Baja

When I find myself enduring a particularly hectic workday or other stressful situation, my mind sometimes conjures up fanciful memories, unbidden, from my subconscious. They appear suddenly and explosively, like Molotov cocktail daydreams hurled by hidden revolutionaries in a mind occupied by an invading army of stress. Yesterday, as I sat at my desk at the end of a long week full of angst caused more by my new landlord than my boss, wayward images from Baja California kept popping into my head, distracting me from the present dull reality with colorful flashes from the past. Trips to Tijuana with friends, sucking down tequila shots before any of us were of legal drinking age in the U.S. Squinting through clouds of dust as I watched trophy trucks and buggies barrel down dirt roads during the Baja 500 race. Wolfing down 50-cent street tacos on a hot summer day and washing them down with an ice-cold Dos Equis. Riding horses down the sand of Rosarito Beach, passing a bottle of Sambuca back and forth. Diving on piedra ahogada ("drowned rock") at La Bufadora, a pinnacle rising from 100 feet to just below the surface. No matter the stress that everyday life may throw at me, I will always have fond memories of Baja to put a smile on my face (and I hope to create more Mexican memories when I go to Cozumel in three weeks).