From Cuernavaca to Ottawa - Spring, 2002
Sunday, April 14, 2002 - Cuernavaca to Monterrey
We left Cuernavaca at 9 am, on time for once, and headed north. We reached the south end of Mexico City at 9:45 and got through the city in record time, reaching the northern exit at 10:30. Normally this 6 lane western bypass, which claims to have an average speed during rush hours of 7 Km/h slows us immensely and we take between an hour to an hour and a half, so 45 minutes is a real treat. Sunday morning pays off.
Then, we reached Querretero at noon and with 3 hours under my belt, I handed over to Carol. We passed SLP at 1:30 and crossed the Tropic of Cancer into the "temperate zone", at 3 pm. I took over again and we made it to Monterrey by 6 pm. Rather a long trip and somewhat tiring. We settled into the Howard Johnson's right on the main square - the MacroPlaza - where our room overlooked the square, the lighthouse for trade or Faro de Comercio, a very tall red monolith at least 20 stories high, and the Cathedral, where John Paul II prayed during his second visit to Mexico.
Later, after relaxing and a long walk around only a small part of the giant square, we joined the youth in their Sunday evening walk. Then, behind the Cathedral is the Barrio Antiguo, Old Quarter, where some interesting restaurants and shops are found. After walking at length, to see what was interesting for dinner, we chose an Italian one called Ianilli. Quite a varied menu, beautiful ambiance, and good service. Carol had a nice Robalo fillet, Sea Bass, and I had some beef. The food was good, but not great given the price. In any case we enjoyed it all, complete with a half liter of wine and finished off with a good espresso.
The hotel was excellent and we would recommend it. We had a good night's sleep.
The weather was clear sky all the way to Saltillo, with temperatures on the altiplano of from 27C to 32C (80 F to 90 F) depending on our altitude, which varied from 5,000' to 7,000' ASL. When we hit the mountains around Saltillo, the skies closed in and we got lightning, thunder and rain, all the way to Monterrey. Fortunately, the rain stopped at 6 pm and we enjoyed our walks around the city.
Monday, April 15, 2002 - Monterrey to Austin
The next morning, we went for the large excellent included buffet breakfast. I had not had bacon for over three months, so I enjoyed it as a treat and the huevos mexicanos, scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and chile additions, were tastier than usual. The coffee was excellent.
After all this, we got off only at 9:45 am and headed north again toward the border. We reached Nuevo Laredo at noon, and the car and customs formalities were surprisingly effortless. We had returned our car permission and cleared US customs by 12:30. Customs gave Carol a bit of a hassle about some Jacaranda seeds she was bringing home for a dry flower arrangement, but in the end, their agricultural expert agreed they were harmless and permissible temporary imports. It will be interesting to see if the Canadians agree.
We spent a little time in Laredo, to buy some US things we have missed for some time, and then set out again at 1:30, with Carol at the wheel. She took us to and past San Antonio, and then on to just before Austin, for a gas fill-up at half the Mexican price and a stop at Macdonald's for a quarter pounder and a fish filet. Can't eat steak every night! Then on to Austin by 5:30 pm. After settling in, we went for a tour of one of their malls, the Highland Mall, and when it closed at 9 pm, we headed back, with nothing bought, to get our evening news on TV and another good night's sleep.
Weather was semi-overcast most of the day with temperatures in the high 80s F, no rain, not much sun. The distance from Cuernavaca to the border came in at exactly 1,200 Kilometers, about 750 miles, a useful number to remember.
Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - Austin to Shreveport - Flat Tire
We noticed a bit of rain at about 6 am, but went back to sleep until 8. After a simple breakfast of bagel, cream cheese and coffee, we went out at 9:30 am and saw we had a flat tire, obviously a slow leak that emptied the tire overnight. Not wanting to fully unpack the trunk in the rain, we called AAA and they promised someone within 45 minutes and then we watched some CNN in the lobby. True to their word a fellow came in exactly 45 minutes, in a pick-up rather than a tow truck. He jacked up the wheel and filled the tire with a portable tank of air. He lowered the car and the tire held just fine and he recommended a Discount Tire shop nearby, saying they would fix a flat tire free. If we wanted somewhere else there was a Sears across the street. He gave us explicit directions to the shops and headed off.
We drove to the Discount Tire shop and a fellow came out to look at the tire and said they would look at it shortly. All 5 of their stalls were full and busy. In only 15 minutes, they came out to get the car, took off the tire, found a nail head and then dismounted the tire and pulled out a 3 inch long nice clean nail. He said there was no damage to the tire, a clean puncture, patched it, mounted it, filled it and put it back on the car. They gave us a bill for $0.00 and sent us on our way. I assume, they recover the cost from word of mouth, so here it is. They seemed a very professional and efficient bunch, and if I lived in Texas, I would use them again. They seem to carry, Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone, Firestone, Uniroyal, all the major brands, so I guess if you are buying, they have what you want and the prices seemed good.
At a cost of only two hours and no money, we set off at 11:30 to continue our journey. We headed north toward Dallas, decided not to go in as we usually do and then headed east to Shreveport, Louisiana. This city sits on the Red River, in one of the French counties of Louisiana, with many riverboats tied up at the docks. The successful riverboat gambling, led Louisiana to legalize and promote gambling on shore as well, so the banks of the Red River are lined with huge casinos. It is also an oil town, with lots of refining, and there is even a large IBM facility there. The attraction for us was the wealth of Cajun food and restaurants.
We chose Ralph and Kacoo's Seafood Restaurant on the Boosier side of the river, where we started with Louisiana Crabcakes and moved on to Blackened Mahi-Mahi. The side dishes of Cajun-stuffed baked potato and the homemade cornbread Hushpuppies were also notable. Boosier is the name of the town, not a reflection on their drinking habits. Everything was very good, including the ambiance and the service; we recommend the place.
The weather was overcast all day in the low 80s F, with quite a bit of wind at times, but no telltale tornado signs.
Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - Vicksburg to Memphis
After a light breakfast, we left at 9:20 and headed off to Vicksburg, Mississippi. This is part of Carol's investigation of places mentioned in Faulkner's work. A few years ago we went to Oxford and New Albany, to see Rowan Oak, his home and place for writing for many years. Vicksburg has not worn as well as the other two. We went to visit the antebellum mansion of Cedar Grove, which is now a luxurious bed and breakfast and a restaurant serving mint juleps. The main house is mainly intact and well furnished for a tour of how the well-off lived in those times. Quite posh.
The old court house is now a museum and a riverboat tied up in the Mississippi River at the local Harrah's Casino is also labelled Harrah's. Some of the downtown area has been restored, some fallen derelict. The rest of the town has been taken over by the usual fast food joints and chain motels. The battlefield and cemetery are well kept.
After a few photographs, we headed on to Jackson. We had planned to take the Natchez Trace to Nashville, but it was closed, which caused us a 12 mile detour, so we decided to head up to Memphis instead, on the Interstate (I-55). So, here we are back in Memphis, Tennessee, home of Graceland and Beale Street.
We are still living on Mexican Daylight Savings Time, and the weather has cleared up, in that we have been back in sunshine and high 80s F.
That evening, we went to a fun chain restaurant called Ruby Tuesday, where we had a light inexpensive dinner, with a nice cajun fish fillet, a tasty 8 ounce hamburger, good wine and good beer. The waiter was a excellent source of local knowledge.
Thursday, April 18,2002 - Memphis to Cincinnati
We finished breakfast around 9 am, but had decided that we had to spend a little time at the Saddle Creek Mall in Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, to, amongst other things, visit the Apple store. It was interesting to get to play with the new swiveling flat screen iMac, and the new iPod MP3 player. It was also interesting to observe the young upwardly mobile well-to-do Memphis suburbanites, sipping their lattes, pushing their strollers and picking up that perfect T-shirt at Banana Republic.
Even as we entered the mall, and parked the car next to a shiny new Toyota, the young oriental fellow still sitting in the car, eating from a tray of sushi on the passenger seat, watched carefully as we opened our doors, to make sure we didn't damage his. His young son also watched from his child seat in the rear. He was gone when we left.
We set off on our return trip at about 11:30 and headed for Nashville along the Music Highway. At Nashville, we headed north to Louisville and decided to continue on to Cincinnati.
Carol is getting anxious to get home and the GPS machine is saying we are now 650 miles from Ottawa, as the crow flies, but, of course, we have to stick to highways and they have to go around some large lakes, so our distance will be a bit more. We are, however, starting to feel the proximity. As we reached Nashville, we started seeing trees just freshly in bud, part of the reverse spring we have reported in previous years, in place of the fully leafed magnolia trees of Vicksburg.
The other event was crossing into Eastern Daylight Savings Time somewhere between Nashville and Louisville, losing an hour. We have reset all our clocks and watches, and by tomorrow morning, perhaps also our internal clocks, so we are now in one more respect, ready for Ottawa. The heat wave in the northeast, will also help, if it lasts.
Friday, April 19, 2002 - Cincinnati to Kitchener
After another light breakfast accompanied by the USA Today newspaper and CNN in the background, we set off from Cincinnati at around 10 am and continued north through Dayton to a brief light lunch in Toledo, a great clam chowder at the Cracker Barrel.
Then we continued on to Detroit at about 3 pm and suffered a 30 minute wait to get on the bridge, amongst all the transport trucks. We were lined up for almost a mile on I-75. After we got onto the bridge, the actual customs clearance was a breeze. There were something like 8 booths in parallel for cars alone, so it was just a matter of selecting an empty booth and becoming first in line. The formalities lasted less than a minute and we were on our way, the smoothest ever for us.
I don't know what the problem was with the getting onto the bridge, but the access is quite strange with trucks coming from 4 different directions on local streets and traffic lights messing everything up. Clearly Detroit could fix the problem, and should have a special access for people coming from the interstate to prevent dangerous backups onto that highway. Equally clearly, Canada Customs has solved whatever bottleneck problem there may have been on their side.
What Canada could fix up is to create a direct 4 lane limited access road from the customs house to the 401. The meandering through local boulevards in Windsor with many stop lights and intersecting traffic is just not conducive to good cross border traffic. Maybe a new bridge with direct I-75 to 401 traffic with the existing wide customs set-up is appropriate. Perhaps separate facilities and roads for private vehicles and commercial transport, to keep those incompatible traffics separate at least where they bottleneck each other. Some of the new bridges around the Laredo crossing on the Mexico/US border have been designated commercial traffic only, and that seems to work very well.
Once on the 401, it was clear sailing at metric speeds to London, Ontario and then on to Kitchener for the evening. We decided to stay at the Holiday Inn in Kitchener and it is quite a nice property. We are enjoying the room and the layout and also decided to have a light repast in their quite elegant dining room. We settled on a half litre of the Australian Banrock Station Shiraz from Hardys along with two of the chef's Tapas selections: Grilled Spanish Chorizo Sausage with a Dijon and Horseradish Aioli, and Bruschetta of Caramelized Red Onions, Caperberries and Black Olives. The Chorizo was certainly not like the Mexican Chorizo I have been getting used to, but probably a product of one of the excellent local butchers that Kitchener is famous for, possibly one of the Mennonite ones. Altogether a fabulous light supper, finished off by a pair of espressos.
Well, we feel at home now, using Canadian dollars and listening to CBC instead of NPR, and knowing tomorrow we will be home. It is relaxing just knowing that.
Saturday, April 20, 2002 - Kitchener to Ottawa
After a great sleep, we got up and left by 10 am. The shorts and sandal weather we had enjoyed our entire trip was suddenly over. It was quite cold, about 5 C (40 F) when we left, and partially overcast. Everywhere we went we saw Canadian flags at half mast for the four soldiers killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. We arrived at the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto at 11:30 and got accustomed to Canadian prices again.
I found a lithium ion battery for my camera for $69 Cdn, which I had just seen for $59 US in an American mall. Considering the exchange rate of about .625 that is considerably cheaper! We also called ahead to ensure the phones were fully operational and the satellite TV subscription was re-energized.
We left Yorkdale at about 1:30 pm and were soon at Trenton, where the soldiers bodies had arrived just slightly before us from Germany. We didn't see any of the processions along the 401 that we read about the next day, but went on to Kingston and soon arrived home, in Ottawa at about 5:30 pm.
The evening was spent unpacking and opening part of the 6 month's of mail awaiting us.
Sunday and Monday, April 21 and 22, 2002 - Re-adjusting
We awoke to an outside temperature of -2 C (29 F) on Sunday morning and the following day, Monday, we had snow flurries all day long, that left the green grass white, but the warmer streets clean. Welcome back to Canada!
Trip Summary
We had driven 5,078 kilometers, or 3,168 miles over 7 days, time for a rest.
April, 2002
