Baja Odyssey in Model A Ford Is a Trip Down Memory Lane

For six weeks this summer, 60-year-old Mike Breining of Fallbrook was a kid again--a husky 250-pound teen-ager riding next to his dad in a Model A Ford truck down the length of Baja California.

“It was deja vu, “ the retired car dealer and mechanic said, heaving a sigh born of a longing to be back on the hot, dusty trails that thread down the Mexican peninsula to Cabo San Jose.

Breining again prowled the now-abandoned quarry at El Marmol with its automobile-sized chunks of marble in lacy patterns reminiscent of carved Oriental jade. He revisited the mission settlements that he and his father had first seen in the 1940s, finding a few survivors who remembered that earlier visit. He swam “buck naked” in the spring-fed pools in hidden arroyos just as he had done five decades ago.

There he was, “a 60-year-old man in a 62-year-old car with a 16-year-old kid (his grandson) in the middle of nowhere,” retracing a 3,300-mile journey he had taken with his father 45 years ago. It was hard to tell from Breining’s account whether he or his grandson, Adam McDonald, had the most fun on his journey into the past.

Young McDonald was the first male offspring old enough to serve as Breining’s sidekick during the adventure that the Fallbrook man had been planning for years.

The 1929 Model A truck was not the same one in which Breining and his father made the trip nearly a half-century ago, and it proved less roadworthy than its predecessor.

On the first day of their odyssey, when the old man and the teen-ager were near Rosarito Beach only a few miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, the old truck’s engine failed and the nostalgia trip turned into an ignominious retreat. The truck had to be towed back to Breining’s rural Fallbrook home and repair shop, where he spent eight days repairing the damage.

Because of the delay and the travelers’ plans to reach the tip of Baja California peninsula in time to view the

July 11 solar eclipse, they hitched a tow from a speedier vehicle for part of the trip down the trans-peninsular highway, reaching the southern tip of Baja California nearly in time.

“We were about 40 miles away when the eclipse started, and we came to a campground that was nearly deserted except for a group of astronomers who had set up their sophisticated equipment there,” Breining said. “We thought, ‘What the hell. What could be better than this?’ and we stopped. They rigged their equipment so that others could use it, and we got some great pictures.”

When they turned around and headed back up the peninsula for home, the real adventure began.

Breining had planned to take the “old road” and off-road paths on the way home, accompanied by two couples in two modern four-wheel-drive vehicles. But he lost his escort almost immediately.

The incident that sent the less-hardy travelers back to the main road and civilization was a fire under the hood of the ’29 Ford truck.

“We had about a 30-second window to get the fire out,” Breining said. By then it would have traveled to the 40-gallon auxiliary gasoline tank and main tank,” he said.

When he jumped out of the truck, grabbing the fire extinguisher and throwing open the hood, he got a second shock. The extinguisher did not work. Fortunately, one of the escort vehicles was equipped with a heavy-duty extinguisher that did the job. Breining repaired the damage within 15 minutes.

That “disaster” proved to be a blessing, Breining said, “because suddenly, Adam and I were free to do whatever we wanted.”

They struck out for open country, zig-zagging across the arid peninsula, climbing up to the 6,000-foot level and down to sea-level in their ancient Ford.

Breining spotted the first antelope of his many Baja journeys, and his grandson climbed a 700-foot cliff and into an aerie for a close-up of a baby vulture while Breining clambered after him, shouting warnings that the mother bird might resent the intrusion.

They stopped along the shore, camped in the sand and fished for their dinner or dined on sand dabs or clams. They visited ranches along the way and proffered food, receiving hospitality in return.

One memory that Breining will treasure is the sight of an old woman in a thatched hut, roasting coffee beans in a skillet, then grinding them to produce the best coffee he’s ever tasted.

“You could smell the aroma for miles. Sometimes we navigated by nose,” Breining said.

The pair discovered an unexplored cave with ancient petroglyph drawings on the walls and ceiling. The floor yielded fire-hardened tools and weapons--the first Breining had ever seen.

Almost every night the sunset put on “an incredible show with orange and lavender clouds, fuzzy on the edges and fading back to violets and purples,” Breining said. He later found out the phenomenon was due to the earlier eruption of a Philippine volcano that caused spectacular light shows around the world.

The dangers about which Breining was most concerned--heat and snakes--never showed up during the six-week off-road sojourn.

“We didn’t see a rattler all the time we were down there,” he said, “and the heat that should have been 130 degrees never got above about 95.”

At times, the mismatched pair played a game called, “Worst Case Scenario,” in which young Adam would try to plan the best course of action if an accident happened, with Breining gruffly coaching his grandson when the teen-ager strayed from the proper path.

Breining gained insight into the dangers that he and his father had blithely faced in that earlier trip 45 years before, when they ventured into the unpopulated wilds of Baja California without the modern equipment and the mechanical know-how that Breining has since gained.

“I realized what a foolhardy person my father must have been to go out there without the proper gear and no idea of what he was getting into,” Breining said.

When Breining and his grandson returned from their journey in mid-August, sunburned and full of anecdotes of their adventures, Breining made two promises: he would write a book about his experiences and he would find the ’29 Ford Model A that he and his father had traveled in, if it was still around.

So far, he accomplished one of his goals. The publicity that he received before starting out on his nostalgia trip reached the daughter of the original Model A’s owner, and she contacted him, telling him that the truck was alive and well “and still a viable vehicle” in Alaska.

Breining plans to buy it and use it once again to travel down the wild side of Baja California.