Guadalajara, Mexico

Hello from Guadalajara – long long trip. Actually it was only 172 miles but took 6 and ½ hours.  The middle part on the Autopista was fine – it was the beginning and the ending part that made it long.

So here we are at 5100 feet. 3630 miles and 130 days into our winter trip.

Sunrise Wednesday morning was kind of pretty – the sun color just coming over the mountain. 

We got up early – much earlier than we'd planned. At four o’clock every morning and every half hour until 6 o’clock the church in Aticama sends up really loud rockets to scare away the demons. I kid you not! Maybe it works,we didn’t see any demons there. And at 6:00 a BAND started to play their music on the beach. Horns and drums. EEK! Bill actually went back to sleep for a nap around 7:30 before we left.

Here we are all hooked up and ready to leave. 

Left at 9:30. There were three ways out to the Autopista.  The way we came in which would take us way north again, the way we checked out the other day – I think NOT. And the 20 mile curvy narrow road we came to San Blas on in 1978 which is the way Bill picked.. Then we were in a 24 foot motorhome pulling a trailer – today we were in a 40 foot motorhome pulling the Jeep. Both times it took us an hour to make the drive. Heard a few branches dragging along Alfie’s side and roof!

very narrow lanes and no shoulder.

At 10:30 we made it to the junction with the 15D the toll road.

For the day there were four toll booths for a total of 946 pesos for about 132 miles of toll road. Almost US$65. But the highway was very good.

Well except when there were jerks trying to make their own lane to pass. The truck on the right is actually in the right hand lane – he is just pulling a little to the shoulder to ease the passing of the truck on the left and us. This jerk went up the middle! Where there was not enough room. 

Even the road through Tepic has been paved and was not bad. Here is an overpass with “This is your speed” signs for each lane. We were doing 66K. And the overpasses have been painted white and murals put on them. 

The autopista going up the mountains – the red sign says dangerous curves ahead. There were a lot of curves and going up and down. But at leas the road was good. 

The only construction for the day – putting down new cement pavement with one of those amazing paving machines.

I took several pictures during the drive, but they were of lava rocks and cane fields - nothing interesting. 

Here is the route – pretty straight forward. You can see we are heading inland towards the mountains. Cooler up here. I have a sweat shirt on this morning! 

We got onto the bypass around the center of Guadalajara with no problems. Very well marked. But the traffic was horrid. Horrid! – There are marked lanes but no one seems to care. So horrid I didn’t even take any pictures so busy watching the road and traffic. This didn't come as a surprise to us - we expected it but...

Got to the campground, San Jose del Tajo, more or less okay [a story for another day]. We had been told that it was closed but called them and they are still open. Stopped in front of the office the hunt was on for a campsite with electricity – this campground, the only one in Guadalajara, has not had any TLC for years. Every time we’re here it gets worse. Took us over an hour to finally get parked. BUT all is not lost – we have somewhere between 20 to 40 amps. Water and sewer. Cost US$15 per day. Seems expensive but it is right in the city. Also have 17 channels of Guadalajara TV and the TelCel works fine. Weather is cool.

After everything was set up we jumped in Willie and headed across the highway to Applebee’s for dinner. It was delicious. Bill had Bourbon Street Steak and I had grilled Talipia. While we were eating Willie got washed. After finishing eating we walked to WalMart and got a couple essentials. Nice big WalMart and Sam's Club in same parking lot as Applebee's. 

Then we vegged out. Also changed time zones so lost an hour. Now in Central Time. 
It is supposed to sprinkle and or have thunderstorms later today. Right now we have no plans.