Las Cruces, New Mexico..

What a change from So Cal and Arizona. Green, cool at night and what a nice hotel, the Mission Inn, they gladly accept pets and the room is by far the nicest one we have been in so far. The Oceanside CA Best Western was OK, until the jackass night manager, without knocking tried to open our door at 01:45. Luckily my wife had the chain on the door, the Dobermans don't like strangers barging in, could have been messy. The jackass night manager, had no good explanation for this attempted intrusion, creepy was the best term that I could think of.

The Best Western in Mesa Grande, AZ was OK, the room was kind of small, but nice. We are heading into Texas today in the morning we will find a shipping company and dump most of the stuff from the trailer and ship it the rest of the way. The load has been a workout for the van and the flat tire/bent rim incident has convinced me that the trailer is just not up to the maximum load that some how materialize into it. I just don't know where all that crap came from, but it just filled itself right up.

We elected to swing down and cross into Mexico from Texas, cutting out over 500 miles of Mexican roads. All the bad press on Mexico has caused some concern, even allowing for the usual exaggeration from the US press (yes,yes I know, more US bashing, get over it) One of the passes we need to cross is about 8000 ft, that and the reputation for crappy roads seems to indicate a lighter load on the trailer. As it is we have had to cut the A/C and run with the defrosters on full to keep from overheating on the mountain passes we have crossed so far. Traveling with three large dogs has been better than I thought,not much trouble finding hotels that are pet friendly for an average of $10 more. The 55 gallons of water and 12 volt pump have worked great, the pump will be installed at the farm to give us pressurized water for the house. It has been so nice to have plenty of good water as some places the water is rather funky.

Time to hit the road.