Editor's note: We won't have internet access daily, but we are going to try to write daily and upload all the posts when we can. So the title of the posts will be the date they were written. Below is the post I wrote last night. -Matt
We’re sitting in a little hotel (~$30 US) in San Fernando, drinking beers and planning where we’re headed tomorrow. But the real story is what we did today. And in a nut shell, we did everything.
We woke up around 7:30 in Odem and hit the road pretty early. The plan was to cross the border fairl early in the morning. After a slight detour in Corpus Christi we drove the 2.5 hours south to Harlingen. On the way I called all my credit cards and banks to tell them I was leaving for the country. Some were easy… but for Capital One I had to spell out the name of every Central American country to the guy answering the phone in Bombay. N as in Nancy, I, C as in Cat, A as in Apple, R as in… it took forever. I also booked me a travel insurance policy since I failed at that task the day before by mentioning I had already left on the trip. And I managed translate the CRV’s title into Spanish.
In Harlingen, Janet dropped me off at the mall to go to the AT&T store so I could try to figure out the most complicated way to not pay too much for a phone this summer. The plan was to get a pay as you go phone, port my number to it, forward the calls to my skype number, and still have voicemail set up should anyone who has my resume get the notion to call me and offer me a job. The AT&T guy said he didn’t think I could port my number to a pay as you go phone but he did mention that I could get one of those phones for cheap from Walmart. The T-Mobile guy said I couldn’t port my number either.
Meanwhile, Janet had driven across the highway to the Pep Boys to get the oil changed, check out a weird noise the car was making (turned out to be nothing) and pick up some last minute car stuff. I walked over there, helped pick out the car stuff, and then we went to lunch at the Wendys. At Wendy’s I talked to AT&T and found out I could port the number to a Go Phone and Janet talked to Sanborn’s Insurance to book a policy to cover the car on our trip into Mexico. Sanborn’s is the leader in this type of insurance but is a real Mom & Pop organization and is run out of a hotel in Brownsville, the border town. Grandma Sanborn runs the phones and scolded Janet several times during the conversation.
Once we got the car back (around 12:45), we headed to Walmart to get me a phone and picked up some water and other supplies (including out third compass… the first leaked and the second lied to us). All that in hand we headed down to Brownsville to Kinkos, to print/make copies of important documents. While we drove, I set up the Go Phone and ported my number (around 2 PM). Kinkos was an absolute shitshow, which if you’ve ever been to Kinkos, you understand. While there Janet also called her credit card companies and filled out the forms for the insurance policy while I repacked the car (in the 95 degree heat) to fit all of our new supplies. All packed up we headed in circles to get to Sanborn’s to pick up the insurance company and drop off some trash. When we left Sanborn’s, we stopped by Bank of America and Chase to get some US cash. On the way I set up the Go Phone to forward my calls to my skype number. We then headed into downtown Brownsville to find the post office to mail off the toll that we missed in Houston yesterday. Meanwhile Janet talked to the American insurance company to set up auto pay. We were finally headed for the border and I was testing the Go Phone by logging into Skype on Janet’s iPhone and having Caroline call my number. Didn’t work. Then I tried calling my skype number directly. Didn’t work. So I called back AT&T to figure out how to set up the voicemail on the Go Phone. Then I set up the voicemail. Then I called AT&T back to take off the call forwarding. Tested it all out and it worked.
Janet drove us to the border. We drove through no problem (5:15 PM, just a little later than the morning crossing we had planned), parked, and Janet got out to get the car permit. She came back two minutes later because we needed to get tourist visas first. Somehow in those two minutes she lost her bank card. Searched the car, no dice. Asked the guy at the desk, no dice. Got our tourist permits from another window. Went and had copies made. Took the copies to the car permit window. Needed to get the tourist visas for longer in order to get the car permit. Went to the tourist visa window to get them extended. Went back and got new copies made. Got the car permit. Put the car permit on and headed out. Stopped to get some Pesos from the ATM. Janet found her bank card in the car. Kinda figured out how to drive on Mexican highways. They’re very different from the States. Got to San Fernando, found a hotel, ate some great tacos, cracked open some beers, and here we sit.
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