Last Friday, Danny turned in his tourist stamp for a Resident card as my spouse, so we are both legal residents of Mexico. For those that have been asking, does that mean we are “citizens” – no. We are still citizens of the United States and will remain so. The only difference in becoming a Mexican citizen would be to participate in their elections, which we do not want to do.
What have we been up to since we left Riverside, IL on January 13th? Well, the first 3 solid days were pretty much hell on wheels.
See those seats – horrible! See that floor space between the drivers and us? That is where we took turns sleeping, maybe 2 hours at a time – for 65 hours straight. A couple of snacks, a couple of dinner stops and potty breaks when needed – that was it. But, more importantly, we had the kindest and most conscientious crew. They took great care of us. We shared a lot of laughs in my broken Spanish, and they got us where we needed to be safe and sound. They promised that, and delivered in spades. We drove through 4 American states and 7 Mexican states, crossing the border in Roma, Texas at sunset January 14th. We arrived in Puerto Morelos just before sunrise on Friday, January 16th.
The first 24 hours here we experienced a type of exhaustion neither of us could even comprehend. Three days in that van was the culmination of months (years!) of stress and planning. Some of the most stressful things you can do in life are buy and sell a car, move to a new home, live out of suitcases, and retire from working. We did ALL of that in a matter of 2 months!! Now, add that the new home is in another country – and Stress becomes capitalized. Sleepless nights, exhausted days, crabbiness – you get the idea.
We happily got through it together. We have never felt so loved and supported by the people in our life as we have in the last couple of months. You will never know how grateful we are for all of you. Mark and Chris for putting us up (in their 5-star penthouse), Britny and the Honda Beast, the parties and happy hours in our honor, dinners with friends and family, coffee talks and everything in between. We are blessed beyond belief and your LOVE got us through and provided the support we needed to make the move easier.
We are now on the other side of it all and our first week+ has been nothing short of amazing. When we come up for air, we can’t wait to share it all with you!
P.S. In the meantime, I recorded my first YouTube video – check it out here!