Vacation Stories Part Tres

Well, we made it to Del Rio late Wednesday night, checked into the hotel, and....went to WalMart!!! Yeah, we did :) We got a blow-up mattress for Ian b/c the room only slept 4 (he ended up sleeping at the bride's house with my brother, the groom, that night). We stocked up on a few essentials (drinks and wine) and went to bed so we could get a good night's sleep.

Thursday we woke up early because we didn't know what time Mexico opened. Hahaha, seriously, we didn't know what time the shops opened :) The whole wedding party was not in town yet, but we told everyone who was already there that we were going to be leaving the hotel around 9-ish....come 10:30 we had a small crowd of friends and family and were still. at. the. hotel. (Our family has a running joke that if you need to be somewhere, you take whatever time that is and add 15 minutes per Herrick - let me just say there were a LOT of Herricks in this group!)

We headed down the road and less than 5 minutes later were at the border. We decided to only take one car into Mexico and everyone else took a "Border Taxi".




So there we are, a truck full of "gringos" headed INTO Mexico! Yes, they got a few looks :)

Once we got into Acuna, it was very pretty. We stayed on the main strip, it was very clean and the shopkeepers were very nice. I am in love with the architecture:


This is the main strip (where I assume the tourists mainly stay). We were told by several people not to go into Mexico after dark, so we only came in during the daytime. OMG it was hot - the ice cream vendors were a welcome sight after a while. Here's a shot of the main street - very quaint, yes?



Here's Molly on one of the many benches scattered throughout the sidewalks:

I think this is the restaurant we had lunch at. When I tell you it was a siesta I am not lying - we were there over 2 hours!!!

It was very nice inside, and right before our food was served this guy showed up:

That's my 9yo with her guitar we purchased for her right before lunch - he was very nice and even tuned it for her. We joked that the reason lunch took so long is that he was at home and the restaurant called and said "Hey, we've got customers - how soon can you get here?!?"

I should point out - when we got there, the street was empty. We went into one store, and when we came out, everyone had put out their "wares" for us:
And of course, you can't forget all the cheap meds (notice the Viagra - they advertised for it everywere!):

My (new!) sister-in-law says you go in to the pharmacy and tell them where it hurts and they give you meds - yikes!!! Oh, and there's a dentist or orthodontist every 1o feet - true story!!!

The store owners were very happy to see us - they thanked our Mexican American hosts several times for bringing us to visit.

Next post: More relatives come in to visit and how we stole some taxi driver's "juice".

Vacation Stories Part Uno, Part Dos, Part Tres, Part Quatro, and Part Cinco