EAST COAST OF MEXICO 2009

Day Four– La Pesca to Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Day 4 Album. On the road

Well, day four didn't start very promising, the wind and rain had stopped and the clouds seem to be breaking up. But, the storm left the park in horrible shape. it was one big clay mud slide. Kat was lucky in that, since her toad was still disconnected, she was able to back out onto the gravel area. I, however, didn't have that option. My toad had a dead battery; so we tried to go out forward by driving across the grass lawn towards the cabins and the water. No joy! I got stuck in about 50 feet. The grass wasn't enough to keep me from sinking into the clay. So I disconnected the toad and hooked up a battery charger to it while we tried to get the coach out. A fisherman friend of Don's had a small Chevy pickup with 4 wheel drive and he tried to pull me out forward. All we did was break a tow line. By that time my toads battery was charged and I started it up, flipped it into 4 wheel drive and drove out of the mud. When I got back to the coach, they had re-connected the Chevy to the back of my coach. I wasn't giving the little Chevy much chance, and figured I'd have to pull the coach out with my Toyota. It's heavier, and has a locking rear in and limited slip on the front. But the Chevy actually worked! So we re-connected our toads and bid farewell to the mud pit! Don promised that the dump trucks with the coleche to cover the whole place were on their way.

As we were driving back to 180, Kat's diesel started surging at idle. It was fine once she started moving so we continued on, figuring that we would check the filters when we got to Tampico. She also has a intermittent problem with her automatic steps. They don't always retract all the way. Another thing to check when we get to Tampico.

With the exception of some pretty bad roads, (speed limit 80-110kph, able to maintain 60-80kph with some 40kph stretches) we reached the outskirts of Tampico. Because of the late start, we didn't get to the outskirts of Altamera until 2:30 and I didn't want to continue into town to the Bonitto Inn and get involved in the evening traffic jam so we stopped for the night at the Country Inn Motel, where you can stay overnight in the rear parking lot for 100 pesos. You have a very reasonable and good restaurant, Hot showers, swimming pool, a small park area, and free WiFi in the lobby. The only thing wrong was that the parking lot isn't paved as the Church's said. It's packed dirt/clay, except after a rainstorm, when its mud. But it had already started drying out so it wasn't a problem.

After Kat parked her rig, she couldn't get it to restart. So we figured we would have to replace some fuel filters. But we put that off while we went looking for a ATM. We were going to need some money tomorrow, when we started hitting the toll booths. We found the ATM in Altamera, about 30 km away, and completed our transactions. Back at the motel, we decided to have dinner in the restaurant before opening up the diesel filters, to give the other restaurant patrons a break and not stink up the place.

After an excellent meal (at a extremely low price), we tackled Kat's fuel problem. Just for the hell of it, she tried to start it one more time, and it started up instantly and purred like a kitten. Well, since you can't fix something that ain 't broke, we called it good and left it at that. Her step is working ok too. I started my generator and put the charger on the truck, then headed for the lobby with my laptop.

We are now sitting in our coach, listening to some music coming from the BBQ area the motel has, and contemplating an early evening. There are a lot of Semi's pulling in for the night but, so far, none are reefers, so they are shutting down their engines.

We will be tackling Tampico tomorrow, and we are NOT taking the bypass. I've been assured that there is NO restrictions on big RV's traveling through town and I should take the airport route through. So that's what we are going to do. If we get stopped we will go see a judge! I'm not paying any bribes, and I've got the sticker on the back to let them know!!!

That's it for tonight. (and I'll clean that windshield tomorrow, promise)