We’re sleeping at a Pemex. We did that 
station guys nor the Federale parked next door to the Pemex thought we were in our right minds to want to SLEEP at a PEMEX, they happily gave us space and rest. It was the best night sleep I’d had in a LONG time. The difference between that Pemex and this, besides 7000 or 8000 ft of altitude (and thus cooler climate) is the noise. The trucks are honking and air braking and revving motors and beeping while they backup and blaring radios and golly, I’m not sure we’ll get ANY sleep. Course, when I asked these Pemex guys if we could sleep here, they didn’t bat an eye and said, "sure". They said it happens all the time.
It was an amazing drop out of the mountains of Puebla but damn, it sure would be nice to be able to see the scenery. The haze simply has not let up and while we were surrounded by 3 lovely volcanoes (one SNOWCAPPED), it was almost
impossible to see them for the haze. The country and garbage are in a constant state of burn and I can only imagine that this is the reason. Looking through the coconut groves this afternoon it looked like a layer of smoke rode just above the ground in each grove. We saw numerous unattended cane field and shoulder fires. Just clearing brush, ma’am. According to Dad, we have dropped from 7000 ft in Cholula (Puebla) to 73 ft below sea level here. No wonder it was so "fresca" in Cholula. Dad pointed out that we could be back there tomorrow. 
We saw some amazing sights today on, tada….drum roll… THE TOLL ROAD. We left Cholula and never hit a libre or yellow or red road once. We pay our toll, we drive the road and managed to cover 175 miles or so in 4-5 hours. It was taking 6 hours to go 50 miles before. Just outside Puebla, near a toll both (did I mention we were on the CUOTA???) we saw a truck carrying 
coffins. We caught up and Jamie got a picture. This is the widest load we’ve ever seen. Normal practice down here is to completely and utterly overload the trucks and at times, it is amazing to see what can actually make it down the highway. Today we saw 2 pilot trucks and a "wide load". This was an AMAZING wide load and actually had an additional semi cab connected to the first, "train" style. As you can
see, the truck bed itself has an amazing TWELVE axles. I wonder what THEY pay on the cuota? Today we saw our very first Eurovan in Mexico and I managed to get a shot while we traversed some of the many many many miles of construction. We rarely climbed over 40mph today; if the road was good it was because it was one-lane with construction in the other; otherwise it was full of potholes and patches and rollercoasters.
Mom and Dad got royally reamed on the cuota today; we get charged double the auto rate but because
of their duallys, the tollbooth guys many times get creative. Today, on 3 of the toll booths, they got charged almost twice what they should have. At one point traffic came to a complete stop and we figured there was an accident ahead. There was an overpass and people had collected on the overpass looking. These guys also decided to try to get a peek, but I doubt they could see anything from their vantage point.
Something I’ve never seen (since we have only been on the cuota once for a very short time), is the solution to any problems with head-on collisions. With this type of divider (can you see the trench painted white dividing the lanes?) I can’t see how ANY traffic could end up facing oncoming traffic. We saw this bull at least 3 times in rural farmlands. I 
have NO idea what it is advertising. Tomorrow we hope for Villahermosa and a baseball field to camp in. Won’t be like hookups, but at least no air brakes and screech of tires. Something attractive in being as deaf as mom is… I promise pictures and a post on the ruins in Cholula tomorrow (or something) Chrissy. That is, if we don’t die from heat things. You know, the things about heat that kill you. Probably starts with your brain. When you can’t remember what it is about heat that can kill you. Yeah. THAT.
