Ottawa to Cuernavaca - Fall, 2000
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2000 - Setting Off South in Snow
We left Wednesday morning at 10am (only an hour late), on a snowy -9C (16F) day. The roadsides and fields were very snowy, but fortunately the roads were bare and dry down to Thousand Islands, across Toronto and all the way to Woodstock Ontario, when then our two lanes came to a dead stop and we noticed there was NO traffic on the two lanes the other way.
After a half hour of waiting, we started creeping along, bumper to bumper, at 10 mph amidst many 18 wheelers, for another half hour until we finally saw the reason. Snow squalls had covered the road with snow and the wide snowy median was full of trailer transport sized smudges. About 15 of these beasts were towed back to the road and numerous police cars, snowplows, very large tow trucks and miscellaneous other vehicles were milling around with strobes firing off. They were all on the other side, but judging from the median smudges, some of them had made their way to our side earlier. We heard more details later that night on TV, and no one was hurt, but several million dollars of damage was done.
Due to these delays, we spent the night in snowy, Christmassy, Woodstock. Had supper at a Kelsey's. Much better than I had expected.
Thursday, November 23rd, 2000 - Escaping the Snow - Detroit to Louisville
Thursday morning we left early, 8am and soon crossed the bridge into Detroit. Woodstock was still a winter wonderland when we left, with hoarfrost lining all the trees along the highway and clean white snow in the fields, but by the time we reached Detroit, the fields had changed to green with wisps of snow for trim.
The customs people asked their standard how much money are you carrying, and again thought my $100 rather small since I will be away until April. But plastic is plastic. Visa and Mastercard for gas and lodgings, and an ATM card for cash. Works quite well in both the US and Mexico! (Well, Mexican gas stations only take cash, but the ATMs work well there.)
We continued seeing traces of snow down through Toledo, Ohio and almost to Dayton. After that the freezing weather, 0C (32F) finally left us as we crossed the edge of Indiana and entered Kentucky. We stopped for the night in blazing sunshine, with no snow anywhere in sight, in an almost balmy 45F (+7C). We stopped in Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Louisville Slugger (a baseball bat).
One interesting phenomenon is that many of the fast food outlets, MacDonald's, etc., are CLOSED this American Thanksgiving. I don't remember that from previous trips also over Thanksgiving. Perhaps a new trend? Nothing like a good pagan holiday to get all religious and ethnic groups to agree to take it off on the same day.
Well, another two days and the Americans still don't have a President-elect. Early this summer I was rooting for Vicente Fox for Mexico, George W. Bush for the US and Stockwell Day for Canada, but so far all we have is Vicente Fox in Mexico, as of December 1st anyway. Canada will know if Stockwell Day replaces the Liberal incumbent as Prime Minister on November 27th, but the Americans may still not know about Bush vs Gore. We cast our ballots for Day in the advance poll, so we have done our duty. Felt pen on clearly printed paper, opto-electronically counted, no left right confusion, no hanging chad or pregnant dimples.
Gas in Ottawa was 69.9 cents Canadian per litre, then 74.9 in Woodstock. In Ohio we paid $1.59 US per gallon. Kentucky seems to have lower prices, $1.39, but we haven't bought any yet.
Seems a good start to our trip.
Friday, November 24th, 2000 - On to Mississippi
Since the car looked like it had recently crossed the Kalahari Desert, it was white with dried salt from the high speed trip through the salted slush of the 401, we had to get the car washed. No wonder the customs guy looked at us funny. Now it is nice and clean again.
Leaving Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, we had heard about solid rain in the south, so Carol started since she doesn't like driving in the rain. It was about 45F and solidly overcast all the way to just outside Nashville, Tennessee, and then the rain came down and I took over. We got to Memphis by 1pm, but that was after we crossed into Central Standard Time, so 2pm Eastern. We had planned to stay at the Peabody, a really interesting old southern hotel, but as it was so early, and raining so hard, Carol decided we should continue on.
We had originally planned to go to Dallas, so our next stop would have been Little Rock, but since we realized we HAD to go to Houston, we decided to go south to Jackson, Mississippi, home to Worldcom, until they decided to buy MCI last year. After the rain, we needed a treat, and went to the Steam Room Grille for a nice bottle of California Pinot Noir, some Blackened Red Snapper for Carol and a Gumbo starter followed by a Crawfish Etouffé for me. Very spicy, very Cajun! They had a nice creamed spinach as an optional vegetable, which was very good. My Key Lime Pie was the only disappointment at this meal.
The weather is the worst we can remember, but it looks like it may pass tomorrow. With all that driving rain, perhaps we could have skipped the car wash, it would have done the trick, but it looks good nevertheless, must be the wax. The temperature got up to 55F. I guess latitude matters; we were at 45 North in Ottawa and are now below 33 North.
No Canadian news here except some short about a small plane crashing in downtown Hull, across the river from Ottawa. No word about how Stockwell Day is doing in Ontario. I am assuming he was not in the plane.
Saturday, November 25th, 2000 - On to Texas
We slept in a bit and had a good breakfast. As the temperature was already 45F, and the TV promised low 70s in Texas, we packed our sweaters, but no shorts yet.
Then we headed off to a CompUSA to check out their Apple section. This Jackson MS branch was infinitely better for Macs than the CompUSAs we have visited previous years in Syracuse NY, Atlanta GA and Houston TX. I don't know if it was the store or the year, but they had every Mac in every flavour; 4 kinds of iMacs in all the colours, the Cube, the LCD screens, Airports and Airport cards, the optical mouse, you name it they had it in stock and on display. A Mac lover's dream. Even Carol was impressed (I think).
So, we didn't really get started until 11 am, but with a cold Diet Coke at my elbow and Country and Western on the radio, we just glided down the Interstates, towards New Orleans, then across to Baton Rouge, crossing the Mississippi and on into Texas. While the weather started off overcast, it soon changed to blue sky and blazing sunshine with puffy white clouds. We were retracing paths we had covered in previous years so milestones were all familiar. Today, for instance, we drove along that bit of I-10 that is on stilts above the bayous for 20 miles; always interesting. The temperature ran up into the high 60s F (reached 20C!), so we were feeling pretty good about being on the Gulf again.
Some e-mails we have received suggested that I was doing all the driving, but that is not at all true. All the way so far, the driving has been split pretty evenly between us. We take lots of "comfort stops", and usually change drivers at that point. It gives us both a chance to do other things, navigate, check out what is coming up, find a new radio station, re-arrange maps, even read the newspaper out loud.
At this point, I think we are going to slow down a bit, as we do not want to cross the Mexican border on a weekend and we need some shopping time at the Galleria in Houston.
Going for more Cajun seafood tonight, while on the Gulf. Our supper in Beaumont was at a place called the Cajun Cookery and we had fresh local catfish, shrimp and crawfish spiced appropriately and washed down with some good Mexican beer.
Sunday, November 26th, 2000 - Shopping at the Houston Galleria
This morning we awoke to clear blue sky, no clouds, a beautiful day. The drive to Houston was uneventful and we arrived at the Galleria at noon, opening time on Sunday. We quit the Galleria at 4:30 and relaxed at the hotel.
Caught Catherine Harris certifying the Florida election for George W. Bush on TV, while noticing that Houston International Airport has been renamed George Bush International Airport. Don't know if that is for W or for his father.
Ever since I first spent time here in 1987, I have been impressed with the freeway system in Houston. Very wide multi-lane fast moving interstate level roads cutting right through the heart of the city along all eight compass points and two similar but concentric ring roads, all smoothly interconnected. It seems to have gotten even better in the intervening 13 years. These people know how to look after infrastructure.
We also caught George W.'s "acceptance" speech.
Could not send any e-mail because the telephone service at this motel requires verbal entry of the credit card, not the boing followed by touch-tone entry that the computer can do.
Monday, November 27th, 2000 - Airline Tickets, then Brownsville
We ran out to the airport to pick up some Air Canada tickets for a January side trip, and then a few more shopping trips, before heading south to the Rio Grande Valley. After a couple of hours listening to great 60s music on an "oldies" station from Corpus Christie, we had to switch to some Valley stations. This is a real culture of its own; ads are about 1/3 English, 1/3 Spanish and 1/3 both. The ones that are both are fascinating, they just keep switching back and forth, selling real estate or oil changes or whatever, and the Spanish is not a repeat of what they said in English, just a continuation of the patter, obviously aimed at those who have mastered both.
The DJs are fluent in both languages and switch effortlessly from accent free colloquial English to accent free colloquial Spanish with all the current "in" expressions. This Brownsville, McAllen, Harlingen area has a very benign climate. Our drive from Houston was in unrelenting sunshine and in the high 70s (hi 20s C), but when we arrived in this area with palm trees it was a humid sultry 80 F with a light breeze. At dusk, the familiar chattering of the birds coming to roost in the palms for the night was deafening, and we felt we were already in Mexico.
Tuesday, November 28th, 2000 - Entering Mexico
Again in the morning, we were awakened by the bird waking up, and we set off again for some last minute chores on the American side.
When we crossed the bridge into Mexico and applied for our "permission to temporarily import a car", we were told that although we had received and returned such a permission last year, apparently the year before that we had neglected to return our permission. Neglecting the logic of why they had given us a permit last year if we hadn't returned our permit the year before, we had to go clear across town, with very shaky instructions, to find an attorney whose secretary would write up a statement for us in Spanish that we had lost the receipt of proof of return of the permit. Then we returned to the permit place and continued the discussion.
To summarize, we started the procedure at 11:30 am and received our new permit at 2:00 pm, so our goal of Matehuala was out of sight. We knew we could only get as far as Monterrey. I picked out a hotel from the AAA book and navigated while Carol drove. As we were entering Monterrey at about 5pm, traffic was rather heavy and Carol was getting impatient to call it a day. As we passed a very modern looking motel, I suggested that we try that one instead of our intended destination. So we pulled in.
Immediately someone approached us while in the car and asked if it was for an hour or less!. I ignored that and asked how much for the night. He said 700 pesos, but it would be cheaper for a shorter time. At this point Carol was getting apoplectic and we noticed that the units had no windows or doors and all had automatic garage doors. Apparently, this "love hotel" was specially equipped for maximum discretion, one could pull into the garage and hence no one else could notice and identify your vehicle while you were there. Carol drove out quickly, upset to be taken for that kind of girl, and reluctantly endured the heavy city traffic to get to our intended destination.
The Royal Court, a Best Western, was a very pleasant place, colonial style, bright Mexican colours, modern rooms, King size bed, digital thermostat air conditioning, 32" TV with 60 channels about half Spanish, half English, all the modern trimmings. Best of all they did not quote the rate by the hour.
Wednesday, November 29th, 2000 - The Final Megameter (600 miles)
The accommodations included a lavish Mexican hot buffet breakfast, which we enjoyed and then we attacked the 1000 kilometers to Cuernavaca. Fortunately, the road from Saltillo to Matehuala has been completed by adding a separate new concrete two lanes which for the most part was the southbound part of the four lane divided road. The northbound side was just a new layer of asphalt over the old two lane road, so was alright but not as smooth as our southbound side.
With four lane divided all the way we made Mexico City by 5 pm, but then crawled through the city for two hours, leaving the city at 7pm and arriving in Cuernavaca just before 8pm. Mexico City, as determined by the local radio stations, and chatting to people along the way since our entry into Mexico, the country, is very absorbed in the change of power, with Zedillo's last day in power tomorrow and Fox taking over the all powerful position of President at midnight tomorrow.
November, 2000
