And we’re off with a pretty smooth start.    Although Western Texas (like the rest of the United States) fell into the grip of a nasty winter storm, Katie’s plane did arrive in San Antonio on time on Friday.   The night before had been pretty wild – 19 degrees and an ice storm.   I stayed put in a truck stop in the RV and when I woke up in the  morning the bikes were covered in ice as were the rear view mirrors but we were ready to move on.   We picked up a couple of final things in San Antonio and headed for Laredo where we would cross the border at 7AM the next morning.

Things went so smoothly at the border that something clearly had to be wrong – and so – it was.   15 miles into Mexico we were turned around because we hadn’t gotten our tourist visas.   The blog where I learned all about how to apply for the vehicle permit with perfect details forgot to mention that we needed to get a tourist visa to travel more than 25 kilometers into mainland Mexico.   Happily the visa is available on the Mexican side of the border and we turned around, stopped a block before the border and got the visas with no problem.   We lost about 1.5 hours in the process but in the end it was really a minor hiccup.

Our first planned stop was in the San Luis Potosi state of Mexico where there is an abundance of rivers and natural springs.  I had discovered online pictures of gorgeous blue (almost unbelievably blue) lakes and waterfalls.   I had communicated with some people on tripadvisor.com and got the general scoop and some details.    I can’t say enough about Lago De La Media Luna.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.