My satellite internet provider basically screwed up and forced me to retreat to the states in order to re-activate my modem. The signal I was getting in Mazatlan was too weak for them to contact my modem. So, I cut my trip short by about three weeks and just high tailed it back to Arizona. I traveled up Mex 15 trying to miss as many toll roads as possible.
I started from the La Posta RV park in mid-town Mazatlan. Headed North on Mex 15. Here’s a shot of the ‘free’ road just outside of Mazatlan, it differs from the ‘toll’ road in that it’s only two lanes and has more potholes:
Around mid-day, I stopped in some small pueblo at this small taco stand. What you can’t see in the picture are the 10’s of thousands of flies that seem to like the food. Anyway, I ordered 2 beef tacos. They were great so I took a picture of the cook.
These chickens (pollos) hang out just in back of the taco stand:
This is a shot of the street just behind the place:
Just up the road a ways, one of the few sections of the free road that’s 4-lane:
The first evening I stopped at this RV park right on the ocean, it’s around 26 MILES off of the hiway, and around 35 miles south of Navojoa, so it took me around an hour of taking wrong turns to find the place. I missed the turn off of the freeway, went through Navojoa, turned back and took a short cut south to a little berg named Huatabampito, try to say that fast:
Here’s a shot from the restaurant:
Around an hour later, sunset:
And the beach at sunrise:
Nice cooling breeze the whole time I was there. Also many sand flea bites.
For some reason I woke up at 6am and decided to leave at 7. Glad I did because that put me in Nogales at 5pm and at my next RV park in Arizona before sunset of the 2nd day.
Here’s another of the small towns I passed through on the second day of travel. This shot is of the town tower. The road through town was being resurfaced so it was a little dicey getting the rig through without hitting anything. Luckily, road workers tried to help make it easier for me, and for that I thank them:
I got to Nogales around 4:30 so I figured I could make it to the nearest stateside RV park before dark. I like to be able to see while I try to park without help. The best time to get to the boarder crossing would be around 7:30 PM or AM but since I was here, decided to bare up and head across anyway. It took around 45 minutes to get through customs, because of the traffic. The inspection only took around 15 minutes. She took my eggs, and today, I’d like an egg. Oh well. I’d cleaned out the freezer of chicken and most beef, oh, and I’d eaten all the fruit.
After crossing the boarder, I head north on US 19, this shot is a scenic view of the hills near Nogales, I also took it because I was feeling sooo good to be on a really good road for a change (after being shook nearly to death on some of the Mexican roads by potholes and the damn topes I’d not seen and hit at speed):
An hour later and I’m in Amado, Arizona. There are two RV parks right next to each other here. One is older, been here for 40-50 years or so and the other one is around 4 years old. I stayed at the older one. Save some money. Had a chilidog for dinner and went to bed around 11PM. That night, I kept waking up for no apparent reason. The next morning I felt awful, like the sky was pressing down on me, making me feel heavy. Tummy was grumbling. All my joints hurt. Even my hair hurt. Laid down on the couch around 11AM and fell in and out of sleep until 3PM. Later, I did struggle around and get my satellite set up, connected to the satellite, called Direcway tech support and had them walk me through re-activating the modem, then called billing and got the process started on getting my $300 back. Took an hour. Felt badly the rest of the day and into the night when I went back to bed at around 12AM. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Drank a couple mouthfuls of water and a ginger ale.
The following day I felt slightly better but not by much. Still didn’t have any idea what was wrong. Maybe a heart attack? But no, none of the classical symptoms like the soar jaw, or bum left arm, and there was no heartburn, etc. Just a general malaise, no appetite, sore joints, mild headache, slight nausea, feeling of pressure all over the body. Took a couple aspirin with little effect. Heart rate OK. Joint pain lessened a little.
Then around 5PM, a sudden onset of diarrhea. HA! Food poisoning of the kind I don’t recall ever experiencing before. Whew. Glad that’s what it was. Think of all the other really nasty things it could have been.
The 3rd day here at the park, I’m feeling much better. Eating better. Pressure gone. Don’t know where I got the bug, probably that little taco stand from lunch the day before. But what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. I’m going to try to remember the symptoms since they were different from what to me are usual food poisoning symptoms. (I’m use to trying new things and taking chances with new foods so I might get food poisoning more often then you since I’m not to concerned about cleanliness). This episode was one of the few times in my life I really felt like maybe going to the hospital since I couldn’t initially figure out what the problem might be. I did IM my daughter just in case and checked if I’d sent her my ‘Living Will’.
I going to stay here until tomorrow morning (Sunday, April 2nd, 2006) and head up to Tucson for shopping, then on to Quartzsite for some RV parts. The following day, I’ll make it to my brothers place in Rosamond, CA.
The Mountain View RV Ranch in Amado.
