Next Big Trip Down

  I flew back to the States early in December, had about ten days to prepare for the big driving trip down. This time taking things I need for myself, the dogs and the cats. I'm also going to be selling my house here eventually, so I need to make piles of things I'm selling, giving, taking, donating ,trashing. I thought once I got done flying the animals down I wouldn't be stressed any more. Not the case. How to decide what's absolutely necessary. Now that's stress. Well I got it done.
  We left early in the morning. Two trucks, two people in each truck.The truck was packed and loaded with the two dogs in the back seat. Ready to roll!

  First leg of the trip was all the way to Laredo, Texas. With two drivers it wasn't too hard, only stopped for gas. We arrived in Laredo around 4:30 AM. The trucks were being legalized for Mexico so all we needed to do was pick up some paper work and then go across the border for more paper work, Sounds easy. There were MANY vehicles ahead of us even at 4:30 in the morning. So we slept in the truck till the sun came up then found out that our papers may not be there for several days! Good thing I brought extra dog food. We got a motel room across the street and waited. And waited. And waited.

 

 

  Finally after three nights, four days, we are on our way to the border. Even at 4:30 in the morning there was a long line of cars headed there. We went through the border check easily and quickly. They never even inspected the dogs or their health certificates. And no vehicle inspection either, my worse nightmare. They unpack and check, then YOU have to put it back together.

 

  All we have to do now is to continue the process for the trucks and get the paper work, so off we go. We pull up to a very large area with hundreds of cars already in line. Thank goodness they were having a cold spell down there 'cause we were in line for HOURS! I don't know what I would have done to keep the dogs cool. We were in line until about midday, got our sticker, then were told we needed more papers. Ay yi yi! Off we go to a much smaller lot, which, of course, is full of cars waiting for their paper work. They tell us our papers won't be in till about 10:00 that night. At least we did manage to find a spot in the lot for the two trucks and there was a bathroom. We did get our papers at 10:00 PM, too late to get a room so we slept in the trucks. Pulled out the next morning at 4AM along with everyone else. Finally we are on-the-road. UHHH, well, not quite. There's another check point down the road in Monterrey. They pull us over and want to inspect our truck, Oh No!  How am I ever going to get that stuff packed up again?  The inspectors were talking to my friend, who speaks Spanish, asking her what was in there and they were satisfied with her answers so they let us go through, Woo Hoo! Are we really on the road now? Yep! Stopped for a real breakfast at a nice highway oasis type complex.

 

 

   The rest of the drive went well. The highways were good, tolls though, and the scenery was beautiful.

 

 

 

My friend now had to drive all the way herself, I couldn't drive down there yet, I don't 

know why. I felt so bad for her, she drove for 18 hours ( we took wrong turns once in a while after we decided to take regular roads to avoid all the tolls) It must have been again about 1:00 in the morning. And I had several hours of work ahead of me yet. The animals that were here were so excited to see me so that took a little time for them to calm down, had to feed everyone then unload what I needed from the truck. I was so tired I just fell on top of the bed and for the second night slept with my clothes on. Home at last.