Across the Border Again

We arrived in the late afternoon and went and told Arturo we would be by at 8:00 the next morning to load up the bike.  We were early but he was ready for us.  It took about an hour to sort the gear out and load.  We put the bike trailer inside the pickup but first we had to decide what to put inside it.  Stuff that we would not need until we got home because the lid would not raise very far once it was in.  We got a couple volunteers and lifted it in and stuck the tongue of the trailer through the back window of the cab.  Then we reattached the trailer and rolled the bike up on it.  I strapped it down with six ratchet straps and two non-ratchet ones.  I hoped that I had it properly positioned because it was going to be a real job to move the bike either forward or backwards to rebalance it.  We then took this picture of Arturo, myself and his shop before hitting the road north.  As it turned out I had it perfectly balanced and we were able to do 100-110 kp/h (60-65 mph). 

The trip north was uneventful.  One of the things about travelling the highways of Mexico are the military inspection points.  They are looking for drugs and illegal immigrants.  Yes, Mexico has a problem with illegal immigrants too, Central Americans who are trying to get through Mexico to get to the good jobs in the US.  These have never been a problem to us.  Seeing 18 year old "kids" with automatic rifles and machine guns can be unnerving to an American but they have always been polite and kind to us.  Sometimes we get waved through and sometimes they want to see what we have inside, then we get waved through.

At one of the several highway construction sites we went through we saw this camp for the workers.  It is army style cots under a sunshade with an outhouse off to the side.  I can't imagine our highway crews doing that!  It is about the same quality of life that I had when we did a "Coyote Camp" on a fire, and we got paid extra for the hardship of it.  (That is when our work assignments were too far from base camp to commute every day to the fire line.)  In base camp we had much better facilities than these poor guys did.

In Santa Rosaria we took a short side trip into town.  This is an old copper mining town.  The mine was run by a French company and closed in the 1950's.  As part of the benefits to the workers the company provided a church for the workers.  A church supposedly designed by Eiffel of the tower in Paris fame.

The two side additions were added by pushing the walls out at a later date to acommodate more people.

It has a metal rib structure that holds metal panels in place.  The church was displayed at the world's fair beside Eiffel's tower.  Later it was shipped to Denmark where the mining company bought it and had it shipped to Baja.

We crossed the border into the US at San Luis Rio Colorado (just south of Yuma, AZ).  After an hour's wait in line we got to the booth and told our story.  He sent us over for "Secondary Inspection".  We pulled into the slot and the agent there told us, in a stern voice, to put our cell phones on the dashboard, open all the doors to the canopy, open the ice chest on the trailer and then to "Go stand over there".  So we did.  They knew, because we had told them our story, that the bike had been out of our control for a week and could have been loaded with drugs.  So they brought the drug dog over and had him go over it all, inside the cab, inside the truck bed, and over the trailer and bike.  They found nothing, no surprise to us.  The bike and trailer had been locked the entire time and I had the key in my pocket the whole time!  Then they called us back over and 4 or 5 of the agents wanted to talk about what had happened to us.  Now they are all smiles and friendly.  It was expected and we just did as told.  You can't argue with them so it is best to do it and be patient.

From the border we headed north on Hwy 95 to Lake Havasu.  This is where the London Bridge is.  Yes, the real, medieval London Bridge from London, England.  Some guy bought it, took it apart and hauled it into the desert of Arizona and put it back together over a piece of Lake Havasu on the Colorado River.

We rented a room at the Motel 6 because the temperature was just over 100 F (about 44 C) and the wind was howling hard.  The prediction for the night was upper 70's (25C).  Too hot and uncomfortable for a tent camp.

Our room was on the second floor with a palm tree just outside the window.  On the right side of the palm a Dove had a nest with one chick in it.  In the picture the mother is feeding her chick dinner.  (I'm sure glad I didn't have to reach halfway down my mother's throat to get dinner.  And I'll bet she is even happier than I am that I didn't.)

We are now at Zion NP.  We got another checkpoint (Blondie's Diner) in our 2011 Grand Tour.  We will tour Zion tomorrow and then it is on to the North and the next checkpoint.  We will continue north next.