After we got our share of the beach scene we cut inland, Destination: Butterfly Kingdom.

If you haven’t guessed by now we are kind of nerds. Back home we had seen a few nature documentaries on the mass migration of the Monarch butterflies. Each year the Monarch butterflies begin a huge southward migration from as far north as Canada all the way south to Mexico. This incredible journey is over 4000 miles and spans generations of Monarchs to reach its completion every year. Millions of butterflies arrive in the Michoacán highland forests of  Mexico every year for the winter before turning around and heading back north for the summer. It just so happened we were here during the right months. We had to see it!

As we cut in from the coastline through the states of Jalisco we started encountering some wonderful mountain scenery and idealic farmland. Jalisco is known as the homeland of Tequila and agave farms abound. We also saw a few huge volcanoes.

Sugarcane farms

A nice “safe” load of sugarcane, Don’t get too close or you’ll get a sugarcane spear through the windshield, they were falling off left and right as the trucks bounced down the road.

One of our facebook fans informed me this is Sesame drying in the fields.

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Howdy again friends, Its been a while since our last post. Been busy criss-crossing Mexico. When we last left off we were in a beautiful port town on the Pacific Ocean called Mazatlan. Now I am posting from the opposite side of Mexico, sitting on the Gulf of Mexico down near the isthmus of Mexico. We have traveled over 2000 miles and had many great adventures along the way.

Leaving Mazatlan we cruised down the Pacific Coast for a while, we were enjoying the beach views and fresh mariscos (seafood). We saw a small beach town on the map by the name of San Blas. Drove on down the road to check it out.

The highway cut inland for a while and then curved back to the coast, when we approached the coastline this time the landscape had started to turn into marshland.

We reached San Blas, Mexico and drove right out to the beach, We got there about an hour before sunset, busted out some beers and enjoyed the view.

Another beautiful sunset… We found a little restaurant on the beach and sat down for dinner. The beachside palapa started to fill with acrid smoke, we looked around and noticed all the palapas were belching out this smoke. It smelled a lot like citronella, and within a few seconds we realized why. We were getting eaten ALIVE by no-seeums (tiny biting insects) The restaurants did all they could to quell the flood of fly’s but there was no hope. We inhaled our food and made a beeline to the truck. We discussed our options for camping that night and figured if we got out onto the beach into the breeze and setup our bug net we would be OK…

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My friends, It was getting to the point that we thought we would never actually make it into Mexico. Our journey across the U.S. of A was only supposed to last a month then we were supposed to cross the border to be in Mexico by early December. Well…Christmas came and went and we found ourselves in Big Bend National Park , South Texas. We could actually SEE Mexico across the Rio Grande but we were not yet in it! Oh well, you know how plans go.  No regrets! The gods may have wanted us to stay state-side with a seemingly never ending “TO-DO LIST” but our will is strong, we preserved and now we are sitting at a bar looking out over the Sea of Cortez in lovely Mazaltan, MX.

When we last left each other we had just arrived to our good friends and fellow PanAm travelers house “Ruined Adventures” in Ausin, TX. Brenton and I spent most of the week tearing into the truck in what seemed like a never ending battle of fixes while Lauren and Shannon ran all over town tracking down bits and bobs and widdling down our TO-DO list.

Swapping out the CV axle, luckily Brenton had a spare on hand. We almost dropped the truck on our heads a few times but managed to get it swapped out. Quite a pain in the arse!

Ruined Adventures have the best setup for overland preparation, Brenton and Shannon  live in a badass warehouse/loft with every tool imaginable to tackle any problems that you can throw at them. Brenton had an extra Hi-Lift too (Think a huge car-jack on crack, used for all kinds of things on the trail) here he is rigging up a mount on our rear swingout to place the unwieldy jack. Thanks to Ruined Adventures for really helping us out on our final prep for the trip.

They are hitting the road on January 29th and will be cruising Baja before shipping over to the mainland, You will definitely be seeing them in future blog posts. You can follow their adventures on their own blog at http://ruinedadventures.com

Thanks a lot guys! See you soon!

Our plan from Austin was to head south to Big Bend National Park, scope it out for a few days and then cross into Mexico at a border called Ojinaga. We hit the road, fixed up and ready for action!

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