Our bags are packed,

we're ready to go.

Thursday, 3 March. Judy (Rupert's wife) from Khaya, our next-door boat neighbor, drove us to the rental car agency, which saved about an hour of back and forth driving. Usually Dick picks up the car, comes back to the marina to pick up me and our stuff, then we drive out of town, but Carnaval officially began on Thursday. Many streets are blocked off, the diverted traffic totally clogs the remaining streets. Before leaving Guaymas, our tradition is to have a hamburger and fries at Burger King. It's helps to begin the acclimatization process before we head for the USA.

We left around 6 pm and crossed the border in Nogales before midnight. We are aware of all the border problems, but this is the best time to make the fastest border crossing and it fit into our plans for a full day of shopping on Friday. We felt safe the entire time. Another hour on the road as we drove to Sierra Vista. We found the local Wal Mart and settled in for a short night's sleep in the car. OK, maybe it wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever gotten:

Why, Sierra Vista? That's where Roberto's sister and husband live. We had our kevlar and a couple of other packages delivered here. Thank you to Roberto, Rosa and Paul for allowing us to do this. On to Catalina Marina in Catalina AZ, north of Tucson. While Dick consulted with a knowledgeable sales person on a variety of topics, I shopped for items on Darren's list.

The rest of the day was spent going to quite a few stores, some of them more than once. Our final stop was Musselman's, a motorcycle dealership in Tucson since 1945, to buy a Honda generator for Darren. Oh boy, was our car packed. We brought almost everything into our motel room that night. Dick did a masterful 3-D jigsaw puzzle of re-packing on Saturday morning.

We could have squeezed a few more things into the trunk, I'm sure.

Our trip back was great, a green light and both inspection points - hurray! - and then we hit the city limits of Guaymas. It took at least an hour to travel 3 miles. Tonight is the first of the Carnaval parades and people were starting to gather. Avenida Serdán was closed, with all traffic diverted to García López, the other main artery through town. All the one-way streets leading to Serdán had become parking lots. We had to drive south of town, turn west toward the water and then make our way north to get to the marina. We could have walked faster. And now the music is blasting as we try to sleep. (We will discover peaceful sleep begins at 4 am - oh joy, only three more nights of this.)