After 4 months and 1 day of an extended and epic summer road trip, we are finally back home. The 1,000 mile drive from Dallas (400 to Laredo and 600 to San Juan del Río) went smoothly and without any problems. Praise God for that!
It’s hard to comprehend that we were in the USA for 1/3 of 2016. Here is how my Michelin tire 2016 wall calendar shows the amount of time (the stack on the left):
The drive from Dallas wears me out, but there are a few vistas that provide a reprieve from the monotony, like this one at a gas station south of Saltillo:
One of my personal goals is to remember to take advantage of how cheap flowers are in Mexico. This vase of lilies cost about $5.50 USD. I usually only spend about half that on flowers when I get them here, but I decided to splurge!
We arrived back just in time to be here for Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations (September 15 at midnight is “el grito” or the cry of independence from 1810; and September 16 is the official holiday). I noticed yesterday that there aren’t as many vendors downtown as there used to be (the government removed all the unlicensed vendors from the plazas a few weeks ago), but there is still one small area of Independence Day vendors doing a brisk business in all things “tri” (the three main colors of the national flag):
In the main plaza there is a temporary mural with an explanation of the main elements and personas of the celebration of Mexico’s independence and subsequent patriotic acts (by the way, that’s not some sort of superhero in the upper left; he was a youth named Juan Escutia and one of the so-called “Niños Héroes” or “Hero Children,” who according to accounts, in order to protect the flag from being captured in battle or surrender, wrapped the flag around himself and jumped to his death from atop the wall while defending the Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City when the “gringos” (Americans) invaded in 1847:
Knowing Your ABCDs 