battered and beaten

we arrived in la ventana just in time to catch the el norte wind event. it lasted about three days and i was finally able to get out on the water with a board and a kite (after a few days on the beach and in the water practicing flying the kite).
i was thrashed. the kites are huge and the amount of power they generate is enough to launch you 30 ft in the air while carrying you 200 ft down wind. trying to harness that to get me up and riding resulted in a lot of supermans, belly flops, severe whiplash, cuts, bruises, and a stomach full of salt water. just bloody and beaten by the end of the first day. the second day was an improvement and i was up and riding. however, i was also more aggressive with the kite, which meant some epic crashes. great entertainment for those sitting on the beach.

warning

two days into the trip and this is what i find hidden on the inside of my helmet:

some reasonably foreseeable impacts may exceed this helmet's capability to protect against severe injury or death

not sure i should feel comfortable with this...

so it begins

it just cant be that easy... got to calexico with our bikes, turned south to the border, drove under a large concrete canopy, and we were in mexicali, mexico.
drove twenty miles before we realized we should probably turn around and ask about the tourist card they say we need.
after spending an hour in line to cross back into the u.s. (because jon wouldnt duck the police tape to get into the motorcycle lane) we were virtually waved back through with not even a glance at our passports. it would seem that mexicali is spanish for "portal for illegal immigration".
back to the mexican crossing and again simply waived through the border and told we need nothing. i thought it unwise to try to convince the border guard that we must need something...
spent the day driving through desert windstorms. first day loaded with gear so of course we are going to have 30 mph side winds. what looked like smoke drifting in the distance was a sandstorm, floats across the road like snow.
made it to bahai de santa maria. a beautiful bay on the sea of cortez that serves as a getaway for the san diego crowd.
so cold we only slept a total of probably 3 hours off and on. jon actually had to wrap up in his boarding kite. we both shivered our way to the dawn.
we both got up thinking the same thing, "we have to go south."