Almost There!!

WHERE ARE WE?          Baraka RV Park, Mazatlán, Mexico for 3 nights

NEXT DESTINATION?    La Penita, Nayarit, Mexico

We are at the point of seeing the perverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  We are only about 400 kms from our final destination and will have no problem driving there on Friday.  Why Friday you say?  Well to allow for any screw ups it is always nice to have a couple days grace so that is what we now have.  We have not had any troubles so because the La Penita RV Park does not open until Nov 1, we have to wait out our time here in Mazatlán.  Don't get feeling sorry for us because Mazatlán is a beautiful resort city with lots to do.  Hey it has a Walmart and a Home Depot!!!  What else could you ask for???   The only thing that is lacking is internet.  The park has no wifi right now and our ATT is really hit and miss so for the next couple days we will just enjoy the beach and you can rest assured we are having fun.  See you in a couple days.

NEWS FLASH!!!   WE HAVE WIFI!!!!

And then they hooked up the wifi in the park and now I can do a catch up.  Todays drive was a little more stressful because of the condition of the roads.  Lots of bumps and broken pavement, and a bunch of toll booths besides.

Todays drive took us from desert landscape to agricultural land and then into the jungle type land.  It is very lush where we are now with lots of beautiful greenery.  Our trip today took us by the city of Culiacan which has been in the news lately.  We have been fully aware of the bad situation that occurred near there, but are also aware that for now that situation has been put to rest.  We experienced no unusual activities nor did we feel that we were somewhere where we shouldn't be so that is how we dealt with the situation.  If you want to put in perspective, there were millions of folks in this area that did not get shot or threatened.  I am a firm believer that if you mind your own business you will be fine.

I remember when we flew to Puerto La Vallarta the last time a few years ago, I was looking down and could see these massive white areas below us.  They were square and large and I thought maybe pig barns or something.  Well it turns out they were green house type netting over entire fields of what we think may be hot house tomatoes.  They covered a mile by a mile in some places and there were a lot of them in the area we travelled today.  Now I know what I was seeing from the plane.

One of the things that we saw today that is a little out of the ordinary for us prairie folk was an armed escort on the highway.  We have been hearing about the Mexican government cracking down on fuel thefts, so apparently to help with that, the fuel trucks run in convoys and they have a military escort.  They mean business and have some pretty tough looking dudes in the back of a pickup with some sort of machine guns.  That would certainly make one think twice about stealing fuel from that convoy.  We saw one military truck in front and two in the rear.  I was slow with pictures but this will give you an idea of what we saw.

Another couple who are heading to La Penita as well, Dave and Dawn were here before us and they invited us all over for happy hour.  They had a pail of Margarita's to get rid of so we helped them out with that.  Thanks guys.

We are all lined up here for the next 3 days so will be enjoying the good life.

We are a couple hundred yards from the beach so plan to spend some time there.  We did take a little walk on the beach around sunset.  Hope to do a lot of these this winter.

Downtown Mazatlan

The view out our window: