Another wet day in Mexico. We damn near drowned today. Bob promised it was going to dry out as we went over the pass. Bob is a liar.We were up over 8000 ft in elevation and it cooled down to 45F.
Just as we were heading into Geleana which was the destination for tonight only to find that the police had closed the road due to a bad accident.
There we are cold and wet and after waiting for an hour we took the muddy path that bypassed the accident and made it to the hotel a little muddier for the experience.
I think I'm going to detour to Phoenix on the way home and drown Don in the bathtub so he can feel that he was on the ride.
From Brian "El Jefe" Boles:
Well, this is not much of a dirt ride, but it is certainly the mother of all rain rides. Today, was a deluge basically all day long. Our plan was to take the dirt roads that run throughout the Sierra, but after many days of heavy rain, all of the locals warned us to stay away. There is one paved road that crosses across the Sierra and we took that. The road would be super fun to ride in the dry, but it was quite slick in the rain. The views would have been spectacular, but the clouds obscurred it.
Here's some pictures from what would have been our turn towards the dirt.
Some little puppies hanging around and freezing in the rain.
Tiendita in the small town.
The second opportunity to move to dirt, impassible.
Totally defeated by the rain, the decision is to head for the main highway MX57 and get to the next town on pavement. It's way out of the way and it's a freeway ride to make things more boring.
We stopped for lunch at a truck stop.
Dammit Don made another new friend. BTW, Dammit Don is not real popular with Mexico riders right now
So, we are about 5 miles from the destination hotel, cold, soaked like drowned rats. And there is a fatal traffic accident ahead that has shut down the road completely. There is a 1 mile dirt bypass around the accident however. But the dirt bypass is actually about 6" deep in gooey mud. It really doesn't look passible. The cars trying it are stuck. 4WD trucks are getting through. We retreat to a Pemex station to discuss our options. While we are standing there, Jim who has extensive riding experience in the NorthWet decides to go. He asks me if I want to try and I figure this is a good test of the lowered GS, so OK, let's go.
In the time we were at the Pemex, they pulled out the stuck cars and some more trucks had made it. We dived on in. Jim was much more used to this stuff and he made it through without too much excitement. I had a few moments, but "Praise the Lowered" I could get a boot down to stay vertical when I needed it. The mud was super thick, but if you stayed in the deepest rut, there was dry dirt under the mud that the tire could dig down to.
We were told to call the group if we made it, and report. They all decided to follow. Everyone made it OK except for Beto, the group leader.
Now you might think that someone would have been smart enough to take a picture or one of the guys carrying a GoPro would have turned it on, but no such luck. You will just have to take out word on how deep it was, or judge from these aftermath pix.
We are hoping that the rain will end, but the forecast is for an OK day tomorrow, followed by a bucketload more rain the rest of the trip. Crud.
All for now, Vatos.
