Nogales, Mexico

When Chris found out that we only live about an hour and a half from the border, he insisted on heading down to Nogales to get some real Mexican food. I'm always up for an adventure in another country so we packed up a cooler full of water bottles, the stroller, our passports and headed south.

I brought Booker to Nogales a few years ago but with all the violence going on, things were pretty different this time around. I didn't see any other tourists the entire time and the streets were far less crowded.

Once we crossed the border, I didn't really take any pictures but here's what you're missing- lots of pharmacies, lots of dentistry's and loads of cheap touristy crap. We shopped around a little bit, bought some guitars, a batman cape and Chris bought a woolen pullover/poncho. Compared to Cairo, the shopkeepers were far less aggressive and offered me shots of tequila (get me drunk, buy more crap?)

My dad has a good buddy who works at the US Consulate in Nogales so we made arrangements to meet up and have lunch. I called him and tried to describe where we were and within a few minutes a big white Suburban pulled up. The State Department always uses the same white armored Suburbans to transport it's employees around. From Riyadh to Cairo to Nogales, I can always count on that. We headed over to a local dive and had some delicious burros.

The heat had zapped all of our energy so after lunch we were ready to head back home. The line to cross back into Arizona looked horribly long but it only took about 30 minutes to get through.

On the drive back, I stopped on the side of the road to get a picture of the border fence in the distance. I was climbing through the bushes trying to get to higher ground when I heard a rattlesnake. I took one shot and ran back to the car as fast as I could.