A little more done

I'm still trudging along on my December Daily.  It's become much harder now as I took sooo many photos on the days when we were in Mexico.  Picking just a few is not so easy.

Not only that, but while I fully intended to journal along the way, the frenetic schedule we kept while we were there kept me from doing any such thing.  Given that, I am hoping that I truly can recall the emotions that I want to convey in my my project.

Day 15 was a preparation day. Every time we go on a road trip there seems to arise some last minute mechanical issue. This time it was the brakes on the truck that had to be replaced on the day before the trip.  It's a job Jeremy has tackled many times, still there always seems to be a hitch and this time was no exception.



By the end of the day the poor man was driven nearly to distraction from trying to figure it all out.





I was able to create bags of coveted M&M's for our friends the Coult's while we were down there.  There are lots of things that just can't be had there and this is one of them.



Day 16 turned out to be a day with a lot of 'hurry up and wait'.  As I mentioned before, poor Jeremy had a lot more to do than he'd bargained for. After getting only 40 minutes (yes, minutes) of sleep before getting up to leave @ 3AM, we finished loading and headed out on the road.

We spent 6 hours at Kilometer 21(this is the spot in Mexico where you get your travel permits and visas) trying to get our papers.  It's a long story, but suffice it to say that we had hoped to beat our time from our previous trip which was about 2.5 hours.  Well, we beat it, just not in the direction we'd hoped.



The result was that we made a 15 hour trip into a 40 hour trip, having to stay overnight in one of the Casetas ( a toll booth rest stop) and wait for daylight when it would again be safe to travel.

I wish I'd taken a photo of our camping arrangement but we were too tired to even think about cameras.  We ended up opening up the tent trailer right there in the parking lot along side the highway while the big 18 Wheelers pulled out of the toll booths all night.  It was a sight to behold, but we were certainly not alone.  Savvy Mexican travelers did the same.  Even the toll roads are not safe for travel after dark due to banditos who may stop you along the way and mug you.

We were glad that we actually had a place to stretch out for all nine people traveling between our camper and the tent trailer.



There were some beautiful sights to be seen along our route including changing leaves and colorful Mexican architecture.  Add to that all the yummy meals we enjoyed along the way and it wasn't so bad, just a bit longer than we'd anticipated.

Finally, we ended our trip for that day just outside of Guymas, but not before we beheld this amazing sunset in Hermosillo.   I was feeling bad that I hadn't captured it with my big camera, but I think this shot will do nicely after all.  We'd intended to take a shortcut around the downtown Hermosillo traffic but in the end we just got lost and wasted another two hours.  However, if we hadn't gotten lost, I'm not so sure we'd have gotten to see this beauty.



We prayed alot as we drove.  We asked for wisdom as to how to safely get to our destination despite our setbacks. I prayed ALOT that we'd stay on the roads.  On either side of the road, there tends to be a drop off of a foot or two.  And ZERO shoulder to speak of.  I should have photographed that, but then I'd have had to focus on it too much!

Finally, here are a couple of shots of what we saw along the way. (it's hard to take good shots as you go so forgive the bad ones of the road)

You can get a little idea of how small the shoulder is, though the drop off just here isn't too bad.


Here is a roadside shrine.  You see quite a few of these along the roads.  I'm not entirely sure why a shrine is placed but people regularly stop to light a candle and offer a prayer.





Have a lovely Tuesday and I hope you get some wonderful creative time today.