Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 -- leaving USA

We are poised on the border tonight getting ready to cross over to Mexico tomorrow morning. We've had a relatively uneventful trip in these first 1400+ miles, although someone did rip off our radio antenae -- we think in a very expensive Marriott in Springfield MO (that hotbed of crime). Some rain but mostly overcast with afternoon sun.
Decided to take a different route this trip. Normally, we hotfoot it diagonally through Texas and up through Arkansas into Illinois. This time, we headed southwest through St. Louis, Springfield, and Joplin MO, through Tulsa and Oklahoma City OK, and then turned south through the seemingly endless state of Texas via Dallas, Waco, Austin, San Antonio, and finally, McAllen which is just north of the Reynosa Mexico crossing.
We've enjoyed seeing the Kum & Go gas stations (but have not stopped at any), the Horny Toad Harley Davidson store, a disgusting, giant hot dog encased in breading in Texas, and a plethora of XXX stores especially in Oklahoma. The colors were wonderful until we turned south and now it's mostly flat, green and beige, with vistas forever. The pecan trees that fan out for shade like our Mexican flamboyanes are divinely inspired. We have seen more large, white SUVs and trucks than we thought possible and began to pick out the unique foreign vehicles (like we saw ONE Volvo in all of Texas). And here in McAllen, we stayed in a newish Marriott called Spring Hill which is so trendy and hip and darling, but best of all, they finally moved the desk away from the fan/blower!!
Our plan is to cross tomorrow, get our mandatory and expensive car insurance for a few days until we get back to Merida, and race for Queretero or San Miguel de Allende to stay overnight. We then hope to circumvent Mexico City District Federal in a new way (that is not too close to the town so we avoid any problems of it not being Sunday and our license numbers not being the appropriate odd or even for the day) to get to Puebla to pick up the lovely Talavera things we purchased last March when we headed north. There is supposed to be an Arco Norte tollroad being built which will do just this, go north of and east of DF, but it is not completed, appears on no maps, and yet some Mexican government bureaucrats have claimed they've driven on it. So time will tell if we make our own arc around the town or find one partially constructed, or get stuck there after all. Roads north of Puebla are all quite good, but get iffier as we drive east along the Gulf, then improve dramatically between Campeche and Merida.
We MISS our women friends, clients, and pals with a palpable ache in our souls already. How will we ever make it through 5 months in Merida???