Fellow Travelers,

I don't particularly like challenges, at least most of the time. I like to watch my grandsons play sports. I like having lunch with my son. I like to hear from my daughter. I like to watch TV. I like to read books and go to movies. Once in a while, I do other things - challenging things. This is one of those times.

In 1987, the top of the line Oldsmobile was the 98 Regency. Mr. & Mrs. Prater bought a new one. In addition to its power everything, antique white paint and blue leather seats; it had a digital instrument panel with three buttons just to the right. The first button was for ambient temperature. Pressing that button would change the display from inside temperature to outside temperature. Next was an E/M button. Pressing that changed the instrument read-out from English measure to metric. The third button was trip mileage. I have that Oldsmobile now.

All machines need maintenance and old machines need more of that than new ones. In the past five years I have had the transmission rebuilt, the timing chain and sprockets replaced, all computer sensors replaced, new plugs and plug wires, new brakes, and other minor items. There was a warm day in January so Max replaced the in-tank fuel pump and the in-line fuel filter. I helped him. He was meticulously careful. I bought the original equipment brand of pump. An Indianapolis pit crew couldn't have done it better. The car seemed ready for a long trip.

Mazatlan, Mexico is off in the distance. It is 835 miles from my house to the southern U.S. boarder at Eagle Pass, Texas and about another 800 miles across the width of Mexico to Mazatlan. The lines on the map seemed to connect so I decided to do it.

At 5:36 a.m. on Sunday, February 1, was on James River Expressway headed west to I-44. I-44 took me to Highway 69 not far into Oklahoma where I turned left. Highway 69 becomes I-75 and goes to Dallas. There I picked-up 35E, which goes south to Austin and San Antonio. Shari Walton loaned me a few audio books. I listened as I drove.

Somewhere in there I bought gas at a little gas station of questionable origin. Maybe it was gasoline. Maybe it was something else. Before I got to San Antonio my new fuel pump was making a screaming noise. My choices were few. I stopped at the first opportunity and filled up again. The noise stopped. My anxiety did not.

Below San Antonio 35 meets Highway 57. I took 57 west to the Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras boarder crossing. It was about 8:00 p.m. when I checked into the Camino Real Motel for the night.

I crossed the Rio Grande the next morning at first light, got through the first customs check, and immediately got lost. I cruised around in Piedras Negras until I found a highway sign and then moved on.

Twenty miles down the road is the real customs stop at Allende. There they checked all my papers and sold me an auto permit for my windshield.

Later in the morning I found myself in Monclova where Highway 57 meets Highway 30. I needed to turn west onto Highway 30. It was not well marked. I followed the signs and ended up in the same wrong place twice. The second time a couple of policemen stopped me. We had a non-conversation and they let me
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follow them to Highway 30. I signaled them to pull over and gave them 100 Pesos for their trouble and was glad for their help. 30 is not a good highway. There are sections under repair where there is simply no pavement for ten meters or so. There are warning signs (in Spanish of course). You have to pay attention.

At about the fifth road repair section, there was a military check point. They waived the Mexican cars through but they stopped me. They searched the trunk and the interior of the car. It was a shake down. It cost me $10 American to get passed through. I didn't like it but I was completely at their mercy.
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I drove on. In due course the fuel pump started screaming again. Again I found a gas station, filled-up, and that stopped the noise. I was liking this less and less. By this point I was a hundred miles or more from help in any language. People did not live in this part of Mexico. It is a barren place.

Each little town has its own speed bumps. There are warning signs and they are not to be ignored. Hitting one of those speed bumps at fifty miles an hour would probably put your car out of commission. There are also topes. That's a different kind of speed bump made of metal half spheres implanted in the pavement. Both kinds are intended to slow you down and they work.

The highway speed limits ranged from 80 kph to 110 kph. I was using my metric display so that wasn't a problem. Along a particularly long straight stretch I wondered why I was limited to 80. Then I noticed that the two lane highway dropped off straight down for six to ten feet on both sides of the highway with no shoulder at all and no guard rail.

I noticed horses grazing not far off the road from time to time. They were neither fenced nor tied.

The fuel pump made a few more noises before I got to Torreon, my chosen stop for the night. I had driven about 400 miles and was in the center of Mexico. I found a little motel. They charged me 300 Pesos for the night. It was high desert and cold. There was no heat in the motel room. It was a bad night for me. I was cold, alone, and not at all sure my fuel pump would get me to Mazatlan. About eleven that night I heard three blasts from a shotgun not too far away. I did not investigate.

The next day started out better. I was up at first light, fueled-up, and on a very good toll road within an hour - headed for Durango. The car was performing perfectly.

Durango is both a city and a state. The toll road took me past the city of Durango to El Salto. The State of Durango boarders on Sinaloa, the state where Mazatlan is located. I was getting closer. I got gasoline again in El Salto and continued on toward Mazatlan. The toll road had come to an end. The road in and near El Salto was basically a series of patched pot holes. It was slow going.

Up to that point, the landscape had been mostly high desert scrub-brush and cactus. Just past El Salto I noticed some changes. The land became more green with lots of pine trees. The road was smooth and I was going up. I entered the mountains.

It happens rather abruptly. Suddenly you are making sharp turns and driving up the side of a mountain. It was really quite beautiful. The mountains in the western part of the State of Durango are much like the Rockies in Colorado but smaller. They are just as straight up and jagged.

The road there was two-lane and marked 40 kph. That's about 25 mph. I did not exceed the limit and was soon turning the steering wheel left and right around curves up the sides of steep mountains and down at times. The distance from the mountain road to the valley below I would estimate at between 3,000 and 5,000 feet in most places. The valleys were not a desert. They were muted shades of greens and purple and there seemed to be a slight haze covering it all. I only go glimpses. I was a little busy.

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For the down parts I used second gear and my brakes. At one point I had used my brakes so much I could smell them. I shared the road with large trucks. They stayed in their lane in the curves to the extent that they could. They did not fit the road well at all. I was careful and needed to be.

I was not comfortable with this road, these curves, this lack of assistance should my car break, and the long dive should I miss the road. I've never been on a stretch of road so beautiful, long, and dangerous. At one point I was reminded of skiing. I was not a good skier and when looking down a long steep run that seemed daunting, I'd tell myself that I didn't have to ski all of it right now. I just have to ski this little part. I mentally broke the ski run into lots of small parts, one melting into the next until I was at the bottom. Driving through those mountains, I could look ahead at a few points and see that the road was going even higher. Again I told myself, “You don't have to drive it all right now. You just have to drive this little part right now.”

I passed a sign indicating that I was at the tropic of cancer.

I spent six hours getting through those curves and switch-backs. I heard the fuel pump noise only occasionally now but the fact that no help was possible made me very uncomfortable.

It was sometimes hard to see because of the contrast between bright sunshine and the deep mountain shadows. There were incongruities too. Two cows complete with cow bells were grazing by the side of the road within inches of a 4,000 foot drop-off. This is Mexico.

In time the descent to sea level began and I was happy for it although the road didn't get much better. By 4:00 p.m. I was entering Mazatlan and very relieved to be there. I rolled the window down and remembered exactly why I had come to this place. It was summer.


Saturday, February 07, 2009

I put as much of my car into Jim's car port as space allowed. The coconut palms are dropping coconuts at this time of year. The trees are about 30 feet tall and the coconuts could break a windshield.

We set an intentionally slow pace here. I have no deadlines to meet and no responsibilities other than those I take on voluntarily. For example, there is an organization here called Con Re-habitat. They take-in wild birds and animals that have been injured, treat them, and release them into the wild. Jim and I spent a few hours out there moving and sorting bundles of sticks that were being used to build a rough outhouse. It was light work in the sunshine with our shirts off. It felt good.

Before I made the trip down here, I received many shipments from FedEx. There were camera lenses, a tripod, Spanish lessons, and other items. The items had been ordered by Scott and Coco Jones. I also bought oyster sauce, ground ginger, and some other items for them. They are nice people who have made their home in Mazatlan.

In appreciation for my smuggling efforts, they made dinner for Jim and me Thursday night. Coco is French and did an excellent job of preparing sea food over rice.






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Sunday, February 8, 2009


We've just come back from a local Sunday-only street market. I bought some strawberries and some large green peppers. Jim bought a shirt. Dennis, a guy from New York, bought some cheese. Juan and his family (Mexican friends) did shopping that will last them for the next few days.

Then we all had a taco breakfast at an outdoor place. I had a very good morning.

My car is operating normally now. I don't know what will happen when I get back on the highway but something has happened to reduce my anxiety level.

Matt and Carolyn Koski live in Austin, Texas. I had tentatively planned to spend a couple of nights with them on my way home. No exact date had been set. I wasn't sure when I'd be returning. When I finally established my return date, Carolyn's cousin, Bobby Knight (the coach), had reserved space with them for exactly the time I would have arrived. That was a sad thing for me because I would have loved to spend a little time with them. On the other hand, it was a major relief.

If I were to visit the Koski's home, it would be necessary for me to return to Missouri via the same route that got me to Mazatlan. With those plans cancelled, I am now free to take 15 north to Nogales and make my way home from there. The god-awful six hour nightmare through the Durango Mountains will not be something I'll have to worry about on my way home. Highway 15 will take me half-a-day further to the west than going through Eagle Pass but to avoid the mountains will be worth it. If my car fails, I'll have a
way to stop and get it fixed. In the mountains, I'd just be stuck. So now I have options and my anxiety level is near zero.


Thursday, February 12, 2009

Scott and Coco had us over for lunch on Tuesday. We had salad and an excellent pie crust filled with tuna and some other things. They live in Centro. That's the old part of the city. We had lunch on their roof. It was just wonderful. It was old and charming and comfortable. Scott does landscaping and there were lots of large pots filled with blossoming plants.

One of the things I brought down here was a new volleyball. That was on Jim's list. Jim's thinks he has a few people lined up to meet at Hotel Playa tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. to play a little. They have a net and a sand court. Jim believes permission won't be a problem. If it is a problem, this will be the nicest place I've ever been thrown out of.

Friday, February 13, 2009

I haven't spent much money on this trip. That will change dramatically if the Oldsmobile breaks but that shouldn't happen. So far I've just bought gasoline, motels, and food. I don't shop. At home I spend money on restaurant dinners. Here we cook at Jim's house 90% of the time. When we eat out, tacos are cheap.

We took Jim's motorcycle to the shrimp ladies this morning. That's a little street fish market about half a block long. We bought two kilograms of large shrimp for 1,400 Pesos. That's about $12 American for about 4.4 pounds of shrimp. We boiled the shrimp with a chopped onion, salt, and pepper. We ate pretty well today.


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We are on Mountain Time here. That's an hour earlier than Missouri time. I haven't changed my watch. It doesn't matter what time it is. We just got back from having a coconut at George's on the beach. It is postcard beautiful there.

The folks at La Playa Hotel seemed to welcome our presence. We invited some of the guests of the hotel to join us and some did. I played in the sand with no shirt and no shoes. Everybody had fun and it will probably become a regular thing for those living here.


Saturday, February 14, 2009

I felt that I owed Scott and Coco for their hospitality so I took the four of us out for lunch today. We ate at Puerto Azoul. That's a kind of open-air restaurant with a thatched roof. It's about thirty meters from the water on the beach. They drank beer. I had water. We all shared some oysters on the half-shell, some shrimp cocktail, and a huge barbequed fish. These things we ate in common. Pretty unsanitary but that's the way it is done there. A vender came to our table. He was not associated with the restaurant. He had several flavors of individual size flan. We bought three flavors and shared. We sat in the sunshine and talked from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. I walked the ten meters from our table down to the water and let the surf hit my feet. It was a little cool. I was not tempted to swim.

Later, Jim and I were still too full to even think about an evening meal.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

After a very satisfying time in Mazatlan, I pointed the Oldsmobile north before the sun came up on Wednesday. Again, I took the toll roads where they existed. The terrain was relatively flat. I could see a few low mountains off to my right. I was glad they were there and I was here.

I don't speak Spanish. Many of their words, however, have roots in Latin and Greek as do many of our English words. So with not too much imagination you can read a little. At one point the signs seemed to indicate that I could go through a city or around it. I chose the perimeter. I had read the signs correctly but made a bad choice. Well after I was committed to the course, I came to the part that was under construction. I could see that the pavement ended and I slowed to four or five miles per hour and allowed my front wheels to go beyond the pavement, seeking the dirt. It wasn't there. It was only a cliff in its configuration. It wasn't tall enough to be a cliff but it was tall enough to cause damage.

I didn't know how much damage the fall caused but I new immediately that my exhaust system was no longer functioning. The car was making a lot of noise. That doesn't keep a car from running. There was no place to get help so I continued on - now with my car making lots of noise and maybe other problems. It should be noted here that the fuel pump, the thing I had worried about was fine.

I kept windows rolled down to keep from having to worry about carbon monoxide putting me to sleep at the wheel. The car wasn't steering well, a little road crazy. I attributed this (falsely) to poor pavement.

It was well after dark when I finally saw a sign indicating that the U.S.A. Frontier was just ahead. The guys at the boarder were nice. Once they were convinced that I was not trying to smuggle any fruit or seeds into the U.S.A., they cleared me and gave me directions to a motel.

With a phone book and Map Quest, I got directions to a Midas Muffler Shop in a town thirty five miles away but in the correct direction for me. By ten o'clock they had welded my exhaust system back together and I was back on the road.

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It is probably a little shorter to go north to Flagstaff and use I-44 but I hate going through Oklahoma City and Tulsa. I also wanted to avoid the cold. So I took I-10 from Tucson east.

I had never been on I-10 before. I like it. A few miles east of Tucson there is a strange and interesting formation. Boulders the size of busses and stacked up just the was God wanted them and left there to rest for a few million years. I drove through part of Arizona and all he way across New Mexico and into Texas.

El Paso is a much bigger city than I expected it to be. It took most of an hour to pass through even though I was on an interstate highway. Lots of traffic.

The steering did not improve even though I-10 is an excellent highway. I resolved that I would have that fixed, add new tires, and do some other things to the Oldsmobile in order to maybe drive it one more year. My heater/air-conditioning controls stopped working. That might be a vacuum hose or something serious. I was just thinking about what was to come when things got worse.

I was well past El Paso seeking the point where 10 goes to San Antonio and 20 goes to Dallas. My plan was to take 20 to Dallas.

There was the sound of metal breaking, an immediate vibration in the right front, and the steering pulled to the right. I brought the car to a stop and looked. I could see nothing amiss but obviously something serious had happened. I drove on at a very slow pace and the sounds and vibrations got worse. I knew I would be walking within a mile or two. I saw the 87 mile marker and signs of civilization. It was nothing like a town but there was a restaurant and a guy who changed truck tires.

The tire guy, we'll call him Pedro, was not a mechanic. I was pretty sure my problem was either wheel bearings or the front axle's universal joint. Either way, it was trouble. At home, Max could fix either one for a few hundred dollars. Here, there was no skilled labor and no parts. Parts could come from El Paso but the cost of repair would be at least $600 because he'd have to make a trip to get the parts. There was no guaranteed that the man I was dealing with had the skills to fix it at all. My best guess was that he did not. At best, it would take days to get it fixed in this location and it might not get fixed here at all. A tow to El Paso was possible but not less expensive. Even fixed, it was a 22 year old car that needed some other repairs. I had reached a tipping point with the Olds. I needed a new car or at least a new used car. I also needed transportation home.

No busses stopped anywhere near my location and I had lots of cargo anyway. An airport was a distant dream.

I asked Pedro if there were any cars for sale here. He called his friend who was both a wrecker service owner and a car dealer. I talked to Renaldo on the phone and determined that he had an old truck he could bring over to show me. It took an hour but he brought it over.

The truck Renaldo brought over a blue 1989 Ford Ranger pick-up. There wasn't any haggling. The price was marked $975 on the cracked windshield. The truck seemed my only real option. He asked what I would do. I offered my broken car and $700 cash. He accepted.

We took the truck I was to buy back to Renaldo's place about fifteen miles away. He was a good man but dirt poor. His office was a small trailer parked twenty yards from his small house. Everything was fenced to keep thieves out and there was a dog. This was a very sad place.

In fairness to the seller, one Renaldo Aguirre, he told me about the problem before I bought the truck. Here's the thing. There is something, probably a rag, stuffed down in the fuel filler pipe too far down to see or retrieve and it keeps a person from getting gasoline into the tank. You can get gasoline into it very
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slowly some of the time. At other times, the fuel fills the tube and stands there like a blocked drain pipe. Oh, and the fuel gauge doesn't work.

After we got the fuel tank full and did the necessary paper work, I drove the truck and followed his wrecker back to the Oldsmobile. He helped me transfer all of my bags and other stuff from the Olds to the truck. Somewhere in that process I misplaced my cell phone. Without a cell phone, I was very much on my own.

I'm a patient and determined man and I started out with at least 16 gallons of gasoline. The trip mileage indicator works so I would stop every hundred fifty miles and try to get six gallons into the tank. Sometimes I could and sometimes it would take only a gallon.

My original plan was to drive the Olds as far as Abilene and get a motel there. I know myself pretty well. With the anxiety of trying to get home in a truck that a sane man wouldn't drive across Springfield, there was no point in trying to sleep. I drove. I passed through Odessa and Midland, stopping regularly to try to get gas into the tank. My eyes were beginning to get blurry about 2:00 a.m. I pulled into a rest stop and slept until my feet got cold. It was 3:00 a.m. and I drove on.

The rising sun was in my eyes when I got to Dallas. It was 7:30 a.m. and the traffic was a horror. I needed to hit 35E to get to 75. After I was committed to the on-ramp to 35E, I could see that it was four or five lanes wide, bumper to bumper, and all traffic was stopped except for the right lane which I was entering. Luck was with me and 75 was only a quarter of a mile ahead and I was already in the correct lane so I made it quickly.

I continued on never quite taking the next mile for granted but I made it home at 3:30 pm. I had been awake and driving, except for the hour I slept, for about 33 hours.

My house felt good. My shower felt wonderful. I slept.

Conclusions:

1. I'm glad I went. I had an adventure that I will always remember.
2. Had I driven a new car, I would have had the same problems. The fuel pump problem was caused by bad gas. The road hazard that caused the Oldsmobile to break would have also broken a new car.
4. One should never drive on a Mexican highway at night.
5. It was best that I traveled alone. I knew when I had made a mistake. I didn't need to have that explained to me.
6. Life is best when lived to the fullest.

Sincerely,

Charlie Hansen