Running from La Migra

...and other road trip tales.

Our trip to Juarez was successful, and I don't even have food poisoning yet. Good times! Steph, Joaquin, and I set out in the uber-fancy "Oldsmobile Intrigue" and drove ourselves to Las Cruces last night, listening to Dane Cook all the way. Well, I missed half a disc with a little back seat nap, but I got the jist. We arrived at the house of Steph's aunt and promptly went to dinner, ate a LOT of Mexican food, strolled around "Old Town Las Cruces" which is so old it literally SHUTS DOWN at 10 PM on a Friday...and then slept.

This morning I awoke with my nagging headache (probably from my head bouncing around in the backseat mid-nap) completely gone, and we set off for Old El Paso. Oh that silly border town where they think they make good salsa. We parked downtown and went...well, South. Where else do you go when you wanna go to Mexico? Avoiding the $12.50 trolley that we estimated would drive us a whole 300 feet, we crossed the border and were plunged into a land...a whole lot like the ABQ flea market. If I am ever in the market for a cheap pair of Nikes..I'm going to Juarez. Puma t-shirt? Juarez. Chile powder covered mango? Juarez. We scoped the place out for a few hours, bought some gorditas (not the Taco Bell kind) on the plaza, went to a mercado, and I had the most delicious coconut ice cream bar on the planet. I am going back just for that succulent homage to God's invention of the tropical nut. Mmm creamy white goodness.

Anyway, we hit the road about 3:00 and started back for the Burque. El Paso to Las Cruces is about 40 miles, and then a good 10 miles out of the city we FINALLY hit La Migra...the border patrol. There are probably several factors that caused this next turn of events, the main ones being...

1. I was driving, and the driver's side window is busted and therefore will not roll down. So Joaquin had to roll his down in the backseat and talk to the guard while I sat there looking shifty.
2. Joaquin is...well, not white.
3. We are all 20-something. 20-somethings do drugs.

So the guard asked us where we were, we told him Juarez. "Why did you go to Juarez? Were you partying?" Um...no. We just went there this morning. "So you were only there for three hours? Why did you even go?" Um...for the food and the culture and TO GET OUT OF THE STATE. "Get out of the car."

Oh fine. So we got out, and while the drug sniffing dog gave the Oldsmobile (such a drug dealer car) the sniff-over, another...this time more combatative...guard gave us the once over (thrice over?) and again...we really just went to Juarez for the food. And to buy Steph's mom a blanket. They realized we were ok when the dog got really bored sniffing our stuff, and they sent us on our merry way. My favorite moment of the trip? Turning to Steph in the front seat as I drove out of the station, saying, "Woo! Experience!" and giving her a high five. At which point we realized...THAT looked shifty. So I accelerated the heck on out of there before they could throw spikes out on the road because we looked like we had just pulled a fast one on La Migra.

Farther on down the road, we stopped at a gas station/A&W /Long John Silver's (I kid you not) in Belen. All of us were intrigued by the lobster bites, and while waiting for our crustacean nuggets, the nice employee guy looks at us and goes, "Are you from here?" We said not really, that we were from Albuquerque. He looks again and says, "Oh. You guys look like drifters. Like you've travelled." At which point Steph goes into detail about how they were living in Africa, and are moving to New York City, and we just got back from Mexico, and oh this one over here is a songwriter moving to Austin, and we've just done a month-long road trip to Seattle. This kid got the biggest eyes, and he told us about his aunt that writes plays in New York, and you could tell he wanted out of that A&W uniform right that second to travel the world.

We got our lobster bites and left, and I hope that kid does travel one day. I hope he gets some buddies and drives somewhere and stops at crappy gas stations and laughs so hard he can't steer straight. We also left wondering what made us look like drifters...the sunburn from Mexico? Our pant legs dirty from Juarez dust?

Maybe it was just the Oldsmobile Intrigue.