Algodones, Mexico

A little over 10 hours and we are back at home in the RV and one Schnauzer was sure glad to see us. Our alarm clock is broken, it displays the time but the alarm won't work so I used my cellphone and let me tell you, at 4am when that blasted thing rang, we were not ready to get up. We were on the road by 6am and walking into the dentist office in Mexico around 8:30.

My dentist in Montana had told me I needed two crowns and quoted a price of $1800 for the two crowns. This dentist in Algodones quoted me a price of $340 for two crowns. After some drilling he broke the news to me that I probably needed a root canal (something the MT dentist had told me might happen) and off I went to the root canal specialist, a woman who also got me right in. The root canal dentist had a gorgeous state of the art office with digital x-rays, something my MT dentist just had installed. Two and a half exhausting hours later I was dentisted out!!!

We headed to the pharmacy to pick up some medications--we did find out the legal scoop about bringing medications into the US--you can bring non-controlled (pain pills, etc.) medications across the border without a prescription.

The line to walk back across the border was incredible. The Mexico people have done their best to make it easier--there is a covered walkway so you are not standing in the sun and there are benches along the walkway allowing you to sit occasionally. There are water and soda vendors along the way, too. It was 91 degrees this afternoon and we stood in line 2 hours.

The US has not made it easier to cross the border, several of us in line discussed whether or not the US was making the process so difficult in order to punish we citizens for having the audacity to obtain our dental work, eyeglasses and prescription drugs in a country that isn't trying to continually rip their citizens off. I have ranted on this blog before about the state of our US health care and the mess it is in was extremely obvious today--older people, much older than Michael and I, walking with canes and walkers, oxygen tanks in tow coming into Mexico so they can afford health care.

There were three border agents screening the thousands of people trying to get back into the US on a daily basis. We had no problem, the agent asked me if I had anything to declare and I said, "medications for personal use." She glanced into my bag and sent me on my way.

We chose this RV park for its quietness, most of the parks in Yuma are either on the freeway or the railroad track but it is just too far from the border crossing. I have two more dentist appointments to finish the crowns on Monday and Tuesday and we found a nice park very near the border today so will move on Sunday.

It was an interesting experience today to say the least. Algodones is a clean, busy little border town with blocks and blocks of dentists, pharmacies and eyeglass shops.