My Mexican Adventure

YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDIN’ A VISA CARD!

There’s a card in my wallet that comes out many times a day, it has replaced cash and I use it for 99.9% of my purchases, so if I pull my wallet out chances I will be reaching for it.

My father in law had a dentist’s appointment last Saturday so “mi chica” and I drove him down there (truth be told she drove both ways). It only takes a little over three hours to get to Nogales from Phoenix and the last leg from Tucson to Nogales is actually an enjoyable drive. We got to Nogales and by that time we were pretty hungry, his appointment was at least and hour away so we decided to go eat first. We found a restaurant about a block away from the dentist so we stepped in, what a colorful place it was early so we were the only patrons there, bird cages of all colors decorated one of the walls, half spheres protruding from another wall, and every table was nicely set. I found a couple of skeletons lying by a wall and old furniture of the Mexican kind rested nicely against yet another wall. Luis Miguel was the background music and the food was actually not bad, I had “enmoladas con pollo” a little sweet but otherwise good.

It was time for my father in law’s appointment so we dropped him off and then “mi chica” and I went out for the next hour to do some haggling with the vendors and maybe actually buy something. Nogales if you never been there, is a charming small town visited by tourists but mostly by people going to see the doctor that cannot afford one here in the U.S. There’s a lot of traffic the buses and taxis come and go all day long. Their architecture is so different to ours and the diversity shows, one of their little buildings even reminded me of “The Caesar’s Palace in Vegas”, Ok maybe I’m exaggerating but hey it’s my story. Houses are built everywhere even on the hills, although I bet they didn’t pay a premium for the hill top spots, it looks more like a first come first served basis.

Many of you know by now that I'm a Mustang enthusiast, walking down the streets of Nogales I found a good example of how not to use a Mustang, I hope you agree with me.

It was hot so after about an hour of walking around we decided that the air conditioned office was where we needed to be, soon after we got there the doctor was done and after setting a new appointment we were ready to hit the road back to Phoenix.

When we crossed into Mexico there was a huge line of people trying to come back into the U.S., but we were lucky because when we crossed there was no line at all. First “mi chica” pulled her ID and told the immigration officer she was a U.S. citizen, he asked her why were we in Mexico and she pointed to my father in law’s face and just said “dentist”, my father in law with ID on hand also just walked in, I was the last of the three and I pulled out my wallet as I told the officer “I’m a U.S. citizen” and produced my ID. I had pulled my shades over my eyes so he could compare my face to the one in the picture but to my surprise he tells me “A Visa card, you have to be kidding me” yeap my inner mechanism automatically picked my bank card as the ID of choice, “mi chica” came to the rescue and told the officer “he can’t see without his glasses” so the officer tells me “well then at least pull the ones your wearing down, even though they are dark you may see better” I started laughing as I couldn’t believe I had done that, next I pulled my driver’s license and proceeded to cross, we all laugh for the next five minutes or so. Hey at least my Visa card had a picture on it!