Three years on

Today is an anniversary of sorts: three years since we left Toronto for our run to the Mexican border, with Hildegard in tow. After crossing, I stopped posting mainly because there was too much to do. But we did make it safely, with plenty of stories along the way.

We're now planning the next adventure - an extended visit to New Zealand and Australia. I'm guessing the blog bug may bite again.

Hildegard gets irradiated

She is positively aglow, and I don't think it's because she's happy we are in Mexico. It was the industrial-strength X-Ray machine.

Both Hildegard (my trailer) and the truck were positively abused Saturday, and this is to say nothing of Melanie and I.

We did manage to slow down the Laredo-Columbia Bridge border crossing however. Not single-handedly, though. We had help. Where else but in Mexico does everything, and I mean everything stop because your printer runs out of toner? With no spare? But it takes only 15 Mexican minutes. Mexican minutes are like dog years. You do the math.

Melanie and I are both a little nervous as we approach the border, but we don't say anything. The first problem is no one speaks English. This was predicted. The second is that it appears the 20-somethings have never before seen two gringos trying to import their household belongings in a trailer that is bigger than some Mexican homes. (OK, that's not fair.)

It's now we learn about some rules that apparently the Mexican Consulate in Toronto has never heard of, or failed to share, and we are invited to pay the tax or drive back and explain to them about their unfortunate error. We decline the latter, and this is when the aforementioned Mexican inefficiency really kicks into high gear.

After the printer failure, we hold up the line further because Immigration and Customs can't agree on how the CANJE document should be completed. They finally wrestle it out, we get our receipts and permits and passports and think we are cleared to leave.

Not so fast gringo. You still have to go through the X-Ray.

In all, we lose almost 4 hours. This puts us into an hour of white-knuckle night driving at breakneck speed behind a tourism bus in order to reach our hotel in Matehuela.

Crossing the Sierra Madre was the more troubling leg. By the time we got to the top at 2180 metres, I thought the truck was going to bust a gasket. But it's Monday morning now. We are rested and relaxed, and on the home stretch.

Cotulla

When we emerged from the restaurant after a long drive and a late dinner just north of Cotulla, Texas, we were rewarded by a sight I had only ever before seen in storybooks: the North Star, hovering over the tip of a crescent moon at sunset. Amazing. The only thing missing was the cow.

Hope

Tonight, Hope is more than a virtue. It's also where we are. Hope, Arkansas: the birthplace of Bill Clinton as it turns out. I picked it to overnight because it is small and the parking lot is big. Sadly the only meal within walking distance is KFC. We skipped that. Also, the house-made labels on the air conditioning unit are interesting.

Fuel consumption has almost doubled with the added weight of the trailer, and we have become fans of Love's truck stops and gas at $2.49 a gallon. But the trailer is riding perfectly. Each day adds to my respect for long-distance truckers.

Tomorrow it's on to Cotulla -- another 910km on top of the 880 we did today. Sunday morning: the Mexican border.

Who calls their town F'ing Ham?

OK, it's probably not the first time someone has made a bad joke of that. We're actually in Effingham, and so far as I can tell, they have nothing against pigs.

The big enchilada today was crossing the U.S. border, and it was sweet. It's impossible to say so as a rule of course, but the U.S. border dudes at Sarnia's Bluewater Bridge are both professional and polite. Detail oriented, yes. Rude and threatening? Not today.

Confused was more like it. I pulled up and turned off the truck. Right away he asked, almost mischievously, "What's in the trailer?" We talked about that and Mexico for a while before he even asked for passports.

It threw me off when he asked, "Why Mexico?" The way he said it was like, why Mexico as opposed to some other country? I was disarmed. I could have said, well why not, no winter, no snow, cheaper to live, have friends there, but no. All I could think of was "I fell in love with the country when I lived there before." That's when he said, I just have to check a few things, and slid closed the door.

We weren't terribly worried, because I knew he was checking us out and seeing all the notes about what happened to us in April. When he finally slid open the door he had a supervisor standing behind him. The seated officer asked, "So when did you live in Mexico?" I thought this was funny because I didn't think they would actually be worried about that. I said when I was 19 or 20. He asked, "What were you doing there?" Going to school in Cuernavaca. I wanted to share with him the courses I took but thought better of it. "And where did you grow up?" In Toronto said I.

This seemed to satisfy him. Seemingly still puzzled though, he asked again, "Why Mexico." I finally said, "We have friends there" His supervisor asked the perfunctory guns and fresh produce questions, and then they both smiled and said, "Have a save trip."

It was effing awesome.   

Go-Day

Today we hit the dusty trail.

The days of re-weighing and balancing have finally paid off in a combined gross weight that meets spec, and my new weight distribution hitch almost makes it feel like there's nothing behind me. Almost. But we're dead rock-solid cruising at 102 km, and passing at 110.

Kind of funny that our last meal in Fergus was sitting in the truck at the Zehrs parking lot. You just can't start a road trip without the proper beverages chilling in your cooler, and by this time it was 4 pm and well past lunch, so Home Meal Replacement it was.

Tonight we are in Sarnia, and our Just Married sign on the back of the trailer has already got us a few smiles and breaks on lane changes. The small print below reads: Elora to Ajijic.

Tomorrow: The Border. We'll see if their sense of humour has improved.

Trailer Trash

The nicest benefit of having your departure continually and involuntarily delayed is that you get to see and say goodbye to family over and over and over. I don't think they're getting completely annoyed about this yet. But they do seem a little surprised that we keep showing up at their door.

Self-trailering your furniture and personal belongings to anywhere is not for the feint of heart, and I cannot recommend it to anyone. It only matters a little that the distance is enormous. Even if the distances were smaller, the calculations are the same.

I was so happy last Saturday when I found the drive-on scale in Mississauga, and confirmed that both truck and trailer were well under their maximum spec. Good to go! Unfortunately, I had not fully considered the gross maximum combined weight of truck, trailer, all passengers, all payload, and a full tank of gas.

I did know all along what that number is. I had just never fully considered it.

So, trailer trash, as it turns out, is all the stuff you thought you could never live without but now will do so anyway. On the whole, the stuff is not all that important, with a couple of exceptions, which we invariably discovered were packed into the same boxes as all the less important stuff. The saving grace is we have a manifest, so we know where stuff is in two languages.

When you have to pack under pressure, this is the point at which you start unpacking those selected boxes on the front lawn of your Mother's house, as passersby ask whether Mother is moving. I just say no, it's us. Trailer trash.

But we are done with that now. (Probably.) I have graduated to looking at alternate routes, with stops at motels that have big really parking lots. Wednesday is Go-Day. Maybe.