Say, that talk about Baja Bugs just brought back a classic memory, though it has to do with a different county... here I go, threadjacking again, LOL. Okay, back in the late '70s or early '80s, some good friends of mine moved from Coronado to Huntington Beach, after their single mom met and married some former Green Beret dude, right? I used to make my way up there to visit them whenever I could, and one day I arrived just as they were all heading out for a 4-day camping/shooting/offroading trip (not necessarily in that order). Naturally, as a close family friend, I climbed into one of the rigs and we all split for the Mojave Desert, eventually camping near Fremont Peak and Cuddeback Dry Lake, which in turn are near the booming metropolis of Red Mountain, CA, LOL. We set up camp and commenced to shooting, wheeling, partying, etc., for several days. One day, we decided to drive their old "Baja Bug" out onto the dry lake and mess around, taking a large cooler of beer with us.
Now, this "Baja Bug" was NOT what one would normally consider a Baja Bug: instead of a tricked-out Bug with radical suspension, tires, lights, and stinger exhaust off a 2180cc motor, this thing was a complete p.o.s., a broken-down bug that was totally thrashed in every way. The glass was cracked, the transmission was LITERALLY held on with coat hanger wire (I'm totally serious here, after my friend boasted of this I crawled under the rig to inspect the wiring job), half the original vehicle components were MIA and had NOT been replaced, the whole messed-up nine yards, "Roger?" The thing was the worst rattletrap and bucket of bolts I have EVER seen or ridden in as a passenger, and perhaps the funnest... if it was a "Baja Bug" it came from the wrong side of the tracks in Tijuana, and THAT ain't no lie. Good news was, nobody cared if the thing up and died on us, we'd just strip the plates and leave the p.o.s. for the buzzards, 10-4??? And good riddance, LOL.
Oh, yeah, not only did this p.o.s. misfire on every cylinder, it had a top speed of about 55 m.p.h., or "double nickel"---going downgrade with the wind behind it, of course. However, since we were driving across Cuddeback Dry Lake, which is fairly flat, let's just say we had the Bug in top gear and were tearing along at the phenomenal speed of 50 m.p.h., give or take a mile or two per hour. Four of us, each with beer in hand, and not our first by any means... I vaguely recall some cheap tins of watery domestic trash: 509? Or 905? No, not 905, that's a song by The Who, LOL, so it must have been some watery domestic beer called 509, don't ask me who made the slop. I believe this incident occurred toward the end of the 4-day trip, after cases of the "good beer" (tins of Bud on ice) had already been consumed, you understand, and we were drinking the backup brew, which also worked great for cleaning the dirt off the glass, putting out campfires prior to departure, etc., etc.
Anyway, there we were, four @$$clowns in a wannabe Baja Bug, half-lit and tearing across Cuddeback Dry Lake at the phenomenal speed of 50 m.p.h. (plus or minus), music blasting and the wind roaring through our open windows... I was sitting in the back seat, behind the driver, and I looked over to our port side and saw a majestic sight, two PRIMO LANDSAILERS, full-sized with tall rigs and two crew members each, actually headreaching and OVERTAKING our pathetic excuse for a Baja Bug!!! Had I not been drunk, it would have been EMBARRASSING... but since I was half-lit, and since I was already a lifelong small craft sailor, all I could do was holler to my friends and direct their attention to the overtaking craft, which were perfectly trimmed and doing about 60 or 65 m.p.h.
"HEY, YOU KNUCKLEHAIDS!!! THEY'RE GOING FASTER THAN WE ARE!!!"
This remark was met with various responses, most of them unprintable at this family website, and the tall-rigged landsailers soon pulled away from us, leaving us in their dusty wake, LOL. Beautiful craft, those two landsailers, they were not the diminutive modern BloKarts you see today, but full-sized craft around 20' in length, maybe a bit more or less, and rigs nearly twice as high, with primo Dacron sails, main and jib, on what were assuredly regular boat rigs adapted for the purpose. I say "primo Dacron sails" because there was no Kevlar or carbon fiber back in those days, at least none commercially available to the average schmuck. Anyway, that memory sticks with me to this day, seeing those silent and graceful craft slowly overtake us and leave us in the dust, LOL. The crew were wearing full-coverage riding suits and helmets, I might add, and they looked HELLER COOL hiking out as they blew past, sails trimmed perfectly and drawing maximum power...
JUST WANTED TO SHARE THAT MEMORY WITH Y'ALL BEFORE I CRAWL OFF TO MY RACK... JUST ONE OF A THOUSAND MEMORIES WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY BE DOCUMENTED ON THE INTERNET, NOT COUNTING THOSE CLASSIC STORIES IN MY UPCOMING BOOK, LOL.
I'M OUTTA HERE, COLOR ME GONE, ADIOS, MUCHACHOS!!!
