If you would only see the daily performance of 216 km, you might think at first that it was not a special day. But that is wrong. Today was a very tough day for me from an athletic perspective. The headwind was just as miserable as it was the last days. In terms of heat, today it was by far the hottest at 51°C. I must confess that for hours I struggled not to collapse because it was really borderline hot.

We also drove along a small side street, which was equipped with a very bad asphalt. The scattered granite shards were very uncomfortable and I slowed down accordingly. All in all, that was the reason why we had so little progress today.

On the side street, we were stopped by two locals patrolling the border area in their neighborhood. Since they do not often meet strangers there, they were very interested in us. Of course, they wanted to know where we came from. Our standard answer is always “From Austria, but that is not Australia, but a small country equal to Germany”. To our surprise, one of them knew exactly where it was because he is the proud owner of a Steyr-Puch Haflinger. He also said that the border area has become a lot more dangerous in the last five years. That’s why we continued driving quickly after the border to get to the inland faster.

The border crossing ran surprisingly smoothly. Thanks to Kathi’s mental preparation that everything will simply work slower and a little more cumbersome than we are used to, there was no difficulty for us or the cars. The meticulous organization of the documents has paid off and Viki’s Spanish is irreplaceable.

In a new country, of course, everything is completely different and a bit more exciting. The south of Texas was a taste of Mexico’s landscape. But the ambience is not the same after the border. The houses are more colorful and the streets busier. Quite a contrast to the ever-empty monocultures and oil fields.

Now we are a little bit afraid of the first night in which it will not cool down because it is already not very pleasant in our campervan – and we are not even in Central America. My big hope is that at least the wind will decrease more and more in the south. Because then we would finally create more miles again.