As the line moved along, Kelly and I got a good sense of how much Mexico and the U.S. are intertwined by their people. We hear about the Mexican workers who enter the U.S. illegally, often at considerable personal risk to themselves but driven by the dream of making a better life for their families with the money they can earn. This group showed us another aspect. Everyone here had the right papers, and some of them were professional people who had taken their skills to the U.S. I was struck, not for the first time, by how much our country has benefited from Mexicans.

Eventually we got back to our motorhome, proper papers in hand. The caravan was just pulling out. We were glad to hear that they were going to a coastal town rather than to the campground in Ciudad Victoria that was our goal. Kelly and I had some brunch in the parking lot and headed out ourselves.

We went toward Reynosa, watching for a left turn that our camping guidebook said should take us south. People were walking along the side of the road, taxis were darting everywhere, trucks were pulling out, buses were suddenly stopping for passengers. It was a bit much. I was navigator and I guided Kelly into a lane at an intersection under construction, then realized the lane was for oncoming traffic. Luckily none came – and as we would soon learn, Mexican drivers are far more accustomed than Americans to expecting the unexpected.

Trucks and buses tend to dominate Mexican highways.

[Next: reflections on driving in Mexico, as our trip gets started]