On The Road

On The Road
Dutch Star and Subaru ready to go

Saturday, January 23, 2010

After a wet trip we're back home at the Escapees park in Livingston. Although we took a slightly different route returning to the border at Brownsville,we still traveled road(s) that were in terrible shape with mucho big pot-holes and many with a layer of wet mud as the rain continued to fall. Of course all this mud splattered up on the sides of the motorhome and completely covered the Jeep being towed. At least we had an idea what the Jeep would look like if we ever wanted to paint it mud brown.
We spent the night at the same hotel/rv park in La Pesca and when setting up for the night, we discovered that Dallas and Sherie's 5th wheel had had a recent blow-out and one of their tires was in shreds. Luckily he carries a spare and with the help of the people at the park we were able to get it on. Dallas will have to find another rim and tire as soon as we cross the border and will have to get a little body work done where the tire tore up the fender well of the 5th wheel. Fortunately no one was hurt and we were on our way in the morning.
The main fatality of the trip for us was a rock flying off a truck coming towards us resulting in another broken windshield. The rock hit high on the passenger side of the windshield and left a hole about the size of a silver dollar. Cracks in the glass haven't yet started to run from the impact area and I've covered the hole with tape hoping that a repair can be made. If the hole is too big to fix, a call to the insurance is the next step.
Going through the border took a couple of hours as we followed the signs for buses and trucks. When we got up to the gate, the Immigration officer wanted to know why we were in the commercial lane. I explained that we followed the signs that said buses as that's what we were usually classed as and didn't see any signs that said these lanes were for commercial vehicles only.
By that time it was too late and impossible to turn around so they had us park over to the side after checking our pass-ports. We were told to go into the immigration building and ask for inspectors to check our vehicles. Three different groups had to inspect us, first the agriculture people who took the few fruits and vegetables that wasn't allowed over the border, then another inspector told us to drive over to where a large X-ray machine scanned the motorhome (for what I'm not sure) When that was completed we were told to wait for the "drug dog" to go through the motorhome.
The funniest thing about the whole border inspection was that when the various inspections were being made, we had to get out of the motorhome, this included our two pups, Leo and Hayley. One of the inspectors looked at the pups and said, "aren't they Portuguese Water Dogs, the same as President Obama has?"
When I explained that not only they were the same breed as the White House Dog but were actually related to the Obama dog with Leo and Hayley being its Uncle and Aunt. After I told the inspectors that, they wanted to know if they could have their picture taken with Leo and he looks just like "Bo" the White House Dog. ... Nothing like traveling with a celebrity.
With our traveling companions Dallas and Sherie we found an RV park in Brownsville to spend the night with plans to go our separate ways in the morning.
Although we're a little disappointed that our Mexico trip was cut short due to the weather, we know that we'll return next year.
In the meantime we'll get some work done around the house and make plans for our summer trip to California to visit our kids and Diane's family and then up to Ottawa to visit friends and family there.