When we left Mexico last time we were chatting about turning in the Temporary Import Permit (TIP) on the travel trailer we use as Home while in San Carlos and, until we bought the house last year, had been living in during the summers.
We posited that nothing was going to change for the coming year so we decided that we would not cancel the TIP. Well that is not quite how things turned out. We ended up with a new plan for the coming year. It started with a news article that said that this coming year would be an El Niño year. Hmm, we said. Our last El Niño year was very difficult. We travel from place to place on the boat (Faith) using weather (WX) windows. Our general rule has become, "If it's not fun, do something else." When the WX windows are really short then moving becomes one way to be beaten up by big winds and/or seas driven by that incoming WX. Typically it takes two or three days to transit some of our longer passages along the Mexican coast. In 2009 we had water spouts in La Cruz. We had a storm one night in the Tenacatita anchorage (steady wind of 45 knots and gusts to 70 knots). The windows for going from one place to another were down to one day much of the time. While we managed that year it was still a bit nerve wracking from time to time.
This year we will be Land Yachting. So we thought we would sell the trailer and get a motor home for our travels. Then it hit us... we had not cancelled our TIP so we would not in the future be able to take a motor home in Mexico! We are allowed only one vehicle of that sort at a time. Sure, we do not think that Mexico has yet tied the system together so that thye would know that we had two open TIP's (three counting the boat) but why take the chance. Storing the trailer until next summer did not make much sense AND it would be nice to have the cash out of the trailer. So I packed up the trailer with a few clothes and headed south.
The drive down took 5 days and the last several stops I did not even unhook the trailer from the truck at night. I just plugged in and left as early as I could to make as many miles as possible each day. I avoided Los Angeles and was poised 100 miles north of the border the morning of the crossing. It took all day to scoot across to kilometer 21 to take care of the cancellation of the TIP. They actually had me check in through customs before I turned around to stop at the office for the cancellation. It took quite a while (about 2 hours) to get the clearance and then about 40 minutes to cross back into the U.S.A.!! My general idea on the return crossing is that they do things for maximum theater. The trailer was inspected in Mexico, then again at the border coming back... all taking longer than I would have preferred. As a result I returned to the RV park that I had left that morning just at sunset. Whew, what a long day.
Now the trailer is in storage in Chandler where my friend Steve is able to show it from inquiries from my Craigslist ad.
It took only two days to drive the 1500 or so miles back from Mexico once I dropped the trailer off. There is more to the story because I had apparently hit something (tree limb probably) and caused a problem with the roof, but that is a story for another day and another Steve.
