When I left NY I drove straight down to the DC area, it was semi-unimpressive. I stayed with my buddy Johnnie’s parents, great family friends. We didn’t really do much but I got to see Richmond on “war of northern aggression day”, that was funny and I got a couple free meals (always a plus, thank you to everyone who provided one). From there I took the 19 hour trek to West Palm Beach, at the time I thought it was the worst driving portion I would face, I was proven wrong…I hung out with my cousins, degenerate alcoholics and former drug dealers, and took care of the grandparents, they are a mess. I then left for Pensacola, FL to visit my friend Lee. I had forgotten how good of friends we are, he’s a Gunny now and runs one of the Marine school houses on base. We went to the MCB together, which was funny because of the new “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules, there were jokes. We pretty much just partied though and I gave him advice on how to get rid of his cunt wife whilst keeping his kids. His roommate has a mini-schnauzer named Adolf - I find that amusing. We went to Walmart one day and when we returned Shelby had escaped the room, broken Adolf out of his crate and was attempting to eat him. It was funny only because she was muzzled.
My next stop was supposed to be Houston to visit my friend Mike, he’s kind of a douche though so at the last minute I decided to skip it and drive straight through to Phoenix. This became the worst part of the trip. It took me like 3 days of driving, only stopping to sleep like an hour at a time, Texas is the most awful place on earth. Confirmed.
Once I got to PHX everything was chill, no more long drives to look forward to. Unfortunately Mike has become an old man, didn’t want to go out at all, although at least hes not fat anymore…and he got this cool ass off-road golf cart thing that goes like 90, we took that out in the desert and it was pretty fun. Thats what those Facebook pics are of, good day.
From there I went to Yuma to stay with my buddy Eric, his wife, and his crazy fucking kids. Yuma was cool, Eric is good with cars so we addressed some problems with the truck, one of them being its reluctance to start at times. We thought we fixed that and went on our merry way to the bars. I also took Shelby out camping for a week in the desert to get her ready for Mexico. During this entire period I was waiting for a new passport, mine had been lost in the mail or something when I sent it to be renewed and have visa pages added. I found out it is possible to get temp. documentation to enter Mexico and my plan was to just have the real deal sent to me when I was settled. I got Shelby all checked out and set up with her permission to enter the country and I went on my way.
As I was driving to the border my car stalled twice. It started right up afterwards so I wasn’t that worried, decided to cross anyway. Keep in mind my car is completely illegal to have on the road. Recently American border patrol has begun searching vehicles before they enter Mexico to stem the flow of weapons south. At all the crossings now you pass through a tollbooth-like American checkpoint, then 20 yards later you cross the Mexican version. My car broke down in the no-mans-land between the 2 borders. FML. FML. So I sat there trying to get it started for like 20 mins, no dice. A woman border patrol agent asked me if I needed any help, I said no and tried to start it for another 30 mins. I was trying to push start it (Eric taught me how) by pushing it to the American side, getting it going the other way, jumping in and going towards the Mexican side while frantically trying to pop the clutch. All of this was happening with busy traffic passing me on either side. I must have looked quite silly. The border patrol girl then comes and tries to help me for the next half hour, she was pushing, I was driving, again hilarious. Finally some guy came up and said I could just push it across the border, people do it all the time, and I got 2 Mexican kids to do it for 3 bucks. Of course once I crossed they did a full inspection on my truck. Luckily the guy spoke no English and didn’t figure out my car was unregistered. They let me go and I got a dude from the garage to tow me there in his mid-90’s Pontiac Grand Am, it was awesome. I slept in the car, got it fixed the next day, and headed south.
Puerto Penasco is the next city so I decided to stop there. I was also low on funds because of paying for my breakdown so I decided to stay a week until I was paid again. I’m staying on the beach, which is beautiful and I met a couple of interesting people. The first group I met were a husband and wife from Tucson. They were kindof weird, but nice enough so I had a few beers with them and called it a night. Turns out the guy was a master mechanic that used to have the same truck as me so he checked it all out the next day and we had a bonfire that night. We got a bit sauced and I went down to check on Shelby at my spot, I was taking a piss and his wife came frantically running down saying that the dude hurt himself and she couldn’t look. I ran back to their spot and he had almost cut his toe off while chopping wood, barefoot, with a hatchet. It was cut straight through from the tip to the knuckle, right next to the nail, and was hanging on by a thread. So much blood. I got it wrapped up and she took him to the ER while I watched the fire and their dogs. He got a bunch of stitches and left the next day.
That day I took Shelb for a long walk and noticed a motorhome with NH plates on it. When I came back the dude was out front and I had the pleasure of meeting Butch Consentine. Butch is a character who definitely deserves the sweet ass name that he has. He began by telling me that he used to be a green beret and trained everyone in the eighties in cold weather survival, I took it all with a grain of salt. That evening he stopped by my camp and asked me if I wanted to go with him to the bar for dinner, his treat, being broke I jumped at the chance. He proceeded to tell me all of these ridiculous stories: he runs a pot farm in Maine, he has climbed Everest, and all kinds of other wacky shit. Again, I took it all with a grain of salt and went back to go to sleep. When he came back he invited me to his RV for beers and busted out his camera. He had pictures of himself doing all of the crazy shit he said so he gained my respect. I chilled with him for the next few days, it was fun. I’ll tell you more about Butch some other time.
So by this time I had gotten paid and was ready to head south. So I did, sans passport, illegal car and all. The moment I crossed outside the city I hit a military checkpoint, I had been through like 3 already so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I was wrong. They stopped me and asked me for my passport and driving papers, didn’t have either, I was immediately cuffed. Fucking awesome. So I guess in Mexico you can travel as far as Puerto Penasco without that shit, if you go any farther south you are illegally in the country which is punishable by a minimum of 2 years in jail plus they take all your stuff. Fucking awesome. Luckily I had some American money and got out of it with a 40 dollar bribe.
I then headed back north to Yuma to take care of all that shit. Eric had my passport, so I just had to get the driving papers, which is semi-easy. All i needed for the papers was a valid passport with a visa, my valid registration, a drivers license, and cash. So of course I made a beautiful forgery of a registration and went back to the border. Eric said “dude your forgery looks better than the real thing”. I was confident. So I went to the border and didn’t have any problem getting all the shit I needed and came back to Puerto Penasco. Upon arrival I realized that I left my ATM card at the border. Fucking awesome. So I wired a bunch of money to JJ and he western unioned it to me, I’m about to go pick it up right now, then head south in the morning.
