Port Hope to Ciudad Victoria, Tamaliupas

Wednesday, November 19, 9:00 PM, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico

That's enough to show that we made it over two-thirds of the way. There's a story or two, naturally. We went to a dinner party Saturday night, groggily finished preparations and packing on Sunday, and drove to Melville's house to spend the night with him (Liz's octogenarian dad). That was nice but after a fitful few hours of attempted sleep we got up about 4:00 AM and hit the highway by 4:30. All was fine through Toronto but we had snow falling from about Milton to London and it became quite slow. As day broke it got better and faster, and we were waiting at the Ambassador bridge by 8:00 or so. The US border staff was kind, the low fuel light was lenient and we made it to cheap US gas ($22 a tank-full!) with fumes to spare.

The route I've been complaining about from the bridge to Interstate 75 south is finally getting fixed, meaning it was more than the usual detour to find the highway but we made it, and were leaving Detroit at full speed as rush-hour traffic built in the other direction. With cruise control, good US highways, NPR radio, and cheap fuel we motivated pretty hard through Michigan and Ohio and into Kentucky as planned. Evening fell by Nashville or so but we pressed on to Memphis, and messed around a while trying to find the Memphis Airport La Quinta which is not on Airway drive. A good dinner seemed in order but was not to be; an extended search of the local commerce turned up nothing mutually acceptable (meaning Liz wouldn't eat greasy slop) so we returned defeated to the hotel and she ordered a Dominos medium pizza, which for $19 turned out to be about $25 a pound. It was soon gone and we tried again to sleep (it should be mentioned that two of us slept a lot in car (counting Sophie) but Den did all the driving, about 1020 miles on Monday. The room had highway noise and only Sophie slept well.

Our start Tuesday was about 3 hours later as we got going about 7:30 after free waffles, etc., at the hotel. Arkansas went by too slow, but uneventfully, and Texas began; the weather sunny and bright. After a fill-up, we considered an alternate non-freeway route south, but abandoned that plan after a few stoplights. On down Interstates 30, 435, 35E and 35, Texas gets progressively less interesting and just too long. We blew by the planned stop in Kyle, Texas, just past Austin, and changed our reservation to Corpus Christi where we arrived at about 8:30. We had slightly better luck at Big Red's sports bar with 50 visible TVs, a burger and such, and went back to the LA Quinta for a marginally better night's sleep. 1900+ miles from home at this point.

Corpus Cristie is only a couple hours from the far tip of Texas where we cross the Rio Grande, but we slept an additional hour, and did various commercial errands in Texas before crossing the bridge a little after noon, confident that all our paperwork was in order. Indeed we had our tourist visa papaerwork done in a few minutes and went on to get the car in. Not so fast. While my car is legally plated in Ontario through 2009, and had the plate stickers to prove it, it seems I had been negligent in that I had failed to place the matching little sticker on the ownership papers last September, and this is just TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Pleading, photos of the plate, nothing was going to change his mind. But there was an easy solution....just go back across the bridge to the Texas Vehicle department, and get a Texas temporary permit and come back with that: ten minutes, he says.

Yeah, right. It was half an hour just getting across the bridge and back through US customs. My Texas receipt ($25) was stamped 2:30 pm and my shiny new Mexican car permit came through 20 minutes later (400 pesos, about US$30). But whatever, we're good to go, if hours late. We navigated Matamoros OK and were looking at the "Ciudad Victoria 300 KM" sign, past the paperwork checkpoint in another half hour. The road (101) to Victoria is mostly smooth, fast, and tope-free (speed bumps). With a few minor annoyances drive was fine, as the sun finally got out of my eyes and some nice streaks of magenta crossed the SW sky. It got darker than we would choose to see from a car in Mexico but we got here and found this sleazy and basic 200 peso highway hotel, and a servicable restaurant at the corner. After we got inside we both recognized it from an earlier trip and it was again decent, with a Bistek Ranchero, a Pollo dinner, and two beer for 200 pesos with tip. With the US dollar up to 13 pesos, it was easily a better deal than Dominos or Big Red's.

The car, overloaded as it is, has been cruising along just fine, with the recently replaces junkyard motor and distributer. We got 30 MPG or so the first couple tanks, increasing to 37 or so the last one. The only problem so far is that the left headlight connector needs a nudge to get going, which is a bit inconvenient as night falls on a no-shoulder Mexican highway. I might even have to fix it. Somehow. The trunk is stuffed full, the back seat is filled maybe 20 inches deep (makes a nice platform for Sophie), and a small cartop-carrier bag is mounted on the trunk with camp chairs, snorkel gear, and beach toys. Someone unzipped it a few inches last night but was apparently unimpressed with the contents, as nothing was taken. Tonight I backed in to the garage provided here so it should be safe. It's a reasonable good strategy to drive a few thousand dollars of computers and electronics and tools and personal stuff around Mexico in a 13-year old economy car; nobody thinks much to mess with it. It puzzles me that some people think they are more secure in an expensive new SUV, when it's plainly the opposite. Who would you choose to kidnap or rob?

Enough for now. Having wasted the extra hours in Matamoros, we had to divert from the coast road to come to C.Vic. today as we would not have made it the extra distance to Tampico. Now we need to decide whether to go the long way to Tampico or stay inland on crazy curvy mountain roads toward Pachuca, around Mexico City, and on to Oaxaca. That's probably what we'll do. After dinner I bought the only beer available a the highway store, a 940 mL Corona. The laptop battery has outlasted the beer so it's time to climb on the rack (no joke-you can feel the springs through the sheets) and see if I can sleep better in the third country in four nights. Four if you count Texas.