I'm right in the middle of a huge road trip from Mexico City to St Paul, Minessota. It's about 3500 km by car and a country and a half to get there. Last summer I had the chance to cross the US from Tempe, Arizona to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. So I guess I'm in the 'Keourac' mood.
I'll skip the mexican part of the trip because for the last five years I've been doing the Mexico City-Monterrey trip three to four times a year and well... there was nothing new in it. Except for the new toll highway right before Monterrey which is quite cool. And honestly, there's nothing to write about Nuevo Laredo or Laredo. It's simply horrible.
Crossing the border was remarkably cool: no waiting queues, some shockingly kind border officers, and we even got the chance to experience crossing the border both on car and on feet: we needed some special permit for our french traveler but before we noticed we were crossing the Rio Bravo already. So we jumped out of the car right in the middle of the little bridge over the river and ran back to Mexico. We got our stamp and hasted back to that nowhere land over Rio Grande ('cause we were already on the US side of the bridge.). Crossing on car costs $24 MXN pesos, on foot we had to pay $3 USDLLS each.
Right on the "other side" we got to see quite a weird car pursuit: a white pickup ("coyote" style) was being chased by a border patrol. Yep. At strict 70mph. So it actually looked like the neverending chase, where te police car didn't get any closer but the pickup didn't get away. That was just the first of almost 50 all flavored police patrols (border, texas rangers, sheriffs, etc) over the first 40 miles. The highest police density across de midwest. This continued up to San Antonio, where I saw the largest, huge-est mall outlet I've ever seen. I felt a marked difference between tex-mex mexicans an me, since I find these supershoppingcomplexes disturbing.
Finally, we stopped at Austin just for the night. I must confess I was surprised to find a quite interesting downtown area, remarkably by night. I particularly liked the Frost Bank Tower and the Capitol, and the fact that it seems to be a very musical city.
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