The first of our emails to family and friends on our trek to Ushuaia from Omaha and the final part of a Tip to Tip ride. Sent 12/27/200112/27/2001 Hi all, Dale and I are in Tonala, Mexico. Tomorrow we plan to cross into Guatemala and spend the night in Esquintla. We lost Kevin when he stopped to take a picture of a magnificent double rainbow! We heard from hime by email but were not able to reconnect. Ride safely, Kevin, and enjoy!!!
Our first day,december 21, 2001, was cold and windy, but we made it to lower Oklahoma. Day two was also very windy, but the temp was getting milder. We stayed near Austin, TX. By now the weather was warm and we were averaging 450 miles per day.

We got through Nuevo Laredo with little trouble and rode hard to Saltillo.
Kevin had a piece of rubber in his float needle which caused his bike to run too rich at low speeds, but cleaned his carb the next morning.

We rode to Zacatecas, Aguascalient then on toward Leon and ran about 2 hours in the dark. This was Xmas eve and we were cold. Just when things looked bleak we came on a hotel that put us up and made us supper. The owner was a very nice old guy and treated us like family. He was a God send.

On Xmas day we rode to Mexico City but continued on to Puebla were we stayed at a Auto Hotel, that is a hotel that caters to lovers, and they were confused that we wanted to stay longer than hour. We negotiated for an overnight stay. They didnt even have clothes hangers, but the room was very clean and we slept well.

Last night we drove on to Oaxaca,MX and rode another hour to Mitla were we found a little hotel, the Zapotec. We were the only guests again and they probably never had american MOTO tourists before. Also, we lost Kevin about 45 miles north of Oaxaca.

We knew he was alright because the toll guy told us of another Moto rider a half an hour ahead of us. We just recieved an Email from him and hope to join up en route to Esquintla, Guatemala tomorrow.

Not one time have we been asked to show our papers and we have driven through at least a dozen military stops. They just werent interested in us!

The weather has been great, only rained twice for brief time. We got Dale's muffler welded along the road in central mexico at a 'soldidura' or welding shop.It had broken off from damage on our last ride to Guatemala. We also had to tape his windshield back together following a mishap at a ruta quota toll booth area.
By the end of tomorrow we will have completed one-fifth of our goal to Ushuaia. Frank, Dale and sometimes Kevin

PS Date believes that Kevin got lost on purpose because it was his turn to sleep on the floor if we couldnt get 3 camas (beds)