We strung a yellow rope across our bougainvillea. They really need to be trimmed and so while we are gone everything above the yellow will be cut off. Hope it all works out as expected.
I just wanted to start by relying to Panhandler’s comment. No you did not miss the generator episode and it is a doozy! However because we are rushing to get out of Mexico that post will just have to wait so stay tuned. I also have a few other posts that I will get to over the next week.
Pretty much everything is packed up. I power washed our fence screen Friday and it just ran black from all the dust.
We spent all of Friday and Saturday packing up. Very tiring and my knee was not happy but I did ice as much as possible and that helped. I did get out for my last beach walk early Saturday morning. Then we just worked non stop.
What it looks like without the screen. The black is plastic from our palapa, to keep the rain from coming through. We would have so very very much more dust without that screen.
We did leave this morning at 5:40AM and drive to the Fletcha fuel station at the San Carlos turn off. We arrived shortly after 5PM and drove 504.6 miles today. It was a long day but I am only now stating to feel the exhaustion as I am working on this. We don’t have wifi but I have a tiny bit of data thru my Telcel phone and hope that once I write this off line and add the photos that I will be able to publish. We are very concerned about being stuck in Mexico and plan to cross into the US tomorrow late in the day. Meanwhile Canada is reconsidering how to handle all the travelers returning home at the borders and airports. All we can do is take it one day at a time and just keep heading north.
I never got enough time on this beach this winter. Hopefully we will be able to return next November.
We seem to have lots of stuff.
The two trucks that came were smaller that others we have had over the years. So they simply tied the heavy stairs onto the bumper. And off the two trucks went along with Colin in the Jeep with the fragile things.
Yesterday once our stuff got put into our bodega/storage area here on the Isla Colin decided to get the Jeep washed instead of doing it himself ( he is tired ) and that led to getting the RV washed as well. The two young ladies doing the job had just finished cleaning the inside and outside of another RV and perhaps were tired. Somehow they managed to break a corner of one of our roof vents. We had to call Erik as the dust, wind, rain, etc would come in. Of course we could have just taped it but if Erik could fix it even better. He actually had a similar unit that he had to be creative with to make it work for us.
The cover is what was broken.
Just before he arrived we moved out the RV and backed in the car and then backed in the RV. While I was helping Erik, Colin was hooking up the Jeep. That way we could quickly drive out this morning. We only put out the bedroom slide so that we could make a quick get away this morning. By the time Erik left and we said our goodbyes, sadly we missed a few folks, it was getting late. We didn’t get to be as early ( we were two hours behind our anticipated schedule ) as we had hoped but we still were up at 4:45AM.
The unit Erik had to replace it with included a small built in fan but we had no 12 volt connection there. So he undid our kitchen light and figured out how to pull the wires through. Love the new fan/vent, it really helped cool the RV this afternoon.
Like all workers, he leaves behind a mess. These tiny styrofoam pieces were everywhere. We had just thirty minutes earlier finished dusting and vacuuming!
Our final sunset Saturday.
Lucky us.
We stopped for fuel twice today and prices were similar to what we paid coming down in November (22.47 to 21.57). I realized that the attendants were no longer wearing their uniforms and just wearing jeans and causal clothing. It was hard to know who the worker was. Also neither large truck stop had water and long handled brushes to clean our front window. Things have changed over the past few years.
Sunrise this morning, just as we reached Estrella del Mar.
At the Sinaloa/Sonora border and agricultural check area, an agent asked in broken English asked if we spoke Spanish. We usually say no to that question. He then asked if we had coronavirus. Of course we said no and drove on. By the way that area is still full of enormous pot holes, more accurately described as craters or bathtubs. Take your time there. Later in the day at the toll both at the end of the Ciudad Obregon bypass the attendant was wearing a face mask. By the way that toll is based on axles and for us including the car we have four and that was 328 pesos.
This truck barely made it to the Pemex station.
No wheels on the back.
We were never boarded by anyone today which was great as I was wondering how to politely get that person to use hand sanitizer once they came in. However we had a challenge figuring out how to keep ourselves clean as I handed toll money over to Colin who passed it to the toll attendant and then gave me the change and the receipts. We did eventually work out a system with the sanitizer and the steering wheel, but that is an area that can be overlooked so be aware. It is up to us to protect ourselves. I also noticed that in Sonora the cement road over the bridge decks are crumbling and there are many hidden pot holes so beware of the bridges and slow down for them. There are some large unmarked topes just before Navojoa at KM 138 just after the toll both( before Navojoa ).
Having a deep sleep as his family drove through the toll booth in the lane next to us.
A nice bonus it that at both ends of the Mazatlan Culiacan autopsist the toll booths have been taken over by locals and a donation is all that is requited to drive through. A good savings of over 730 pesos for us. This is a long weekend here in Mexico and today being a Sunday was a perfect day to travel, very little traffic. Even the truck stop tonight is quiet. Most of the tolls in Sonora remain by donation as they were in November. Vicam still has barricades for collections and they are being very strong in asking for a 15 pesos donation so be prepared. However they will get you at both ends of the town. Our friends Laura and Alan left yesterday and continued on today to San Carlos. They texted us that Totonaka RV Park was pretty empty as most everyone has already headed home.
Parked at the Fletcha fuel station. Colin was getting all the bugs off the front window. We have lots of space and it really is quiet.
Hope that this will be of some help to those coming behind us. Tomorrows post will be about the drive to and through the US border. However as we will likely be dry camping we probably won’t have internet tomorrow as we will be in a dead zone for ATT. I will publish that post as soon as I can the next day. A special thank you to all my readers and friends who have reached out with suggestion, support and updates at this crazy time in our lives. Please stay healthy everyone.
Once we got stopped and set up I iced, did my exercises and the then got twenty minutes to read as I iced yet again. Then it was onto writing this blog and eating dinner as I did so. Colin took this to show the sunset through the window but it was not very colorful.
I am so glad you are almost to the border, I am a little shocked he hadn’t closed it already but Mexico just doesn’t have that many confirmed cases (lack of testing centres and heat likely makes it less likely to spread) yet. Please just get back to Canada asap as things are really getting ugly everywhere.
I, too, am really glad you are on your way home. Things are changing so rapidly, it’s hard to know what will be happening today. Be safe and hopefully we’ll hear from you shortly.
I would be concerned about the Mexican/US border as well so I think you are smart to try and cross over quickly. We are heading out tomorrow and will make a fast trip home as well.
RE Your comment under the picture of the two trucks “we seem to have lots of stuff”. Reminded me of what my sister told me when we were down sizing a few years ago and I would become overwhelm by it all. She told me “Sandy, it is just stuff and in the end it will still just be stuff”. Her wise comment helped me get through that move and we have never looked back. I know that does not apply to you and those truck but you may need it some day when you do down size again.