit all that out. That's the kind of guy who's just hanging around with a bunch of other dudes in an old 80s K-5 Blazer. Yeah, correct. So Marshall again. Yeah. What are you exchanging with him, Marshall? Yeah, so he posted. And like we mentioned, you know, we still stay in contact and social media. You know, that helps. And came across the one day, this is just before Christmas, a couple months ago.

And Phil's like, hey, anybody wants to do this book exchange, hit me up. So I did. And one of my buddies from Hungary is like, where am I sending this book? I'm like, you got to send it to Phil. and so that's just the type of fun stuff. Like the fun seems to still continue from the Baja, you know, that type of networking and it's online, but we're still connecting. Yeah, I've actually rolled through, I'm in San Francisco and I've rolled through Los Angeles a few times

and seen two of the other guys in his truck a number of times and then took Phil out to lunch once. And then, of course, you know, he was kind enough to get my college-age daughter an introductory job at the company that he works for, which was astonishing as well. So these are sort of things that come out of driving around Baja with folks. So, hey, did you guys have any problems? You were running a beautiful, newish forerunner. Any problems? Any breakdowns? Anything that went wrong? No, maybe. Go ahead, Jamie. No, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. Honestly, the biggest problem I can recall we have was the roof rack shook a little loose going up to Mike Sky Ranch the first night. That's it.

Again. The roof rack, that was pretty rough, you know, side to side kind of bouncing around going up to Mike Sky Ranch. We had a bunch of stuff up on the roof rack and it just shook loose a little bit. Did we have anything beyond that? No. Windshield. Oh, yeah. We took a rock in the windshield off of a dirt bike spinning dirt bike tire tire.

But it was funny. It was the windshield was already chipped when we got the truck. And we were like made sure to point it out after the whole rental fiasco. And the rock came up and like hit the same spot, but it like spidered the bottom of the windshield. So when we returned it, we were like, remember that was already broke? They're like, oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, for all the hubbub at the beginning of the rental where they were very nervous about it.

And as a result, like Craig said, we pointed out every little chip and ding on the thing to make sure we weren't going to get charged for it. We returned it. We took it to the car wash and gave it a really, really good bath. But when we returned it, they just kind of waived us on, hey, thanks. Hey, what would be your advice to others about, again, you guys came in from Pennsylvania. You picked up a rental car. Not everybody's going to do the same level of effort where you carried that thing out with a great set of graphics and really, you know, had a, had a, I don't know, you made a huge effort to do something really fun and cool. So what would your advice be to others about Baja X-L? If I, if I can jump in, it's Marshall again. Hello, graphics guy.

From doing, if I can, just advice, from doing the first rally, one of the things I learned, and that was one thing I emphasized while we were still, you know, hashing things out here in the garage in Schaeferstown was at every moment we need to work together. From the first rally, everybody was talking about, you know, good friends would, you know, a race, any type of competition or race like this, you know, you can work on each other or it can, everybody handles issues or problems differently, but we have to work together to work through them. And I don't think it matters if you're doing the adventure class or the touring

or a full out race, keeping your wits about yourselves and working with each other, not working against each other. That made a huge difference. Just for me, and I know the other guys did as well, just considering each other's, you know, take on the whole thing and making sure we work together to make the most fun and make it enjoyable. Well, I think that's pretty profound.

The high speed, high stress, La Carrera, Pan Americana, 2,000 miles and six days, flat out all day, vintage car racing that I did before I ended up bouncing down the road in Baja in my old land cruiser. The advice that I heard from the organizers was what happens in the car, stays in the car. But I think that it takes a special friendship, a special level of camaraderie and a special level of letting, I'm just going to use a vulgarity here, letting shit go to keep it all fun and enjoyable in the vehicle. And if it's not fun and enjoyable, I don't know why you're doing it.

Ted and I in our old land cruiser, we're laughing all the time. We're laughing at ourselves. We're laughing at others. We're laughing at the Allman Brothers. We're laughing at guys who rented a forerunner and decked it out in graphics. We're laughing at Heather and Wilson, who are like really together and have their, they had their shit together. We were laughing because they were ready to go and we weren't even packed yet trying to get out of Rancho L. Coyote.

And I said, we're going to see them a lot and they are going to be really on it. So we're just, you know, we laugh, but it's, it's hard doing these events. I'd have, I guess I'd have three things. This is Jamie. I'd have three things to, to suggest, you know, don't, you got to be self-sufficient. Don't expect the path to be paved for you. I kind of did. You know, my experience had been doing, doing long-distance endurance rallies on a motorcycle

where you've got to pick off bonuses, you know, all over seven or eight states in a couple of days. And you have to really, really be organized. And when it comes to scoring, you know, if you don't have every T cross eye dotted, you're going to lose. And it wasn't anything like that. It was pretty much like, hey, here's your sticker. I'm glad to see you made it. We'll see it the first day. And if we don't see the first day, we'll see the second day.

You know, and I didn't expect that. I thought it was going to be, you know, almost like an every night. They're taking a headcount and making sure you're, you know, roll call, your present. Is everybody safe? Is everybody okay? nope, you take care of yourself. That's my one observation. My second is don't sweat the small stuff. We were very prepared, I felt, in terms of equipment. We even went to Harbor Freight in Los Angeles there and bought a whole bunch of stuff and weighed the vehicle down. And we were

careful. And if we didn't need it, we didn't open the package. And we returned a whole lot of stuff when we got back to California that we had never used. because we just, now we had a modern vehicle, but we just, you know, you think everything's going to break and it's not that bad. And thirdly, you talked about the, you know, the team effort. I mean, you are going to spend every waking hour with these people. The only time you're going to be away from is when you're sleeping or if you just go get lost, which one of the guys from, I think, hungry, went missing a day or two. Maybe that was why.

But, you know, in the beginning, I'll admit it was a little tense because I was worried about the vehicle. I'm worried like, oh, we're going to ruin this thing. They're going to charge us thousands and thousands of dollars. Whose credit card? Was it on your credit card, Jamie? It was my card. And, you know, and so I was nervous in the beginning. And every little bump and nudge, you know, is like, oh, no, there goes the money.

But I loosened up. And in the end, again, don't sweat the small. It doesn't matter. We returned that vehicle. They didn't seem to care. We didn't seem to care. And we have a lifetime of memories. Wow, we should leave it right there, but I'm going to say, hey, what's the best way you guys have put up Marshall?

I'm going to say that's probably you. I've put up a lot of great photographs and information on Facebook and other places. So let's jump into that. Where can people find the things that you've posted, Marshall, or where your team's posted? So we did, as you know and you've mentioned with graphics, my business is marketing. So social media, you know, we created a Facebook page called, you can find us at Desert Dutchman on Facebook and end Instagram. And it's probably, it's definitely dated. I know I don't get to keep up to it now that it's been two years later.

but I think last year for the anniversary, I did a compilation of a bunch of videos and shots from the day. It's just fun. You get a really good sense of, again, the terrain, the atmosphere, what's going on before, the after parties, during the day. So you can see all those videos on our page, the Desert Dutchman.

And that was, and unbeknownst to us, and I think it was probably last minute, we won the photography award, you know, just highlighting. And I think Andrew probably appreciated that just because, you know, he's got a full-time job as well, managing this traveling circus. and you have little time to do that that photography and documenting the days and destinations and and you know the checkpoints and stuff like that so I wanted to make sure and he didn't ask me it wasn't that type of concern it was more of documenting our trip for for our own benefit so all that stuff is there on our page and that's Desert Dutchman on Facebook and Desert Dutchman Desert Dutchman on Instagram, and these guys have really done. I had to take a quick deep dive on the Facebook page looking at all their slideshows again before we had this Zoom call. And it really

is a great look at, you've done a multi-part slide show. And it's really a great look at what this event is like for folks who are trying to figure it out and saying, hey, maybe I should do it. I don't know. It seems like a lot of work or kind of maybe an adventure that's beyond me. But let's just boil it down one more time. Your vehicle didn't work out. You found a rental vehicle. You flew into San Diego. You rented a vehicle.

You put a huge deposit down on the vehicle. You kidded it out with graphics and harbor freight stuff. You drove it, I don't know, 3,000 plus miles and made a bunch of friends. Dirt, paved, taco stands, remote beaches, remote camp. Did you guys camp every night? We didn't talk about that. Did you get some hotels? you camp every night.

We scheduled it out so that we could shower every other day. What was the plan? This is every other? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we had a hotel at, well, we got a room at Mike Sky Ranch. And then I know we had a room at Toto Santos. Four days later, five days later.

Was that five? Then there might have been one in between. I think we were one in between two nights. But I think Toto Santos is probably the, our biggest surprise and our biggest. we'd like to baller suite at Toto Santos. It's amazing. I just said to a fellow yesterday that I was talking to, who has a kayak and paddleboard business in Loretto.

I said, you know, if I were to move to Baja, I would either live in Loretto or Toto Santos, but probably Toto Santos because there's actually surf. Yeah, Toto Santos has a place. That was great. that was the baller suite. We had laundry. Yeah, the washer and dryer. We were offering it out to all the teams, you know, as soon as we got our laundry done, like, come on over, throw it in. We've got it.

It seemed like we had the only one in the place. That really goes on these events, isn't it? We've got this, come and use it. Hey, let's wrap it up, gentlemen. I appreciate you making some time for Slow Baja. Last thoughts, everybody go through and give me just, you know, one or two sentences about, you know, your last thoughts on the Baja XL, your experience, your, you know, what you'd say to others. Go ahead. I think it's Marshall again. I think if you're considering it, just know that you can do it.

There's no questions asked. The people that we ran into, either we helped them or they helped us. There was no questions asked. And, you know, it was just a camaraderie unlike anything else. And, you know, if you're hesitant, just know that you can do it. That's valuable. I had a fellow call me today that is one of my old Law Carrera racing buddies who got into this thing the day after the event closed. I called Andrew and said, hey, let this guy in.

He's a good guy. He's going to have fun. And he was, he called me today. and there's just a little bit of freak out in this voice. Have you seen the weather reports? Do you know that it's just pouring rain in Baja right now? I've got a buddy who's got a 20-year-old Jeep. We're going to do this and this.

And I said, you know what? You can drive the first three days on pavement and nobody will care. Yeah. Day four, when it's finally dry, you're going to get onto the dirt. But I said, just, you know, don't work. There are no rules. There's no right or wrong way of doing this. You don't have to get out and get your vehicle stuck in the mud.

That's the thing I noticed. I said it before. And I think Andrew, he has it figured out. He gives you the roadmap to an awesome adventure. And it's up to you to make of it what you want. Like you do you. You know, you play the game your way. And that's what it is.

Now, yeah, we had a newer vehicle and put graphics on it and stuff. But we also had, you know, our return bill to the parts store, I think was like three or 400 bucks, you know, and then Harbor Freight for toe straps and this and that went, you know, whatever else we had that we didn't use. So like we were prepared, but it's not like you're going into the, look, we did Baja with Google Maps on our phone and didn't have to use any spare gas in our gas cans. So it's not quite the Alcan, huh? It's not. It, you know, it used to be, and it still is remote, in my opinion, as we'll get, you know, in driving distance. But, you know, you have to be prepared, but you're not going to, it's not completely desolate. You know, don't be afraid of it. It's a wonderful place. The people are amazing. The food's amazing. The scenery's amazing. The Baja XL was incredible, and the people we met were amazing.

So that's a pretty rousing review. The people in Baja are amazing. I always say that and I always like the people on my podcast to give me their opinions. And so you're there on that. But also the people on the Baja XL. Again, I mean, we've shared our love for Phil. We've shared our love for the Alman brothers and Heather and Wilson and others, multiple others, the Koreans, you know, just crazy, fun, wonderful folks.

and it really is an interesting place to start that all these people who have come to this event have come to drive 3,000 miles bouncing through Baja, and they're not, they're not, you know, Baja 1,000 racers. They've got Vespas, they've got Vespas, they've got Unimogs, they've got 50-year-old land cruisers, they've got an old, you know, motorcycle or whatever. It's a very diverse group. Yeah, I didn't see one person upset at the afternoon. party when we got back to LA. Oh my God. I was only upset because I had to drop Ted off and then ended up.

My wife was working in L.A. that week. And so I met her at the hotel and I didn't go to the party. Oh. Jamie was the closest because he had a bad taco just before he left Mexico. I got to see. You know, Michael, I would say I'd never. Actually only one bad taco. You actually won the lottery, James.

Yeah. Because there never had a tacos in the ball. I don't even think it was a taco. I think I was the only guy that had coffee in San Felipe. So I kind of think it was a water in the coffee. So you guys didn't go to Guadalupe Canyon. You went to San Felipe for the last night. Was that what happened?

Oh, boy. That's episode two. Yeah, we didn't make it to Guadalupe Canyon. We're already over an hour. No, we didn't go either. And we didn't, the Almond brothers, we pulled them in with us and said, you guys shouldn't go to Guadalupe Canyon either because it's pouring rain up there. Yeah, yeah.

That night in, where's the big, where's the big concert in California? You're talking about the one out in the desert there? Yeah, we. Yeah, that one. What's the one out by India? What's the name of it? Da-da-da-da with a C. Sorry.

Cachella. You know, I'm old when I can't remember Cachella. Yes, that's the one that's on my charge card bill that my daughter goes to. Right. Right, we get, we ended up having to cross the border and we just, we got a room in Coachella that night. It was like, if we can't get to the canyon, we just got to, we got to keep moving. No, that's another aspect of the trip. Just keep keeping.

Just figuring it out. Keep moving. You know, you're going to, like Marshall said, you're going to make it. One of the reasons you're going to make it is nobody's going to let you behind. That's, you know, we talked about that already. I mean, everybody, everybody is going to help you. and like you said, you know, you can take paved roads, you can take dirt roads, nobody's going to judge, because you're all going to end up the same place next night, and you're all going to end up under the tent,

you know, drinking and eating with everybody else, and it's just, it's just so most fun. The one thing I've noticed on the Facebook page that a lot of first timers are worried about is gas. Again, we had a good-sized tank, but I don't see why you'd worry about gas, There was plenty of gas. We had cans. The only reason we had cans, as it turned out, we kept a little bit of gas for any of the dirt bikers that might run out. Yeah, well, let me add a different, slightly different perspective. So I've got a 50-year-old truck that gets 10 miles of the gallon and it's got a 15-gallon tank.

So I brought 15, you know, three, five-gallon gas tanks with me on the last Baja XL. and I actually needed to use one plus, so one and change. And that was because we had a 16 hour drive one day with two hours of idling while the VESPA guys were fixing one of the VESPA guys were fixing one of the VESPas in the road in front of us. And we just idled with our high beams on so they could see what they were doing. And we provided them a little bit of cover in case somebody came flying up the road. but, you know, it was two hours of idling that, you know, cost me a half tank of gas probably. But this trip, I'm going with one five-gallon can. And so let's recap that.

My truck has a small gas tank, 15 gallons. My truck gets horrible gas mileage, 10 miles to the gallon. I'm driving with one spare five-gallon tank. So, you know, it's just not that difficult. You see a gas station? Stop and get gas. Don't pass them. Get them in the bathroom, get a snack.

You know, it's just, that's, it's, it hasn't changed since my first trip down there in 1984. You see a gas station that's open, stop and get gas. The best part is there's chances are there's a solid chance of tacos. So we, the one time when Craig was working on the dirt bikes for the guys, he's a Brit. Yeah, he's greasy up to his shoulders. And we're running around trying to get epoxy or a sealant for the crank case. And Craig's all dirty. And Jamie and I are over in the corner eating tamales while he's working on this stuff.

And we go to go. And Craig's like, I didn't know you guys had tamales. Yeah, I was like, well, how about we stop and get something to eat? They're like, dude, we just ate like 15 tamales. I'm like, what? When do you talk about? Hey, Dan. Can you guys just give me 30 seconds more on the food?

you're from Pennsylvania. You haven't had Baja Street tacos, you know, every day, all day, like I can get here in San Francisco or Ted, my my mix co-adventure buddy can get in San Diego. What did you think of the food? So again, like I like to plan. So I had like I had all these restaurants and things pinned on you. Where's the place that had the iron ore mines or not the iron ore but. Yeah, so that's Santa Rosalia. Yes. Pretty funky little town, isn't it? Yeah. Super cool. And I had places pinned there when we got there, so we kind of had a good idea where to get some food. And just to jump back real quick, so being in the Baja, that was the first time I was in the Baja, but I've been to Mexico numerous times. So, you know, every, every location's different, you know.

But, you know, I was highly anticipating and looking forward to the food just because kind of had an idea what to expect, but you don't expect everything. But, yeah, if it looks, how did we say it? Of course, it looks, the better it is. Right. I like taco stands with wheels. Yes. Yeah, it was my favorite. We were not disappointed.

Let's put it that way. You're not going to be disappointed in the food. And it's not Taco Bell. It's not your Mexican restaurant in your town. This is authentic. And the people, the one thing I always say going into Mexico is if the locals are there, that's where you want to eat. Because that's why there's a line.

That's why the locals are there. You know, just get on board with whatever. they're doing. And that's that's my take on on the food. Well, I think we're going to leave it right there. Gentlemen, I've been thrilled to have all three of you on on slow Baja talking about the Baja XL. I think that your approach to that event was top notch. And you know, you got the tequila Fortaleza award for me on the way you you took on extra effort, gold stars next to all. all of your names for the efforts you made to wrap the vehicle and to be good guys and to have great graphics and great hats and all that and just darn nice folk. So I hope our paths crossed

down the road and I'm sorry you're not on this trip because you know I have twice the amount of tequila and there are only half the amount of participants. So I'm sorry you're not with us. but I look forward to our paths crossing somewhere down the road. So take me out, guys. For sure. Thank you, Michael, and thank you for reaching out and welcoming us and our group, the three of us into. You broke up a little bit there. You want to say that again?

Whatever your accolades were, we lost them to the ether. So one more time. I hope my ego one more time, please, Craig, or Marshall, whoever I was talking. I said, no, I said, thank you for welcoming us into your folding table that you would set up every evening and pouring us some. And just that friendship, that kindness is, was huge for us. Hey, when we saw that table in the backyard of some woman's shop in El Triunfo, I'm like, How much for that? I've already bought your your cow skull, ma'am.

I've already bought some hand-embroidered napkins, ma'am. How much for that, that metal table in your backyard? And she was just like, are you kidding me? That? I'm saying, yes, that. So we put it to use. And I'm sorry I'm not bringing one with us, but maybe we'll find another one on this trip.

But that was quite a fine to score that guy. Perfect for the 40s. When we saw the table was set up, we knew it was time for shots. And, you know, we knew it was time to tell the stories of the day. That was the communal table. Yeah, it was. That was fun. It was a lot of fun.

You know, thank you for having us. Thanks. I'm proud. I'm proud that we, you know, three dudes from Pennsylvania and a rental car got your attention. and then it felt good having the respect to people that have been down there and just getting to meet everybody. And yeah, it was a blast. Yeah, well, three dudes from Pennsylvania with a serious approach, graphics, hats, what have you. If you didn't notice you guys, you weren't paying attention is my point.

Good luck. That's that. What's that, Jamie? I was wishing him good luck. Slow Baja next week. I think he said he's leaving Tuesday. Yeah, we're leaving. So let's back this up for the folks who are listening on the internet.

We are recording on the 21st. This podcast will probably go live just before I take off on the Baja XL 2021, which will be on the 29th. So this will probably go live on maybe a week from now on the 28th. And I'm sorry, I'm sincerely sorry you guys aren't going to meet us in Takade, but it's going to be fun. I've already checked in with Heather and Wilson. We've got some fun folks from last time going this time. And sadly, again, the Almond brothers won't be there. But, you know, maybe I'll stop in and say hello to them on my way from San Francisco to San Diego on the way down.

I was close. I thought I was going to hook up with Team Vudo and meet you guys down there. it just didn't work out. Yeah. Please give Wilson a hard time. Yeah, I'll do my best. I'll give, I'll do my best to give Wilson a hard time

and to give Heather double shot. So we'll leave it on that note, gentlemen. Thanks for making some time for Slow Baja and telling some stories about Team Desert Dutchmen. One more time, you can find them on Facebook or Instagram at Team Desert Dutchmen. Thanks, guys. You got it.

Thank you, my God. Thank you. Appreciate it. Jamie, Craig, Marshall, it's my pleasure to have you on the Slow Baja, so we'll hopefully our pass will cross somewhere down the road. Cheers, Jets. Cheers.

Cheers. Good luck next week. Slow Baja's wardrobe is provided by Taylor Stitch. Responsibly built for the long haul, Taylor Stitch makes clothes that wear in, not out. Wherever your adventure takes you,

Taylor Stitch has you covered. Check them out at tailorstitch.com. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, all that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at slowbaha.com. I'll be back before you know it. And if you want to receive notices on new episodes, please follow Slow Baja on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for you old folks.