2,000 Miles in One Big Gulp

What a run that was! Talk about hauling ass!

Rick and I took off from The Stove Restaurant at about 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning after breakfast with the boys. The plan at that point was to get to Texas before stopping. That's all. I had some vague idea that we might eventually get to Corpus Christi and visit a pal there. Maybe spend a couple of days there resting. Then get down to McAllen on the border. Rest there for a day, and then cross the border.

As it turned out we drove staight on through the Corpus Christi in one long run with Rick and I taking turns driving in roughly three hour shifts. I'll tell you. That damned Rick is game. We covered some ground.

We arrived in Corpus Christi at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning. I stopped at a cheap Best Western there and woke up the clerk. It was not cheap anymore. I had failed to take into account that this is the Spring Break period. The town is full of drunk coeds from up north. The Padre Island thing and all. The hotels and motels are full of them, and those hoteliers have all doubled their rates. I did not want to call my pal there at 5:30 in the morning. We decided to drive on, rest for a day in the McAllen area, and then cross.

But on the drive down there, I started to wonder why we were going to do that. I felt good. Rick did, too. I suggested that we just drive right to the bridge, do the paperwork, and go on into Mexico. As I said. Rick is a game son-of-a-bitch. Always has been.

We needed a temporary import permit for the truck. We needed a Mexican visa for Rick. We needed to deal with the customs people because I was bringing in a new tennis net for my landlord's tennis court back in San Miguel. I had agreed to do that for him in a weak moment before I had come north in January. This all gave Rick an opportunity to see how the Mexican bureaucracy works. But actually, it went rather smoothly. We had it all done in an hour.

We then drove on down here to Matehuala and got a hotel room for the night. I write this at 3:50 a.m. Mexican time, 4:50 a.m. northern time, in the Las Palmas Hotel in Matehuala. Nice place.

The trip counter on the truck says that to this point we have driven 1,770 miles in one fell swoop. That is amazing to me. We shall drive on home to San Miguel today. By the time we get there, that trip counter will have turned over 2,000 miles. Not bad for two aged old goofs.