Mexico City-Bibleville-Dallas

A road trip with your 13-year-old son is a great experience, and our three-day initial trip to the border and back was extended two days due to a delay in our friends' plans, Brock and Heather Hower.  Instead of crossing Wednesday morning, we crossed on Friday morning.  What to do with two extra days!?  The goal of the trip was to nationalize our van...change our Texas plates to Mexican plates.  This will enable us to continue to drive all day, almost every day.  We can also eventually sell the van here in Mexico if we would like to, something we couldn't do before.

Our journey started at 3.30 a.m. Monday morning, when Daniel and I left home in order to meet fellow CAM missionaries Art and Marita Mikesell and their son-in-law Dan Nelson in Querétaro.  We met up, topped off our tanks, and began to long trip up to the border.  The Mikesells were pulling a large, dual-axle trailer with many of their belongings (and books, of course), so the going was a bit slower, but we managed to work our way up to Reynosa, crossing the border, finally, at Pharr, TX.  I was once again impressed at the amount of tolls we paid...probably close to $100 from here to Reynosa.

After crossing, and attempting in vain to find a Taco Bell (Daniel's favorite fast food in the U.S., go figure), we ate a a chicken place and finally rested.  The Mikesells have a little place in Alamo, TX in a sanctified trailer park called Bibleville.  The streets are Jerusalem St., Nazareth St., Bethlehem St., Emmaus St., you get the idea.  Art joked that when someone dies, they just put the name of the spouse in a hat, and all the eligible widows or widowers choose from the hat.  Everyone is Christian anyway, Art said.  Art, by the way, is a funny guy.  An example is a lot of ways.

Upon receiving news from Brock that our return to Mexico would be delayed two days, we decided to drive up to Dallas to touch base with friends and, hopefully, eat something other than Mexican food (we do quite well with that here).  So the next morning, after breakfast, we headed up 281, to I37, to I35 and hit a big-time rain storm around Waco.  I had to keep reminding Daniel that it isn't pronounced "Whacko".  Made me laugh, though, every time he said it.  We drove in a heavy downpour for about two hours, before taking a break after the I35 E-W split.  But the waitress said it wasn't going to stop anytime soon, hail forecast even, so we continued on, passed three accidents in Dallas and standing water in the downtown area.  Trinity River was revived!  We finally pulled into CAM Center at around 8:30 p.m.

I'll finish the rest of this story in a future post....

We arrived home last night, this morning really, at 1:20 a.m., after about 2500 miles traveled in 5 days.  Thanks to those of you who prayed for us.