During the 1990’s we made several trips into Mexico with the truck/camper, towing the ATV. Nelson, a friend from Raytheon, was involved with a dive club and they organized trips across the border to dive in the Gulf of Mexico or in some cases to ride the ATV’s. Nelson invited us along and we made several trips with them.

I remember a trip with the dive club to Los Colonias, Mexico. (’94) It was spring and typical of spring weather, it was unsettled. Our first night there was such a wind storm that we had to use a shovel to dig the truck wheels out of the sand in the morning. Sleeping that night was a little like being on a boat, the truck just kept rocking and sinking lower and lower into the sand. Nelson brought his boat and the divers went out to a reef to dive. Monty and I were happy to use our snorkel gear and float around in the bay. We were thrilled to discover a small eel hiding in the rocks in the shallows along with a small octopus, who was kind of cute.

Las Colonias Beach

On a trip to Desemboque, (’96) to ride the ATV’s we stumbled on to a huge whale carcass on the beach. It was fascinating but really smelly, so a quick look from upwind side was enough. We rode a long way on the beach and eventually turned into an estuary, when the tide came in we had to head inland and cut and re-connect a fence to get back to camp.

Many times when we were trying to catch a long weekend we spent time loading up on Thursday night and hit the road on Friday after work. In one case we planned to met up with others and cross the border out near Yuma. That made for a long drive, before we reached the Yuma area we decided to stop for the night in Dome Canyon. When you travel with your house on your truck you just have to find a likely spot to stop. In this case we pulled off the highway on to a small road and wound around a bit before stopping and crawling up into the camper to sleep. In the middle of the night we were practically knocked out of bed by a freight train barreling down the tracks about fifteen feet from our heads. The whole truck was shaking and the train was sounding its whistle. Needless to say that is the last time we pulled over without checking for railroad tracks. This was the trip that Monty and Nelson stopped to help a rancher repair his generator. This old guy was just sitting outside with his dog and when we passed by he asked for help. Which wasn’t that easy to do since he didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Spanish. Monty is handy with his hands and he and Nelson got the problem solved and the guy seemed appreciative.

Desemboque Beach

I don’t remember exactly what year but several of the guys at Raytheon, got interested in Honda Pilots, one seater dune buggies. Four or five of them each bought one and they had a good time playing in the Arizona dunes and also down in Mexico on the beaches. Mike and Nelson each had one as well as the son of one of their friends. Monty got one but soon decided he need to build a two seater dune buggy so I could go with him. He had a good time building it and it was an awesome machine but the whole swooping down the dunes thing was not good for me. (see story told in Zion 2012 trip)

The experience with the rancher was one of the good things to come out of our trips to Mexico but there was a down side, as well. Driving through some of the little towns with a truck/camper and ATV when people are living in cardboard shacks leads to a feeling of unfairness that was impossible for us to overcome. The sixteen year old kid with the automatic weapon on his back at an undesignated check point didn’t do much to instill confidence in our safety either. After a couple of trips we just decided there was plenty to do on this side of the border.

Nelson, Monty and Mike

The Guys Having Fun

The Guys in Mexico