ODO: 312,868
With nowhere to be, we decided to have a slow morning and take care of some business, namely the tent latches. We contacted the US Alu-cab distributors and they were able to get a set in the mail for us same day. Next up, we had a pair of shoes that needed a home, so KoKo got out the sewing machine and made them a bag. We took a wrong turn on our way back to the highway and ended up scaring a jackrabbit out of the road.
Since this was our last tour of Baja (and we were being held together by rachet straps at this point), we decided to cruise up the highway to The Old Mill restaurant. We had heard rumors they were closed, and luckily this turned out to be false. They were still very much in business and still making crazy good food. After our filling 3pm dinner, we made our way to a condor viewing point up in the hills for the night. It was cold up there, so we were super grateful for our heater.
The next morning we figured we should try to view condors, if they would cooperate, and cooperate they did! For an animal that has such low numbers, we saw two! The second one swooped low over the truck, and circled where we could see it with the binoculars for 10 minutes. We even saw it’s wing tag number!
Our next stop was Valley T tacos, the best tacos on the peninsula, as we looped back south towards our Metal Wizard for the last time. We were also heading back to catch the San Felipe 250. After a good night’s sleep it was time to fix all our newly broken stuff. First up, the bumper mounts. The factory bumper mounts off of the driver’s side frame horn had completely cracked through and had left the chat. We could have just welded up the crack and been on our way, but instead we completely cut the factory brackets off, made and welded on new stronger brackets, and added several gussets. She not going anywhere now. While the bumper was happening, KoKo got to work making rev 2 of her pee bottle. Sometimes it’s terrible outside, and she wanted the option to pee indoors if necessary.
Race day! With the bumper fixed, we strapped the tent closed and headed out into the desert. We spent the morning watching trophy trucks, ATVs, and a couple of VW bugs battle the course. One racecar, truck 716, rolled right next to us. We were able to get them back on their wheels, refilled with oil, and back on their way. Being a loop race, once everyone had passed us, we were able to relocate farther down the cours and watch everyone go by a second time. We stayed in the desert until every last car that was able to crossed the finish line. Unfortunately car 716 was not one of them, they only made it to mile 160. After the race it was tacos, showers and straight to bed.
The next day it was straight back to work. We needed to come up with a new tent latch solution. Yes, a new set was on its way, but we didn’t fully trust they would be better, and we didn’t want to have to wait another week for them, and an engineer and a retired machinist sitting around drinking beer come up with silly ideas… First, what do we have? We found some scrap titanium in the corner that was just the right thickness. Berne came up with a stupid idea that would be really cool if it worked, but we weren’t sure the concept was feasible. Make a test piece! Our titanium was unhardened, and we could bend it enough for what we were planning to do without it cracking. Then a design, a beer box drawing, a little bit of CAD, some CNC programming, and let’s make some chips!! And voila! 2 billet titanium horseshoes emerge from a puddle of coolant, we bend them up just so, and we’ve got the coolest latches on the block!!!
We got all of the final final final projects done:
- painted the hubs and calipers (gotta keep em from getting rusty)
- reattached the front driver fender (in a different spot than last time)
- plumbed propane to inside so we can cook indoors
- Rewired the horn so it works again
- taped up the mic cord for the radio so it doesn’t fall apart
In between all these projects we tried to catch the lunar eclipse, but it didn’t seem to happen where we were. Lots of maps said it should, but alas…. And one morning we woke up to snow in the mountains outside San Felipe.
