Time to Start Planning

We have decided to leave on November 11th.   That gives us 2 weeks to get ready.     We have figured out our basic route that gets us to the  Acapulco region for Gerry to spend the Christmas season while I fly back home.

It's cold out, and Gerry is already suffering, so we are going to try to get to the warm weather as quickly as possible.   We will stop at Flying J's, Pilot's and other free parking lots until we get to the Millwood Landing Golf and RV Resort  http://www.millwoodlandingrvpark.com/  in Arkansas near the Texas Border.    That is 1225 miles from home.    We hope to get there in just a few days, but it all depends on how much driving we can tolerate in any given day.     We are going to push it, and expect to need a few days rest once we get there.    We have chosen this place simply because it is an ROD (Resorts of Distinction ) on the shortest route (according to Streets and Trips) between home and the Laredo border, where we plan to cross into Mexico.     We have an ROD membership, so our stays in any of their campgrounds is prepaid.   We may as well use them!!!

From there it is just over 600 miles to Laredo.    We will head straight down the middle of Mexico for another 1,000 miles, keeping a heading semi focused on Acapulco.     We haven't planned our stops along the way yet, but I am sure we will add several hundred miles to both our odometers before we get to the coast.

I have to be home before December 23rd for my oncologist appointment, just on time to add good news to the Christmas season.    That will be 7 years a survivor of leukemia for me, and rolling up on 10 years a survivor of breast cancer.   I have been in a drug induced remission from CML for almost 6 years, with only a couple of blips along the way, and I have no reason to think the results of my next quarterly test will be any different.   :)  

Gerry will stay somewhere near Acapulco, which seems to be the most logical place for me to fly out from.    He will probably have about a 3 week vacation from me (or is that me from him???) before I fly back close to mid-January.    Once I get back to Mexico.....where to go before heading home for March/April?

Do we head southeast to see some areas of Chiapas we missed last year, along with some amazing ruins along the Guatamala border?   From there, perhaps a vacation on the Mayan Riviera to visit friends or maybe meet up with relatives?  It's only 500 miles from Bonampak.  

 Or do we head up the fabulous West Coast and revisit Colola and Sayulita, two of our favourite places we visited our first year?      In case you missed our stumble upon the turtle sanctuary, here is the link to our blog that year.    We vowed we would go back when we had time to spend a week or two or three.    

http://turtleondowntheroad.blogspot.ca/2012/01/tortugas-santuario-maruata-y-colola.html


Albert has a new alternator and water pump just for the trip.  Myrtle needed some welding and tightening up of all those parts that got knocked loose from the crazy roads we took down the east coast last year.   Otherwise, all she needed were the usual new plugs, wires, filters and a oil change to be ready for the next trip.    We do wonder how many more years she has left in her.    Being a 1988 she is no spring chicken.

We found a Smart Dealership near home that seems to be able to get parts overnight, so if we have any problems with Albert this year we will immediately look toward home instead of trying to find a Smart Dealer wherever we are.   Then have someone from home ship it to us.   Last year, in November we needed a part for his door.   We waited in Texas for 10 days before we gave up on getting the part from Germany in any decent amount of time.   We ordered the part once we got to Cancun in early December.    It was February 8th when we finally got the part installed.    Wow.   We have no intentions of staying put so long this year.     The reason we have such a challenge getting parts, is Albert is a diesel.   They only made them in 2005 & 6, and they did not sell them in the U.S. or Mexico.

Ready or not......we are leaving on November 11th.    I miss home already and I haven't even left....but boy oh boy, I am starting to get jazzed.