Some people measure success by what they own. Glen Horn measures it by a single surf at sunset in Baja California. In Eric Ebner’s award-winning short film The Bull (see the end of this post to watch it), Horn explains how he built a life around waves, wind, and wide-open space, and why he never plans to stop. It’s a story about walking away from the usual script, then sticking to the new one for decades.
After living in Baja off and on since 2017, I have personally met quite a few versions of Glen, including my good friend and neighbor Kim, who has called Baja home since his childhood. Like Glen, this septuagenarian still surfs and still camps on his favorite beaches.
There’s something about Baja that can keep people young, if they let it. Of course, I had to send Kim the movie. And, of course, it turns out he knows Glen. But he had not yet seen the film, which he dubbed “a real treat”.
A classic Baja surf moment Glen wants to keep forever
In the short film, Horn describes a scene he returns to again and again. He’s out in the water as the sun drops. The face of the wave lights up from behind, turning a deep emerald green. A light offshore breeze holds the wave up, and every surfer becomes a dark silhouette.
To most people on the beach, it’s just a lineup of black figures moving around. Horn sees something else. He sees a moment where age stops showing. If he’s still surfing at 100, nobody will know if that shadow is a young guy or an old one. For him, that’s proof his plan worked.
“When I’m 100 years old, I’ll be out there surfing, and you won’t be able to tell if that’s a 100-year-old guy or a 20-year-old guy.”
That sunset view is simple, but it’s loaded. It means he kept his body working, kept his mind steady, and stayed close to the ocean. It also means he didn’t get pushed out of the life he chose.
Horn mentions how people around him have changed over time. He’s watched kids grow up into men with families. Meanwhile, he’s still there, still showing up, still not leaving. From the outside, that can look strange. But from his side, it’s the point.
From a 10-year-old surfer to a Baja explorer
Horn started surfing at 10. After moving to San Diego, he found a kind of frontier life for a kid who wanted the ocean. By the mid-1960s, he began pushing south into Baja. Back then, many surf spots were hard to reach, and surfers didn’t share what they found.
He talks about K38, also called Baja Malibu, as a place with no real road in those days. That lack of access shaped the whole culture. People kept quiet, so exploring mattered. Horn kept going farther into Mexico and spent years searching. (Side note, K38 still attracts surfers, but it is built up now with hotels, restaurants, and a great surf shop.)
Glen never wanted to feel locked into one place or one routine. That need for freedom shows up early in his story, and it stays there.
Freedom didn’t just happen. Horn worked as a carpenter for about 10 years. Later, he bought a surf shop and put in another 10 to 12 years of hard work. He built toward a future where he could step away.
He says he retired at 38. Once that window opened, he took it. Then he headed back to the place that felt most like home, Baja California, Mexico.
Why this desolate stretch of Baja keeps calling him back
Horn lives in Baja about nine months out of the year. He likes it because it’s harsh and quiet. The wind can scream offshore at 50 to 60 mph. He repeats a local saying: When the wind blows, the gringo goes. The point is clear: most people leave.
Horn stays, because this is where he feels tuned in. Alone out there, he notices birds, coyotes, bobcats, deer, and wild burros. In the water, he feels the ocean’s mood shifts in real time.
“My religion is the ocean. My religion is the elements, the land.”
El Toro Rojo Grande, plus the routines that keep him surfing
Horn’s Baja home is his rig, El Toro Rojo Grande (the big red bull). He calls it Big Red. It’s built from a 1955 Chevrolet Grumman Olson body with a 1967 International drivetrain, a small V8, and four-wheel drive. He says it can go almost anywhere, and he plans to keep it for life. The rig even has a crude joke baked in—locals gave him bull parts for the rear of the camper to match the “horns” theme up front.
To keep surfing, Horn trains. He carries a full gym setup: weights, bungees, and a leg machine. It’s not a vacation to him, it’s daily life. He also shares that life with his wife of 20 years, someone who loves the routine and doesn’t mind getting dirty.
At 67, he says age is only a number. He even claims he’s as strong as he was at 30, and surfing as well or better. He plans to live to 120, not as a stunt, but as a personal belief backed by discipline.
Glen Horn’s story isn’t about escaping responsibility; it’s about choosing a different kind of responsibility and sticking with it. He keeps showing up for the ocean, the land, and the routines that make that possible.
Watching “The Bull” makes one thing clear: Glen Horn’s goal is simple: Surf until the shadow in the wave gives nothing away.
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RVT1250
Thank you for this article and video. The video had me smiling through the whole thing. Okay, maybe not the whole thing, I gasped when he sat down and wrapped his hands around his feet! 🙂