DRESSIN’ UP THE TIENDA
Part One:
Most believe that our sense of time, of a yesterday and a tomorrow… which gives us the ability to “plan”… is one of the things that elevates us over our animal brethren. But it seems obvious to me that a greater sense of the past and future comes at the cost of our awareness of the present. And that the upside of all of our planning is offset by the downside of the fear of the unknown that the concept of the future has brought into our lives.
Nowhere was this absolute fear of the unknown more obvious to us than in the TONS of advice we received about going to Mexico which could be summed up in one word… DON’T! Pretty much everyone had horrible stories… yet none of them had actually been there. And I think that basically sums up the problem with having 187 news channels running twenty-four hours a day. Since I’m not one to let others do the thinking.. or experiencing for me. I ignored all the “expert” advice that we’d received and we crossed the line between “us” and “them” anyway. And we came back to tell the tale… all in the same day.
Let me explain: We spent the night about twenty-five miles north of the border at the Mountain View RV Ranch… what looks to be a former KOA that’s just been purchased by a really neat family from Idaho. We got our typical late-ish start the next day (that isn’t my fault… but I usually get blamed for), and by the time we’d gotten gas and pesos and crossed into Mexico and finalized the paperwork for our cars it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon… and we still had at least a five hour drive ahead of us.
VENDEMOS… EVERYTHING
That would leave us with at least two hours of driving at night… in Mexico… which is strictly a no-no. So the choice between the roughly hour and a half drive back… across the border… to last nights camp and driving for multiple hours… in the dark… on the often inconsistently marked, livestock laden roads of Mexico was no choice at all. And within two hours we were returning world travelers… with fresh passport stamps to prove it… having dinner with our very gracious neighbors from Minnesota… sharing our tales of derring do… about the four hours that we were on the “other side”.