Destination: Driving from near the border to south of Mexico City

Earlier in January, Mario and I looked over the calendar to see when he'd have long weekends. When we discovered that Constitution Day fell on the 1st of February, we decided to spend that weekend in Jojutla with Mario's family, celebrating Clara's birthday.

Our plan was to leave as soon as Mario got back from work on Friday evening, spend the night in San Luis Potosi (4 hours away) and drive the remaining 6+ hours on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else in Saltillo had the same idea and they were all driving down our street, keeping the traffic at a crawl.

"So what do you think about leaving at 2am?" Mario suggested.

"Wow--that's a terrible idea," I thought in my head. However, what came out my mouth was something more to the effect of, "hmm . . . what do you think?" Mario did plan on doing the entire 12-hour drive himself, so it really was his call, not mine.

After hemming and hawing for about a half hour (and Mario admitting that he was already a bit tired), we went to bed at 7pm. We woke up at about 1am and were on the road by 1:30.

I thought it was funny when we stopped for gas at 4am that Mario and the gas attendant wished each other good morning. It sure seemed like the middle of the night to me.

But it really wasn't that bad. As we were passing Queretaro, the sun was rising and it was as if we were starting over fresh with the new day, the mountains surrounding us, and the desert behind us.

We finally stopped for breakfast in Santiago Tianguistenco (Estado de Mexico) and enjoyed some excellent quesadillas, chilaquiles, and a liter of blackberry juice. I never knew that blackberries could be juiced. They can. And they're delicious.
[For anyone interested, this excellent juice bar can be found on the road from La Marquesa to Santiago Tianguistenco, very near Santiago, on the right side of the road with a very loud orange awning. If you pass the Freightliner factory, you've gone too far.]

It was totally worth the 24-hour round-trip drive, and Clara's crazy mamitis that followed, so that we could spend our weekend warming up in Jojutla with Mario's family. Maybe we'll do it again.

But not anytime soon.