At Last!
We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, eager to get going and get over the border and on our way! Bob set the alarm for 5:30, and by 6:00 we were packing up the car. We finished about 6:30 – small problem – it was still dark out and we didn’t want to start out in the dark (keep the puns to yourselves). So, we went to the restaurant and got some coffee and sat around in the room and drank that… then we took the dogs over to their play area and let Missy and Cejas run around. Cejas had a full out run, the kind where he looks like a greyhound, and just runs in circles, in glee. Missy just had fun running a little, and then rolling on her back in the grass. If Missy were a football player, she would be a running back, like Jerome Bettis. Run as hard as you can, and then drop. We didn’t let Bella run around because we were afraid that she would hear or see something and just start running after it, and it was getting a little lighter, but still dark enough to be bad conditions for a black dog. And Vina never gets to go off leash, mostly for the protection of other animals. Chomp Chomp!
As we were walking back to the room, a big fat toad hopped out in front of me. I stopped to say good morning to it, and it just blinked at me and didn’t move, not even when the dogs walked past. I took the dogs and put them inside the room and got my camera so that I could get the toad’s picture for Eliza, who just loves frogs and toads. When I went back out, there was my toad, plus his wife, and their little tiny baby. So, I had the frog in the pool in Tucson, and toads in Texas. I’ve decided that they are my good luck totems for the trip.
After we had our coffee, the sky was lightening, so we set out. As we drove down the highway, we entered into some pretty thick fog. Just like home! We got to the crossing bridge at Progresso and made it over with no problems, no searches, no stops… uneventful. That’s ok, sometimes boring is good! We stopped at the ATM on the Mexico side to get some pesos for the toll road and then headed toward that. We followed the signs but somehow missed a turn somewhere and ended up taking a delightful and scenic detour through a little Mexican town. People were out getting ready for church, and it wasn’t too busy. We had the GPS on with our Mexico map finally loaded, and we were able to follow that to find the way back to the main highway. We got on that and followed the signs for Matamoros (many morons?) and then picked up Highway 180 there and started SOUTH! The road is very confusing… there are TWO 180s that run and you don’t know which one to take and they aren’t marked… at one point, we started down one 180 and turned around and went down another, only to meet the first road that we had started on. We had directions from Redbeard and our friend Shirley, so we thought we were familiar with what to expect… wrong! We thought that we would be on nice interstate roads… some of them are, but most of the “interstate” highways in Mexico are two lanes, heavily traveled, and full of traffic. 180 from Matamoros to Soto la Marina is a pretty good road and we made good time on that. After we turned to head toward Tampico, we ran into some stalls. The road was under major construction, so fast going was unheard of, unless you wanted to rip out the undercarriage of your car. The road also runs up big hills and winds through valleys, so high speeds are intermittent. There are beautiful wildflowers growing along the side, pretty lavender flowers, and white, and some of our familiar yellow sunflowers. We did make Tampico in pretty good time though….
That follows.
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