In preparation for the trip home, I took the car up to the north part of town to a tire dealer Derek uses, for a cheap wheel alignment and oil change early in the week. I tried to make it known I wanted them to inspect everything, but they didn't seem to want my phone number to call if something came up. When we called them to confirm it was ready at the end of the day, I had Derek drop me off and found that they had decided it needed new front struts, new tie rod and ends, and the cost had gone from about 400 pesos to 3500. This was a bit shocking, but OK (imagine, wearing out the front end after only thousands of miles of overloading and abuse!) and I got in to drive home.
The loud clunk greeting every bump seemed not quite right, however, so I pulled it back in to the shop. With the hood up you could easily see the new strut assembly clanging up and down an inch or so when the spring was compressed. From below it was obvious that the outer CV boots were fully split open on each side. With a little luck (Gordon from Ottawa was there too) and patience, I got their attention to these problems. I suspect they used replacement strut assemblies from a common Tsuru (the 1994-era Sentras still built and sold new in Mexico) rather than the right part. They would have it all ready in the morning. Gordon was able to drop me off near Derek's. In the morning they had the right struts (at least ones that didn't clunk, and were a different color), new boots on, and we were ready to roll. Maybe they even changed the oil. It didn't look too dirty.
With great sorrow we woke up Friday the 16th to a pile of belongings and an empty car down below. A dozen or two trips later, all was packed in the Sentruck, which looked full to the inexperienced eye, while I knew there were a couple hundred pounds staying behind that somehow had fit in or on the car for the trip down. There were hugs all around from Derek, Christine, Heather (4), and Dylan (20 Months) and it was time to hit the cinnamon roll bakery and the road.
There had been a short item on the Tomzap Puerto Escondido Visitor's comment's page about a planned strike closing the coast highway Friday morning; we noted that but we were going north, not east. We took good old Highway 131 toward Oaxaca. We were almost to the junction (after 4+ hours of two mountain ranges, hundreds of curves, dozens of topes, and less than 200 kM) when we got to the first roadblock. Grr. This we didn't need. Fortunately, we were in the valley now, and there are other roads! A yellow road from the last town connected to the Oaxaca highway, so off we went to find it; I thought I had seen the junction. We didn't find that junction, but headed out of a little town in about the right direction anyway. It was a bit of an adventure going up and down the dirt to ford the dry creek where the bridge was out, and some more dealing with the detours where the new highway was being built, but we teamed up with a small car from Mexico City (DF - District Federal- plates) and soon we were on a road to Oaxaca.
Not so fast. As we reached a main intersection on the outskirts, dozens of taxis were stopped, blocking all access to Oaxaca. Another demonstration. Just let me out of here! Whatever you are protesting. it's not our fault! We and the DF family and some others pressed along a arterial street that seemed to circumnavigate Oaxaca, hoping to get to the tollway, where we hoped they couldn't hold a strike. We made it to the highway, a few kM before the toll starts, and met another roadblock. The impromptu detour this time went north of the highway along some parallel back streets and back to the road. Another blockage. This time we all went behind the row of commercial buildings (pic above) fronting the highway on dirt alleys, through one corn field, through another dry creek, and back on. Finally a clear road. The time we planned to spend in Oaxaca at the market or art museo was wasted, but we were still on track to jet over to Tehuacan for the night and we did so without incident. Sophie was easy to smuggle into the tryst motel after we grabbed a bit of dinner and a few beers.
Saturday, the strikes were over (or behind us) so we got back on the tollway to Puebla. Two trips ago we had been disappointed to find that the nice new autopista highway up from Poza Rica towards Orizaba was on the map but not yet open. Surely by now....but no. Still we, the trucks, the busses, everyone else, still were stuck on the old road with its twists, turns, topes, towns, and all. Actually it wasn't terrible except for the four heavy flatbed trucks with construction equipment that we all had to pass somehow. We crawled on back to sea level and committed to skip Poza and Tuxpan and head straight for Tampico. The coast road wasn't too bad, though again too crowded with trucks and busses. The graceful big bridge for Tampico came into sight.
We have had varying luck with accommodations and navigation in Tampico over the years. This time we knew to take the bypass towards the airport and head out of town, hoping for a good lodging choice in Alta Mira, just beyond. As we got there on confusing highways, we saw food but no motels. Suddenly the highway was doing a u-turn back to town with no other choice. There was a good-looking auto hotel! We checked it out a bit and decided to go back for food and return. We found a right turn shortcut back to the grocery plaza, did our shopping, and headed back to the motel. Turns out you can't get there from here. The road we came in on had no apparent access to the road the motel is on, and we eventually had to return to the grocery, and re-loop the whole town to get back to the motel. The chicken was not do hot and the beer not so cold, but the day was done, and over two-thirds of Mexico in the rear-view mirror, or it would if we could face the right way.
Sunday morning, with the help of daylight, we found the tricky way to get turned around and headed north on the coast highway. The roads up north get faster, straighter, and better, so there were no particular problems getting up to Matamoros and the Texas border by the afternoon.
Somehow we lost the way to the bridge we usually take, though, so we found ourselves again trying to figure out the border geography on the fly. It's no problem to find the bridge -- that's well marked -- but we know from hard experience that we need to cancel our tourist visas and car permit before leaving the country. We stopped by the big building on the way toward the bridge and found the office on foot. There is a few-hundred peso fee for the tourist (FMT) visa, which we always had to pay at a bank before. This year, two different banks in Puerto had refused our money, and this being Sunday, we weren't sure we could do this, but went in anyway. No problemo! there was a 540 peso fee (for two) but they could take our money right there. Why didn't they take it when we went the other way in November? A continuing mystery. Much stress would have been avoided.
We canceled the FMTs and the car permit, after bringing it around the building for the record-holding "Bored, Lazy, and Disgruntled Border Official Champion, 2009", and got in line for the Rio Grande bridge, US customs, and Texas, three increasingly undesired destinations. The line was slow, but the border agent agreeable, and we entered Texas again wondering how much cocaine we could have had in the trunk with a couple of immigrants. The good US highways got us up to 75 MPH and headed north after crossing Mexico in a record-tying 3 days.
Cell coverage is spotty in rural Texas, though, and we couldn't connect to La Quinta long enough to book a free room for the night. We drove instead to the La Quinta outside of Corpus Christi, where we had spent our last night in the US on the way south, mostly to use their internet connection to reserve a room elsewhere, though it was by now getting past dark. It wound up being too easy to stay put, and we booked a free room right there, though we had to do it from their guest computer. It was a pretty good room, and with their pet-friendly policy we took Sophie right in, though fast enough that she wasn't noticed. We tried to go out for Italian, but they were closed so we wound up back at the same noisy sports bar as in November, this time with an NFL playoff game on the 70 or 80 TVs, at full volume. The burger was OK if you don't count the noise.
Now it was just a fast-highway road trip home across America. But not a bad time to be in America -- Barack Obama would be the President before we got to Canada. Monday we got up pretty early. The free breakfast gear at La Quinta was pretty much all powerless so a bowl of cereal and cold bagel had to do. There would be a real breakfast later. Looking at the map overnight, it became clear that our usual route, through San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, was longer than the southern route via Houston. Normally it is still worth taking just to avoid Houston, where I've hated to drive, but it had been a few years since we tried it. We would get there in mid-day so it might be OK.
Actually it was amazingly uncrowded on the Houston free ring road (not even the tollway!) so my thinking on Texas routes may need to be reconsidered. Especially because the Houston route has trees. Lots of them! At least compared to the Dallas route through endless flat miles of brush. Most of the way it isn't quite a freeway yet, so there is some delay, but overall it was the better choice, at least this time. Texas rolled on past and Arkansas began in late afternoon. Our goal was Memphis, or at least West Memphis, Arkansas, and the strip of cheap motels there. The Super-8 room looked OK except for the noise of the heater/cooler by the window. I turned it off to find to my horror that the real noise was outside the window, where a refrigerated 18-wheel truck was going to idle all night. When the dog is smuggled, it's hard to force a room change, so earplugs were needed, and the rest was less than great.
Tuesday was the big day for America. I was trying to figure out how to see the big swearing-in and speech without spending too much driving time -- we were only 1000 miles from home -- one very long day, even for a driving fool. Looking at the weather map, the storm that had passed through Michigan and Ohio Monday was headed southeast and into Kentucky and Tennesee for Tuesday (and freezing the party in DC). It suddenly made sense to head north first and east later -- at least Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan have snowplows, and I'm not sure that's the case further south. I-55 went past the Super-8 (actually backtracking a bit on I-40) so north we went, again without a usable free motel breakfast. The inauguration news repeated through the morning and we finally stopped for breakfast about 10:00 in southern Illinois, after some miles in Arkansas and Missouri -- we had made it to Obama country. From there we could see a Wal-mart, and still needing a oil change (I think) we implemented a plan to be at Wal-mart, with dozens of TVs, for the big moment. Well, they have the TVs, but they also have the Wal-mart TV channel, and nothing else. I commandeered one older-style set, and managed to get it to search for broadcast stations and find some, but without the remote I couldn't tune them in. The staff couldn't help (or wouldn't). It's not like they were busy, as the place was absolutely dead -- everyone in America was at home watching the moment on TV or at work watching on their computer. They finished the oil change at 11:05 CST, I rounded up Liz with bit of shopping, and we quickly paid so we could get back to NPR. Thanks to the delay in DC, we missed only the flubbed oath and the first moments of the speech, but we caught those in replay later (and selected bits over and over the rest of the day).
It is not the point of this blog, and covered everywhere else, but I have to say it was the greatest day of my adult life to be an American. The historic significance of the moment in our sad racial history was wonderful in itself, but combined with the abrupt end of the worst 8 years in my experience of my country, and the amazing popularity of our new leader, it was incredible. The problems are huge, the opportunity great.
Happy, oiled, and fed, we were still a long way from the nearest free bed in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. The freeway number changed to 57 and then 70 and then 69 as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan went by, the ground getting whiter, the heater setting higher, and the hour later. We messed up trying to find the last gas station in Michigan but got to the bridge to Canada by about 11:00 PM. Now it was just an easy cruise down the 402 & 401, right? A snow squall west of London had us worried we might not make it after all but it cleared up eventually and our Wendy's dinner and coke kept me going through sleeping Toronto and into Mel Parkinson's driveway about 1:30 AM.
Five long days from Puerto Escondido, and from 80 degree days to 0 degree nights. I have to say it will always remain a puzzle to me how so many smart, wonderful people wound up so far up this round planet of ours. Now I'm thinking, in the spirit of NAFTA, maybe we could arrange to trade, say, Manitoba, for a big chunk of Oaxaca and Chiapas that are currently underutilized.
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