Home Sweet Home

We made it back home from our vacation. I'm reporting the happenings in reverse order because I want to write about our drive home while it's fresh. We were supposed to have been home earlier but that didn't happen due to the flooding of the Rio Grande (see pic above) and the absence of our title to the fabulous 1997 Pathfinder (aka. P-Funk.) You need the title in Mexico to get a temporary registration permit. While we read Laredo news online and waited for the international bridges to open, we were also trying to secure a new title to the car. You need a release of lien from the bank that financed your car to get a new title and when that bank was bought by another which was then bought by another, this proves difficult.
We waited for 3 days to receive a release of lien fax and once we did receive it we learned that Texas DMV doesn't accept faxes. We needed original papers and Esten needed to get back to work so we had to come up with a new plan.
Plan B. We decided to fly Esten home and Ro and I would stay in Texas until we somehow got a new title, then Esten would fly back to Texas and we would drive. Esten drove Ro and I to Corpus so we could stay with my Mom while we waited. While we were there we found the title. It was there tucked in an old passport I had given my Mom to hold on to.
So we moved to Plan C, pack up and head out early Monday morning. And that's what we did. We left a 6:30am on Monday morning and headed to Laredo to cross the border. Crossing into Mexico took about 10 minutes and then we drove around to find the place to get the temporary registration for the car. The one at the border was closed because it was flooded. We found it after a while and got our paperwork squared away. We headed for Monterrey. As soon as we got going the Federal Police were stopping all traffic and when we took our turn, they told us the highway was closed and the only way to get to Monterrey was to cross back into the US drive to McAllen and cross there. McAllen is 140 miles from Laredo. Crossing back into the US took another hour(which included a long line and an X-Ray of our entire car sans living things) and the drive on US83 was SLOW. We finally got to the border at 4:30pm and crossed again. We drove past Monterrey and stayed in Saltillo for the night. We found a hotel that accepted pets on our second try and took it. In bed by 10:30pm.
Day two of driving started off a little rough as well. First we got robbed 200 pesos at the gas station. We both saw 437 when the pump stopped and then the next second it was 637. Not sure how they did it but they did. Oh well, we just let it go. Next stop, the golden arches, we never eat McDonalds except when traveling. We were heading out to the highway, coffee in hand, when we got pulled over for speeding. Esten was using the miles/hour instead of kilometers/hour on the speedometer. Oops. We successfully bribed the cop with 500 pesos and went on our way.
At lunch we stopped at one of very few gas stations equipped with a food court. There was an ambulance and fire truck there and we saw someone laying on the porch to the food court. After we pulled in we realized the person was dead. He was covered from his head to his legs so we could only see his blue toes and fingers. Freaky. It was one of those situations where you don't want to look but can't help yourself. We suspect he died on the bus that was there. We are not CSI's but we didn't see any foul play. Rowan was oblivious to the entire situation. So we jumped the body and got our sandwich (torta). The rest of the drive seemed extremely long and never ending.
We finally made it home about 8pm on Tuesday night.

Our dogs are loving the yard and the fact that our doors are open all day so they can go in and out as they please. Now to unpack. I'll post pictures soon of the family reunions and of the wedding.