#WhereAreTheUbryTerrells - Leg 1: Mexico to New Mexico
On Easter Sunday, Randy and I said our goodbyes to the kids and staff at Sonshine Hacienda.
We went to the early morning church service (in English), and then said our goodbyes to the kids before they left for the later Spanish service. A couple of the girls were crying, but nothing serious. And then I hugged my 9-year-old boy, who for the past 6 months has been asking if we will adopt him. As he snuggled into my arms for what could be the last time, he broke down into full-blown sobs. It absolutely wrecked me. There was nothing I could do but say “Te amo mijo”, I love you my son, and put him on the bus with 24 other kids we may or may not see again.
Our plan was to leave while the kids were at church. But nothing really went according to plan that day. They got out of church early, and packing and cleaning was taking us longer than we’d planned, so when they ran into the hacienda a few hours later we were still there. We sat down and had lunch with them and thankfully the second goodbye was easier.
As we set out in our car and trailer, fully loaded, Randy realized he was missing one of his tools, so we went a couple blocks out of our way to Pablo’s house. Randy had a running joke with Pablo, our handyman, that if something was missing it was probably at Pablo’s house. And it was. Pablo found the saw we were missing and happily returned it to us. Meanwhile, his entire family came out to send us off. Wife, daughter, grandkids, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews… they were all getting ready to go to church to dedicate new baby Osmar. Randy and I got to hold the little one and have our picture taken with the precious babe. We got hugs and kisses all around. It felt like a proper Mexican send off!
After an hour of driving, we reached our first check point. The man asked us to open the door to our trailer. He saw that the contents were packed to the roof. “Lleno,” he said. Full. We nodded. “Adelante.” He wasn’t about to sort through all our earthly belongings, so he told us to go on our way. Lucky us!
Two hours later, we reached the border crossing into the U.S. I jokingly told Randy that we’d be having dinner with our friends across the border in 20 minutes, I was so sure that our crossing would be that easy. And, in fact, there was absolutely no traffic! Everyone must have been at Easter dinner because what normally would take 2 hours, took a mere 5 minutes. There was no line at all. We knew we would be passed on to a secondary screening, where our car and trailer would be x-rayed for contents, but in that line too there was no one ahead of us. When a man came to help us, however, he asked us to back up and go through the x-ray machine again. While backing up and then pulling forward again through this narrow passage, the rim of one of our trailer tires caught on the barrier and we popped a tire.
So much for dinner in 20. (I joked with Randy that he didn’t have to pop a tire just so I would lose the bet!)
While Randy was changing the tire in record time (it took just as much time to unload the trailer to get to the spare tire as it did to change the thing!), I struck up a conversation with one of the agents, who was walking with the drug dog. He asked how long it would take us to get to Ohio (3 weeks? Give or take?) and I asked if someone was going to come tell us if we passed our inspection. A few minutes later, after the tire had been changed and our stuff reloaded into the trailer, the man came back and said we were free to go. The popped tire probably saved us 30-90 minutes of inspection time, rather than delaying us!
We made it to Don & Katie’s in El Centro, California, around 8 p.m., and enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner of lamb and potatoes.
We made it to Don & Katie’s in El Centro, California, around 8 p.m., and enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner of lamb and potatoes.
We stopped at Don & Katie’s where we had left our trailer, enjoyed lunch and conversation, then continued to Arizona. Yuma is only an hour past Don & Katie’s, but we decided to stop there for the night. For the first time since she was a puppy, Jovi got car sick, multiple times. (Must have been the lamb shank she had for Easter dinner!) And we nearly ran out of gas. Twice. Because we aren’t yet used to what kind of gas mileage we get pulling a trailer (about 9 mpg... yikes!). We obviously needed to stop and regroup before we continued on this journey!
Tuesday was an easy day by comparison. Long – nearly 12 hours of driving – but uneventful as we crossed another state off our list and landed in Pie Town, New Mexico, where we are taking a day to rest before we embark on the long journey across Texas.
*Note: for those following my 40-40-40 adventure, I know, I know. I only made it 36 days, 36 donations, 36 organizations. But I don’t want to pick any random organization to donate to just to complete my task. I want them to mean something. And so Randy and I are on the lookout for people or groups who we can bless during our travels to wrap up my Lenten adventure. Stay tuned!
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