New Experience 117
Thursday, July 12th, 2007It seems every time I am writing a blog I am whining about not wanting to drive more and not wanting to see many more things, because most likely we have seen it even better on our trip before. We visited over 100 places, had to pack in and out over 100 times as well and it is getting tiring and after the disappointment on the Baja we thought things would get a little easier in the States. Boy where we wrong.
It started at the border. We had to stand in line for about 1 hour at the Tijuana crossing and made it to the US without any problems. Even the US customs officers, who usually make so much drama, were all relaxed. The only problem was that there was no office where we could cancel our Mexican car permit and turn in our tourist cards. That’s a must, because otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed to return to Mexico in the future. So we had to drive back into Mexico, find the office to turn in our permits and stand in line for another hour to get back to the US. Again no drama.
After that we weren’t sure where to go next. All we knew was that we wanted to visit our friends in Vegas (we wrote about them in August 2006 in the blog called “My man Wolf” ) and spend 1 night somewhere between San Diego and Vegas. We stopped at a visitor center near the border and mapped out our route. Everything seemed to be a piece of cake until we noticed that the further away from the coast we got , the hotter it got and despite being at almost 5000 feet (1500 meters) the temperature reached over 100 degrees (38 Celsius) and we were told that it doesn’t cool down a lot at night. We had too many hot and uncomfortable nights in the Yodavan so we decided to drive back to the coast and look for a hotel. We finally found one in San Bernardino, just a few blocks away from the original Mc Donald’s. I must say, that after 11 months on the road this was the first time that I really felt unsafe. Our hotel was clean and had a small pool, but the area around it was not a place I would want to hang out at night. Being back in the States started out very strange.
The next day we started early to make the way through the desert before it would get too hot (Allison’s mom warned us that the temperatures in Vegas are 115 degrees (46 Celsius), but they actually got to 117 degrees (47 Celsius). This was the hottest temperature I ever experienced in my life and I loved it. We had little things lately that we haven’t seen or experienced in the last 11 months, but 117 degrees was definitely a new experience. In this heat you can’t even open the car without burning yourself. In the car it got so hot that some contacts of my stereo melted. The refrigerator in the Yodavan has a little cooling fan that comes on when it runs for a long time. This fan was on even when the fridge was turned off.
Despite the extreme heat we had the best time there. When we arrived Daren greeted me with a cold beer to their air-conditioned house with pool. Yes they have upgraded. They had a spectacular house the last time we visited, but this one is ever better. We had 2 bedrooms to ourselves, nice yard, pool, cable and satellite TV, WIFI a fridge full of beer and good food and they even let us use their car with A/C. It was exactly what we needed. We didn’t go to any casinos, no nightlife, and no strip. We just spent time with Lynn and Daren ran some small errands and enjoyed the heat at the pool which we have used 3 times in a day.
I was also able to use the time to visit the Wolf again to fix some small problems with the Yodavan and once again we he did a great job and it runs like new again. So the next time you have car problems in Las Vegas you should go and see the Wolf.
We were sad to leave Vegas toward LA where we will meet Allison’s parents, who invited us to Disney Land. It will be great to see them meet the kids again, but Disney Land can also be a culture shock for us, since we are still used to parks where the rides are hand cranked.
I was (am) a little worried how we will adjust to life in the US after spending a long time in the third world, so staring out with extremes (Las Vegas and Disney Land) is just the shock treatment we need.
lotzbay