Mexico!

We left St. George on Christmas afternoon and drove to Phoenix.  We spent the night at a hotel there, then in the morning we met up with a caravan of families heading down to Puerto Penasco, Mexico for the Families Helping Families (FHF) home building project.

I'd been to Arizona before and seen the enormous Saguaro cacti, but I was amazed at how many there were when you continue to drive south from Phoenix.  We could see hundreds (thousands?) at a time - Saguaro forests covering the land on both sides of the road, and with mountains in the distance it was really an awesome sight.

Here's the border crossing into Mexico - you can see the metal wall on the right side.  Entering the country was quick and easy - we didn't even have to slow down, let alone stop and show passports or proof of identity or even write down our names.

And literally as soon as we entered Mexico, it was obvious by the state of the roads, signs, and buildings, the wild dogs, the beggars, and the street vendors that we were not in the United States anymore.

We continued our drive to Puerto Penasco, a small city on the Sea of Cortez.  The town itself is sad and rundown but there is a thriving tourism industry (it's the closest beach to Phoenix!) and the resorts were beautiful.  We checked in and took some time to check out the beach and heated pool.  It was too chilly for the elders in the family to get in the water, but the younger kids were all in.

After dinner, Ben went to the grocery store to get breakfast food for us while I stayed in the condo with the kids so they could shower and get ready for bed.  Ben came back with many Mexican delights, including a papaya, boxed milk, pan dulce, and these cereals.  Jack loves Nesquik chocolate milk mix, so he was really excited about the "mas chocolatoso" cereal.  And I cracked up at the name "Zucaritas," which means little sugars.

Our first real local meal was at a highly recommended shack called Pollos Lucas, and it was really delicious.  The kids loved the cats roaming around in the establishment and got a kick out of the soda bottles - there were no fountain drinks the whole time we were in Mexico.

Outside of the shack we ran into a man who was selling bracelets he'd made with different names in them and Luke wanted one with his name, but there wasn't one.  So the man whipped one up for him in a matter of minutes.

That evening we did some sightseeing and tried more local food, including elote and fresh-made churros with caramel and sweetened condensed milk.  This was at a place called... Churros y Elotes. And just down the street there was pizza!  P.S. The sunsets there were gorgeous.

And... more food... we tried papa asada (carne asada on a baked potato) at another highly recommended place called Tacos Brissas.  We did not eat a bad meal the whole time we were in Mexico, and thank goodness the kids were always able to get quesadillas if they weren't excited about the other options available for each meal.

On Tuesday afternoon the kids had a little more time in the pool before we got cleaned up for a fun fiesta FHF put on in the hotel.  There was more good food, a pinata, and lots of stereotypical white American dancing to songs like "YMCA" and "The Electric Slide."  Of course we had a blast.  After the fiesta someone in the group invited us to see their penthouse, and we were able to see Saturn (I think?) and a few of its moons using his big fancy telescope.

On our last day we made sure to go to Rodeo Drive to do some souvenir shopping.  I loved looking at all of the ceramics!

We left on Thursday morning to spend New Year's with family in Vegas.  Crossing the border back into the United States took longer than entering Mexico, but not by a lot.  A CBP agent checked our passports and we drove through a giant x-ray thing, then a few miles after we crossed into the US there was another checkpoint where they looked in the car briefly to see if we had any extra people with us.  There were signs posted saying not to bring produce into the US and we had some extra items that we'd bought at the grocery store in Mexico and were snacking on in the car, so we warned the kids that we might need to throw them away when we got to the border crossing.  When the CBP agent talked to us and looked at our passports, Jack was eating a carrot and he tried to hand it to the agent through the window but the agent laughed and said Jack could keep it.  I guess our few fruits and vegetables aren't a threat after all.

And... more Saguaro scenery heading north.  So cool.

I'll tell you all about the actual home building next time.