San Carlos to Nogales, USA 9 Feb 2015

The drive to Nogales is a 7 hour drive so we would be crossing the US border about 3 PM. The MX roads were not much better and of course we still had those dam Tolls to pay. In MX terms, I'm sure their roads are considered as good but we Canadians don't expect to see potholes or broken pavement on our highways, hence the reason we complain.
One thing I forgot to mention was the vast acreages of corn grown in the area from Mazatlan to San Carlos. Also, the cities along the way have all the infastruction in place for handling the vast corn harvest. Sugar cane is another crop that is grown here but it seems like it is still harvested by hand as we did not see any combines in the fields.
Another point of interest is about vehicle insurance. When you enter MX you must have Mexican Insurance and you can not get your travel documents without it. Therefore your Cdn insurance ceases and in our case, 24 hours before we cross into MX we advise our insurance company  to cease our insurance. By the same token, we normally advise our insurance company, by email,  24 hours before we return to the US to activate our insurance and to confirm by email, that we do now have valid Insurance. However, it slipped our minds until we were 2 hours from the border so now we were in panic mode as we had no way to phone back to Medicine Hat.
As we drove into a small town I notice a sign on a hotel that read , Free WiFi so I thought they might let me use the Wifi to contact my insurance company. However, where do you park a 40 ft MH with a car in tow in a small town.  Luckily, the next Hotel we seen had enough room to get off the road, even though it was not a parking area. I  ask the clerk for their Free Wifi and she graciously accepted by handing me the user name and password. I then used my iPad to send a msg to our insurance company with the hope that they would answer back while we were having lunch. Then Carroll suggested that we try to phone our insurance an sure enough we got thru and the agent ask me the preverbal question as she reviewed our policy and advised me that I would be insured within 10 minutes. What a relief  because we can not enter the US without insurance.
Now we head for the border but we must stop to turn in our Temporary Import permits ( good for 6 Months ) which we got before entering MX. This tells the MX gov't that we have not left our vehicles in MX and if you do not turn  them in, you will have a very hard time returning to MX.  When I pulled up to the kiosk the only gate that was open said "Autos Only" so I stopped. Finally a security guard waved me thru but I debated because I did not think there was enough room. He assured be there was but he doesn't own the MH. I barely crept into the slot with meare inches to spare. I ask why he could not open the RV gate and he said the gov't did not have the money to hire more people. Anyway we got "that  " paper work done quite quickly as the clerk was  very efficient . Then we had to go to another office to turn in our "Visitors Visas" so they know that we have left MX. We also checked on the 400.00 deposit we had to pay for the car. Since we paid by Visa it will be credited back to our account. This ensures that we  also bring the car back. I'm not sure why it can't be done  when they check the MH but I assume it is a make work project.
Now for the US border. We have never crossed from MX to the US thru this border so we are not sure which line to enter. I did however, cross from the US into MX  at Nogales and I do know that MHs have to use the Truck line as the Auto line has a height restriction. When we were about to enter the US border gates my choice was Truck or Auto. I chose Truck. If you own an RV ; Never never  never enter the truck line at the US border. You immediately become " Americans Most Wanted ". This small mistake took 3 hours and 6 different Custom agents to clear us of this most " hernias " crime. However, the Custom Officers where very polite and I might add very busy with truck traffic. We did compound our own problem because we forgot to dispose of our meat and vegetable products before leaving MX.
Once we were cleared to enter the US "legally" we went to a Casino to park overnight as we intended to go to an RV park in Green Valley tomorrow. By the time we reached the casino I was way overdo for a drink!!!It was quite a day. cheers