We Made it to Texas With a Few Travel Pains

WHERE ARE WE? Fuel America Travel Center near Encinal Texas

Our third day of travel out of Mexico began shortly after 8 am as we headed north toward Texas.  Dani and Archie chose to sleep on the floor for a while while we travelled and Sheri snuggled in with her feet on the dash.

We saw a variety of scenery today with lots of mountains to start with.  Notice the houses that go halfway up the mountain in Monterray.  We went through some neat tunnels and watched lots of military vehicles travelling down the roads.

Later in the day Archie changed positions and laid by my feet for a while.

Sheri saw this big tire billboard close to Nuevo Larado.  The thing was probably 75 feet tall and almost looked real.  Amazing!

When we arrived at the border, the original Banjercito where we surrender our tips was closed, so we circled over and dropped it on the Mexican entry Banjercito.  Nice young lady made the process easy and we were on our way in no time.

A 5 minute stop at USA customs where we had to pay $21 bucks for the variety of 1/4 full bottles of booze we had on board.  I told the US guy that they were worse than the Mexicans for ripping people off.  He just laughed and processed my card!!!  Then we were in Texas.

Tonight we are hunkered down at an American Travel Center in the back corner.  It has a Sonic so we all went for supper there.  Yup we all got tummy aches.   LOL

Time for a couple stories.  We did not mention to the kids about the reputation of the highways around Larado.  There is lots of crime up and down the one we were on but most of it is related to people who are less than reputable or are in the wrong crowds doing the wrong things.  There may be the odd innocent person who gets in the crossfire, but those are in my opinion few an far between.  Anyway we did tell them after we were in Texas that we just drove the "Highway of Death".  We didn't witness anything out of the ordinary, other than a couple burned out semi trailers that had been dragged into the ditch.  I asked them if they ever felt uneasy on any of the trip and they both said that other than the congestion of trucks for the last hundred miles, it was no different than driving the Trans Canada.  It is what it is.  "es lo que es!"

Next story is some motorhome troubles we had today.  Today I started to notice a slight hesitation in the engine when in cruise control.  The hesitation, or bucking, seemed to get more prevelent as the day wore on.  In fact we were loosing power at times and I had to feather the accelerator to keep up to road speed.  This seemed to be ever since we filled with fuel in Matehuela last night.  I just kept my fingers crossed that we would make the boarder because I didn't relish hanging around Nuevo Larado for a night or two.  We made it to the boarder but it was now tough to maintain road speed.  The engine did not seem to run rough at all but just did the no power thing for a bit, then it would sort of buck some more.  After we got through customs and into the USA, I couldn't get any more than 40 KMH our to it.  We limped our way to where we are tonight and I put a bunch of fuel conditioner in it.  Actually for another reason I had to unhook the Jeep 10 miles before our stop, and the MH seemed more willing to gather road speed.  I have a plan for morning which may involve Coach net, but the ultimate goal is to get closer to San Antonio where at least there are things to do if we have to wait to get it fixed proper.  Maybe new fuel filters will help.  Fingers crossed and once again, "es lo que es!".

Sheri has been watching the weather at home and I don't think we are in a big hurry to get there.  Don't put the shovels away yet my friends!!!

Here is the route we followed today.  Good Nite!