Almost to the border!

I don't envy those who have to do this drive every winter to get to their favorite sun destination in Mexico. What a terrible drive.

But, in all of our Mexico travels we had never done the route between Mazatlan and Hermosillo. And we'll probably never do it again.

We left Alamos at 8:00am sharp.

Grand entrance to town. Or exit, in our case.

The road between Alamos and Navojoa is in decent shape. Better enjoy it because it won't last!

A little traffic through Navojoa.

Huge statue. 

I hope this is a month's worth of dust and not a day's!

Yikes. This guy went for a wild ride!

And then we saw the sign. Yes, the sign that says "we are rebuilding 239 kms of roadway" or something like that.

And it's true. The construction went for miles and miles. In some sections, they already have one side of the highway finished so we actually got to drive on a decent surface, but had to share it with oncoming traffic.

But in other sections, we had to share the extremely poor road surface on the other side with oncoming traffic. For miles and miles.

Nice new concrete road.

Now that's a road building machine!

Lots of truck traffic, and not much in the way of scenery.

Ha. A spider? Or a bug?

Random photo coming into Hermosillo.

It was around 1:40pm when we entered Hermosillo, and close to 2:00pm when we pulled into the big Soriana grocery store shopping center. We've got some pesos left over in cash so we figured we may as well spend them on stocking up a few items that are cheaper in Mexico.

Wandering through the booze aisle, I noticed a sign that said "wide selection of wines and liquors on special. Buy one, get the second one half price. Now there's a deal!

Especially when my favorite scotch was only 99 pesos. Buying two, meant that it was only 72 pesos.

That's $5.60 CAD per bottle. It makes me laugh! That same bottle would be $35 in Canada. Too funny.

By the time we finished up there, it was after 3:00pm. Now, we had some choices.

I knew there is a "campground" in Hermosillo, but I use the term loosely. It's the parking lot of a construction company where the guy has put in some RV hookups. We stayed there in January of 2014, and we swore never again. The guy charged $20 USD (340 pesos), which is a total ripoff.

So I had looked up a balneario (swimming resort) that was along our route and I was going to ask there. But it was 5 kms further up the road. And if they said no, our only other option might be a Pemex gas station or something, and although free, they are not the best option.

Or, we could stay right there at the Soriana. I went and asked a security guard if we could park overnight in their lot, and in typical Mexican fashion he said "of course" in a way that was like "why are you even asking?"

He said the lot was patrolled by security 24 hours.

Okay.

Not the best view from our overnight spot!

But the cars all left, and we actually had a good night's sleep all by ourselves, despite the constant truck traffic on the nearby road.

Taken this morning, at 6:30am. Sherman, all by himself.

So today, it is with mixed emotions that we cross the border back in to the United States. We love Mexico, and we won't likely be back for almost two years. But, we are also looking forward to five more weeks of adventure as we spend two weeks with Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony, exploring southern California, and then make our way back to Canada.

Yesterday's drive, 371 kms (230 miles).

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