The Beginning of our Trek Home

Although the preceding days felt like a drum roll . . . the early morn leaving Lake Chapala felt sadly quiet. We were pulling out just as the daylight broke so as not to run into anything maneuvering out of our snug neighborhood. Our hostess was up at dawn, directing us out of the gate and our neighbor followed us up to where we stopped to attach the RV to the to-be-towed vehicle. Foggy grey waves bid us g'byes.

Once again we were to take that short cut towards west Guadalajara. The sun was just coming up over the lake when we reached the end of the paved highway and Roland was pointed down the steep, rocky dirt road leading to the northbound highway. I just couldn't take the angle, the fear and the thrashing around I knew was going to go on in the RV taking that dive. Me? and Cody? we got out and walked ahead. I caught this shot of the nearly vertical RV ~ yikes!! Once the RV landed at the bottom of the hill, I re-boarded and we were on our way.

We'd planned for our first nights stay in Mazatlan this time. It was an RV park right on the ocean, south of Mazatlan. We'd gotten exact and clear directions from the owner, a couple of lefts, a right and then almost nine miles along the same road. Sounds easy enough? Yep, save the fact that that nine miles was a washboard dirt road. I was still vibrating when we finally arrived at "Tres Amigos" RV Park. Sunshine, warm neighbors and the ocean sand greeted us. Whew!

Even the challenge we had with the braking system on the towed vehicle, our PT Cruiser, did not keep us from enjoying a spare day on the beach. Ro, mechanically inclined as he is, mended the problem and we took off very early that next morn. We'd decided I would drive the PT and Ro would drive the RV, hoping to cut down on vibration, bumps and dust. It did all those things and, it provided me the opportunity to get some dreamy photos and visions of the morning sun filtered thru the palm-treed fog. Lovely.

I enjoyed trying to merge these two "Tres Amigos" images. Bumping them into one another where their compliments, connected yet separated them. I was most pleased with the mornin' fog image.

That evening we made it all the way to inland Los Mochis. We "camped" in the Sam's parking lot, nothing fascinating to paint. Once up and headed out in the morning, we found the inland valleys here in Mexico the be much like the inland valleys in California and Oregon . . . slathered with mornin' fog. But it softened the harshness of the city and soon we were again on the Highway 15D, headed north and homeward.