Day 8 - the long drive home

We managed to pull out right on time at 4:56 pm from Hermosillo.  I got to take the first shift from 5:00 to approx 9:30 when we hit the Mexico-US border.  Bill served as my co-pilot and helped navigate through Santa Ana and Magdalena toward the Nogales border crossing.  It was an interesting drive with some challenges to it that kept me quite alert despite a busy week.  During the first stretch, it was mostly straight, but totally under construction.  I would get about 5 miles of new four lane divided highway, then it would narrow down to two lane highway again for several miles, then a new stretch again.  I would accelerate up to 65 mph, then back down to 40 mph over and over- A bit frustrating when you know you have 23 hours of driving ahead of you and you want to keep up the speed.

The sun started to go down as we approached the border and the view was beautiful: mountain sillouettes in the distance with the pink sky behind.  The road became curvier as we went through the hills.  It was a bit difficult to know how fast to drive, there were few signs with posted speed limits, and we would come across "pedestrian zones" that were basically truck stops on the sides of the road with vendors in the middle of the road selling food items.  We approached these with very little advanced warning, except possibly unmarked speed bumps that were exciting in a van.

After driving this stretch of road, it became very obvious to me why the maquiladora factories are on the US-Mexican border and not farther into the interior - the transportation infrastructure is just not up to par to keep up with that much truck traffic.

We made it to the border and Bill went into the Mexican customs office to get his vehicle registration refund, only to be told that he was supposed to do that at a customs office that we had passed 10 miles back.  We turned around and eventually took care of that task and continued on into the US.  There were long lanes for traffic at the border, but very few cars crossing at 9:00 at night.  We had to get out of the van and open the trailer for inspection, but it only took 5 minutes thank goodness.  Everyone turned on their phones again and checked messages etc.  Matt remarked that he was glad his phone was a phone again, not just a large clock : )

We stopped for a rest stop once we got into US Nogales and changed drivers, then everyone settled in to try to sleep as best they could.  Chris took the shift till midnight, then Bill, then Jay took us into the sunrise and Albuquerque where we grabbed breakfast to go.  Terry took his turn at the wheel and then it was my turn again.  The roads across the panhandle of Oklahoma were not nearly as interesting as northern Mexico.

The excitement began to build despite 20 hours in the van as we crossed the Kansas Oklahoma border. We arrived back at Trinity at 6:00 pm, 23 hours after we left Hermosillo.  Jay dashed off for a wedding rehearsal that he was supposed to be at that started at 6:00 across town.  The rest of us said our goodbyes and the group from El Dorado headed out for home.  It was great to be back!