HDT DITCHED FOR MEXICO! Camping on the Beach. Mexico Border was different. RV Lifestyle. Fulltime RV

Great to see everyone back again. Hi. We're heading south. Yep. We are heading towards the border. Yep. And there's sort of a question for me. For you. Going to why Arizona? That's the question. Why Arizona? Why are we going to Arizona? Right. Exactly. But we're in Arizona. No. Why? Well, because we're going to why? Arizona is like right next to Mexico and that's where we're going is to Mexico. That's right. But that's exactly right. But why? We're heading to why? Well, because we have to queue up there. That's right. So people, we are going to why Arizona? That's in Arizona. Sorry. Who's on first? She wasn't playing around on that one. He confused me. He does that. A little stinker. From why we're going to launch. Yeah. Right into Mexico. Launch ourselves down into Mexico. That's right. Yeah. We've got a plan. Got a plan. We think we figured out a way to get across the border and not be noticed. Yes. Yeah. I don't remember this. Yeah. This is another check station for border patrol. It's like, hey, knock yourself out. You're welcome to go into Mexico. Yeah. Exactly. Oh my God. This is, oh my goodness. This is the warm-up. This is preparing us. Oh yeah. To go through the border crossing. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I sure hope I, um. Hope you locked everything down. I sure hope I did too. You know, why did the border patrol cross the road? Huh? You know, to get to the trunk on the other side. Expected it. Yeah. We're about 40 miles away from our stop for tonight. I remember us driving by this campground area and I remember thinking it was like a derelict old campground, run-down campground that was just closed up. That's what I remember about this place. Yes. Now that was just after COVID. Some places were still feeling COVID a little bit. Yeah. And you're sure this is open. So he's called and left several messages and no one's returned his messages. All right. So there's a blue service sign that has a tent. So that's a good sign. Really? Get it? Yeah. Yeah. It says open. That's another great sign. An open sign. Unlike Alaska. Alaska. Closed. What? The office is closed. Very much. So we just pull into really a site that we think will fit and and that's a good. He is not reversing the video. This is David backing down the road. Well now that we're in the site, David's going to reposition the rig and I'm just going to stand here and he's going to see if he can try and hit me. I'm his target. He's doing a pretty good job. You're entering the Y. Yes. Y Arizona? Yeah. So that's here. It's a gas station that we stopped at where David cleaned the windshield. We think we figured out a way to get across the border and not be noticed. Yes. So we'll we'll see if it works. We're going to try and be as incognito as possible. Okay. Well I think that's I think that looks pretty good. Well. Is it supposed to be level? No. See I guess you want the case at range. You want the water to like flow off of it. Exactly. It's not straight. And it kind of goes with the top of the smart car so it kind of looks like oh you know it sort of goes. You know my OCD-ness. This is driving me crazy. Not level. I'm gonna get some ratchet straps and strap them on each one and then the sleeping bags on top in the center. Cool. Go do it. Yeah. I think we're good. I'm getting cold. All right. Well I was a little worried that he couldn't get the stuff in the back of the car. Yeah and there's another bungee strap. A red one. That's kind of high vis. I'm gonna leave that in there. Wow that works out. Look at that. Look at that. Works out great. Isn't that just like almost perfect? Yeah. So then tomorrow morning we'll get all our stuff and put it in the back. Yes. Yep. Awesome. Good job. So this is a safe place. We feel really comfortable but we just don't want to tempt anybody. So we're going to actually put the bikes inside. So how are we going to do that? We'll just have to get them up through the front door. I think you need to evil-knievel that. I think you have enough space there. I am not evil-knieveling. And put the throttle on. Get your batteries on. Put the throttle and just shoot it up in there. Just don't touch my soda machine. Poor little pathfinder. Oh my goodness. Well you've got plenty of room in there. Actually yeah. I could pack so. Oh I had known this. I could pack some more stuff. There we go. And all of this hopefully it'll make it all the way down to Puerto Penasco. Hopefully. Did a great job. I've got it strapped yeah this way and this way and then this way and this way again. A lot of crisscrossing. A lot of crisscrossing. So it should work. Cool. Yeah right. Are we ready? I think so. Just about. Let's uh let's do it before pathfinder just tips over. Here we go. We're getting ready to head south. Yep. We're packed. All packed. Our bags are packed. We're ready to go. We're standing here outside our home. All right so yeah beautiful day and gosh we're gonna head south of the border. Hopefully they'll let us in. Hopefully we make it. Hopefully they don't think we're trying to move in you know. Just a few days. All right so let's hit it. Let's hit it. Yeah. We have officially started our trek south and I sure hope all that stuff I strapped down on the bike rack. I hope it holds. Well the good news is we can see it all in the rear view camera. Yes so anything shifts. Yeah. That's exactly right. I tell you this park is surprisingly nice. It's really nice. I mean you know I had my doubts but it's clean. It's quiet. Everyone is really nice here. Yeah. Both the office staff and the campers. And apparently it's a dark sky area so they get a lot of amateur astronomers here and what the manager called desert rats. People like coming out here living in the desert and finding all manner of desert critters. We're having nice weather today. Oh and it is just gorgeous and the flowers are in bloom and it's just green. It just it's really nice. So so pretty. It's amazing how alive the desert is. Yes. Yes it is. You just don't think about that. I just need some wildlife to go along with all the flowers. Yeah. So we're trying to get down to Mexico and Sandra loves to take pictures so we've stopped already a couple of times. We'll get down there today. It's not even noon yet so we still have a lot of daylight left. Here we go back from whence we came. Look at all these motorhomes are over to the left. Yeah. Oh sunglasses. Oh yeah. Oh yeah so it's the rear is on but. So they got a cone up so they're directing everyone to this left lane. Just like before. So it's kind of cool they have these markers where it shows the U.S. and Mexico. Oh yeah. And that reminds me when we saw that marker up in Alaska when we crossed over. Oh yeah yeah. We had between Canada and the U.S. International border that was pretty cool. I wonder if we're going to see your buddy with the machine gun. Man I don't know if we do he's going to be coming out of that building over there. Yes like he did before he came running out. Yeah so there's a couple of RVs right in front of us and it is taking a while for them to get through. I wonder if they are being inspected. Yeah well if they ask us for produce we have none but I do have a ham and cheese sandwich in here and some chips. Yeah well it wouldn't take them long. I have dried mango. Wouldn't take them long to inspect the smart car. Yeah just hope they don't ask you to start unbagging everything. Yeah really I've got it just so I don't know if I could get it back the same way. So that wait went away and now it just said enter so they are kind of monitoring it. So we have entered into Mexico but we have not actually officially entered yet. Now they're getting inspected big time. They are. Oh he says go over here. Okay we are. No one's chasing after us right? Well we totally made up for last time. Yeah okay. He just said move along. Didn't check our passports. Nothing. Nothing. So that was very anticlimactic. Thank goodness. Oh really. Redemption. Redemption. Okay they're just wanting to. No no we're good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No come on. No no no no no no no windshield wipers. No no no. Just go David. Thank you. Man these guys are aggressive. Man super aggressive. Okay so we did see on YouTube one time there was a couple that came down here and said watch for the speed limit and there are no speed limit signs. There are no stop signs so we have to. They said 40 kilometers per hour. Yes. And watch for stop signs. Get wrecked at the stay thirsty my friends. Puerto Penasco. Oh my goodness. So is that guy, is that like the wall drugs where we're gonna see uh see the billboards every mile? No kidding. Swimsuits. Swimwear. Oh this is funny. See all the swimwear now. He looks clean. Bag of snacks. Road trip. Oh this is cute. I'm still not sure of the speed limit right here so I'm still doing 25. There's nobody behind us so that's okay. Yeah. Oh there's a sign up here it says bien viaje. Safe travels. Good travels. Very nice. This is it. This is it from here to Puerto. Yes. 60 miles of nothing. Yes of desert. And there's a, oh this is interesting. So they've got an ambulance right next to the bien viaje. That's interesting. And a stop sign. A stop sign. Oh. Is she gonna talk to us? Nope. Nope. Just wanted us to stop and say hi. All right we are. We are off. Off but we're still on a 25 mile an hour speed limit. So we're not. Might take longer than what we planned. We're not off very fast. Roads are nice so far. Yeah. In Mexico this is pretty cool. All right. 80. 80. All right. So that's 50 miles an hour. This is pretty. 80 is like 55 I think. Well I just doubled 40 which was 25. No that's true. We are rolling now in the safety zone heading to Puerto Penasco at 58 miles to go to our destination. So we're going 50 miles an hour so a little less than an hour. Is that it? Surely not. Probably should have brought some allergy medicine. Some allergy medicine. We thought look at all this yellow. Oh my gosh it's crazy. Lots of it. All right so we're uh 38 miles from Puerto Penasco in our campground. And we decided to have a little lunch that way we uh stay on schedule and. And I'm not starving when we get there and have to hook up. That's right and you have headaches and stuff like that. Yeah there's no hooking up where we're at. But we've stopped at what they call a descanso. It's a rest area. This is pretty typical of what you see on this um I guess highway. Highway 8. Yeah which is the uh the safe route they call it. Safety zone. Yeah but pretty typical. So we're gonna have lunch here and no uh no toilets. No what do you mean? Pit or otherwise. So but uh nice area. Nice drive so far. Oh yeah the roads have been really good. It's been great. At the end of this 70 mile safety hassle-free corridor from Sonoyta down to Puerto Penasco or Rocky Point as it's called in English uh is a really it's a tourist area. Yeah. A lot of people come down for the winter and there's a campground down there that we're going to stay at and we've wanted to stay at. And two years ago we tried to get there. Yeah. But we want to stay there. So well obviously we're not in Voyager and Orion. No. So we're gonna go back to our roots a little bit and camp on the beach. But tent camping. Tent camping that's right. Now how close we get to the beach we're not sure. Depends on how many people are there. But uh we've yeah wanted to get down here and uh so this is really more just a little exploratory trip. Yeah. Kind of to unplug for a little bit. Mainly because there's no electricity there. No. No yeah we're gonna be yeah boondock backpacking tent camping. Definitely not quite roughing it. We have brought a few amenities with us. Yeah as we get closer we're about 20 18 miles out now. Uh it's definitely getting flatter. Yeah. Sandier. Yep. Desert desertier. A few mountains have popped up uh close by but. I think those are sand dunes up ahead. That's it. It's uh it's pretty flat. But we're yeah making our way getting uh excited. Uh I you know I can't wait to see what this campground is like in person. Just explore the area. Yeah. So we'll we'll see. We're supposed to have really really good weather. I mean like perfect camping weather. Yeah yeah. So. Should be nice and uh maybe even get some of those famous uh Puerto Penasco shrimp. Yeah. So we come through the construction industrial area where everything is for sale. Yeah. And it's like we go through an intersection and voila. It's like crossing the railroad tracks. Which side of the tracks do you live on? It's uh clean. It's a little more modern. Palm trees down the center of a median. That's pretty. Four lane road. That's nice. Sam's Club over there. Oh wow. That's pretty wild. That's wild. Paco fish. Stop. Yep. I mean you know what I mean. There's a stop sign. No there is a stop sign. But it's not super obvious. No it's not. It's um off to the side and on a regular telephone pole. Bright red. It's made out of wood. So not really reflective either. And uh just making sure there's not one on. Yeah. These intersections. It's like where's Waldo? Let's go find the stop sign. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something you got to be on the lookout for. Is uh these hidden stop signs. Okay. So here's one right here. Yeah. And they're not consistent. No this is actually on its own pole. Yes. With graffiti on it. But you can at least see it. At least you can see it. And it's the the same octagonal design. Watch out for a puppy. As in the U.S. Yes. A stop sign David. Yep. Yep. I see it. So why is there a stop sign and a green light? I don't know. Go. Yeah. Yeah. It's a stop sign. Yeah. So there was a stop light and a stop sign at the same intersection. Yeah. And then here's a stop sign. For the railroad tracks. Now I get that. Yeah. Because there's no lights or anything else for the train if it's coming. So it's up to you to look out for it. It's like a cobblestone road right here. Yeah. And a stop light and a stop sign again. But I'm stopping because I've got the red. It looks like everybody else does too. So he's got a stop sign. And. But his light is red as well. Yes. Hmm. So I'm not sure. Maybe both sides turn green and it's every man for himself. Okay. So he just turned. He just went. So we have a stop sign too. Yeah. All right. So I'm going to go because he's got. No one else is going. Yeah. Very interesting. You've got to be observant, flexible. Gotta be aware of your surroundings. Yeah. It's kind of a read between the lines sometimes. That is a deep pothole right there. Oh we'd bottom out. Oh we wouldn't come out of it for like a day. Until we get a bunch of people to help push us out. Really. So another stop sign here at the roundabout. Sunset RV Park. Watch out for the cobblestones. Yeah. So have you heard of this place? Sunset RV Park? Is that us? Yes. No that's not us. But I have heard of that. Okay. That isn't it is it? I hope not. Keep right to 3 Rock Hall. I think we go past that. Maybe that's another RV park. Because that looks packed. Oh my god. But and here's a lot of side-by-sides you can. Oh my goodness. Look at them all. Oh wow. And they're right next door to where we're going to be staying. That's some nice side-by-sides. Oh gee. Rats. What was this? Oh come down to the beach he says. Oh we're gonna just take it easy he said. Relax. Oh we're gonna unplug he says. We're not gonna do anything he says. Well you might need a side-by-side to get into our campground. That's pretty tall. Oh yeah. It looks a lot. It's a lot bigger than what it looks like in the pictures. Much bigger. Much taller. Okay and then the office is up there. Yes right here on the left. So all right. Watch out. We're gonna bottom out. We have arrived. Oh no side-by-sides permitted. Yeah and it's a gated. Oh gated community RV. Oh I'm liking this. I'm feeling pretty good about this. All right I'm gonna go check us in. That's right. Oh we're getting greeted. No room. No room for us. Where are you from? Uh from uh Texas. Really? Yeah. You're driving in Texas? Oh no no no. We uh we're up in Arizona. So we we just drove from Y. Yeah yeah no kidding. This would be too far from Texas. Way too far. So we want to I guess I come in to check in? Oh yes. Okay sounds good. I think we just got made fun of. Yes. We're too small to fit in. Lowered the gate and we show check-in. All right. Pulled in. We're gonna check in and see how close we can get to the water but we got a view of it. Really nice weather here. So we go inside? Yeah. All right. So the directions were a little iffy but we think this is okay for our spot because there's a second row and we're small so we're gonna put it right here. Got a great view of the ocean so let's get set up. We're all set up. Almost. Almost. We have one last thing to do. That's right. And hopefully they'll let us borrow some power to blow this thing up. If not we have our backpacking mattresses but this one would just be a lot nicer. Yes we're prepared to rough it but getting some free power for some air would be great. Yes. Okay we've got it aired up but now the fun will be taking it across the sandy campground and it's windy. Yeah 15 to 20 mile an hour winds. And this is kind of like a sail. Not kind of. Oh this should be interesting. See I'm helping too. I'm carrying the heavy stuff. You need some help? Well I'm your backup so if it blows it's gonna hit me. So I have a vested interest of you being able to carry this. I saw that. That's our spare bedroom. Don't mess it up. We may need that. It's our primary bedroom today. You're walking like a drunkard. We made it. Yes. Now if you can get it through the door. That's easy. This thing's massive this door. Ah just like home. All set up and you know before we do anything let's take a walk on the beach. I think so. I mean we're right here. So we're gonna take a little stroll. Water check. I have to do it. Oh okay. This is probably the warmest since Alaska. It's nice uh on a hot day. Oh yeah. Yeah not today because the wind's blowing. So once again Sandra's a little irritated. I didn't bring my camera. We were just gonna be a quick walk on the beach. Nothing to see. And you've got all those pelicans. Diving pelicans. Look at that. That's just incredible. And if we go back and get my camera they're gonna be gone. Short walk from the campground. One block. It was a long block. Yeah this was like a country block not a city block. This was a Las Vegas block. Really. We're gonna see if they're open and get some food for dinner. Yes we are in the car. I feel like we're at a drive-in movie theater watching the sunset. It's a nice show. It is. It was a little chilly outside for me so I came in the car and David was nice enough to come in and keep me company. But um really pretty sunset tonight. Yeah it's beautiful. Always uh neat seeing the sun uh dip over the set below the water. It is but we didn't see the green flash because there's some some clouds just right where the sun went down. Just like right there. So we didn't see it but this is so pretty because now I'm seeing the the glow the the silver lining around the clouds. Yeah. That's really pretty. First uh morning here at Puerto Penasco and went pretty good. It was a little breezy last night. Not bad and not as cold as I thought it was gonna be. So it was pretty good. Uh washroom's behind me so brushing my teeth and uh shaving and stuff. So uh nice and clean and uh yeah. So so far it was a good night and we're gonna start the next morning. Oh and it was a little uh chilly this morning being here right on the beach. So uh just wore the jacket uh pretty comfortable. So up here at the office uh place to sit down on some benches. There's some few power outlets if you need to charge stuff and the office behind me has wi-fi and connections to all different kinds of services. Scooters delivered uh portable I mean water potable water and a dump if you've got it. Of course we're in a tent so our dumping is in their restrooms and it's a fair haul from where we're at down by the the water. So behind me is uh where our tent is and it takes a few minutes to to get here. But it is gated and they watch who comes in and and who leaves. So uh it's really a nice safe area. So we thought we'd give you a little tour of our our beach house. Yeah that's right. Our beachfront view house. That's right so beautiful view. Oh yeah. Yeah and really nice weather. So let's let you check out the outside. So David put this rug down and we've got our solar lights and during the day we keep our chairs out here and in the evening um we have our living room right at the front door. So this is our living room our kitchen area dining room and David's office space right here. Plus uh eating. Eating and so we're doing uh we do all our cooking on here and we've got some food and stuff and our chai tea we boil our water and then with a little lamp here so it lights up the whole room and our master bedroom as you can see with our um the air mattress which is the same that we have at home so as we're just not totally doing without you know and um and then the walk-in closets here and here so and that's pretty much it that's pretty much it but we this is everything this is how you do smart car camping yes oh and the water we have running water oh that's right see we brought it all i think we just discovered the hub of puerto penas yeah it's not the casinos it's not restaurants yeah it's the fishing boat yeah so now we know where all our our shrimp comes from uh when we get our shrimp tacos in los agudones that's exactly right right here man i think we need to go back i think i saw a taco stand there that would be fresh that would yes very but that was uh very interesting man there was a lot of vendors there yes we have found old port and there's lots here so this is the first time i've actually seen a display of stickers in mexico that is true that's the first time for me i'm excited about this excited about stickers so if you remember a couple videos ago we're in los algodones trying to find stickers where sondra was well we discovered the correct name for them and the first store now that we drop into here in puerto penasco and sondra finds them lots of calcomanias yes that's what it is so old port is the tourist central area for puerto penasco down near the fishing boats there's a lot of vendors here a lot of restaurants a lot of everything this is no thank you this is where you come when you visit puerto penasco and especially if you want stickers down at the end of the the pier area the point look at all the pelicans and guess what no camera lots of pelicans but that's not the point of this i'm we're seeing a sign i have never seen before like this so we saw that and sondra asked me what is that sign is that like for someone like no ping and david says no i thought it was no fishing no it's it's the other one david thought that that other sign said no fishing so i thought this sign said no pooping but this is what the no fishing sign looks like all right if you haven't been able to tell sondra's got a thing for pelicans so walking around old port works up a thirst yes and when you're in mexico you got to get some fruit water today it's mango and that's how you do it south of the border this should be good nice lunch and a nice afternoon walking around old port puerto penasco back at our campsite here on the beach and sondra sees some pelicans so she's trying to get her pelican fix again another nice morning in puerto penasco so pretty cool breeze warm sun super duper duper low tide like no waves i mean the water's like glass out there yeah it's amazing beautiful so we're gonna go find some breakfast yeah and um take some pictures yeah and i just yeah and i i think that's it but you're just at a loss for words you're so excited i am the things sondra will do for the right picture so it's about 9 15 9 30 this morning we're back in old port and it has a decidedly different feel at 9 30 than it does at say one o'clock in the afternoon i really like mexico because they don't really wake up same time i wake up which is like late morning that's right so mexico is on sondra time that's right and she likes that all right so we're gonna take some pictures here in the morning and i think that is okay they're getting ready for some times this weekend yeah they bring the bull out on old port and that's no bull and that's no bull she's learning she's learning but gorgeous morning my goodness gracious the ocean is so calm out there wow really nice it is nice being down here in the morning it's uh very peaceful very quiet you can really hear the sounds of the harbor the pelicans seagulls boats yeah it's it's really neat the vendors getting ready for the start of the day it's uh very cool i think our friend our parking meter friend who helped us yesterday may help us try to score a certain kind of shirt which i don't need but they're really nice our view for breakfast this morning pretty nice yes nice way to start the day and sondra's getting her pelican fix there's no doubt but they're waiting on our food it's a nice uh nice place to wait yeah and we did something we normally never do and that's eat at the same place twice that's true we came here yesterday and the molcajeta was to die for i mean the sauce was absolutely incredible really so we we love chilaquiles in the morning time and the sauce is so important in chilaquiles but so we decided to come back here yeah and try it out because the sauce in the molcajeta was so good right so even though we're at the same place we're trying something different which is still okay instead of coca light i'm having mango juice that's right goodbye house with the view well actually we're taking the house with us that's true goodbye plot of land and there's been a few checkpoints but we just saw this billboard that was actually quite funny and you just you gotta love the mexican humor it was uh fat people are harder to kidnap stay safe my friends yeah and it was from this big bar back in uh puerto venasco we've made our what was it like a 60 mile trek yep usa so this is two to the right oh yeah okay that just goes along the board usa straight ahead yeah for stop signs oh man no kidding so this is not a four-way stop no it's not just go at your own risk yes so now here's a very obvious stop sign so that's nice yeah and this is great this one's fantastic it's the ones that they put up in the corners and behind the post and yeah that are just sort of not very conspicuous what well she tried getting ready to cross back home you ready no man's land and now voila we made it back in the usa we're back home went through um customs with no problem yep breezed right through except for little speed bumps and then we got stopped afterwards and they wanted to ask just uh we he just checked us out and we asked for any food any food we said our snack bags so he wanted to see it he wanted to see our snacks so apparently nothing interesting yeah not very exciting because he's like oh yeah here you go so but yeah heading well we've got one little pit stop first yep and then uh gonna be home and we're about like 25 miles from home so uh should be there in no time well this is really pretty we may need to stop take some pictures all right so we'll be there in some time yeah we'll be there before dark yeah nightfall so one of the pit stops that sondra wants to do is uh one of the well the first place where we cross the border is here at oregon pipe national monument we were here before a few years ago it was interesting visit but a beautiful area did some hikes and such so yeah so uh want to go and get a stamp and just kind of check out the air before we head home a visit isn't complete without sondra is that cool so we can keep track of where we've been yes planning i do all the tracking and the stickering um i don't know 17 miles to home doesn't necessarily mean anything what it depends on how many flowers and scenic sights sondra sees and wants to take a picture of there's still uh the sun's still up there a couple hours of daylight yeah so we'll get home eventually but it is pretty out here