Dia Uno

Hmmmmm.   I believe I may have said “What could go wrong?’  Lookit this group, and think about that for a minute:

L to R: Garin, Dave, J. D., Mark, Juanita, Joe, and Jim

Day one, Austin, Texas, to Ciudad Victoria, 575 miles.  Austin to the border was a breeze.  Getting through customs was a breeze.

Oops.  No place to change money, have to head for Nuevo Laredo, home of the Head Choppers.  Stop short, though, as I remember that Oxxo stores (convenience stores) have ATMs.  I got some money.  Couple other got some money.  Couple others, uh, couldn’t get any mony.  ATM thought about each one for about five minutes before saying “Uh uh, nope, no pesos for you, Pedro.”  So we leave, and head for the next one.  Oh, wait. Six of the seven of us leave and head for the next one.  One of us leaves and, well to put it kindly, GOES IN THE WRONG DADGUM DIRECTION AND DISAPPEARS OUT OF SIGHT.  Headed back to the border.  So I send everyone else on to the next Pemex station (actually, our FIRST Pemex station) and I pull over by the side of the road and wait for the voyager who we won’t name (Jim).  By the side of the road that all Mexican trucks use, primarily to kick dust and gravel onto a motorcyclist standing by the side of the road.  A road that has no name.  Only a number:  2.  It’s a beautiful day in Austn, probably about 75 or so.  On the side of the road where I am, however, it’s 96 degrees (I have a thermometer on my fancy bike).  I’m wearing a Power Ranger suit, black in color.  I am on the side of the road for a very, very long time waiting for the unnamed (Jim) guy who, as I begin to melt, takes on other names, and whose IQ drops in inverse relation to the rising temperature of my body.  By the time he finally realizes his error and comes trundling back down the highway, my mellow is very seriously harshed.  20 miles past Customs.  But we take off, stop at the Pemex, everyone mills around for about four hours (this is apparently standard procedure at all Pemex stops), and eventually we turn into the wind (gale, actually) and bomb down the Cuota towards Monterrey.  Oh: guess whose(es) fault the wrong-way deal was?  If you guessed “Jim” you’d be wrong.  Try six other names.  All of them.

Harley guy JD claims to know exactly how to find a restaurant so we can have lunch, and exactly where to turn so we avoid the deadly Monterrey traffic and head choppers.  He misses both.  The restaurant and the turn.  I realize he is less reliable than hoped, and with the help of the Pemex guy (yes, we stopped at another one for four hours and milled around) we get onto another Cuota and eventually find our way around Monterrey and into the maze of a town named Cadereyta, I believe, where we stop on the square and mill around in a combination bank/appliance store/big screen TV store, and eat lunch for about seven hours (starting at after 4:00 Pee Em, rather DARN LATE if you ask me.  But, by now I am the Dear Leader, and must be kin and gentle to my subjects, and after some more hours and hours, we finally set off in search of, of course, a Pemex station.  Eventually the sun goes down.  We’re 250 km from our hotel.  It’s dark.  The next Pemex station we stop at, one of the pump guys is, I swear, sitting on a stool sharpening a machete.  There is no brush to cut anywhere in sight.

We escape his no doubt murderous intent and bomb down a perfectly good road filled not with burros, and cattle, as in the old days, but with huge trucks, all of whose drivers are annoyed at the brightness of  Harley Man’s and Joe’s super-trillion-watt lights, and let them know it by putting their own super-gadrillion-bright lights on high beam just as the get to where the lights will blind the Dear Leader.  A kind and wonderful man who does not react harshly, although he mellow is now not so much harshed as run through a special fine razor sharp German cheese grater. 

Eventually, close to midnight, we arrive at our lovely motel in Ciudad Victoria.  I wonder if the copyright for the title “The Longest Day” is still active.

Other than that, we had a swell time.  No, really, we did.  And after today, what could POSSIBLY go wrong the rest of the trip? 

I hope I can get in touch with Kim Jong Il and get the name of his hairdresser.  Me being the Dear Leader and all.