This is Daniel for a change.
Our first day in Guadalajara was great so far. I slept until about 10am and went for a long walk around the barrio and returned back to the house around noon.
I finally called my folks in Germany and even got to speak to Uschi and Andreas (I think I hadn't talked to them in over a year - shame on me). The VoIP works fine but every five minutes it garbles everything for 30 seconds or so.
Monica, Gwyn and I then went to another market across town with the usual mix of tacos, electronics and pirated copies of movies . My personal favorite was Jackass Dos. We bought a cordless phone that I presumed to be new but I later discovered that it had a bunch of numbers in its memory ..... Carmen, Lauren Cell, Lauren House ...... hmmm, maybe that's a good way of meeting people.
After that we went on to Office Max for a desk and chair for the Oracle - Guad branch. I am all set up now.
Driving in Guadalajara seems pretty easy - admittedly there wasn't much traffic because everybody seems to have left town for New Years eve and Gwyn navigated us but I think I did pretty good. I took Monica's comment ("Thanks for not killing us") as a confirmation. Sometimes it gets confusing, though: What do you do at an intersection that has a stop sign and a traffic light? Well, then again it seems that traffic signs are more guidelines than rules and that works pretty well for me.
So, time for a beer & afternoon nap now and then we are off to a party. Feliz Año Nuevo, Guten Rutsch in neue Jahr and Happy New Year to all !

We made it - it's about the yourney!

So after driving 2, 200 miles we finally made it to Guadalajara. The drive was absolutely beautiful. Daniel and I had some musical differences along the way, but always found that listening to the Clash or Julieta Venegas returned us to common ground. We were in Bahia de Kino on Tuesday - Wed (picture attached) with family. We had a chance to see my Tia Hilda, Tio Gabriel, and my cousins. Beautiful! Beautiful.

Then we went to Los Alamos (still in the state of Sonora) and it was super pictureque. We drove to Mazaltan on Friday. One two many tequillas and bad spanish translations later we made our way to Guad. All I can say, is that if you have the chance to drive hwy 15 south in mexico, do it (use the toll roads). If we can do it, a pocha and a german = then you can do it.

Miguel did not fail us. Love our gas guzzlin' friend. He is the fiel amigo. YELLOW!

Casa Grande, AZ

Here we are at the Best Western in Case Grande, AZ. We left Norwalk around 3PM today and didn't have the energy to drive any longer. It's nearly midnight. The ride down was memorable. Chili began foaming from the mouth around the 2nd hour in to the drive. Then he peed on himself. Then around hour 4 he really used the restroom (pooping at 90 mph without fear or shame). We let him out of his crate and he used the litterbox. Need less to say, it was a smelly ride. After his dump, he sat on a pillow and watched the cars pass him by. Woody freaked out a little bit but he finally fell asleep. I let him out of his crate for awhile before he took his cat nap. In general, Woody handled the ride really well.

Team America is on so I'm signing off! Tomorrow we will cross the Nogales border.

few hours to go!

We have packed up most of the house. We only have a few more things to do, then we are off to LA. Within the week we should be in Mexico. Our plan is to drive from Norwalk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwalk,_California to Tucson http://www.topix.net/tucson on Tuesday. Wednesday we will drive from Tucson, AZ to Bahia Kino, Mexico http://www.mexonline.com/bahiakino.htm to visit my Tia Hilda. We'll enter through the Nogales border http://www.nogaleschamber.com/Nogales_mex.htm and hopefully get to Kino in the afternoon.

On Thursday, the plan is to wake up early and drive to Mazatlan. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we arrive in Guadalajara by Saturday http://www.allaboutguadalajara.com/. We have quite a trip ahead of us but Gwyn and Sarita have driven it so many times that we *think* we can manage the ride. I have downloaded plenty of "this american life" segments and audible books on tape to keep us busy. Thank god for "this american life."

Yesterday I went to PET SMART and bought Chili and Woody their Norwalk, CA tags. My mom promised she'd keep them alive. Ur. She doesn't like cats so this is a big sacrifice for her. I owe her!!! Here is Chili Garcia with his heart tag. Woody's collar is broken so I'm off in a minute to get him a new one.

More on Guad:

http://www.mexperience.com/guide/majorcity/guadalajara.htm

2 more days...

We leave in 2 more days and have so much left to do.
This week has been super eventful. We have seen so many friends and have been going out way too much. The cats definitely know something is up. Our room is empty and packed up; the car has been checked out and has been cleared for the major trip. All we have to do is get going. That happens this Sunday.

Oranges are ready

It's orange time!

Or as we call it here in the McMansion, it's Danielito time. What is this you ask?

A very simple libation: vodka + oranges + rasperry flavored fizzy water + diet 7 up.

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another day of packing

I packed up most of the living room, although you couldn't tell by looking at it. It's a total mess! But I know what is staying and what is going. Meanwhile Daniel is reparing the tile in the bathroom and his mess looks worse than mine. A little more than 3 weeks to go and we take off. Hasn't hit either one of us yet.