Bill and Cathy McArthur on the Road 2004: 6

      We were on the road Sunday, February 1 shortly after breakfast. Bill had checked our route out of Corpus Christi with the hotel desk clerk and we found the driving easy with very light traffic. We saw some Whooping Cranes and a couple of Bald Eagles en route. We arrived at the Texas Trails RV Resort around 11:00 AM and checked in. The mail that had been following us from the Keys was there! We were sited in the area of our Fantasy RV Tours group, many of whom were already encamped. We met a few people and then unhitched and headed out to lunch at McDonalds. As we set up camp, we noticed that our front storage compartment had leaked and many items were wet. We met our neighbor and fellow caravaner, Miles. It turns out that he was Johnny Unitas' center at Louisville. It was just awesome for Bill to meet this guy who snapped for Johnny U. We had some paperwork to fill out for our tour director and then we went out shopping. The area around Edenburg and Pharr seems to be undergoing rapid growth. There are new housing developments, hospitals, and shopping centers in the area. We had a lot of organizing to do as we got back into camping after several days of living in houses and hotels. Cathy did the laundry while Bill cooked outside. We ate a late dinner in the camper. Then we went through our mail, paid some bills, and sent a Computing Doc deposit to our bank. 

    On Monday, we had a meeting with our Fantasy RV Tours caravan to discuss the trip and do money exchange. The Peso was worth approximately a dime, so the estimation of costs will be extremely easy: just divide by 10. We ate lunch in the camper. We also ran our refrigerator on propane for the first time and purged our fresh water tank and started to use it in preparation for Mexico. Our "tail gunner", Duane, had already visited our site several times to help out and he was beginning to realize how much help he would be giving us in the next several weeks. Bill had a business conference call that concluded just as we crossed into Mexico in a group of 5. The tour guides decided that it would save time on Tuesday if we handled all of the paperwork for our vehicles on Monday. We left for the border at 3:00 PM and arrived back in the campground at 8:00 PM. Cathy and Bill had lots of things to organize after our late dinner and several family phone calls. The group was to get lined up at 6:30 AM and be rolling out of the gates of the campground by 7:00 AM. We worried that we would take a long time breaking camp in the dark, so we hitched up to the XTerra to get a head start. Bill took a very late shower and enjoyed a long, hot shower for the last time in America for 6 weeks. 

    We awoke at 5:00 AM on Tuesday and prepared just coffee. We ate some granola bars as a quick breakfast. Quickly and efficiently, we broke camp. Except for a last trip to the bathroom, we were ready at 6:30 AM. The caravan rolled out of the gates on time and headed south to the border. We used channel 12 on our CB radios to communicate as we traveled. Cathy was "cathy12" to indicate who was talking and what rig number we have in the caravan. Riding in the caravan over 200 miles into Mexico was intimidating at first, and then it was fun. We developed a camaraderie with our fellow travelers as the day went along. We arrived at our campground in Victoria, Mexico at 1:45 PM and quickly set up camp. Then, Cathy and Bill took a walk to a shopping center and bought a few items. Clearly, Mexico is a third world country. It's a shame to see the poverty. As we checked out of the supermarket, Bill asked the bagger (in Spanish) if we could have a second bag for the ice cubes that we bought. Cathy got into some kind of misunderstanding with the bagger and ended up tipping her 10 Pesos which probably had that women smiling for some time. When we got back to the camper, Bill took a shower inside the camper for the first time. It was slightly claustrophobic in the shower stall, but workable. We went to a "happy hour" discussion of driving in Mexico and then all jumped on a bus to go the La Granera Restaurant in Victoria for dinner. This meal was built-in to the trip and was an excellent meal in a clean and modern restaurant. We sat with Phyllis and Peter Bowman for dinner. Phyllis was graduated from Cape May High School before the regionalization of the high schools. She and her husband now reside in Georgia but spend most of the year in their motor home. Many others in our group are full-time RVers. When we got back from dinner, we called Phil and Alex and then Cathy took her first shower in the camper. She survived the experience. 

    Wednesday, we had a normal breakfast and ground an extra pound of coffee for the following morning when we wouldn't have AC power. We departed at 9:00 AM for Tampico. During the drive, we saw the temperature go up to 88 degrees at times. The scenery was similar to some areas of southern Spain, especially around Tabernas, but there was more tropical vegetation in Mexico. We saw orange groves and villagers selling fruit and honey along the route. We arrived at about 2:00 PM. Our campground in Tampico was just a grassy field in front of the Hotel Bonitto. Bill paid $5 to use the shower in a motel room and felt that the money was well spent. We shopped at a large supermarket across the highway and replenished supplies. We all had a margarita party and everyone brought something to eat. There was an overwhelming amount of food. Phyllis and Pete Bowman asked us to come over to their rig and play cards. They taught us a game called "hand and foot" which uses seven decks of cards. It was an easy game to learn and we had fun playing it. 

    Thursday morning, we left Tampico at 8:00 AM and drove to Poza Rica. The roads were very rough for most of the drive. The temperature went up to 92 degrees and the terrain was hilly en route. We past through a village with some unbelievably primitive living conditions. On one dirt side street, there must have been 100 chickens roaming around. We finally arrived at the Poza Rica Hotel at about 4:00 PM. We set up camp in a concrete driveway. We were able to connect to AC power, but didn't have any water hookup. The hotel was very clean and upscale, but the men's bathroom set aside for campers was dirty with a single shower stall and a toilet with no seat on it. The women's bathroom was a bit better (it had a toilet seat). There was the usual happy hour after we arrived. Afterward, we called Phil and Alex to check on family and business happenings and then we went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. We joined the tour staff and an interesting couple named Gabe and Rosemary from Palm Beach and Newport News who have seven children between them (3 + 3 + 1) and who travel most of the year. After dinner, Bill tried fruitlessly to connect to the wireless Internet connection in the hotel lobby. 

    The stay in Poza Rica was for two nights, so we didn't travel on Friday. We discovered that we were parked in the driveway of a construction project when Bill noticed some workers arriving at around 5:30 AM. As we prepared breakfast, a truck ran over our power cord, so we disconnected and ran off our battery for the rest of the day. The group carpooled to the Tajin ruins outside of town. We drove and took Larry and Nancy, a couple from Colorado, along with us. Bill relived some of his Yellow Cab driving days from Philadelphia as he zipped around town sans trailer. The ruins were interesting and picturesque. We ate lunch in a small restaurant at the site. Then the four of us parked in downtown Poza Rica and walked around a market area. It reminded us of Athens in  its market area. We headed back to the campsite by late afternoon and Bill filled our water tank by carrying plastic containers of water a few hundred feet and pouring them in through a funnel. It was a primitive operation, but it worked. We ate dinner with Larry and Nancy in the hotel restaurant. Later, Bill reconnected our power cord.

    Saturday morning was to be an early start, so we arose at 5:30 AM and ate a quick breakfast. Bill topped off our water tank and dumped our tote in some vegetation. We had to break camp in the rain, which caused mud from the construction to get inside the trailer as we packed it. We were supposed to depart at 8:00 AM for Vera Cruz, but a couple of incidents slowed us. The driveway down out of the hotel was very steep and had a nasty dip in it at the bottom. One of the largest motor homes bottomed out and got stuck at the exit to the street. This caused a huge traffic buildup on the highway and also caused about 10 of us to spend an hour pushing the rig off the hangup. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, another big motor home sideswiped a parked car. This caused an even longer delay. Finally, we departed leaving three rigs, including the "tail gunner" behind at the hotel to sort out the problem. The drive was rainy, rough, and full of traffic. It was a long day on the road. The last part of the trip through Vera Cruz was especially tough driving. Cathy did her usual excellent job navigating and we arrived around 5:00 PM. The good part of the drive was that the scenery was beautiful, with interesting mountain shapes, lush tropical greenery, and splendid views of a very rough Gulf of Mexico. When we set up camp on a grass field behind a beach with no hookups, we found that water had gotten into the trailer and dampened our bedding. It was also chilly and drizzly, so we weren't happy campers as we set up. A few local entrepreneurs appeared to dicker over prices for washing rigs and cars and also to pick up laundry to wash and dry overnight. We bargained for a rig and car wash at 170 pesos (about  $17.00), but the guys didn't have time to do it before sunset and promised to return on Sunday. We ate dinner with Miles (Johnny U's center) and Larry and Nancy at a restaurant across the street from our campsite. There was a good band at the restaurant, so we did a bit of dancing after dinner. Cathy took a shower in our camper before we went to bed. This is our first real test of running on the trailer battery which controls the lights, heater fan, and water pump. We're not sure how much we can do before the battery needs to be recharged, but we'll find out. It was raining as we turned in for the night. 

        Bill and Cathy