On the Road: Day 5 - Viva Mexico!

I was soooo nervous this morning; I couldn't sleep last night! Crossing the border!! Did I have everything in order? Paperwork: passports, vet health clearance (no one is confiscating MY cutie!), household inventory list, electrical item serial numbers, Mexican auto insurance policy, car title, Mexican SIM cards for the phones.... Did I remember to text everyone my new Mexican number? Hope they all downloaded WhatsApp... ACK!!!! Which crossing should we use: Mariposa or Decocini??? WAIT TIMES!!! When should we leave??? We have a 7 hour drive and need to be at the hotel by sundown, so need to be through everything by 10am...

The good news is the border crossing went perfectly. The heart-dropping stress came later...

The border crossing - we were going to do Mariposa, but they didn't open until 8am and only had one lane. We checked the wait time at Decocini, it said it was 90 minutes. Since it was 6:30am, we decided to go through Decocini. Even if we waited, it was better than getting to a line in Mariposa that would not start moving until 8. Plus, when we tried to drive to Mariposa, the WAZE lady got lost and some very wonderful border patrol agents escorted us to the Decocini crossing. Thanks CBP!!

Surprise! We drove up and there was NO LINE at Decocini!! There was no line, I suppose, because they were stopping no one. We got our green light to advance and were waved right through. Didn't even have to stop and roll down a window to talk to anyone!

(Please note: the blurry ones are Mom's)

Hurdle 1 - DOWN!! I couldn't believe that my very next sight was this... Nogales, MEXICO!!!

The big headache happened at KM256 - the Banjercito! In order for me to have my vehicle in Mexico, it must have a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit (TVIP) issued only by Banjercito. What documents do you need for this? Your title, registration, proof of Mexican auto insurance, and your driver's license. Cool - got all of that. OR DO I??? Um... As you all know, this was a big year for me. Sold my condo, moved in with my Mom, quit a job, got a new COVID job and all within a few months. During that time, I did my civic duty and got my car inspected and renewed my registration. Somehow, I never got the proof of that, though. I was running around with an expired registration! BUT the NCDOT showed me as active until next year! Crap! Banjercito will not accept my registration - obviously - so a wonderful lady named Victory printed out my photo of the NCDOT Registration tab. Banjercito won't accept it because it doesn't have the VIN. They say I can take a picture of my license to show the sticker with the updated 2021 on it. MINE SAYS 2020! Seriously, it must have gotten lost in the mail and lost in the overall shuffle of the dumpster fire that is 2020! What do I do? I'm freaking out THEN I GOT STUNG BY A VERY ANGRY WASP... ON THE FACE!!! Seriously?

I went back to Victory and we got on the NCDOT registration page and printed out all four tabs (4 pages!!) of paperwork related to my registration. I took that back to Banjercito and explained everything. They took all of my paperwork back to discuss amongst themselves and they graciously agreed that was sufficient! OH MY HOLY MOLY.... sigh of relief!!! My girl is legal! :)

Anyway, after that, it was pretty straightforward!

We are staying in a lovely hotel that accepts Mia. It is called the Hotel Del Rio and it has a DELICIOUS restaurant! I have seen no rivers, but that is neither here nor there.

So, tomorrow we will drive another 7.5 hours and get to our destination!!

Take a leap; Choose joy!!

And, as always, here is my favorite of Mom's famous oopsie pics..