A few months ago (now) I was sent to Nogales for work. I've never been this far south to the border so I was expecting an experience. One much different than the one we got... But all in all it was an experience.
First flight was cancelled at about 10pm the night before we were supposed to leave.
Flight rescheduled for 5pm following day.
Got to the airport only to find that our flight had been delayed by 30 min -- not too bad.
*This was all going on during the American Airlines Pilot Strike*
Then it was delayed another 30 min...
And another...
And another...
And we finally boarded around 7:20pm.
Made it to Dallas in time to catch our other delayed flight which ended up putting us into Tuscon around 1:30 am. Their time.
Then we had a 1.5 hour drive to our final destination -- Nogales, AZ.
When we got in, we had no idea what we were in for...
My partner in crime for the week -- Marie -- slept with Jiminy Cricket in her room all night long. We really had no options at that point because no maintenance people were available and it was so late. We thought maybe it was because we were on the 1st level until we saw the entire hotel in the light the next day.
This was our view at breakfast. Actually not too bad -- and the food was pretty good. It seemed like a deserted resort because we were always the only ones in there or around.
Then it was of to the port...
Here's a view from our office...
I mean, the cashier's office by the truck booths.
See that brown line on the horizon... that's part of the fence from afar. It looks like you could push it over.
Look at that sky though... It was the most beautiful thing about Nogales...
That and the mountains.
This might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.
Not sure why I found this sign so comical, but I had to get a picture of it.
We had to drive through the checkpoint to go down and back up to a building so we kinda went to Mexico?!? Not really b/c we turned back...
Probably a good thing.
That night we were so exhausted that we couldn't wait to get back and go to sleep... or so we thought.
Jiminy had made his way into my room....
No, wait...
My bed... and not only in my bed, but in between my sheets!
I had not peeled back every layer as I now know to do... EVERY SINGLE LAYER...
So I was watching SYTYCD (I think it was what was on) and I had decided to finally turn it down way low -- keep it on since my room had doors to the outside at the patio and the entry -- and I kept hearing this rustling. At first I thought it was me moving and trying to get comfortable, but when I was completely still and still hearing it, that was it..
I hopped up and sure enough, here came Jiminy crawling out of my sheets... and then just resting nicely on my pillow until he decided to start hopping all over the place! I called the front desk immediately and asked for someone to come remove it. They sent the maintenance guy who came to capture it and then sprayed my room with bug stuff which he so nicely let me know was "No Toxic... No toxic." I think that was all he could say... I think.
We survived... one more day we were thinking... we got all but one done on the first day so the second day, we finished that one quickly and even assessed another area that needed to be fixed. Then we were headed home... we hoped.
When we went to the downtown office, we were right on the cusp of Mexico. Literally. It was on the other side of the fence. And can we just talk about the fence?!? I had never seen it before except for on TV and I was expecting something much more intimidating... I mean seriously?!?
Once we were done -- a day early... THANK GOD! -- We headed back to Tuscon to stay in a real hotel for the night... Hyatt Place, I love you. I mean it, I really do! A real shower, a real bed...
Ahhh...
It's the little things, right?!
We were just driving back and got to see what we missed the first night in.
These cacti were ALL over the sides of the highway... and HUGE.
They reminded me of the GINORMOUS ones we saw when we were in Aruba.
The mountain ranges were very pretty... it's kind of a shame we didn't have more time to sight see.
But seriously, we were ready to go...
And once we got back to Tuscon, we found out that Challenger was going to be flying right over...
For Mark and Gabrielle Gifford to see.
And they did, but not by the airport so I didn't get to see it. Oh well. That would have just been one more thing to add to my list of crazy sights while out on this work travel stuff!
When we turned the rental car in, we were asked where we stayed... Rio Rico we told them.
The rental car guy was very intrigued...
Apparently The Hangover III was being filmed there a few weeks prior.
I am anxious to see this movie now as I feel that my hotel stay resembled the places they visited/stayed/woke up in on The Hangover II.
It would not surprise me if they stayed at our "resort."
Then at the airport, I bought myself a little cactus... so I could always remember this experience.
It now sits on my ledge in the kitchen.
And we saw these edible crickets in Dallas while were waiting on our connecting...which made us laugh even though I know they are a real delicacy in Mexico... they are not on my bucket list! Especially after our encounters with their cousin, Jim.
Glad this trip finally came to an end. The only flight home was starting at like 3pm so we didn't get back into town until about 1:30am (again), but we didn't care at that point... home was home. We did what we needed to do and we were OK with it!
