Looking out our front door into the garden.

I can’t believe it has been a week since we arrived back in San Miguel.  It has been a whirlwind of catching up with local friends, hanging out with visiting friends, and getting acquainted with new friends we had known only virtually.  The kids immediately jumped back into the sleepover scene, and we have already hosted a pizza party and a Chinese food feast, along with several other gatherings.  I’ve also had to get back into work-mode and get through a huge pile of emails.  It has been a little crazy, but no complaints.  Well, except for the scorpion who came to visit (and left in a body bag).

The trip from Matehuala to San Miguel was uneventful.  We took our time leaving Las Palmas (the hotel) and had a good breakfast before heading out.  As soon as we hit the road, I let go of all of the tension and anxiety of the previous weeks and thought, “If the car breaks down now, I can call Dan the Man to come get us.”  Dan the Man is the best tour guide / driver EVER, and it was a relief to know that help was a phone call away if we needed it.

Luckily, we had no problems on the road, and we rolled into San Miguel around 3 p.m.  I almost cried at the welcome from our friend Eucled and his 2 boys (one of whom is the beloved novio of Aliya)…a homemade pasta dinner, fresh bread, margaritas, wine, and breakfast provisions for the next morning.  Other friends (CC & family) showed up with a cake, some plates, and a stack of plastic chairs, since we have almost no furniture.  Our landlord did leave us several tables and chairs, which have come in really handy.  I can’t even think of all the “gifts” we’ve received this week…toilet paper, flowers, fresh pomegranates, paper plates, a giant sack of limes, a loaned frying pan and a pot, lots of entertainment for the kids – we’re so grateful.

We are currently camping out in our beautiful and gigantic home.  I feel a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies except our truck full of random stuff hasn’t arrived yet.  It’s supposed to come Friday or Saturday, and the kids are really excited to be reunited with their treasures.  We’ve been working on putting away what was stored here and packed into the Pilot.  We need to buy a few pieces of furniture, but we’ll have the basics covered soon.  Our housekeeper, Ana, has been washing floors and windows and cleaning bathrooms – it’s a big house and had undergone a lot of construction work before we arrived.  Our gardener, Fernando, will be here soon to keep the foliage at bay.

Our next step is to get our visas finalized, and to transform the house from a big empty shell into a home.  School starts on the 7^th, and the kids are really looking forward to going back.  I’ll be happy to get back into a routine, although I’ve been doing fine with work due to the flexibility of my job.  My work website has been getting a lot of recognition lately and I think most people finally understand what I do and why (that’s a relief).  Our fabulous property manager has found a tenant for our Framingham house, so they will be moving in September 1^st.  It’s all falling into place.

I will post some photos of the house soon!

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Today really couldn’t have gone better, which was a welcome relief after the delay in Texarkana.  Last night’s hotel was about an hour and a half north of Laredo, where we had to go to drop off all of our worldly possessions.  The earliest we could meet the customs agent was at 9, so I sent Ben and Aliya ahead to find the warehouse and get the unloading process started, while I got things packed up at the hotel and the car loaded.

When I arrived at the warehouse, the unloading was well underway.  Our mover was not there and neither was his agent, so it was one of those times when you just have to trust that it will all work out.  Ben was in the truck handing boxes to Juan and Mario, who were piling them inside the warehouse and on the dock.  The truck was unloaded in no time, and meanwhile I worked with Luis to get all the paperwork squared away.  Hopefully we will see our stuff sometime next week.

By 11ish we were headed to Penske to return the truck, and after a quick stop at the ATM and trip through the Wendy’s drive-through, we were headed to the border.  We didn’t really know what to expect…there were a lot of variables.  On the US side we just had to pay the toll to get across Bridge 2 ($3.50).  On the Mexico side there was no line, no waiting…I pulled up at Customs and the guy opened the back of the car, unzipped one duffel bag (Aliya’s), stuck his hand in, asked me what I do for work, commented on how expensive San Miguel is in comparison to Neuvo Laredo, and sent us on our way.

After a few wrong turns we found our way to Migración, where the kids and I needed to get the form that gives us 30 days after entering the country to finish processing our permanente visas.  It took about an hour but there was a super-helpful guy and a couple of officers who got us through the process.  Ben’s temporal visa is still valid so he was able to stay outside with Wally.  I had all of Wally’s paperwork ready but nobody ever asked to look at it.

There is a checkpoint not far into Mexico where they are supposed to review your documents, but when we passed through there were no officials in sight – only 2 men begging for change.  We continued through without stopping, and then we had to make a decision.  We could stay in Saltillo which was only a few hours away, but there were no reasonable hotels that would accept Wally.  Or we could continue to Matehuala, about 5 hours away, where Wally was welcome.

After a quick detour to hit the ATM for pesos, we decided to go to Matehuala and stay at the Las Palmas Midway Inn, and we’re so happy we did.  This hotel is like a motel from the 60’s…very quaint and retro, but also very safe and clean.  Our car is parked right outside our window so we didn’t have to unload everything.  The restaurant was open until 11, so we just had a great dinner.  The bellmen ride around on bikes because the hotel is a bunch of 1-story buildings on a pretty large piece of land.  Norah already has her eye on the pool, and there’s also mini-golf.  I suggested staying for a few days, but they wouldn’t go for it.

On this trip, it has not always been easy for me to just go with the flow and not be able to plan where we’re sleeping, eating, etc., but everything has worked out so well – even with the short delay.  We will arrive in San Miguel tomorrow afternoon, and we CAN NOT WAIT to see our new house and all of our friends – both the local ones, and the ones who are currently vacationing in San Miguel.  We’ll be camping out in our house for the next week or so until our stuff arrives and we can buy whatever else we need, but WHO CARES?  The last 7 weeks have been SO LONG, with many unknowns and so much work – physically, mentally, emotionally…I may just crawl into my sleeping bag and stay for a while.

.Yup…we’re in Texas, and I’m toast (is this a cool rest area, or what??).  The good news is that we’re no longer in Arkansas!  This morning at 8:45 I got the call from Orr Honda – the Pilot would be ready in a half hour!  Ben and I dashed over there to pick it up, returned the rental car, and went back to the hotel to load up.  We were on the road by about 10:30.

I spent the first hour obsessively checking the dashboard for warning lights, but the only one that came on was the maintenance light which is actuated by certain mileage and not by a sensor.  We stopped at Whattaburger because it seemed like a fast-food experience we shouldn’t pass up, and made a quick stop at the family home of a friend who lives in San Miguel.  Despite the sorting and purging during our stay in Texarkana, we still had too much stuff in the car so we left some of it in New Braunfels for pick-up later on.  I’m hoping that once we get the car organized tomorrow we’ll have enough room for the remaining stuff, 5 people, and Wally.

Tomorrow is a big day.  We have to leave the hotel around 7 a.m., drive an hour and a half south to Laredo, and be at the warehouse right when they open at 9 so the truck can be unloaded as early as possible.  While that’s happening, I’ll be at Firestone trying to get them to balance the tires, do a front end alignment, or somehow make the annoying shimmy go away.  Then we return the truck to Penske and cross the border (our furniture will hopefully follow us next week).  If we can get through Customs and Immigration quickly enough, we will head to Matehuala to stay overnight one last time.  If it’s starting to get late, maybe we’ll only get as far as Saltillo.  Regardless, barring unforeseen complications we’ll be in San Miguel on Thursday.  I CAN NOT WAIT!!!

When Norah saw this contraption in the rest area, she asked, “Is that for HANGING people???”

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Yesterday we dropped the car at Orr Honda and left a note explaining the symptoms and mentioning the long road trip, kids, cat, etc.  I tried not to spend the night thinking about what the possible problem could be and googling the warning lights, but I did feel a little sick about the “what-ifs.”  I mean, if the car was damaged beyond repair, it’s not like we could just buy a different one because as a permanent resident I’m not allowed to drive a US car into Mexico.  I just went to bed hoping for the best.

The service department opened at 7:30, and I immediately started getting texts from my new friend Darryl explaining that the service writers would be in shortly and I should come over to get the process going.  He said that the service manager was expecting me, and gave me the names of all the other service guys who could help.  He was very reassuring and it made me feel hopeful that at least someone was taking the problem out of my hands.  He even sent me a cat emoji.

I went over to the dealership and chatted with one of the service guys, who told me that he had driven the car that morning and it drove ok (so I didn’t kill it), and it was in line to go in as soon as the service techs arrived at 8.  He told me he would call as soon as they ran the diagnostic codes.  A half hour later he called to report that the problem was the accelerator position sensor, and unfortunately nobody nearby had one.  It had to be overnighted from California, but the car should be ready to go tomorrow morning.

I returned the obscenely expensive Hertz rental car and picked one up from Enterprise for $100 less on our corporate plan.  I extended our hotel stay and the Penske rental by one more day, notified the TX-to-SMA mover, caught up on some work, and took the kids to Target to let them spend some of their money on last-minute necessities like Swedish Fish and Nerf bullets.  We’re headed across the street to a BBQ joint for dinner, and hoping to eventually find the guest laundry room available.  The luggage and all of our other stuff is organized, and we’re ready to hit the road as soon as we get the call.

To be honest, once I knew that the car would be fixed tomorrow and at a cost of <$500, hanging around Texarkana for the day wasn’t so bad.  It’s almost like we’re getting back to Mexican Time.  Everyone here has been very friendly and kind…I think 3 days is enough, but it could have been much, much worse.  Hopefully everything goes smoothly tomorrow, and we’ll be in Laredo to leave the contents of the truck with the movers on Wednesday morning, arriving in SMA Thursday afternoon.

Here’s what Norah wrote in her gratitude journal (posted with her permission):

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As you can probably guess, today did not go as planned.  As soon as we started to drive out of Texarkana, a bunch of scary warning lights came on in the Pilot, and the car had almost no power.  I was able to quickly get off the highway and into a church parking lot, where we analyzed the situation.  I had Aliya, Norah, the cat, and a car full of stuff that wouldn’t fit or couldn’t go into the moving truck.  Ben had Adlani (the birthday boy) in the truck and was in the church parking lot with us.  It’s been a LONG time since I’ve had a breakdown, although I remember it happening pretty often when I was a kid.

The best thing about being a kid – which kids don’t realize at the time – is that you don’t have to worry about stuff like broken-down cars and the cost to fix them, not to mention the cost of a rental car, hotel, extra days with the moving truck, etc.  Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want them to worry about this stuff…I just don’t want to have to worry about it either.  Isn’t there someone I can call to rescue us so I don’t have to figure anything out by myself?

I couldn’t find a mechanic open today, and some of the rental car places were even closed.  The Penske truck has room for Ben + 1, so Ben drove Adlani back to the hotel, got our room back, and left Adlani there.  He came back to the church – about 10 minutes away, and took Norah, then came back for Aliya and Wally.  Finally, he came back and drove me to the airport to pick up an obscenely expensive rental minivan.  The airport is tiny – in fact, the rental car lady told me that she had the rental pulled up to the curb where it sat right in front of the terminal door unattended until I got into it.  Meanwhile, Ben was in a parking lot just short of the terminal…an Arab in a rented box truck in front of an airport might get some unwanted attention.

We went back to the hotel and left the truck, then drove the minivan back to the church parking lot, called AAA, and loaded most of the crap from the Pilot into the rental.  AAA showed up about an hour later and towed it to the dealership where I wrote what I hope is a note that will inspire the technician to get right to work, figure out the problem, fix it in record time, and charge us very little.  Yes, I know.  Probably unlikely.

By the time we had dropped the car at the dealership it was around 2 and I had not had anything to eat or drink.  I’m not ashamed to say that I cried when Ben directed me to Starbucks which appeared to be inside of Target which meant that they probably wouldn’t have breakfast sandwiches.  It turned out that Starbucks was a half mile away, not inside of Target, and I got my slow-roasted ham and swiss (and stopped crying).

Back at the hotel, Aliya and I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through some of the crap that had been thrown into the Pilot because we hadn’t had time to finish packing it properly.  We got rid of some trash and have a basket of stuff to donate.  I don’t know if the weight of all of the junk contributed to the car problem.  Hopefully not.

I took the kids out looking for dinner but nobody could settle on what they wanted, so we had pizza delivered after eating ice cream.  Whatever; it’s Adlani’s birthday so an ice cream appetizer is the least I can do.  Other than that, the kids have watched the Olympics and hung around.  When we broke down Norah said, “Everything happens for a reason!  Now we have time to go to the pool!”  I have been working so that when we finally get back on the road I won’t have to worry about any deadlines.

More to come tomorrow…hopefully good news.