Happy to be Alive!

Monday morning we headed out from Arteaga, making our way back to the States.  We (Mike) decided to take a scenic drive up to Monterrey and then head to the border from there.  It all started innocently enough, with beautiful hilly scenery.  But eventually we were on one lane roads that hugged the sides of mountains, made even worse by the fact that there had been washouts during last spring's hurricane.

We saw lots of warning signs like this one.  We wish we had taken pictures of each one because we jokingly ended each one with "or you will die".  For example, this one says "watch out for falling rock (you take it seriously when falling rock is nearly covering the sign!) or you will die!"  Another had a car shown sliding from side to side--you will die!  Another showed a car on an extremely steep decline--"or you will die!"

You can see how narrow the roads were and then how the edges just fell away during the washouts.  All joking stopped when Mike mentioned how the brakes were acting "a little funky" and I started to smell burning brakes.  Of course this happened as we began the descent from the highest point with hairpin turns and steep declines--and then we had to climb and descend again and again.  At that point I really just wanted to tuck my head between my legs and pray!!  Guess that's why I have no pictures of that part :-)

They were beautiful views!  We would also end up in some low canyons like this where we were basically traveling the riverbed.  This is a big vacation area so we saw lots of fun little cabanas for rent.  Mike thinks we should come back again someday to rent a cabin.  Yeah, right--only if a helicopter can set me down right on the cabana roof!

I kissed the ground when we reached Monterrey and had lunch.  Oh, did I mention we also picked up hitchhikers partway through our ride?  A man, woman and little boy rode with us.  They knew no English but as I was freaking out, they were just sitting there calm as could be!

At the border, Mike had quite a skirmish with the guy who took care of our car registration.  We paid for 6 months so Mike wanted to keep it live, but the guy immediately canceled it and wouldn't/couldn't reverse it.  He threatened to call over the soldiers and Mike told him to "go ahead" and then drew 3 other employees into it who eventually reversed the cancellation.  We think our Sprinter is probably blacklisted now!

We got stopped at every checkpoint throughout Mexico--we think they don't know what to do with a Sprinter!--but thankfully the border crossing was quick and easy.  They didn't search or question the dogs.  Yay!  We're back on American soil!