I leave for Mexico about this time tomorrow!<\/p>\n
Because the border doesn’t open till 8:00, there’s really no point heading out before 6:30 at the absolute earliest. That will give me time to grab a coffee in Coronach and do a final email check before I call SaskTel to suspend my service because I plan to pack away the coffee supplies and antenna tonight. I really don’t want to have anything more to do tomorrow than wrestle the mattress topper<\/a> into its carrying case and\u00a0get dressed.<\/p>\n The weather this month has truly been a blessing. I cannot believe that I’ll be winterizing the rig on October 22nd in tee-shirt weather!!! And we’ve only had a couple of nights just barely below freezing, and none recently. I’m sleeping in shorts, a tee-shirt, no socks, covered with just a duvet, and only running one electric heater! The weather all the way to Nogales looks clear, too.<\/p>\n Because I’ve been working with a firm departure deadline, good weather, and several lists, departure is going so frighteningly smoothly that I keep thinking I forgot something! But that’s impossible… I’ve been making lists since last year’s rather messy departure!<\/p>\n One of today’s\u00a0big projects is thawing and cleaning the fridge. I did really well with food management this year compared to last year. All I have left are some mustard and relish that C&C might be interested in. Otherwise, everything else can either come to Mexico with me, or there’s so little left that there is no point in donating it. I’ve also managed to eat healthily all the way through the last week. I do have some cheese<\/a> left, but I should be able to get through it.<\/p>\n Soon as work is done for the day, I’ll go out and start winterizing my water system. At some point, I need to get keys to \u00a0C&C. That’s another thing I did much better on this year. Last year, I didn’t realise until the last second that I only had one house key, so I had to take the big RV key with me to MX so I could come in through the cab this spring. I had a spare house key cut a couple of weeks ago and made a complete set of keys for C&C — outbuildings, RV house door, power box, and mail, then one for myself (minus the mail, of which I only have one) to have handy when I get home. The only keys going to Mexico with me are the two truck keys and the house key.<\/p>\n The truck is nearly all packed and that’s also a huge difference from last year. For one thing, I’m not bringing the cot, so I could really fill up the truck bed instead of the cab. I have also used a lot more bins and boxes, rather than bags, and I have almost no loose items. That will make the border crossing emptyings a lot easier.<\/p>\n My itinerary to Nogales isn’t firm. I just need to be there by Monday afternoon and, thanks to priceline.com, have secured there what promises to be excellent accommodation at a bargain price. My budget isn’t super tight, so having narrowed down that expense and knowing roughly what I’ll be paying for hotels in Mexico, I’m not going to stress out too much about finding super cheap accommodation Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I’ll be happy if I can find for 70USD or less, but landing somewhere comfortable and secure after a very long day of driving will be a bigger priority.<\/p>\n Depending on how the border crossing goes tomorrow, I’d like to swing by Devil’s Tower. This isn’t how I had wanted to see it, just a quick drive-by very late in the day with no time for a hike, but the weather will be good, so it’s time. Then, on to Gillette for the night. Saturday, I have some shopping to do and the stores I need are south of Denver and in Colorado Springs. So it’ll be an early morning to get past Denver around lunchtime. Then, on to Walsenburg<\/a> since I know there is a good and inexpensive motel there.<\/p>\n Sunday, I’m hoping John will be available for a late breakfast in Santa Fe, then I’d like to get to Deming(ish). That will give me four hours to Nogales on Monday, giving me time to do a final shop at the Walmart in Benson. I’ll be working very, very, very early while in Nogales, so it’s not a bad thing that I’ll land completely wiped and ready to drop on Monday afternoon!<\/p>\n Since I’ll be driving for the next four days and will have WiFi at the hotel in Nogales, I’ve decided not to buy a U.S. SIM card for my phone. So updates will be limited by the connectivity I find on the road. I’ll check in on Facebook<\/a> when I can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I leave for Mexico about this time tomorrow! Because the border doesn’t open till 8:00, there’s really no point heading out before 6:30 at the absolute earliest. That will give me time to grab a coffee in Coronach and do a final email check before I call SaskTel to suspend my service because I plan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[632,4,14,635,5,807,3],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-4051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-haven","category-mexico","category-north-america","category-rving","category-saskatchewan","category-travel","tag-accommodation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}