The journey where I remember things too late. Mexico.

Up at 8 AM. I have packed and packed and organized since yesterday. I know that I have forgotten things. When there is just me to remember all of the things required for a beach weekend, well, that is absolutely dangerous!
Turner watches PBS while I shower and pack the car (seven trips back and forth). I remember to take out the trash and turn down the thermostat (which I forgot when we came to Kentucky). Forty minutes before we leave I ask Turner to put his shoes and socks on. He disappears upstairs. I remember to feed the fish. I remember to grab soda. I remember that Turner will need milk for cereal and bedtime, and I am so pumped that I remembered this very important luxury. After fifteen minutes I offer an encouragement up the stairs for Turner to hurry. I empty his cereal bowl. I remember my phone charger. I pack up my computer and am convinced I will get lots of work done while turner sleeps at night. Another fifteen minutes pass, and Turner still has made no sound from his room. I take the cooler to the car and drag the recylcing to the curb. I remember gloves and the sand pail, which reminds me of sunscreen. I traipse upstairs, and Turner meets me in the hallway barefoot. "Put your shoes on buddy. I'm leaving. Are you going?" He whines a bit. Retreats to his room. I go downstairs and fill up our water bottles. I remember the camera. I rush to it and hug it tightly, thankful that I remembered before we left. "Come on Turner. I will meet you in the car." It is an idle threat and he calls my bluff. "Right mom!" He still does not come down the stairs. "Just bring your shoes with you. You can put them on in the car." At 10:30 we are in the car and headed to the pharmacy. At 11 we arrive at Andy's work. At 12:30 we are finally back on Speedway and headed west to State Route 86 toward Why, Arizona (no kidding). Turner falls asleep. We couldn't find his real sunglasses (never fear, Andy has them) so he wears his purple ones. They fall around off his face when I hit a huge pothole. Gotta love those Arizonan Republicans who refuse to tax anyone to pay for roads.
I wind through the desert taking in quiet sunshine and lots of cacti. The road is filled with dips and turns and hills. I am amazed at the geography and only secretly second-guessing our direction (I am armed with an atlas. Mapquest wouldn't send me into Mexico). Half way through a Dixie Chicks song I remember the cooler. I forgot to buy ice for it. I spend quite a while wondering if the milk will go bad and trying to recall what else was put in the cooler that might not like the lack of ice (hamburgers to grill, pizza, salad, Caesar dressing, mac and cheese, yogurt, grown-up lunchables [my new favorite thing ever]).
I worry about when we will run out of American gas stations and decide to stop in the middle of the Tohono Nation to top off. Their credit card machine is OOO: Out of Order Ma'am. Cash. Geez. Did I get enough of that? I pump gas without my shoes on. Turner wakes up. He's been asleep about 35 minutes. I locate my Chaco's; we go inside; we potty; we discuss how looking at ice cream really does make you want it more; and then we return to our car. I want to insist he go back to sleep, but I know it will not do any good. I stay quiet and just hope for the best.
After another hour, I am certain we are going in the appropriate direction (I see a sign for Why, AZ) and I am equally certain that the very sleepy boy behind my seat is not going to sleep. We chat about the mountains and the change in sand and the volcano-looking rock that sprinkles the desert. I remember again that I don't have ice in the cooler, and I am fairly certain the gas station I just left would have been a perfect place to locate some ice. At least I have the million or more times that Turner asks me if we are at the beach yet to distract me from beating myself up for forgetting ice a second time. We eat peanut butter crackers, fruit snacks, rice cakes, left over chicken from Andy's work, and we drink all of our water. The wind gathers force inside the car and blows my hair into my face. Then, I remember that I never put shampoo in our bag, even though I told myself several times to not forget it. Then I remember other shower things I forgot like soap and a razor. Oh well.
We get to Gringo Pass. As is customary when entering Mexico, the armed personnel waves us in with a secret sign that says bring whatever you want because the Mexican government doesn't see you as a terroristic threat or an extraterrestrial. We stop off for car insurance ($28.00 and they did take plastic, thank goodness). Turner drags LaLa bear - naked - into the insurance office. A woman tries to make conversation with him in English. He is grumpy and, as is habit recently, he excuses himself from talking to her by proclaiming, "I didn't take my nap so I am grumpy and don't like to talk." When she ignores him and asks about the bear's name, he responds with a downtrodden voice, "La La Bear." His face is buried in her semi-matted fur. The lady laughs and slaps her hands together, "Oh. How cute." She turns to her partner. "He said it was La La Bear." With her accent, though, La La does not sound like La La. I'm sure Laura can do it for you. Turner was displeased with the inability of La La to translate correctly. He looks to the woman's eyes and says with great emphasis, "It is LA LA. Like my Laura except with just the first part." For emphasis he repeats La La again very slowly. "You know the letter 'L', right?" The lady, thankfully, is not offended by his gregariousness.
We return to our car and drive for another hour. During this time we see the road stretch before us as straight as an arrow and smoother than any Arizona road I've driven before. The speed limit is 90KM, which suits me just fine. There are signs for things I can't understand and with each passing wildlife diamond (each one picturing a different type of animal) I think that I should start counting them. Turner agrees. So, each time we pass a wildlife sign we guess the kind of animal it is (yes, I do mean we guessed at them because animals are not my area of expertise). I am hopelessly wrong I am sure but every kid deserves a parent who is clueless about things he knows lots about. He teaches me. Telling me stories that I think originate in a Land Before Time movie. I laugh a lot and wonder if copyright infringement is really such a big deal. I remember again I did not get ice at the border as I had planned to do in my mind.
We near Puerto Penasco and sand dunes replace the mountains. The road gets bumpy and Turner yells a few times, "Whoa Mom" as though he's stopping a horse. I have rough directions from Troy - the guy who owns our Casita. These directions are: "Cross the border. Go straight until you get to Puerto Penasco. Our house is the big yellow one on your left. We are two blocks from Manny's." When I hear him offer these directions over the phone yesterday I think, "Boy, this must be a small beach town. Awesome." Somehow the road we are on (RR 8) becomes sprinkled with signs for multiple venues and hotels and RV parks for the city, I am less convinced of the ease implied in Troy's directions.
We come to a sign that points us in three different directions for Puerto Penasco. I choose the middle path - the middle is always the best and, in this case, it turned out to be the luckiest choice. We drive and drive, and I read and read (granted, everything is in Spanish so I am trying to navigate toward a road name that I have no geographic understanding of). In the midst of this Turner screams so loudly I slam on the brakes. I am caught in the middle of the intersection having just ran a red light, which was red for some time given the amount of cars also in the middle of the intersection. In my defense, it was a weird intersection where one road is not meeting the other perpendicularly but instead at an angle. Plus, I am an English major. I know how to say yes in Spanish and count. That is my failure, of course, but seriously where is that yellow house?
I wave to the hostile people in three different cars who prevented an accident, and Turner and mosey on. We drive around and end up in a shopping district that lines the shore. It is a one way route and somehow we take that path twice before I figure out how to get on a road going north. I figure I can retrace my path and maybe find the yellow house. We never see Benito Jaurez again (the road we came in on). Turner is in the back seat reminding me every four or five seconds, "Nope. That one isn't yellow either Mom." I asked for it though.
We wind through streets that are not streets. We see homes that do not look like homes. We must stop for dogs about thirty times while they limp around the dirt road seeking something I cannot provide from the security of my Honda. We've been in the "quaint beach city" for nearly an hour. I pull to the side of the road, some road, any road, whatever road, and I try to call Troy. I get the machine. Insert curse word here. Two young men drive up behind me on ATVs. I realize then that I am parked at a stop sign. I get out of my car and ask the gentlemen if they can point me to Manny's Bar (Troy said it was two blocks from the yellow house). At the very least we can get to Manny's and walk around to find our Casita. The young men oblige my request and in only a few moments we are facing the ocean again, several blocks east of the shops we saw earlier. I take a left up the hill away from the ocean and we weave around the streets until I see La Palapa painted in elaborate detail on an orange wall. I exhale a huge, HUGE, sigh of relief. "I think we are here buddy." "Mom, this does not look like a yellow house to me. It looks very orange." I agree. We walk around the block wall and search for the way in. I cannot find it. There is a large gate but I am unsure how to open it. Troy had said on the phone yesterday to "just drive into the courtyard. Don't worry. I'll see you." Somehow, nothing had been as easy as he predicted. I call him again. He answers. He emerges from a yellow house (that faces the other street; one we can't DRIVE on, just one you can walk on).
Troy is very friendly and opens up our Casita for us. It is beautiful and clean and exactly as I had hoped. I am reminded again what a bargain this place is and am already sure we must return soon. Turner runs wild in the open yard while I load all our stuff in. There is an outdoor bar with a gas grill in case, according to Troy, Turner and I want to entertain. Also, there is a covered area with a table big enough for twenty people. I can imagine a fun time here with our friends cooking and enjoying the beach life. There are like six or so Casitas and then condos that look down into the courtyard. Not sure if the condos are Troy's or not.
I locate another snack, Ira Shor's book on teaching (blah), and Turner's swim trunks. When we stop by the car to retrieve his bucket I am reminded that we don't have a shovel, so I start digging in our stuff to find make-shift sand toys. Turner insists upon wearing his goggles and more than one Mexican pointed at us as we walked down the sandy path/road/excess building material storage area to arrive at the beach beside Manny's. The beach is lovely (except for dog poop) and shelly and rocky. I've never seen the Pacific ocean, and I sit in silence with Turner for much longer than I ever thought he would.
When he is up, though, he gets busy fast and throws shells for a long while. He spent much of the night Friday asking if Ashley was coming too and telling me over and over he couldn't wait to get to Nashville and throw shells into the ocean. When we stopped for gas at the Reservation he cried for several minutes when I explained that LaLa was not going to be in the part of Mexico we were going to. I can understand his confusion. Isn't all of Mexico Laura-land now?
Turner throws shells into the water, each time stepping a bit closer to the waves. I am reading and watching as his swim trunks get a little more wet with each throw. Eventually, he is rather submerged since he keeps picking things up from the ocean floor to throw and with each bend to the water he plunks his bottom into saltwater. At one point, I am drawn to his action and watch him as he tempts himself with the waves. He wants to put his face in the water. I can tell. He bends at the hip and gets close several times only to scoop his hand in the water and giggle at me. When I nose myself into my book, making him feel more comfortable in his independence, he looks to the sun, glances my way, and then pushes his entire face into the water. He comes out with a big yell and a laugh of glee. Quickly the smile fades and he starts spitting salt from his mouth.

I steal him away just as the sun loses itself behind the vast ocean. Troy told us not to be home after dark, so I am rushing Turner up the hill toward our Casita. We cross the road and just as we make it to the middle, Turner's foot grabs something and he goes down. He wants to lay in the middle of the road, and I cannot pick him up. I use my most authentic mommy voice to soothe him while also admonishing him to get up out of the road. He hobbles to the side of the road and sits on a pink wall. Glass bottles sprinkle every inch of Mexico but, thankfully, Turner finds a clean spot to place his wet bottom. Once we get back to our Casita and I cook dinner, he forgets about the bandaid I promised him, which is a good thing considering I remembered the Neosporin and forgot the Band-Aids.