Wash Out Or A River Runs Through It!

Oh, man, what a day!  It rained last evening and we thought it was over but we had another thought coming this morning - more rain!  

We pulled out about 8:30 am for a 174 mile drive and expected it to be just a 4 hour drive but it turned into a 7 hour drive because the rain changed all of that!  The first 1/3 of the trip was straight and narrow and dry.  The next third started out okay but just as we stopped for lunch at 11:30 the sky darkened and the rain started coming down - HARD!  This was the part of the trip where we crossed the mountains and then descended to the Sea of Cortez. So not only did John have to contend with the rain and a narrow road but also with steep winding roads going up.  

The worst part was after we descended out of the mountains because all the washes across the road were full of fast running, rain runoff which was full of rocks, sand and mud. The first few washes weren’t too bad but the lower we got the worse it became.  We were not far from Santa Rosalina when we came to a full stop at a raging river across the road.  A semi in front of us refused to cross the river and cars were backing up behind us and across the river was a school bus and more cars who couldn’t cross because of the semi.  Our Green Angel came to the rescue and directed the traffic through the water so that we could continue on our way.  It was rather harrowing to cross through that much water.  I just knew it was going to wash us into the sea but John kept a steady hand and foot and we made it across just fine as did everyone else.

The last third of the trip we dodged many rocks and boulders that had fallen onto the road, more rivers of water across the road, although none were as deep as the first one, and a few muddy slurries on the side of the road.  As we neared Mulege (pronounced Moo-la-hay) the sky cleared and the sun came out but that did not help our camping situation.  The campground was one big mud pit!  We are currently parked on a large parking lot next to a Pemex gas station with hopes of moving to the campground tomorrow if they can scrape out the mud covering the gravel sites. Oh yeah, we couldn’t buy gas because the electricity was out all over town.

The best way to deal with a tense and dangerous day it to have a margarita or two or three!  We had a very festive dinner in town with lots of drinks, live music, good food and dancing. Lucky for us the restaurant had a generator.