Today was a long day. After stopping to visit my uncle in Utopia Texas, we pushed 300 miles to McAllen, where we intend to cross the border into Mexico. 

While visiting my uncle, he helped us weld larger foot-plates onto our kickstands to prevent the bikes from falling over in loose ground. A little bit of welding and painting, and we each had upgraded stands which will make parking loose terrain worry-free.

We also had a couple of close calls today. Mike had a strap come loose on one of his saddle bags, which became wrapped around the rear axle. Fortunately, the stitching gave out on and the strap ripped off rather than winding his bag around the rear axle causing a crash. My close call, as embarassing as it may be, was dropping my bike on it's side in the hotel parking lot. I pushed the kickstand down with my foot, but apparently it was not fully extended. As I leaned the bike over to rest on the kickstand, I felt it CONTINUE ro lean, until it fell with a crash into the tail end of Mikes bike, thankfully causing no dan=mage to either bike.

We are waiting for additional documentation to be sent from home in order to temprarily import the bikes into Mexico. In a couple days we will be making our way down the Gulf of Mexico, marking the "offical" start of the trip.

That's all we have for now, other than our first laundry day, washing our clothes in the bathtub of the hotel room. I know, still not very exciting. I promise we will be back with more interesting news!!