Back In The USA!

We got away from Saltillo a little later than planned on Tuesday and the drive took a little longer than planned. No problems, just a couple of stops for fuel, the first because we needed gas and the second to top it off before entering the USA where gas is more expensive. The border crossing went fine except Norma had to go into Mexico immigration to turn in her own tourist visa. I went in first to scout it out and to ask if they had a wheelchair (they didn't) so after I parked as close as I could she had to climb out of the rig, climb the wheelchair ramp and walk about 40 feet to the building. They stamped the passports and then she had to walk back. It was the first time she has been out of the rig since she fell. It wiped her out but we were both happy she was able to do it.

USA customs was a little better than usual. This time we went through the fridge and took out everything that was not frozen or canned. This was joined by all of the fresh vegies and fruit which we placed in a big bag and gave to one of the RV park workers. It will feed his family for a couple of days at least.

When we pulled up to the customs booth and were asked if we had any fresh food, we gave an emphatic "NO!" and said we gave it all away. The officer smiled and said, "Welcome to the USA". Their drug dog was having a good sniff all this time and gave his approval as well. Every other time we had some fresh food and had to go through an additional agricultural inspection. Quick and easy this time!

It was getting well into the afternoon so we headed to Laredo where we made a quick stop at the HEB grocery store. These trips are sure a lot faster when Norma can't come in the store! We then headed to the Casa Blanca State Park where we bought a pull through site for $18 plus a "Park entry fee" of $8 and settled in for the night.

The Texas songbirds woke us up this morning and we headed out for San Antonio where we were going to get the propane leak fixed. After stopping at one place that we didn't really like the look of, we phoned the Camping World in New Braunfels where we had the roof repaired three years ago. After being sent to an answering machine three times, I asked for the store manager and told him we were not going to drive 60 miles to his store only to be told they could not look at it until June. He told me to ask for him when we got there and he would make sure someone dealt with it right away.

We arrived two and a half hours before closing time, talked to Scott the manager and one of their service guys started on it. He did a pressure test and determined there was indeed a leak and then spent over an hour finding it! It was a T connector under the rig that was leaking at one of it's legs. He said he was going to cut it off, re-flare it and reattach it. If that did not work, he would have to replace the pipe. Well, it seemed to work. He did a pressure test where the pressure is supposed to hold for at least three minutes and it was still holding after ten minutes. Fixed!

I went in to pay but they did not have the bill ready and it was closing time. I said I was going to ask if we could stay in their lot overnight anyway, so why don't I just pay in the morning? They said no problem so here we are, plugged in and using free WIFI in their guarded compound. The only problem is, I don't know how much they will charge me. He worked on it for over two hours and the shop rate is around $140 per hour. However, "Propane service" is listed on the wall at $99.95 so which will it be? $100 or $280? I will know in the morning!

Getting Ready, Part 2

Like I said, we are getting ready to leave in the morning. Evidently part of getting ready is putting out the clothes we are wearing tomorrow. I din't know this because for me, it is a simple process. I open the cupboard above the bed and grab the top pair of shorts and the top t-shirt off their respective piles. No muss, no fuss, an idiot could do it.

Well. I found it is not so simple if you happen to be a woman. Norma's clothes are stashed in many different parts of the bedroom with the majority of them under the bed. She cannot get on her knees to search under the bed right now so she asked me, "Croft, will you go under the bed and grab me my soft blue pants and that nice white and blue blouse that goes with them"? Oh boy! She has at least 479 pairs of pants under there and more than 579 blouses. I know, because I carried them out of the house when we left. Most of them are one shade of blue or another. At least I thought they were blue. I now know they are navy, teal......

Not wanting to seem uncooperative, I went under the bed and after fumbling around a bit, pulled out a nice pair of blue pants. "What are you doing? Those aren't soft. I have a sore leg"! Oh, silly me! Under I go again and after pulling out several more pairs of blue pants, all of which felt soft to me,  I hit on the right pair. Back again for the blouse that "goes with them". Well, maybe it is just me, but I think all of the blouses go with them. After showing her at least twenty white and blue blouses, I finally came up with the one that "went with" the pants. My knees were killing me!

As soon as I sat back down behind the computer I heard The Question. "What are you wearing tomorrow"? I pretended not to hear her.

Getting Ready

We are getting ready to leave Saltillo. We are usually not early movers but it is a three hour drive from here to the border so we want to pull out by 9:00 AM. Norma is getting around a lot better but still a long way to go. Sitting in the front seat will be a trial but laying on the couch or bed is probably worse. We will see how it goes. We have about three weeks before we have to cross the Canadian border and have still not decided on a route home. We usually go through Texas and new Mexico but My friend Par reports that a snowstorm is threatening along I-40 in NM.

We have a couple of chores to get done in the USA like new batteries for the RV and the propane leak fixed. No rush! Life is Good!

New Computer!

About a month before we left home in November my desktop computer crashed and burned. It was about five years old, running Windows XP and I upgraded it to 1 GB of RAM. I paid over $1000 for it back then! I was going to buy a new one on the way back through the USA but in the meantime I got an email from Newegg telling me about a free shipping sale.

One of the items was a re-certified Acer with a Quad Core AMD processor, 4 GB of memory and a 1 TB hard drive. The OS is Windows 7 64 bit. It is all I need and for $499 less $190 "instant rebate" and free shipping, it was too good to pass up. Final cost after tax is $347.

I will probably pick up a cheap "all in one" printer at Walmart in the USA on the way through. My old printer has been misbehaving for the last year. It is wireless and I was able to print from all my computers for a while but soon it would only recognize the one it was hardwired to. The laser printer on Norma's computer was a gig disappointment from the start. It took about three minutes to print one sheet and refused to print multiple copies. It will be heading for the recycling bin at our neighborhood computer store.

So now when I get home I have to set up the new computer, rid it of the bloatware they always come with and do my taxes on it. It will be a busy few days!

On a sadder note, our friend Les had his motor scooter stolen right off the back of his motorhome while he slept in it in Puerto Penasco! It was chained on but they just cut the lock off. The park had nighttime security but they knew nothing! It was such a dependable scooter for Les. I just hope he has good luck with his Mexican insurance and will be able to replace her.

UPDATE: Well, apparently Les considered this to be some kind of British April fools Day humour! So, no stolen scooter...... I guess you have to be a Brit to understand...

It’s Official, Canada Is Penniless!

Canada’s Minister of Finance announced today that by the end of 2012, Canada will be penniless! Yes, the lowly penny will cease to be manufactured or distributed. Those of us with jars full of them in the closet will be able to use them indefinitely but we will not be able to get new ones. A penny costs 1.6 cents to manufacture and they produce 25 of them for every Canadian every year. Canada says they are loosing $11 million a year by stamping these things out and that is why they are stamping them out (?).

Pennies used to be made of real copper but in 2000 when copper prices rose, they switched to copper plated zinc and then in 2005 to copper plated steel. They are no longer worth their weight in copper! We may have the advantage here. A friend of ours gave our son several bank bags of pennies when he was born back in 1970. He told us to leave them in the sealed bags and they would buy him a car one day. Well, maybe a tire… At least these pre 2000 pennies are real copper so maybe they will buy two tires!

You can’t buy much, if anything for a penny. Not even a thought. Few of my thoughts are worth a penny with the possible exception of this one. I would price it out at $.02, which would then be subjected to the “Swedish Rounding Rule” which dictates that 1 and 2 (or 6 and 7) cents are rounded down and 3 and 4 (or 8 and 9) cents are rounded up. That would make this thought worth nothing. Maybe I should price it at $.03 in which case you would have to pay me a nickel for it!

Electronic payments (credit and debit cards) will still be to the nearest penny so this change will only affect cash purchases and who uses cash anymore? Those lucky people with a hidden supply of pennies will have to dispense them with care. If your lunch costs say, $6.72, you would never admit that you have pennies thereby forcing McDonalds to reduce the price to $6.70. However, if your lunch comes to $6.73 then we would quickly pull out our three pennies to prevent being boosted up to the next nickel. Be careful out there and keep those pennies close to your vest! Constant vigilance and a quick mathematical mind is required!

I remember when you could buy something for a penny. I remember in the late 40’s and early 50’s my mother would give me a penny or two to go to our neighborhood store. There were huge selections of items for a penny, well maybe not huge selections, but quite a few anyway. I actually remember something that was three for a penny! Whatever they were, I did not like them. Remember Jaw Breakers? They were a penny and while they didn’t actually break your jaw, they did stain your lips and tongue. There were little wax things that squirted a blast of foul tasting liquid into your mouth when you bit down on them. They were not worth the penny they cost and the memory of them still makes me cringe. Maybe they were the three for a penny things. The dilemma was always what to do with the wax mess after you bit down on it. Swallow it or spit it out?

Canada is not the first country to do this. Even Mexico stopped using the centavo years ago. The smallest coin normally used down here is the peso, worth about seven cents. You do see the odd 50 centavo coins, worth half a peso and I once found a 10 centavo coin on the ground. It is tiny, not much more than a quarter of an inch across and silver colored. Most of the Scandinavian countries did this long ago but they have always been far advanced over us anyway. They even invented the “Swedish Rounding Rule”! Australia threw out it’s one and two penny coins and New Zealand broke ground by eliminating the nickel in 2009!

So no more sayings like, “A penny for your thoughts”, “Penny wise, pound foolish” or, “Mind your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves”. Canada is now penniless!

She Is Getting Better!

Norma was actually walking today! Not far but from the bedroom out to the kitchen and living area and back. She also felt good enough to complain about my housekeeping. In any case, she could not have done this if anything was broken so I guess it was as she said, just a bad bruise (or whatever).

We will stick around a couple more days, maybe until the 1st and then hit the border. It has been a stressful few days. That will give us two or three weeks to get home. We have to have our taxes mailed by April 30 so that is our deadline. It will take me a day or two to do the taxes.

We have to get the propane leak fixed on the way home. Maybe in San Antonio and I have to buy a new desktop computer for home as well. mine crashed and burned just before we left in November. We also need two new 6 volt golf cart batteries from Sam's Club.

Things are looking better! Thanks for all the kind words and concern!

Saltillo

Juan, Norma and Chris - A few hours before her fall.

Downtown Saltillo. The first is a very old coffee sales store. We bought a kilo of blended coffee for $130 pesos or $10 CAN. It smelled delicious and I can hardly wait to brew a pot!

One Problem Solved!

I dropped the Mazda off at the Goodyear shop at 9:00 AM. They told me (at least I think they told me, it was in rapid Spanish) that the emergency brake was dragging and it would be ready in three hours. I took a cab back to the Hotel and then walked back to the shop at noon. they had it finished and were out for a test drive. They replaced the rear brakes and turned the disks. The total bill was $990 Pesos or about $77 dollars. Shop time is $19 per hour and they charged me for one hour plus parts and the outsourcing of the the turning. Not bad! Did I mention? Shop time is $250 pesos or $19 dollars per hour!!

Now if we can just get Norma fixed. We have paid for two more nights and if it is not a lot better by then we will get an X-ray done at our own expense (they are cheap here) and find a doctor to read it (also cheap). Chris will drive over from Monterrey to help out. In the meantime keep your fingers crossed.

What's Going On?

I am sure you are wondering why we are still in Saltillo and not posting much. Well, something IS going on!

The last night Chris and Juan were here Norma fell on the gravel parking lot between our RV's. She could not walk after the fall so I carried her into the motorhome. She landed on the butt attached to the same hip she broke and had repaired six years ago so of course the fear was that she had re-damaged that hip. It did not hurt unless she put weight on it and she said the pain was centered more in the butt cheek and not in the hip. She wanted a couple of days to see if it improved before we headed to the hospital.

Well, it does seem to be improving although not as quickly as I would like to see so we are giving it a couple more days before we move. The way she is, it would be very tough for her to climb down into the seating area of the motorhome to travel. We will also be hitting the border the first day and when they put the RV through the x-ray machine, they make us get out and walk 50 feet away. She would have a great deal of trouble doing this.

So, we will wait here until she is more mobile or we decide she has to have it looked at. In that case we may ask Chris or Juan to drive over from Monterrey to help us with the Spanish required in the hospital. It is a one hour drive but they have kindly offered to do this.

On another front, the rear end of the Mazda has started to make a grinding noise when we are driving or towing it. I thought it was accumulated dirt in the brakes but now I think it might be bearings. There is a Goodyear shop just down the street so I will take it in there in the morning to see if they can fix it. One thing after another!

Like Marvin Gaye says, "What's Goin' On"?

The Leak

The propane is still leaking. I poured soapy water over all the connections I could see and no bubbles. Chris suggested going to a local hardware store where they keep lists of tradespeople to help with projects. We did that and we found a local plumber who said he knew propane. It seems that it is not a separate trade in Mexico but is done by plumbers. The plumber and his helper showed up and basically did what I had already done. They tested the obvious connections for tightness and checked all the connections around the tank with soapy water. He tried to convince me it was probably the fill valve where sometimes a piece of foreign matter gets stuck during a fill. He cleared this by sticking a small screwdriver into it to cause a jet of propane to come out, clearing the valve. I was sure this was not the problem as I can stop the leak by turning off the shutoff valfe which is not connected to the fill valve.

Anyway, he seemed to be at the limit of his abilities so we paid him $100 pesos or about $7.75, his asking price for a house call. He actually did not ask for $100 pesos. Instead he told me to pay what I thought he was worth' Juan told me to offer him $100 pesos. Try to get that in Canada ot the US!

He suggested leaving the valve open and to call him back if the problem returned. Well, it returned but we are not going to call him. I don't think he is all that familiar with propane systems in RV's where connections are hidden.

We are going to do without propane until we get to the USA next week. The only time we need it, or at least use it, is while moving to keep the fridge working. Many people turn their fridge off while they travel as they are afraid of having propane open in case of an accident. We (and most others) have never worried about this and travel with the tank open. It will not hurt to turn the fridge off for a few hours as long as we keep the door closed. We just won't be able to boondock along the way to San Antonio, TX where we will get it fixed.

More Important Stuff:

Our friends Chris and Juan have left as Juan had something he had to attend back in Monterrey. It was great to see them! Chris keeps saying he is "almost retired" but takes the odd contract from the publishing house he works for, traveling around Mexico training teachers and presenting new school books. Juan is also "sort of" retired but is working on his Doctorate in Education. His specialty is kids leaving high school before graduation in both the USA and Mexico. Perhaps his studies and work will lead to a solution of this problem that knows no borders!