Settling in to Our Winter Home

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Nayarit, Mexico

This morning was a rare occasion for me.  Having just gone through 2 time zones, and after being up before the roosters 2 days in a row for travelling, I was all bright eyed and bushy tailed at about 6 am this morning.  Because we have mountains behind us, we don't see the sunrise till about 6:30 so I got to get a picture of it.  Don't be asking for any more cause I am going to train my body to sleep a little longer right away.

About 10 am we trudged down the beach to go to the market.  Thursdays are market day here for the winter.  Not may vendors here yet because it is early in the season.  Also, Halloween is not a big deal down here.  More celebrations on Nov 1 & 2 for Day of the Dead. 

A quick shop and then it was lunch time.  Our friends Jeff and Fany and Max joined us for the market and lunch tour.  We chose to eat at Irma's today.  Kenia and Katherine showed up as well so we all had a nice visit.

Then it was time to head back to the park for an afternoon swim.  I had to show Max our banana tree.  There are lots of bananas on it, but they are not the real tasty kind.

That was how our day all turned out.  We will have to take our time getting used to the heat and humidity.  The sun is a little different here because I can run around with no shirt for most of the day and not get a sun burn.  At home I would fry.  The weather does look great for the next while.

So for now, this is where we will hang out and this is what we will do.  Good Nite!!

We Made It!!

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Jaltemba, Nayarit, Mexico

We got off to another early start with the wheels rolling by 7:00 am.  We ran into some pretty thick fog for about 20 minutes.  In my opinion, we should have pulled off the road in a safe place and waited it out but that was not my decision to make.  It made for some white knuckle driving at 60 to 70 mph.  We did make a decision today that we will make sure we are in a good caravan next time.  Brian and JoLynn are our favorite leaders, but for some reason, they decided to let others lead the way this time.  After a few wrong turns and too fast driving yesterday and today, there were 6 of us that were not comfortable so we just slowed down on our own.  It was not taken very well by the 2 leaders, and they headed out on there own and left us to our own defenses.  Good thing JoLynn was still with us and she took over and all went well from then on.

Once we got closer to Tequila, the agave started showing up everywhere.  It seems like it will grow anywhere and they grow it right up to the side of the highway.

This was our trip today.  Another 700+ kms.  We are exhausted!

We arrived at Numero Uno RV park about 4:30 pm and Kenia and Oscar were there to meet us.  Joel came along as well to make sure we made it into the park ok.  It is nice to be back.  We just kinda stopped on the grass wherever as we are the only ones here right now.  We will settle into our rightful spot tomorrow.

Oscar and Kenia hung around for a while before they had to go to work at the Cafecito.  We will head down there later tonight.

We had time for a quick swim after setting up the MH for the night.  Very refreshing but a little warm.  90F.  

I did miss the actual sunset, but the afterglow here is generally pretty nice.  No different tonight.  

We were invited to join the people in our caravan for supper up at the big RV park.  Ceci cooked us up some burrito's and shrimp and there were some margarita's as well.  It was great to get our bellies full and chat with the people we had travelled with.  We generally make some long term friendships from these caravans, and I think that will be true this time as well.

After a nice supper, we headed downtown to Kenia's Cafecito.  It is sure nice to be back with them for a few months. 

This was the nice afterglow we saw this evening from the front seat of the MH. Not bad I must say. Off to bed we went.  Good Nite!!

Day One Mexico Trip

WHERE ARE WE? Villa Hidalgo, Mexico

We were up and moving toward the Mexican border by about 6:45am.  We were only about 5 miles from the border so the drive didn't take long.  We pulled into the parking lot and shut everything down.  This can be a time consuming process.  We have to get our FMM which allows us to be in Mexico for 180 days.  That part is fairly quick and painless.  The next part is to obtain a TIP (temporary import permit) which is the permits to allow the Motorhome and Jeep to be in Mexico with us.  This process is a little slower.  But all in all we were done our process within and hour.  One of the couples in the caravan had a truck which showed a GVWR which the Mexicans deem a commercial vehicle.  They all know it is not being used commercially, but they also see an opportunity to make a few bucks.  So by the time they let them get their TIP and we got on the road, 2.5 hours had passed and about $250.00 USD had exchanged hands.  It is amazing that this sort of thing is allowed at a place like a border, but it is.  Oh well we were on our way.  We have 8 people in our caravan for this trip.

We have never crossed the border here at Mission/Reynosa before but it seems like a good place to cross.  Once we got to Monterey we were on familiar roads again that we have travelled a few times before.  We were second last in line for this trip.

The scenery went from flat grass and cactus covered landscape to cactus and mountainous landscape over our travels today.

We stopped at a lot of toll booths and a couple times for fuel.  Sometimes they have some neat things at the gas stations.

Here is the route we took today.

We spent the night in a gated truck stop which was great for sleeping.  We will continue down the road again tomorrow.  Good Nite!!!

Getting Ready to go to Mexico

WHERE ARE WE? Chimney RV Park, Mission Texas

We had a travel meeting today and that was about all that happened.  We were informed that friends of ours were shot at and robbed at gunpoint yesterday on the way to La Penita from here in Mission.  Thank God they are ok but their truck and trailer with a side by side and everything in the vehicles are gone.  They were left on the side of the road in bare feet.  We must be a little more vigilant right now as there seems to be some things happening that are really quite random, however when it happens to friends, it brings it into the reality realm.  We don't believe we will be in any real danger because there will be 7 rigs together on our trip.  

I kept myself busy in the swimming pool today.  Great place to be.

A little TV tonight and then off to bed.  Up early tomorrow and on the road.  Good Nite!!!

Pat and Harold Made it!!

WHERE ARE WE? Chimney Park RV, Mission Texas

Today was billed as a relaxing day to just do a few things around the house in preparation for Mexico on Tuesday.  One of our neighbours, Poncho, has a pressure washing business and I got him to wash the MH and Jeep this morning.  One thing that we notice when at Magnolia Beach, is the amount of salt in the misty air there.  Everything seems to get a coating and I thought we should get it off as quick as possible.

Nothing like a dip in the pool to cool things off for a while.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon getting the new inverter hooked up and everything went well.  We now have our own 120 volt power source again when not hooked to shore power.  I will hook up the remote reader at a later date.  For now we really don't need it.

A little story about where we are parked.  The RV park is actually located on the Mexican side of what was going to be the wall.  It was all in the contract stage and then that all got nixed.  It was supposed to be 18 feet high but the money got pulled, so the contractor just installed short posts for now just to make it look like a fence.  It would stop nothing and apparently doesn't.  It will be finished when money is available again.  In the meantime the park boasts of being on the wrong side of the wall.

This is also a hot spot for drugs and people coming across the river on either side of us.  There is a National Reserve presence here 24/7 just watching for action. The Border Patrol also uses the boat launch here every day.

Pat and Harold arrived here today so we met them for supper at The Texas Roadhouse.  We had a nice time over some good food.  The kitchen there is amazing to watch.  Mass production of steaks and buns. 

A little dip in the pool after supper to end the day.   Good Nite!!