Puerto Penasca to Tecoripa Mexico

We cranked about 375 miles today – doesn’t seem like much but that is about 6 and 1/2 hours on the road dodging cars, trucks, cattle, potholes, topes (large – make that HUGE speed bumps) and various objects that are in the road…

When we first left Rocky Point the road was unbelievably flat and straight for about a zillion miles. Nothing happening out there and the speed limit was something like 80KMH (like 50mph) - and NObody was obeying the speed limit. This shot is of Dan who is just a tiny speck on the right lane out near that first electrical tower.

Not a lot of interesting things to tell you about the trip today - we just blasted through some mileage… we filled up 3 times and here is a shot of the typical Pemex gas station in Mexico. There is only one brand of gas in Mexico and you gotta love it – it’s Pemex… and the government basically owns it. The guys that work there are usually great and very interested in the bikes – we’ve had a couple of them sign the bikes with the sharpies and they are excited to be able to write on the machines… funny stuff.

Coming out of Hermosillo we came across a HUGE Cemex plant – we crested a hill and about 10 miles out in the middle of a big valley was a 10 story machine – who knows what it did – and about 5 miles to the north was a mountain that they were disassembling – with a conveyor belt running from the mountain to the Cemex plant this belt was at least 5 miles long!  Amazing to see – sorry we don’t have a picture of it but I didn’t think it would look all that impressive.

After getting into Hermosillo we headed almost due east and ended up in Tecorpia – a tiny little town with a Pemex and a couple small hotels. We waited around at the first hotel for half an hour for someone to show up – John hit the little store nearby for a 6 pack of muy frio Tecate (very cold) – we ended up across the street at hotel near the hardware store – 300 pesos – about $22 or so. We got a couple “cup of noodles” and more beer from the store and cooked it up while drinking the beer and enjoying a nice night in the Sierra mountains.

Tomorrow we head into Copper Canyon – we’re looking forward to some twisty roads and seeing some natural beauty…. still no rain on us - so get your votes in for the day you think we’ll get some rain on. I thought I might throw one more thing in here – to qualify for real “rain” it has to be enough for us to pull into shelter or dig out our rain gear… and since nobody really knows our true course south – all your research on weather.com (Bert) will probably not yield you the secret sauce. The first day in Mexico without being stopped for Inspection. We saw a sign a few hundred clicks back and it said “hassle free zone for motorbikes and cars. Sweet! no Hassle zone!

Cheers!