My Thought Spot

New Tire Search
As soon as I got moving this morning I headed to a tire shop down the road from the hotel. I just picked one at random as this town had plenty to choose from. It seems like there are common problems in certain towns. Apparently there is enough business in this town to keep several shops running just fine.

What I needed from the tire shop was a lug wrench to pull the tire off the trailer so that I could run around with the rim in hand to get a new tire installed. I asked at the tire shop that I first visited if they had any 12″ tires. They did! They had 2 tires that were a bit smaller than I needed, but would fit my rim. These were used tires, but one of them looked like it was in pretty good shape. I got a lug wrench off of them and went back to the trailer to get the tire. The process of pulling the tire off went smoothly and I took the rim to the tire shop.

While they put the tire on, I buzzed over to the hotel and picked up the family. We hit an OXXO (Mexican convenience store) for some morning coffee and a totally un-healthy breakfast.

When we got back to the tire shop the tire was ready to go. We went to the trailer to find that it had fallen! Apparently the jack sank into the ground enough to topple the whole mess. Fortunately the jack was not pinned under the trailer in such a way that I could not get it out. It took well over an hour and some help from a passer-by to get the new tire on. Then I had to run the lug wrench back to the tire shop.

Back on the Road
We took it easy heading on to the border. With the fact that the tire shop had a tire that we could use, I estimated that we would be back on the road by 10:30. I missed it by an hour because of the trouble we had getting the trailer up off the ground after it fell. The trip to the border also took longer since we were now running on 2 different sized tires. We were concerned about overheating one tire by running it crooked down the road. Our original estimated time of arrival to cross the border was 2:00 in the afternoon.

Checkpoints
We had one more military checkpoint before getting to the border. They were pulling everyone over and digging through all the cars and suitcases. We got shoved into one line and waited our turn. When they got to us the soldiers suddenly started letting all the cars go through. Supposedly they were checking in waves and we were at the front of the next wave to be let past.

We have nothing to hide, but if we were forced to open our trailer to let them inspect it, it would probably be 4+ hours to pull it all apart and then put it together again. We were thankful for the gift of passing through.

Just one more inspection to go to get across the border. The last one is on the US side and can be a pain.

Border Crossing
We needed to go into the immigration office and cancel our paperwork. This didn’t slow us down much, but we were already way behind our ETA. The only thing that that mattered was we were going to try and eat lunch with some friends. We did not get to the border to cross until 4:00. Lunch plans turned into supper plans.

When we finally got over to the US side we were praying that we would not have to be inspected. Again, nothing to hide, but I did not want to go through the mess of pulling everything apart.

Something about me must sceam “INSPECT ME!” on the US side. We were asked to pull over and let the agents check our vehicle. This happened last time and it took almost an hour. They asked several questions about what we had in the trailer. They looked through the back of the van and asked again what was in the trailer. We have a bookcase strapped to the top of the trailer box that they looked in. They then asked to see what was in the trailer itself. I pulled out the hammer and told them I would have to disassemble the whole thing. They looked at each other and said that I could just go on.

Praise the Lord!

Dinner and a Hotel
We finally crossed the border closer to 5:30 after having to wait in line. We made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a new tire in the right size so that we can travel with a bit more confidence.

One of our friends that we were supposed to meet for lunch/supper was sick. We did get to meet with another friend and had a nice evening of talking about future plans.

In the process of all our running around my wife checked out some hotels in the area. She found one with a pool and Internet. When we checked in I saw a sign that said “Free Wireless Internet! (In lobby only).” Fortunately they also have wired Internet access in the rooms.

After the kids swam a bit we shoved them into bed. I went to the lobby to sit and do some reading and have a cup of coffee. Super 8 has become one of our favorite hotels because of the price and they really have improved their service. They (usually) have coffee available at any time and their breakfast area is usually open for a nice quiet place to work and read after the kids go to sleep so that I don’t have to have a light on in the room.

Usually. Did I say that already?

At 9:25 I went to the lobby to have my coffee and start my evening reading. I have a class I am starting on Monday that I have to have a pile of reading done for. I was really looking forward to getting a bit done tonight. I got to the lobby to find that it was locked. The man behind the desk waved me over to a hole in the window to talk. Apparently the free wireless Internet that is available only in the lobby gets cut off some time before 9:30 since you are not allowed into the lobby. That meant no coffee and no comfortable reading with actual lights. I got to head back to the room where I would be relegated to the bathroom once again for reading. Some people like the bathroom as a reading room, but when you live in hotels as much as we do, sitting on the side of the tub gets un-comfy after a while.

Super 8, I am not pleased with this location. Nice room. Seems to be a kind staff. But not letting me use the lobby to read after 9:00, not having coffee available and not having wireless Internet outside of the closed lobby (when clearly the technology exists), is not a good customer experience for me.

Day 5 (Preview)
We will get up at whatever time seems good. Breakfast at the hotel. Then start heading our way to Florida. We still have almost 1,000 miles to go to get home. Plenty of things can go wrong. But nothing seems to be quite as awful when we are in our country with cell phone access around people who speak our language.

Fresh Start
We got on the road bright and early today. That was a nice change. After 9:00 starting times the last couple of days, getting out at 7:00 this morning seemed like we were given a gift of a nice long travel day.

We had no idea what town we were in last night. We asked the hotel clerk this morning. We were in the town of Emilio Carranza. It is a very small town. The hotel we stopped at for the night was about 200 yards into town, and there was about that much town left to go when we left the hotel. It is just a speed bump between the larger towns of Cardel and Poza Rica.

About an hour down the road we were able to find a gas station with a convenience store (surprisingly rare in some parts of Mexico). This place happened to also have a pharmacy and a coffee shop. Two things we were looking for. Nice one-stop-shop to get us going.

Nice and Boring
Most of the day was simply drive straight ahead. We only encountered one exciting spot in the road as we passed through Cerro Azul. There was a wire hanging low over the road. The larger trucks were taking turns supporting a boy who would hold up the wire so the trucks on one side of the road could pass for a while. Then, presumably, he would jump onto another truck going the other way and hold the wire up for the opposite traffic.

Because all my trailer wiring got burned yesterday while the welder was working, we took some time to stop at the only Auto Zone we would see on this route and buy a new wiring harness. They did not have exactly what I needed, but I bought something that would work. It was a bit of a pain, but I got the trailer lights working again just north of Tampico.

Welder: Round 2
Going through the town of Soto La Marina my wife was driving. She heard the chains of the trailer start to drag and immediately pulled over. Fortunately, though the trailer broke again in the same place, we were able to pull off the road where there was a group of guys working on a road construction truck. I told them our problem and they pointed me to the welder who was working on another truck.

I think God allowed us to get the trailer patched yesterday just to get us to this guy today. Today’s welder did a much better job in fixing the trailer. The quality of work difference is noticeable. While I never had great confidence in the work done yesterday, I do feel like this welder took care of the job completely.

Before he got started on the job though I was able to remove my new wiring and keep it from getting burned up.

The job took a bit over an hour to complete. By that time it was already dark, but we had also already picked out our planned hotel for the night. With the exception of the road construction that was being done in the immediate area, we know the roads were pretty good all the way to the little town that we were planning to stay in for the night.

New Tire: Round 2
Within 5 minutes of driving away from the welder we punctured a tire on the road. This road is a temporary road that is just rock and dirt while the crew builds a nice new road. Because the road was so rough I did not know that I had a flat until we got back up on the paved road a few minutes later. By that time the tire was shredded. This is one of those new, expensive, hard to find tires that I bought on Monday.

We were able to pull off the road into a wide driveway of some business. We dropped the trailer with plans to take the wheel into one of the larger towns tomorrow and see if we can locate a tire. This will be at least a 2 hour round trip. It might be as long as 7 hours if we have to drive on to the border to find a new tire.

At least, that was the plans. After we got the trailer off the van we realized that we did not have a lug wrench that will work on the trialer. I will have to find a local shop that will let me borrow a lug wrench before I can start the running around tomorrow. Of course, I will also see if I can locate a tire in Soto La Marina before I go too far looking for one. I don’t have much hope of that since it was hard to find one in a town of 1,000,000 people. Finding one in a town of 3,000 is less hopeful.

Day 4 (Preview)
If things go well then we might be back on the road by 2:00 in the afternoon. That means that we should be able to cross the border tomorrow night. That is 24 hours behind our goal to have us home on Saturday. I will definitely miss the meeting I was trying to attend that afternoon. I am currently in jeopardy of having to miss the class that I am supposed to start on Monday morning.

Worst case scenario for tomorrow will be that we hit the 2 big towns on our way to the border and still not find a tire. Then we will have to cross the border to get a new tire and return. The border is only 3 hours from where we are currently, but one of the big towns (our better option) will put us about 3 hours from the border after we drive an hour over to that town. It may be as late as Saturday morning before we even get back to put the tire on the trailer.

At least the $25 hotel we are in for the night has very comfy beds.

We did not get out of Coatzacoalcos until almost 9 this morning. Even at that we were on schedule to cross the border pretty easily on Thursday night.

Broken Tongue
We had gotten a couple of hours down the road when we crossed a bridge. As we went over the bridge with the “smooth” road, we started bouncing up and down. That nice up and down movement was apparently just right to snap the tongue on our trailer.

I am sure the trailer is quite weighted down. But I have had it this loaded before. Maybe the former abuse was just what it needed to break it the rest of the way. I have had the trailer for over 10 years. I am not sure how it was used previously. Whatever is the cause, it did break. We were very fortunate that it simply sagged to the ground and I was able to pull over to a stop. It could have just as easily broken and then dug into the asphalt and ripped the back end off our van, or flipped the trailer over onto us.

Off to Find Help
We were on a toll road and only 2 Km from a toll booth. We unhooked the trailer and drove up to the toll booth. I did not pay to go through the booth, but pulled off the side of the road. I did not want to pay $20 and then find out I had to pay it again just to go get my trailer. That wisdom proved to be accurate. If I had left the area, I would have had to pay each time I crossed back in.

For the next 3 hours I worked with a mechanic crew that hangs around the toll plaza for just such occasions trying to figure out how to get the trailer to a welder. There were two obvious solutions, but neither of them seemed practical to the mechanic. One solution was to bring the welder to the trailer. The mechanic’s argument was that the welder needed a generator to plug the welding machine in to. I suggested acetylene welding instead of arc welding. He did not know a welder who had that set-up.

The second solution was to call a tow truck and have the trailer either lifted onto a truck or do one of those amazing tow-truck-guy things that they do with chains. I am sure one could figure that out. I later found out that this was not a good solution for the mechanic because then he would lose the money to someone else. It was not about helping me, but about getting my money.

Mexican Ingenuity
Ultimately we pulled the trailer with my van by the tongue and the mechanic’s truck rode behind the trailer pulling down on the back end with a rope to balance the trailer between the two vehicles on the trailer tires.

We pulled-pushed the trailer 5 Km (just over 3 miles) to the welder. That short trip took probably close to 45 minutes. The mechanic charged me $90 for his work. I felt like I was stuck paying that price since we really could not agree on a price before we knew what was going to be involved. I thought $50 was more justifiable, but paid the $90 anyway.

Welder’s Work
The welder said it would take him an hour to do his part. We agreed on a price of $55 to put the trailer back together and then reinforce the tongue area. It took him 1.5 hours. I got some nice pictures of him working. I will try to upload some later.

Back on the Road
That all took just under 5 hours to complete. With our late start today, we only traveled about 4 hours from where we started this morning. We ended up between 2 larger towns (where we know the hotels) to try and find a place to stay. We were headed for an area called Costa Esmeralda (Emerald Coast) to pull over for the night. When we made our final gas station stop we saw a hotel with Internet. We don’t even really know what town we are in, but we were able to get to bed early for an early start tomorrow.

There is still a slim chance of crossing the border tomorrow night, but not looking real likely.

Day 3 (Preview)
We will continue north through the town of Poza Rica. Actually, we get to skirt around the edge of town. Then through one of our least favorite towns, Tuxpan. From Tuxpan it is a horrible little road for several hours to the city of Tampico. The stretch from Poza Rica to Tampico is probably the worst roads we will encounter on the whole trip. Once we get past Tampico a couple of hours we have very nice roads the rest of the way to the border.

This log should include the days leading up to day 1 to start with.

Day 1 minus 3
Saturday we worked to get the last of our items sold that we needed to get out from under so that we could move everything back to the US that we had left. The garage sale went somewhat well, but we did not get rid of everything we needed to.

We packed up most of the trailer on Saturday evening. We could not get everything packed and sealed up until at least Sunday night or Monday morning. Things progressed well with the packing as much as we could do up to that point. In fact, we packed so compactly that we had more room than stuff. Ultimately we did find enough stuff to pack into the holes we had left.

Day 1 minus 2
Sunday I was able to get my long run for the week done. I love that church does not start until 11:00 at our church in Merida. I ran my 8 mile long run and really enjoyed being able to focus on something other than packing for a couple of hours. I took the opportunity to run in some areas of town I don’t normally frequent. Being Sunday morning I did not expect much traffic on my run. For the most part it was pretty clear.

After church we went and grabbed a quick lunch. I had become quite preoccupied with the tires and slightly bent axle on our trailer. The old tires were pretty chewed up and there was not much tread left on one of the tires. This was actually the cause of lack of sleep Saturday night. But Sunday afternoon I took the trailer to a friend of mine to see what could be done about straightening the axle before putting on new tires. I was very disappointed when he told me I would have a hard time finding tires since it was an odd size in Mexico. These trailer tires are so common in the US you can find them at any Wal-Mart, but apparently not common at all in Mexico. We even considered the possibility of adapting my axle to accept different wheels or replacing the axle altogether. That is what I got to mull over while sitting in church Sunday night.

After the evening service we got together with a group of friends for a meal. One of the pastors had some ideas of where I might be able to get tires for my rims. On Monday morning he was able to give me phone numbers to call.

Day 1 minus 1
We were supposed to leave Monday. The earlier the better, but were determined that if we could have left before 5:00 pm we would still have enough time to get a couple of hours down the road and not have to push so hard the rest of the week. We are trying to be home by Saturday afternoon. We will see how the week progresses.

I had an appointment with a man at 10:00 to come and buy the rest of the items we had for sale. While waiting for him I called tire shops and finally found some tires that would fit. They were not terribly expensive, but about twice what I would have had to pay in the US. I also got a chance to sell a few more items. The man I was supposed to meet with did not show up by 10:40 so I called his work and got his cell number. He told me he would be there in an hour or so. I emphasized to him when I first set up the appointment how critical it was that he be on time since I did not live at the place where the items were stored and I was really crunched for time. That apparently meant nothing to him. I asked him to call me when he was close and I would run some errands while waiting for him. He finally showed up an hour and 40 minutes late. Typical. I also ended up not selling anything to him. He was only interested in 2 items and offered me only 1/3 of what I was asking.

Then to the other end of town I went to pick up the tires. I grabbed them and met my friend who helped me the day before and we took the tires to be mounted. After the mounting process, he insisted that I have the axle fixed. I knew at this point our departure was in jeopardy. Fortunately the process of bending the axle into place only took about 30 minutes at the local alignment shop.

Back home to finish packing and hit the road. I did not get back to the house until 3:30. We did not finish packing the trailer until 6:00. So much for leaving Monday.

We went and had a nice meal that night and also picked up a few more items that would help keep our stuff dry in the trailer. The trailer is a simple flat bed with a short rail around it. We built a 4′ X 8′ X 4′ plywood box on it. With the extra time I was able to caulk all the joints and do a pretty good job of wrapping the box in a tarp. The biggest issue is that if we have to open the box for any military, police or customs checkpoints, I will probably never get it sealed up as well as it is now.

Day 1
We got up at 5:30 with the goal of having the van packed and on the road sometime between 6 and 7 AM. A few hangups here and there and we finally left town at 9:00. In the process we bought Wal-Mart out of their whole stock of duct tape. We have plenty to seal up any holes or leaks in the tarps.

After a couple of early naps between my wife and I (and driver changes), we were finally awake enough to make some time. We intentionally traveled slower than normal because of the added weight of the trailer. When we pulled this trailer with our Suburban when it was similarly loaded, there was no noticeable difference in the way the truck handled. Not true with a Honda Odyssey. Starting up and slowing down are much more of a challenge. Even at the slower speed we were only 1 hour behind our normal schedule of making it to the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco.

At one point along the way today we did something we have thought about many times, but have never done. We pulled our van off the side of the highway and enjoyed a little wading in the gulf waters. We had talked about swimming. Though we could not see the waves from the road, they were pretty strong. But when you got down to the water line you could see that there was quite a strong pushing and pulling of the water. For prudence sake we just waded a while.

When we left Villahermosa we knew we could make it to the city of Coatzacoalcos in 2 hours. Within 30 minutes of leaving Villahermosa we were in a tremendous thunderstorm. The best thing for our trailer and contents is to keep moving in rain. I have everything packed in such a way that it is best protected from water entering the front and being blown off as we are moving. While I don’t think we have any major leaks, if there are any, they are going to be most easily exploited when the trailer is sitting stationary.

This storm was so strong and violent that traveling 20 MPH at times seemed risky. So much for movement. While I am not normally a pessimist, I don’t see any way that our stuff stayed dry. It was a torrential downpour for 40 minutes. By the time we got to the hotel it had slowed down, but the streets in the city were totally flooded. What did not get wet in the rain probably got soaked from the bottom up with the trailer buried under water for 30 minutes. On the bright side: if we make it home this weekend and anything is dry, then I should be pleased.

It is currently still raining and the trailer has been sitting in the rain for a couple of hours. Sigh.

Day 2 (preview)
We plan to be on the road somewhat early tomorrow. The hotel we are in does not start serving breakfast until 6:30. So we probably won’t be on the road until at least 7:00. Best case scenario is that we will make it to within 4 or 5 hours of the border. We should make it to within 10 hours tomorrow barring any major road problems. Then we will travel all day on Thursday to be able to cross that evening. If we do make good time and distance tomorrow then we can cross on Thursday and get a few hours up into Texas before having to shut down for the night.

I will keep you posted as I can.