On The Road Again

We had our big Thanks-O-Ween dinner. Named for Peggy’s turkey dinner right before Halloween with most of our family. Jeff’s 3 oldest kids (Jeffrey, Devan & Erika) are out of town so could not make it, Marcie was at a soccer tournament with Elena.

We got finished packing the RV and waited until the weather cleared for our trip to Houston to visit Rich Priem and family. We got an early 5 AM start on Fri- Nov. 1st. The traffic was light and we made our planned destination for the night, Jackson, TN. We parked between a Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club that has free Wi-Fi.

We got another early start on Saturday. Boy the gas is cheap down here. From Cleveland to Houston we paid from $2.94 to $2.97 per gallon. We got to the Priem’s right after dinner and had a nice visit. On Sunday we took a bike ride and then they had a big neighborhood Halloween party that had been delayed because of the heavy rain that fell right before we came. Tracey was in charge, so there was great wine and cheese and plenty of bakery snacks. Afterward was Trick-or-Treat night, so we hurried back to hand out the candy.

On Monday the kids headed back to school but it was cooler with some rain so we didn’t do much. Monday night we went out to their favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant.

We said our goodbyes as we will be heading to Harlingen, TX on Tuesday where we will get our Visas at the border in preparation for an early start on Wednesday morning. There is a chance we will meet up with Tom McEwan and caravan with him to Ciudad Valles and the Rio Micos River. I contacted him before he started toward TX but have not heard from him to verify his driving plans. I do plan to paddle with him before his advanced trip starts on Sunday.

We have completed our Mexico 2013-14 Trip Plans

Map of Mexican portion of the trip

• 11/01/13 - Cleveland to Houston, visit Rich Travel Day 1-3 Map & Plans
• Enter Mexico at Los Indios near Harlingen, TX, after getting FMM & TIP the day before.
• To Rio Micos - 3 nights Mexico Travel Day 2 Map & Plans
• To Emerald Coast - 1 nights Travel Day 3 Map & Plans
• To Catemaco - 3 nights Travel Day 4 Map & Plans
• To Silvituc - 1 nights Travel Day 5 Map & Plans
• To Xpu-Ha - 30 nights Travel Day 6 Map & Plans
• Fly home for the Holidays - 9 nights - 12/20/13 - 12/29/13
• Return to Xpu-Ha for 61 more nights
• To USA Border - 3 nights Travel Day 8,9,10 Map & Plans
• Back in USA, spend some time in Houston, TX, and then back Home

Pictures from Last Year’s Trip

As we start to plan our itinerary for our 2013-14 trip I just realized that I didn’t take many photos last year and I never put them in my blog.

I found out that Microsoft has a free download of a Movie Maker that allows you to make a really cool slide show without having a lot of computer skill.

So I put together a small show of last year’s trip and uploaded it to my website.  If you want to watch so that the show will fill your entire screen, click on bottom right “YouTube”, then when it starts click bottom right “full screen”. This should bring up a new browser window, hit Esc to go out of full screen.

Let me know what you think of the slideshow, by clicking comments below.

Our Slide Show from our 2012-2013 Mexico Trip

Thinking about returning to Mexico in 2013-14

We watched these two videos and it brought back lots of memories from all my travels in Mexico.

Mexico in your senses

The first 8 minute video is an award winning Mexico travel video with beautiful photography and music but no beaches.

Riviera Maya

The second 5 minute video is about the state of Quintana Roo, and gives you a good idea of why we like that area for beaches.

We left Mexico about a month too soon.

We stayed in Houston until we saw two nice driving days and then warm weather so we could unpack and clean up our motorhome. Well that plan went well. In fact the day after we got home it was sunny and 70^oF. We washed up the RV, got everything unpacked and ready for summer storage but we kept the RV at home to fix a few problems we had along the way.

We had to get a new glass shelf for the refrigerator. One too many topes in Mexico, it just shattered. The good thing was it only cost $8 and it slides right in place. Some of the cheap cabinet latches broke but the manufacturer sent out free replacements including a few spares.. The third thing that happened was when we were slowly driving through a huge chuck hole in a construction zone the RV rocked side to side and hit my sewer macerator pump. It broke off 2 out of the 4 tabs that connect it to the sewer dump in place of a sewer hose. This was a little more expensive, $36, and a little tricky to disassemble. But I got that fixed even though it had turned much colder. In fact after that warm Sunday the temperature has stayed in the range of 25^oF to 40^oF.

The last reason the RV is still here at home is that I need to replace the circuit board in my Energy Management System. A surge blew the surge protector when another camper’s transformer shorted out in a rain storm and fed 250v back up the ground wire. Progressive Industries had agreed to send a new circuit board free and it looks simple to replace, however it’s been lost in the USPS system since the day we arrived home. Hopefully they will send another one since it doesn’t look like the USPS will ever find it along with two prescriptions from a mail order pharmacy that were lost on the same day.

But here it is the end of March and we had a snow storm last night. Why did we come home so soon? Our kayak race that was supposed to take place yesterday was also delayed 2 weeks due to cold weather and lack of water in the river.

So the only other thing I have been doing besides my income taxes is reading books on my Kindle. Here is my review on a great book I just finished last night.

Precipice by Leland Davis

This story was a real surprise. Well written, good story line, lots of action and very unpredictable. I read the book since I am a kayaker and love to read mysteries and action thrillers. This book has it all. The main character is reminiscent of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher”. It is a very believable action thriller and it would challenge the book/movie “Deliverance “ as the best plot which involves paddling. His other previous books were river guide books, so I knew the kayaking portions would be very believable. Non-paddlers who like action stories will love the story line. The whole story is a real page turner that kept me up late trying to finish it. It’s available for the Kindle for only $2.99. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BGCBYOC?ie=UTF8&ref=oce_digital