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<\/a><\/p>\nAround Long Beach on our night time drive to the border, we noticed our voltage was dropping and realized our alternator wasn\u2019t charging. This was the forth time we\u2019ve lost an alternator which is part of the Premier Power Welder system we have installed on Charlotte. The company has been great in supplying warrantee replacements, but Ace Alternator, who builds the custom, high output alternators for them, doesn\u2019t seem to be able to build one that will last. Very frustrating. We managed to make it to the campground at the Tecate border crossing on battery power alone.
\nThe next morning I installed our only spare at the campground. I also made the decision to give up on running the welder and ordered a stock Bosch alternator and new brackets to be shipped to us in La Paz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Having made it across the border on our spare alternator, we spent Christmas camping near Laguna Hanson (which looks a lot like Tahoe and nearly as cold!) in northern Baja.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Crossing the Diablo Dry Lake, a staple section of both the NORRA Mexican 1000 and the SCORE Baja 1000. Dry lake beds are beautiful, vast, open and silent (when you\u2019re not racing through!).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kat speaking: \u201cBaja, a beer and a good looking man\u2026does it get any better?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The whole gang on the way to Gonzaga Bay and yummy fish tacos at Alfonisa\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On December 27, we stopped for the night at Serenida, a lovely old resort in Mulege. We drank lots of great margaritas, ate lots of good food and took much needed showers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What else do you do on a beautiful beach in Bahia Concepcion?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ok, that\u2019s better!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the dirt road leading to Agua Verde, a tiny, remote fishing village south of Mulege.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The dirt road to Agua Verde is one of our favorites. It is steep, winding, and incredibly picturesque. It was nearing twilight as we descended, but still beautiful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of the many deserted beaches near the village.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the village of Agua Verde we asked around and were able to score a beautiful Yellow Tail which fed 9 people for two nights. Yumm!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Greg made amazing ceviche on the first night on the beach near the village\u2026not bad for camping food!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Words just can\u2019t express\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Shell shots anyone?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A second wave of butterflies hit me as we parted ways with our GoWesty pals. They headed back north\u2026home\u2026we headed ever southward, on our own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mexican McGuiver. Besides these Ace Alternators just quitting, they also vibrate like hell at around 3000 rpm where Charlotte likes to run. This vibration has caused our mounting brackets to crack and break multiple times. (and is probably leading to the alternator\u2019s failure) This is my last \u201cfix\u201d using Vice Gripes and tie wire (thank you Allen Hewett) to hold it all together. Its lasted 250 miles! The booger weld was done with a borrowed buzz box in Mulege, 400 miles ago. It\u2019s pretty bad when one carries a welder but has to borrow one to weld on his own, broken, welding equipment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Huh? Did you ever expect us to stay at a place like this? Yes, it\u2019s a little over the top, but not a bad view from our room as I prepared this blog! This is the Grand Plaza Hotel in La Paz where we had GoWesty ship our parts to retrofit a stock alternator to Charlotte. The only place we could think of to have the parts sent, was to this hotel, which is the La Paz headquarters for the NORRA race where we have stayed several times while racing. We got a room here to make it convenient to receive our package. Unfortunately, the parts, scheduled to arrive yesterday the 2nd, will now not be here until Monday the 6th (maybe). Bummer, what do we do for the next 4 days in beautiful, sunny southern Baja? We were originally going to make the repairs then go explore some gorgeous remote canyons north of La Paz that we raced through in 2012. There we would have camped a couple of nights and tested the new alternator setup before heading to the mainland on the ferry. Now we need to decide if we are going to risk the canyons with our jerry-rigged, iffy alternator\u2026the adventure continues\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Charlotte and the GoWesty Gang heading out from Agua Verde, where we camped on the gorgeous (and totally deserted) beach for 4 nights. We have traveled with Lucas many times in Baja and Charlotte always stands out as the only … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n