We spent about a month on the road in Mexico before coming into the US a couple of days ago. After lots of hours riding in the truck and talking, Tom and I have a list of things we’ve been talking and thinking about that never made the blog. This is more for our future reference than because we think anybody else might be interested, but read on if you care. Just so you know, there aren’t any pictures.
The Camper
We are about 95% super pleased with our camper build, but we are keeping a list of “if we do this again” ideas. We probably won’t do it again, but here goes:
We’d sacrifice the space and make it a foot shorter. If it had been a foot shorter, we wouldn’t have hit the tree in Merida. We really like the inside height because it makes the living space feel very spacious, and with two people, three dogs, and a cat, that matters. We’d also lose some valuable storage space if it was shorter. However, now that we know that not all cities follow the 4 meter clearance rule, losing some space would probably be a worthwhile exchange for less anxiety while driving around. We think we’ll be fine in the US and Canada, but we may do a trade in for something smaller and more agile when we head for Central America.
The sliding bathroom door is nothing but trouble, and any fixes are temporary since the wheels bend and it goes off the track. This isn’t due to lack of quality in building it, it’s just the nature of sliding doors. We aren’t sure what we would do instead since there is absolutely no room for a swinging door, but we’re thinking about it.
We’d import tires, rather than settling for the best Belize had to offer. The Sailun tires were completely inadequate, even though they were specced for our weight, but they couldn’t handle the weight and the higher speeds once we were off Belize roads and on real highways. There’s no way Reimers would have known this when they sold them to us, since pretty much everyone who buys them there uses them only in Belize, but in hindsight it would have been well worth it to us to ship in tires from the US.
Traveling With Pets
Now that we’re in the US, I can admit that I was pretty stressed out about getting our Belize dogs across the border with the CDC Belize dog ban. We had all sorts of plans of how we would handle it if we had any problems which, fortunately, we didn’t. In the end, the US officials just welcomed us, made some nice general chit chat about the dogs, and didn’t even ask for vaccination papers. Even when Tom started a sentence, “In Belize, we call them potlickers…” the officials didn’t turn a hair.
Traveling through Mexico with the dogs had its ups and downs. All three of the dogs are very good travelers. Even Princha, who has a history of getting car sick, seemed to realize from the very beginning that she was in it for the long haul, and she hasn’t vomited AT ALL. I’ve been hesitating to say this for fear of jinxing her, but now that we’re out of Mexico and the roads are better, I’d be surprised if she suddenly resumed being carsick at this point.
We generally drive with Ty and Princh in the front seat with us, and Kismet gets the run of the camper. This works pretty well, except when we’re going slow and maneuvering to find directions or turn, when Ty and Princha, who generally just sleep on the seat, spring up to see what’s going on and block the mirrors and knock the phone with the navigation software out of my hands. They’re getting better, but if we know we’re going to be in a complicated situation, we sometimes put them in the back with Kismet.
We also had a little trouble finding good places to walk the dogs in Mexico. Mexico has A LOT of street dogs. One or two street dogs aren’t generally a problem, but when there is a pack of six or eight or more, we go the other way and put the dogs in the camper. We found some good places to walk, but sometimes we headed for one of Merida’s pet friendly malls and walked the dogs in the mall, even though it took a lot of laps to get three or four miles walked.
Traveling with a cat has added a few complications, although it’s manageable. Our general setup is that Feetz’s food and litter box are in the “garage” and the cat door by the washer is normally open so she can come and go and the dogs can’t get to her food or the litter box. We had one incident where we had all three dogs in the camper, and when we stopped and I went to check on them, Princha was missing. The bathroom door had slid shut (back when it still had wheels) and Princha had apparently gone in there and jumped up on the washer to get the cat food. She was looking terrified and shaking, and I immediately scooped her up and hugged her, thinking she was scared because she’d been riding on top of the washer. But no - she was scared that she was in trouble for going after the cat food, which she knows she’s not supposed to do.
The cat also causes a little anxiety because I’m scared she will get out of the camper and we’ll lose her. She always travels in her crate so as we’re taking the dogs in and out at rest stops we don’t have to worry about her sneaking out. The problem with this is that when she sees us getting ready to go, she disappears into the garage to avoid the crate, which means we can’t open the back doors because she could run out and get lost. We also have to remind each other to shut her into the front of the camper when we want to open the back doors, but we’re now used to that. The upside is she loves hanging out with us and the dogs, all one big happy tri-species pack.
Traveling In Mexico
Besides the tree incident in Merida, we have been pleasantly surprised and how easy our travels have been. We’ve driven in and through Mexico a number of times before, and always ran into some minor complication. Sometimes it was getting lost because roads weren’t clearly marked and didn’t match the map, sometimes we were hassled for no good reason by the military or police, sometimes there was security at state lines where we had to stop and be searched, sometimes the fuel stations tried to rip us off, and sometimes it was just crazy drivers who didn’t seem to have any concept of lanes or directions.
This trip, none of this happened. We haven’t done the drive since the beginning of 2016, and in this time the road conditions have improved tremendously, and the mapping apps seem to have caught up with the actual roads. The pump operators at the gas stations were honest and efficient, and we seem to have come out of Mexico without any issues with bad fuel. While we ran into lots of fast drivers, and people who passed unsafely, overall the drivers seemed to be observing the normal rules of the road…and people in a hurry are everywhere.
The police were, without exception, polite and helpful. If we were parking for the night in a public spot, we would always try to find the police to make sure we were allowed to park. The first few times we approached them expecting a hassle, but instead they always went out of their way to assure us that we were in a safe spot and they would keep an eye on us, just in case we had a problem. They weren’t fishing for a bribe, but were just trying to be friendly and helpful. And, we didn’t lose any sleep over security issues anywhere. Sometimes we didn’t get the best night’s sleep because it was loud - Mexico in general is very loud with music and cars and firecrackers and dogs and, as the Grinch says, noise, noise, noise, noise - but we never lost sleep worrying about safety or security.
We also expected to be regularly questioned and searched at state lines, because we always have been in the past. For our last couple of trips through, we were driving a regular passenger car and were stopped and searched regularly. We figured that driving a truck that looks like a box truck would make us a huge target. But, we crossed 12 state lines and while they’d ask us what we were transporting, when Tom told them it was our house, they’d wave us through. We were well into Tamaulipas, our last state and the state bordering Texas, before we were even questioned and asked to open the truck. And, even then, Tom opened the back, the officer looked, and that was that. He told us for the remainder of the drive we should follow the big trucks through the gamma ray stations at the weigh stations, but at that point there were only a couple of weigh stations, and nobody even looked at us. We can’t figure out if there are fewer checkpoints because traffic is down with covid, or if the Federales have been redeployed to the border because of the cartel issues, or if it’s because we’re driving a camper with Belize plates, or if it’s just because we’re now considered viejitos, but whatever it is, we’ll take it.
For what it’s worth, here are the states we drove through with absolutely no problems on our way from Belize to Texas: Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz, Puebla, Mexico, Hidalgo, Queretaro, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Tamaulipas.
The Camper
We are about 95% super pleased with our camper build, but we are keeping a list of “if we do this again” ideas. We probably won’t do it again, but here goes:
We’d sacrifice the space and make it a foot shorter. If it had been a foot shorter, we wouldn’t have hit the tree in Merida. We really like the inside height because it makes the living space feel very spacious, and with two people, three dogs, and a cat, that matters. We’d also lose some valuable storage space if it was shorter. However, now that we know that not all cities follow the 4 meter clearance rule, losing some space would probably be a worthwhile exchange for less anxiety while driving around. We think we’ll be fine in the US and Canada, but we may do a trade in for something smaller and more agile when we head for Central America.
The sliding bathroom door is nothing but trouble, and any fixes are temporary since the wheels bend and it goes off the track. This isn’t due to lack of quality in building it, it’s just the nature of sliding doors. We aren’t sure what we would do instead since there is absolutely no room for a swinging door, but we’re thinking about it.
We’d import tires, rather than settling for the best Belize had to offer. The Sailun tires were completely inadequate, even though they were specced for our weight, but they couldn’t handle the weight and the higher speeds once we were off Belize roads and on real highways. There’s no way Reimers would have known this when they sold them to us, since pretty much everyone who buys them there uses them only in Belize, but in hindsight it would have been well worth it to us to ship in tires from the US.
Traveling With Pets
Now that we’re in the US, I can admit that I was pretty stressed out about getting our Belize dogs across the border with the CDC Belize dog ban. We had all sorts of plans of how we would handle it if we had any problems which, fortunately, we didn’t. In the end, the US officials just welcomed us, made some nice general chit chat about the dogs, and didn’t even ask for vaccination papers. Even when Tom started a sentence, “In Belize, we call them potlickers…” the officials didn’t turn a hair.
Traveling through Mexico with the dogs had its ups and downs. All three of the dogs are very good travelers. Even Princha, who has a history of getting car sick, seemed to realize from the very beginning that she was in it for the long haul, and she hasn’t vomited AT ALL. I’ve been hesitating to say this for fear of jinxing her, but now that we’re out of Mexico and the roads are better, I’d be surprised if she suddenly resumed being carsick at this point.
We generally drive with Ty and Princh in the front seat with us, and Kismet gets the run of the camper. This works pretty well, except when we’re going slow and maneuvering to find directions or turn, when Ty and Princha, who generally just sleep on the seat, spring up to see what’s going on and block the mirrors and knock the phone with the navigation software out of my hands. They’re getting better, but if we know we’re going to be in a complicated situation, we sometimes put them in the back with Kismet.
We also had a little trouble finding good places to walk the dogs in Mexico. Mexico has A LOT of street dogs. One or two street dogs aren’t generally a problem, but when there is a pack of six or eight or more, we go the other way and put the dogs in the camper. We found some good places to walk, but sometimes we headed for one of Merida’s pet friendly malls and walked the dogs in the mall, even though it took a lot of laps to get three or four miles walked.
Traveling with a cat has added a few complications, although it’s manageable. Our general setup is that Feetz’s food and litter box are in the “garage” and the cat door by the washer is normally open so she can come and go and the dogs can’t get to her food or the litter box. We had one incident where we had all three dogs in the camper, and when we stopped and I went to check on them, Princha was missing. The bathroom door had slid shut (back when it still had wheels) and Princha had apparently gone in there and jumped up on the washer to get the cat food. She was looking terrified and shaking, and I immediately scooped her up and hugged her, thinking she was scared because she’d been riding on top of the washer. But no - she was scared that she was in trouble for going after the cat food, which she knows she’s not supposed to do.
The cat also causes a little anxiety because I’m scared she will get out of the camper and we’ll lose her. She always travels in her crate so as we’re taking the dogs in and out at rest stops we don’t have to worry about her sneaking out. The problem with this is that when she sees us getting ready to go, she disappears into the garage to avoid the crate, which means we can’t open the back doors because she could run out and get lost. We also have to remind each other to shut her into the front of the camper when we want to open the back doors, but we’re now used to that. The upside is she loves hanging out with us and the dogs, all one big happy tri-species pack.
Traveling In Mexico
Besides the tree incident in Merida, we have been pleasantly surprised and how easy our travels have been. We’ve driven in and through Mexico a number of times before, and always ran into some minor complication. Sometimes it was getting lost because roads weren’t clearly marked and didn’t match the map, sometimes we were hassled for no good reason by the military or police, sometimes there was security at state lines where we had to stop and be searched, sometimes the fuel stations tried to rip us off, and sometimes it was just crazy drivers who didn’t seem to have any concept of lanes or directions.
This trip, none of this happened. We haven’t done the drive since the beginning of 2016, and in this time the road conditions have improved tremendously, and the mapping apps seem to have caught up with the actual roads. The pump operators at the gas stations were honest and efficient, and we seem to have come out of Mexico without any issues with bad fuel. While we ran into lots of fast drivers, and people who passed unsafely, overall the drivers seemed to be observing the normal rules of the road…and people in a hurry are everywhere.
The police were, without exception, polite and helpful. If we were parking for the night in a public spot, we would always try to find the police to make sure we were allowed to park. The first few times we approached them expecting a hassle, but instead they always went out of their way to assure us that we were in a safe spot and they would keep an eye on us, just in case we had a problem. They weren’t fishing for a bribe, but were just trying to be friendly and helpful. And, we didn’t lose any sleep over security issues anywhere. Sometimes we didn’t get the best night’s sleep because it was loud - Mexico in general is very loud with music and cars and firecrackers and dogs and, as the Grinch says, noise, noise, noise, noise - but we never lost sleep worrying about safety or security.
We also expected to be regularly questioned and searched at state lines, because we always have been in the past. For our last couple of trips through, we were driving a regular passenger car and were stopped and searched regularly. We figured that driving a truck that looks like a box truck would make us a huge target. But, we crossed 12 state lines and while they’d ask us what we were transporting, when Tom told them it was our house, they’d wave us through. We were well into Tamaulipas, our last state and the state bordering Texas, before we were even questioned and asked to open the truck. And, even then, Tom opened the back, the officer looked, and that was that. He told us for the remainder of the drive we should follow the big trucks through the gamma ray stations at the weigh stations, but at that point there were only a couple of weigh stations, and nobody even looked at us. We can’t figure out if there are fewer checkpoints because traffic is down with covid, or if the Federales have been redeployed to the border because of the cartel issues, or if it’s because we’re driving a camper with Belize plates, or if it’s just because we’re now considered viejitos, but whatever it is, we’ll take it.
For what it’s worth, here are the states we drove through with absolutely no problems on our way from Belize to Texas: Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz, Puebla, Mexico, Hidalgo, Queretaro, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Tamaulipas.