The next few days are kind of a blur. I literally took no pictures because I was essentially driving the entire time I wasn't sleeping. That's a bit of a stretch, but not by much. So, Saturday we hit the road early. We decided we'd make a big push to get to the US border, which was about a 6-hour drive. We stopped for diesel along the way, which added about a half hour to that for reasons I still don't understand. It was taking so long that Mandy cooked us some lunch while we were waiting. All in all, the stop probably took us an hour.
We continued on pretty uneventfully to the border crossing. Here, things got a little odd. So, if you recall, we entered Mexico via Belize, then exited and reentered both through Cancun airport. And now, we were exiting to the USA. Well, when we left Mexico from Cancun, they collected our FMM. That's normal. But then when we returned, they didn't give us new ones, since Cancun is a "free zone" or whatever. So, when we were leaving, we weren't really sure how to proceed. I tried to get my passport stamped-out but the guy in the office was like no you don't need that, you can just leave. So, if you look in our passport stamps, it appears we're still in Mexico, but I think we did everything correct. It's just a weird situation that's probably not super common.
So, once we figured out how to navigate the roads through the crossing properly, we crossed the Rio Grande and entered the USA. The agent at the border asked us if we had any alcohol (yes), eggs (yes), fruits (yes), vegetables (yes). And then he was basically like, "okay come on in." It might have helped that we got him to laugh because when he asked where we were coming from, Mandy said "Mexico" and I was like "OBVIOUSLY we're coming from Mexico, he wants to know where in Mexico." Anyway, we were back in the USA and it was absurdly hot outside. So, we agreed to keep driving because that way the air conditioning could operate and we could continue not dying of heatstroke. It was like, what would be the point of stopping anywhere, unless we can all go inside and it'd be cooler in there?
We kept driving. All the way to San Antonio. It ended up being about a 10-hour drive day. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel just outside the city and pretty much crashed straight away.
Sunday was going to be hot. Shocker. So, we drove. We stopped in Austin for some groceries, and while Mandy went inside, Loki and I stayed in the van with it running to keep the air conditioning going, because otherwise we'd have melted. It was hanging around 91F inside the van. We continued driving afterwards out of Texas and into Oklahoma. Oklahoma sits around 1000ft elevation, give or take a few inches, so it's marginally cooler there. At least there are no trees, so an occasional wind sweeps through. This also keeps the driving spicy.
We stopped for the night in Sulphur, OK, which luckily denied expectations of the smell. We stayed at Buckhorn Campground which has a simple online check-in procedure. We were nestled under some trees, so I pulled the Starlink off the roof and situated it towards the front of the van where it had a view of the sky. It was not ideal, but at least it worked. We didn't need internet, really, but we've changed our cell phone plans to the most basic, cheapest option, which includes no data. So a lot of the time group messages and picture messages don't send or receive. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, but that's been our experience. It was nice to have internet to be able to chat with friends and family, at the least.
Loki and I hung outside and did some stretching while Mandy worked to make us dinner. After dinner, it was looking pretty dark cloud-wise - the sun was still above the horizon past 8:30pm which was CRAZY - so Mandy was like, I'm going to go to the restrooms before it rains. A few minutes later, she was sprinting back to the van as Loki and I were hustling to close up the doors at the last instant because the rains came so hard so suddenly. We cozied up inside as the torrent serenaded us to sleep.
Monday, we took free, hot showers and then hit the road. It was weird to want a hot shower, but it actually got cool overnight, which was great. We made our way from there to Wichita, KS. Our friends Abe and Mel were spending some time working at a shop there, and we figured we could drop in and see them and say hi on our way through. Our over-arching plan is to check out Wisconsin and Michigan a bit, see the upper peninsula, and then either drive to Florida and fly to New England, or drive to New England and then to Florida. If we opt for the latter, Mandy may need to fly to Florida to make it to work on time. It depends how the licensing process goes. Her tentative earliest-possible start date is the end of July. So, we have some time to work with. We'll see.
We continued on pretty uneventfully to the border crossing. Here, things got a little odd. So, if you recall, we entered Mexico via Belize, then exited and reentered both through Cancun airport. And now, we were exiting to the USA. Well, when we left Mexico from Cancun, they collected our FMM. That's normal. But then when we returned, they didn't give us new ones, since Cancun is a "free zone" or whatever. So, when we were leaving, we weren't really sure how to proceed. I tried to get my passport stamped-out but the guy in the office was like no you don't need that, you can just leave. So, if you look in our passport stamps, it appears we're still in Mexico, but I think we did everything correct. It's just a weird situation that's probably not super common.
So, once we figured out how to navigate the roads through the crossing properly, we crossed the Rio Grande and entered the USA. The agent at the border asked us if we had any alcohol (yes), eggs (yes), fruits (yes), vegetables (yes). And then he was basically like, "okay come on in." It might have helped that we got him to laugh because when he asked where we were coming from, Mandy said "Mexico" and I was like "OBVIOUSLY we're coming from Mexico, he wants to know where in Mexico." Anyway, we were back in the USA and it was absurdly hot outside. So, we agreed to keep driving because that way the air conditioning could operate and we could continue not dying of heatstroke. It was like, what would be the point of stopping anywhere, unless we can all go inside and it'd be cooler in there?
We kept driving. All the way to San Antonio. It ended up being about a 10-hour drive day. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel just outside the city and pretty much crashed straight away.
Sunday was going to be hot. Shocker. So, we drove. We stopped in Austin for some groceries, and while Mandy went inside, Loki and I stayed in the van with it running to keep the air conditioning going, because otherwise we'd have melted. It was hanging around 91F inside the van. We continued driving afterwards out of Texas and into Oklahoma. Oklahoma sits around 1000ft elevation, give or take a few inches, so it's marginally cooler there. At least there are no trees, so an occasional wind sweeps through. This also keeps the driving spicy.
We stopped for the night in Sulphur, OK, which luckily denied expectations of the smell. We stayed at Buckhorn Campground which has a simple online check-in procedure. We were nestled under some trees, so I pulled the Starlink off the roof and situated it towards the front of the van where it had a view of the sky. It was not ideal, but at least it worked. We didn't need internet, really, but we've changed our cell phone plans to the most basic, cheapest option, which includes no data. So a lot of the time group messages and picture messages don't send or receive. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, but that's been our experience. It was nice to have internet to be able to chat with friends and family, at the least.
Loki and I hung outside and did some stretching while Mandy worked to make us dinner. After dinner, it was looking pretty dark cloud-wise - the sun was still above the horizon past 8:30pm which was CRAZY - so Mandy was like, I'm going to go to the restrooms before it rains. A few minutes later, she was sprinting back to the van as Loki and I were hustling to close up the doors at the last instant because the rains came so hard so suddenly. We cozied up inside as the torrent serenaded us to sleep.
Monday, we took free, hot showers and then hit the road. It was weird to want a hot shower, but it actually got cool overnight, which was great. We made our way from there to Wichita, KS. Our friends Abe and Mel were spending some time working at a shop there, and we figured we could drop in and see them and say hi on our way through. Our over-arching plan is to check out Wisconsin and Michigan a bit, see the upper peninsula, and then either drive to Florida and fly to New England, or drive to New England and then to Florida. If we opt for the latter, Mandy may need to fly to Florida to make it to work on time. It depends how the licensing process goes. Her tentative earliest-possible start date is the end of July. So, we have some time to work with. We'll see.