July 2013

I’ve been asked many times why I go down to Baja. I’ll be honest, it’s really hard for me to put into words why I love crossing the border so much.  We’ve all heard how dangerous is it is in Mexico, but Baja has a special allure that keeps drawing me back. It’s simple freedoms, strong pull of history, and mixture of terrains create a love for Baja that only those who have seen can truly understand. 

My love for Baja began with trips as a kid to chase Ivan Stewart with my dad in the Baja 1000.  Then, ten years ago, I strapped myself into a race car.  The first three years I drove a Wide Open Buggy with Centrix Financial.  Then early in 2006, Toyota approached my Dad and I and proposed racing, the then new, FJ Cruiser. We went on to finish second in our first outing with the FJ. Speed Channel made a documentary about our experience called “Two Roads to Baja”. I raced that FJ in Baja for a total of three years. I never quite got a chance to taste victory, but I learned a lot!  I think one of the things that I enjoyed the most, was how challenging racing Baja is. It’s not the type of place that you can show up and win straight away. It takes years of experience and preparation.

We often find ourselves pulling into camp late at night, or pulling to the side of the road, needing to make dinner. We built our drawer system specifically for this task, providing storage for our stove and cooking equipment. While the setup has worked well over the years, it was disorganized and we often found ourselves pulling multiple items out to find the item we needed. Our cooking arrangement was chaos and we needed to make a change.

Seeing our lack of organization, TrekPak offered to step in and help get our kitchen drawer organized. After starting in 2012, the Denver based company has developed a line of customizable inserts for hard-sided cases, photography backpacks, and is now branching into the world of overland travel by providing custom drawer inserts. Their design utilizes a foam padded insert that can be cut and pinned into a limitless number or organization solutions.

The abundance of WWII US  Army surplus vehicles in the Philippines where I was born and raised got my taste of the offloading (make your own road as we call it back then) activities.

Our town is near the longest mountains range in the country- Sierra Madre mountains, highest peak at 6,069 foot  and the main industry when I was growing up is logging because of the abundant growth/supply of the Narra tree -  a hardwood, which is purplish, is termite resistant and rose-scented.

The Overland Expo this year turned out to be quite the adventure for my 3 year old and I. You see, my lovely wife (and our Editor) Angie was planning on joining us at the event, and even spent three days in Ridgway to break up the trip a little (that’s a very good idea when you’re 7 months pregnant). Unfortunately, Angie got called back to Colorado Springs to work at the last minute, so it was Brenden & I for the rest of the journey.

Not wanting to fight the influx of campers like we did last year, we arrived at Mormon Lake early on Wednesday – to a completely empty field. It was actually kind of nice have a little freedom of movement to stake out the FJC/Tacoma camping area in advance. By noon on Wednesday, we had the Manley Explore model setup and ready for the event. We were able to spend a good bit of time exploring the grounds (Brenden is a budding Overland Rider with his Strider bike), and helping others get setup when needed.