What a long day!! We left the truck stop and traveled all 2 lane, bumpy ,narrow, and sloooow roads. We went through the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range and it was a really beautiful drive but it was certainly no fun for me, the driver. I couldn't take my eyes off the road. Thank goodness nobody had any mechanical problems because there was essentially nowhere to pull over the whole day.
We got to the border later than expected, about 3PM. We all had to get our visas turned in and return our car permits. Unfortunately one of the caravaners had a problem with their car permit paperwork and it took them 45 minutes to clear Mexico, so we all waited. Then we crept in line at the US border checkpoint at least an hour. The agricultural inspectors alway board an RV to confiscate various fruit and meats that aren't allowed.
We finally got on the road about 5PM and headed to the edge of the Rio Grand Valley to a campground for the night first stopping at a grocery store where we dumped out our Mexican water and re-provisioned the cupboards.
By the time we got to the campground it was almost 7 and it had a security gate for which we had no code and nobody answered the after hours phone. Luckily an older gentlemen staying there saw us and came over and opened the gate. Finally we started fixing dinner about 8PM, a much too long day!
The good news is we were given so much misinformation about the campground when we made the reservation that when we complained to the management the next morning they (rightly so) did not charge us.
