I Spy with my Little Eyes........Nogales Mexico?

Next month will mark our third anniversary on the road, each of these years we spent time in Arizona during the winter months and each of these years we have made day trips into Mexico. The last two years we crossed the border in Yuma into Los Algodones Mexico.  We found this little city easy to navigate with many little shop and catered to the dental, vision and pharmaceutical needs of the tourist visiting the town. Each time we visited we would hit the Purple Store for our prescription and liquor purchases as well as wandered the streets in search of treasures we just could not live without.

This year we decided to switch it up a little bit and enter Mexico through Nogales Arizona into Nogales Mexico. Just a short 12 hour drive from Tucson….wait it just seemed like 12 hours. When is the last time you spent an hour in the truck with a 5 year old playing a never ending game of  “ I spy with my little eyes”? Actually it is about an hour south of Tucson on I-19. We parked in one of the many secure parking areas charging $4-5 for the day and walked across the border.

Getting ready to walk in!

I spy Lily and Somer wearing sombreros!

Although they still had some dental and vision shops there were not nearly as many as Los Algodones. There was quite a few pharmacies but they were all pretty small, nothing like the Purple Store. Nogales is much less touristy and more like what we would classify as old Mexico.

There were still shops up and down the streets but they did not seem as clean or kept up as Los Algodones and their wares were not as appealing. One thing I will say is that the vendors seemed friendlier and genuinely appreciated you being there.

There did not seem to be a “tourist district” like we were accustomed to so we wandered the streets more dazed and confused but eventually did find a pharmacy where we bought everything we were looking for. On this trip we bought (4) Z-packs, (2) bottles of 800mg Ibuprofen and (2) bottles of Benadryl for just under $30.

Outside one of the many pharmacies

We never did find a liquor store but Forrest and I were both approached by two different guys who asked us what we were looking for and that they could get us anything we wanted…. “legal, illegal I get it for you”. I am not really sure what that meant but we passed.

We had lunch at La Roca, a great local restaurant which I would highly recommend. They had great food (which says a lot considering I am not a huge fan of Mexican food) and a really cool atmosphere.

The menu

Getting Serenaded

The line to get out was about 2 hours but once we got up to the customs station they passed us right through. We were a little skeptical having Lily along but after showing her birth certificate and asking Lily a couple of questions we were good to go. I am glad we went to experience it but now that we have been there, I cannot say we would go back, it just did not offer the what we were looking for and had a different vibe compared to Los Algodones.  

Line back into the U.S.

Vehicle traffic waiting to get back in

"The Wall"

That night for dinner Forrest and Somer made us “campfire pizza”. They hand made the pizza and cooked it over the glowing embers of a fire.  This was our first experience with this delicacy and it was really good!

Campfire Pizza!

We have also been working on a couple of projects around the rigs. One day we installed cables on the ramp of Forrest and Somer’s toy hauler to create a patio. It was a little intimidating drilling that first hole into their new rig but it worked out great!

Getting ready to drill into the ramp!

Finished!

And we are continuing to work with Dakota every day. We have been working on hand signals for retrieving and working on her gun shyness. The Tucson Skeet and Trap club is only 3 miles from us so we have been taking her down there getting her used to gun shots. When we first started we went down there and played with her at the very edges of the range; throwing the retrieving dummy, walking or just sitting and relaxing. She was a little nervous her first time but pretty much ignored the gunshots after a few minutes.

Walking by one of the skeet stations

We have been going down there almost every day slowly working our way closer and closer to the shooting. We push her a little more each time and she lets us know when she is too nervous. After 10 days of this we are within 75 yards of the shooters and she just ignores them. Our hope is that we will be able to be within 20 yards by the time we leave here in a few weeks.

Our biggest surprise of the week came Saturday when we got a message from our nephew David who said he was going to be in Tucson for the day and wanted to get together. David is an over the road trucker who we have not seen in about 10 years. As a matter of fact we had a hard time pinpointing the last time we got together.

David and his rig

Very cool dash

and sleeper

We spent about 3 hours catching up on each others lives, families, brothers, sisters and cousins. It was great seeing him and vowed not to let another 10 years pass before we got together again!

Tomorrow we get to FINALLY meet long time blogger friends John and Pam! As John would say…..more on that later….