We heard that the convoy of big rigs will be heading out at 7am. Meg and I are awake at 5am and head out of the RV park at 6am. San Carlos is quiet. It's 12C (54F) outside....brrr!! a lot colder than our balmy Cuyutlan mornings. San Carlos, where Catch-22 was filmed back in the '60s, is very picturesque with craggy, blue-grey mountains fading away into the distance as the suns starts to lighten up the sky. We are ahead of the pack...few vehicles on the road...Meg is refreshed behind the wheel for another long drive.
No roadside diners in sight. OXXO again. Meat-like substance and cheese sandwiches for brekkie...yummy!! At least Celeste has a powerful sound system to blast our tunes from the IPod. Life is very good!!
A military checkpoint has over 90 truck-trailers lined up along the highway as we are motioned to pass. A polite young soldier checks out Bea with me as Meg and another young soldier converse in Espanol y Ingles. No problema. A little further along we pass a huge newly-constructed complex - a new military checkpoint that should be able to process lots of trucks more efficiently. It's in the middle of nowhere...unavoidable.
After 4 hours of driving we approach Km21 checkpoint to turn in our vehicle passes and visitor visas. Even though we didn't unpeel Bea's sticker from the original document, it is missing. In addition we cannot find a VIN on her. Meg found a supervisor to discuss the missing sticker and shortly we are headed to the border, passing a vast shantytown surrounding Nogales, MX.
It's not too much of a wait (~30 minutes), a brief inspection of Celeste and Bea by a US Border person looking for fruit, meat, seeds, drugs...we had one contraband weiner which was confiscated by the guard...then were free to continue into the US of A. Nogales,AZ is nothing like its Mexican counterpart. The houses are colourful, tidy and aligned. What a difference a line of a map can make!
Because we took the Mariposa entry point, we missed Denny's on the Nogales centro route. I thought there would be lots more restaurants on the highway, but, nada. With gurgling tummies, much to our distress, we pulled into the golden arches in Green Valley, a retirement community north of the border. McD's french fries are decadently tasty.
Now that we we back in the US of A, our GPS (Madge) was up and running and shouting out commands in her unwavering tone. She is a very talented little gadget - directing us through the on-going highway construction in Tucson, through the desert and into the wonderfully colourful maze of roads and highways of Phoenix to our friends' (John & Pat) casa in Tempe. Again it felt so good to be stopped for the night. 9DDD/7UFO
2 comments:
Is 9DDD meaning 9 dead dogs? I know about Three Dog Night but this is something new...must be that new math they keep talking about. WE gave up counting UFO because after a few semis do their thing it was hard to tell where one UFO stopped and another started! And that is certainly one way to lose weight...the Neiner Weiner Diet..quick tell Marie Osmond!
Great road posts. That is indeed a beautiful route; we take the same one. Glad to hear you are safely tucked up in Tempe. Trust the rest of the drive home will be as uneventful. Fewer DDs and UFOs.
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