Returning to the US: Motocross Heaven and the Tow of Shame

We finally crossed the border at Mexicali East on Monday, January 18, 2021 at about 11:15 am. The dogs and I were waved right through without even being asked for their health certificates. The Joad Family truck was obviously referred for secondary inspection so I drove to a gas station adjacent to the crossing and waited. The bf was allowed to drive through the X-ray machine, which saved a ton of time. He fully expected to unload the entire truck.

We brought a laptop up from Mexico for some friends so we stopped in El Centro to ship the package and grab lunch. I wasn’t prepared for such a culture shock. It didn’t seem like I had been gone that long or maybe it was just being in California but I definitely felt out of place.

The same friends have an RV in the desert near Ocotillo Wells so we headed there to take a breather and hang out while my tire was replaced. By this point, I had driven approximately 350 miles on my spare. Totally fine, y’all. Our friends have a terrific fenced area for their very large dogs allowing Sherman to finally, literally, take a load off.

The RV park has a motocross track and it’s surrounded by trails. Lulu was predictably unimpressed by the off-road engines, but she was especially annoyed by a woman riding an old Honda two-stroke three-wheeler. The bf, who used to race motocross, thinks two-strokes sound like music but I only hear chainsaws on wheels. The track was deserted during the week so we used it to walk the dogs.

The next day, we drove both vehicles to Borrego Springs to fuel up and then dropped off my tire. We went to a coffee shop for lunch and Wi-Fi since there was no connection at the RV.

The coffee was good but not *that* good.

My Jeep died when we tried to leave and it made a weird electrical sound when I tried to restart it. I called the shop where we dropped the tire to see if they could send someone over but I was told they don’t do anything offsite. He gave me the number for a tow truck but that’s how people who haven’t lived in Mexico handle things.

Because the fence at the RV is short and the ground is soft, the dogs were with us when all of this was going down. There wasn’t anything in the truck that we could use to tow my Jeep back to the shop so we walked the dogs over to a NAPA and bought a tow strap. The way things had been going, I figured we would probably run into this type of situation again.

We stumbled on to a bank of chargers during our walk. All of them were out of service.

After completing the tow of shame back to the shop, we had to move a bunch of shit from the front seat of the truck into the backseat of the Jeep so there would be room for the dogs and me. We never imagined the Mighty Dodge would survive the trip, let alone save the day once again.

Wednesday morning, Aaron at the shop called to say he had to order a tire and it would arrive the next day. My alternator had failed (hence the electrical sound) so that also had to be ordered. We settled in and awaited his call to let us know it was ready.