Bright Midnight
Lots of readers thought when we mentioned OFF-ROAD LIVE! was bringing up the subject of 'Bright Midnight' we were talking about the middle of the moonlit night, in a remote part of the Baja desert. We are, but the subject is much more than comes into focus, at first glance.
Our teams personal experiences, traveling south of the border is a shared 'Frontier' experience. All the old-timey West Coast desert races started at Midnight!
After eleven years of desert racing historical research, writing and celebrating, the "Baja Crew" is looking forward to spending more time on the beach and missing the libraries and books of desert racing and adventurers past.
We'll be at Ensenada at Estero Beach, San Felipe at Rockodile, La Paz at Owl Beach and on the Golden Sands of Cabo San Lucas just this month, reporting on the finish lines of the best Baja desert racing in the history of Mexico! The Ensenada To San Felipe classic, with RECORD Racing. The Coyote 300 in La Paz with Coyote Pits and the new CABO 1000 to Lands End on the Golden Sands of the Cape of the Land of Two Seas!
On the old Baja license plates, the text always included FRONTBC, or Frontier, Baja California. Designating the state of Baja California. The state in the north along the US border, thus the frontier. Norte.
The frontier people of Baja Mexico, overcame hardship by being thrifty and their gracious shared daily living. That's what brings racers from around the globe to this region and returns them, often. Sure, the landscape and passion of racing does too, but the people are the true treasure!
Bright midnight is the teams 'light-bulb' going off. It is the full moon night, but its also a celebration of the frontier spirit we all encounter in travel. It's the brilliant, beaming spirit of the people we all encounter in travel, the wise and knowing simple folk, who transform our life experience. Often, their spirit shows through at the darkest hour, when no hope is on the dark horizon.
Much of the OFF-ROAD experience is how and why you get to your destination. Our team is agreed, however, there must be a destination. Often, its the beach, from Zuma to Nine Palms.
Break of the Week, WindanSea, San Diego. Bob Simmons: More than an architect of boards, Simmons became a pre–James Dean, pre–The Wild One archetype of the California rebel. He camped out in his car, slept on the beach and rode rare waves, often solo and without a wet suit, in the coldest winter months. The coastal highway was his muse.
What's appropriate about Simmons' inclusion in OFF-ROAD LIVE! is that he was pan–Southern Californian, known to ride the surf of Tijuana Slough, at the U.S. border, as much as he would dominate that of Windansea or Malibu with a strikingly casual stance and a studied, parallel line down the face of a wave. "In the late '40s there was crazy interaction between all those places", "There was a lot of interaction between San Diego and L.A. in Southern California and Baja Mexico".
OFF-ROAD LIVE! will be including more coastal experiences, the surf culture, in our reporting. We look forward to you joining us on our journey, our Safaris, online every Monday at 4 PM.
OFF-ROAD LIVE !