The next morning John arrived and completed our group. We loaded three kayaks on my truck and two on Bob Stender’s. The two SUV’s had been chosen because they had the greatest clearance in case the shuttle did not work out and we had to drive on any bad dirt roads. Three people and all their gear just fit in each car. (Joe and Mary Marcia had a double, so there were only five boats total). We started the drive down Highway 101 then cut across to Highway 5.
This trip we did not have a place to stay overnight in San Diego. We debated staying at a motel and eventually decided to keep going into Baja and find a place to stay inside Mexico somewhere. The last few times I have crossed into Baja has been in the morning and the traffic has never been bad. But crossing the border in the evening like this we discovered that the traffic is almost as bad as going the other way has always been! And once we were in Baja the traffic did not get better for a long time and it took us a while to get to the toll road where things finally calmed down. We considered stopping at a little town on the coast but missed the turn off! Then it was easier to keep going than turn back so we went all the way to Encenada on our first day of driving! We had dinner there and then stayed at a nice little dive of a motel.