Potrero Chico (day 5)

It was pretty much a relaxing day today, although we did get some work done. It doesn’t start to get really hot until after lunch.

I used some new all purpose cleaner that Ruth had bought to try and get rid of the bugs on Sherman’s front end. It worked pretty good, but it still took quite a bit of rubbing. The end result is much better though. Ruth did a little bit of laundry by hand. It’s not bad to keep up with it if you do a little bit at a time. She lets some soak in a bucket with soap overnight and that seems to do a pretty good job.

We did end up using the pool in the afternoon. It sure is refreshing!

We had a little bit of an interesting night last night. Because it’s been so hot, we’ve actually been leaving the main side door open all night, with just the screen door closed. All of the windows are wide open anyway, so what’s the difference really? Besides, we are in a sort of a campground and there are people here in tents as well.

Anyhow, so we’re sleeping peacefully. But I wake up and hear some voices. I open my eyes and see flash lights through the front curtains. At the same time, I hear the screen door open, and someone on the entrance steps! Of course all of this happens in less than a second and I’m pretty groggy from just having woke up. Not really any time to think, so I jump our of bed making as much noise as possible and yelling. I get to the front door, and of course I can’t see a thing because there are flashlights shining in my eyes. By this point, whoever was coming in had backed down to the ground and I reached out and closed the screen door.

Then I realize it’s the military.

I breathed a big out loud sigh of relief that it was the good guys and you could tell they realized they had scared the crap out of me! None of them spoke English though. Who knows if the guy coming in simply thought it was empty, or what he was thinking. There was no knock that we heard or anybody asking for entry, but maybe that was what woke me up. No idea. In hindsight I think I’m lucky they didn’t shoot me when I came yelling!

The guy in charge just waved his arm and you could tell he was pretty much saying to him men to just leave us be.

There had been a military helicopter flying by a couple of times yesterday and perhaps they saw Sherman from up there and wondered what the deal was. Or maybe it was just a routine inspection of the area. Who knows. But I’m thinking we’ll sleep with the door closed and locked from now on!

We’re heading out this morning and we’ll do a couple of hours driving. We’re going to take a route around the city of Saltillo because that city is growing and there’s lots of road contruction. Not sure where we’ll end up tonight, but Chris gave us the location of a rancher along the way who let them stay in his apple orchard so I think we’ll check that out.

As the sun was coming up this morning