Heading Home

Hello from Los Mochis – 240 miles closer to home! Yep we finally got on the road. Left Mazatlan at 9:00 and got here – a truck stop – at 2:00. More about today later.

Yesterday we drove up to La Noria to pick up some things of ours that Bill had left with Roberto the leather man there. Ran into this situation on the way there. The woman was getting into the truck stopped for her. The girl was going to get a ride on the motorcycle. Meanwhile everyone else was at a dead stop.

It was 94 degrees there and of course Roberto wasn’t in his shop he was up the street somewhere buying leather. So we had to wait for him to get back. Not complaining – it was just pretty hot. Pretty little town of La Noria and Willie waiting for us.

And there were solders all over town. Standing in front of a lot of the buildings. Last week there was some Cartel activity in the hills around the town so the government wants to nip it in the bud. As we were leaving town three truck loads of State Police were heading there.

When we got home the man was washing Alfie – poor thing was so dirty. He said there was MUD on the roof – not dust. Bill was a little tired when we got home so he decided to “read his book” in bed of course.

A little bit later I went to get some stuff out of the refrigerator and the light wasn’t on – hum? Then I looked at the controls – the refrigerator WASN”T WORKING at all…Oh No! So I got Bill up. He checked the breakers, nope. Then the fuses, nope. Then both of them again. Nothing. By then we were both upset…Bill went up to the park manager and had him call a refrigerator/AC person – he could be there about 6:00. Then we talked to our only neighbor in the back and his wife cleared out there freezer in case we needed it. But then he said he knew an RV repairman who lived in Mazatlan. Our neighbor, whose name is also Bill, called the guy who said he’d come right over if someone would pick him up. Bill, the neighbor went to get him.

Miracle of miracles – the only thing wrong with the refrigerator was the box that had been installed in it because of a Norcold recall had shorted out. Just had to bypass it and everything worked fine again.

Don’t know if I’d mentioned it before or not but on the way to Mazatlan – not only did the window get cracked the Inverter stopped working. Bill had tried changing the fuses but that didn’t help so we asked Eric to check it out. Couldn’t get it fixed, will have to do that at home. But it is not necessary – except when we want electricity while in a truck stop we have to run the generator – noisy – but so are the trucks.

We were supposed to go out to dinner with our good friend Angelica but by the time the refrig got fixed – it was late.  And Bill was very tired. Aggravation can do that to you.

So I went to sleep last night thinking we wouldn’t leave today. Well he woke up full of vim and vigor so here we are in Los Mochis.

Luckily the road today was very good all the way here. Not busy and in good condition. Should have been 1041 pesos in Tolls – US$80. While at a toll booth I was watching this guy water the grass. The truck was moving. Can you imagine his job description “Stand on a round topped moving truck watering grass beside Toll Road” You want me to do WHAT???

But when we got to Los Mochis we hit a snag. We were going to stay at a Pemex everyone has told us about staying at. It is on the west side of the road so we would have had to find a crossover Retorno and make a U-turn to get to it. Well just as we almost got to the Retorno construction started. The southbound lanes were funneled into the north bound lanes – there was no way we could turn there. But luckily we have stopped for lunch several times at another Pemex just up the highway on our side of the road. We pulled in there, filled up! $3021 – pesos. US $3.80 a gallon. And they have secure, guarded overnight parking. We just had to tip the security guard 50 pesos. So here we are until morning. Bill is reading right now. Then we’ll probably go to the restaurant here for a late lunch or early dinner. Just a few of our neighbors.

Not too much to talk about with the drive today. Weather was nice, a bit warm. Lots and lots of agriculture going on corn, sorghum, onions and tomatoes.

harvesting the onions

tomatoes

 Just a thought – we passed several trucks loaded with tomatoes – what happens to the tomatoes on the bottom of the load? Wouldn’t they be squished?

Got stopped at two agricultural check points. Just asked if we had any fruit? Of course not. Hummm do you supposed they were referring to the apples, grapes and bananas that were in a bag under the dirty laundry????

And were waved through a Federal Police stop.

Did have one glitch while getting set up to go this a.m. I was bringing the big slide in when I heard CHRUNCH – CLACK Oh crap!  Moved the slide back out a little and saw what it was – nothing terrible. There is a ledge on top of the slide and we store DVDs up there. But they are usually all towards the right side. But as we were watching them this year we just stuck them back up there – not paying attention to where they were. There was a slight conflict of interest between the DVDs and one of the ceiling lights. Just scrunched one of the cases a little bit – well maybe more than a little bit.

Tomorrow we will hopefully make it to San Carlos where we’ll stay in an RV park. Another 240 miles. But the further north we go the worse the roads get.