We had a plan and it was a jolly good one. We followed it pretty close to the letter too which is how we left Pátzcuaro and found ourselves Monday evening sleeping in a rather busy, noisy truck stop.
Life on the road alternates between the days off when we hang around and sleep eat and type and days when we are busy being tourists visiting appropriate sites such as visitors are encouraged to enjoy and then we have busy days when we do the work necessary to keep the van afloat. I treat travel days as work days, not least because driving is work, but also because as we drive we stop and do useful things like loading with water, shopping for supplies and managing any problems that may have arisen. Our 2020 Promiaster 3500 has but 33,500 miles so one would like to think we won't spend a lot of time right now on mechanical issues but we still need to buy stuff.
Yes, I know the ancient city of Morelia is known for greater beauties than Costco! However Rusty's dog bed had got so smelly even Layne thought it was beyond laundering (she has a very poor sense of smell - ideal for van life!) and Rusty got a new bed. We got new towels as our fast drying towels were terrible at drying us after our showers. We bought a selection of treats for Rusty, an expensive dog. Costco sells delicious sliced Muenster cheese, a touch of home I can enjoy even inside a rolled up, fresh flour tortilla. Layne shopped I walked Rusty. I walked him too far, and as I pondered how very much like home the spectacularly clean and organized Costco compound felt a man in a car with a flashing orange light drove up and told me I was not allowed to walk in back of the store. Welcome home! Your behavior is prohibited! I walked Rusty back round the corner to Mexico.
Layne found a hotel for us to stay at, owing to the lack of a convenient campground near the city. We plan to return to Morelia and explore it's better at a later date but we wanted to make sure the hotel suited us. First, dogs are welcome at Villa San Jose. Then the parking area can accommodate the van easily, and best of all the entrance gate is tall enough to get our tall van inside. Result! $70 a night for a resort room overlooking the city, pool, WiFi and a restaurant on premises. Highly recommended and we haven't even slept there yet. We were finished with Morelia for the time being. 
Pátzcuaro is only an hour from Morelia and I wanted to get driving for a while. I missed being lost in Mexico, seeking the new, checking out what was across the horizon, sitting in the driver's seat of the Promaster and watching the world go by. It's a paradox because I enjoy it very much but it does tire me. It takes concentration to drive Mexico mostly because the road surface is utterly unpredictable. Traffic is gentle, drivers yield and aggressive driving is almost unknown. But the road surface- oh god. We started out enjoying a perfect freeway surface (see above), but we were driving around the capital city and obviously money has been spent to make the roads excellent close to the seat of the Federal government. 
The countryside is a mixture of golden straw on dried out hillsides similar to the desert grasses you can see in the Western states, while other areas are a neat patchwork of cultivated fields. The background is dramatic, steep dark hillsides, volcanoes, and on our drive a black thunderous sky promising heavy rain that never materialized. We drove at 65 miles per hour in the slow lane of the perfectly smooth freeway.
Evening. closed in on us and we started looking for a suitable truck stop. Much to our dismay what had been wild and lonely countryside now turned into a long stretch of highway with no rest areas or truck stops or even modest gas stations. Layne pondered her phone switching between Google Maps and the iOverlander app looking for Pemex truck stops. Night was coming and we don't like to drive in the dark even on fenced freeways...
The drama ended as the sun went down and we found a Pemex gas station right alongside the freeway. One slight problem in that it was located on the downslope of a bridge so all the trucks heading north used their very loud engine brakes when they hot the downslope. The second slight problem was that this it turns out is the only proper trucks stop for miles and it was severely crowded. Third problem was that a truck pulling in across our bows broke down causing a traffic jam and requiring a mobile mechanic to come out and get it going with maximum allowable noise in the effort.
I fell asleep after I fed the truck stop dogs and Rusty tried running them off on his walk. He has figured out Mexico pretty well at this pointy and he can assess threat like a pro. The dogs that make a living at truck stops also measure threat and he was an irritation when it came to eating a bag full of dog kibbles. They came back after he went to eat his dinner and got theirs. We saw a couple of dogs along the highway as we drove but they aren't going to accept us as saviors. Wherever they were going we had to leave them to it. It's not easy for me but I try to rationalize my pain away figuring that at least we saved Rusty from an unbearable life. We can only do what we do, and other platitudes.
We found a Starbucks alongside the highway. Want to stop? I asked my wife as I sipped the tea she had made for me while we were rolling slowly in a long traffic jam caused by a toll booth. She started drooling and mumbled something. I saw a gap and I flung GANNET2 through the hole in the traffic and pulled up within a short distance of the outside tables.
It was in all respects a Starbucks as you know them. Toilet seats, toilet paper, cakes, mugs and a rather splendid upstairs lounging area- all present for us to enjoy. We shared a chorizo sandwich on a delicious crispy roll. Layne had an iced coffee and we used the WiFi to watch the latest video uploaded by Webb Chiles in distant Illinois. We greatly enjoy Mexican food but a little break is also in order for us. Europeans think we are funny for having a/c in our living space even as they gasp at the discomfort they suffered in sticky hot Latin American jungles. Building their character I’m sure.
We found a Starbucks alongside the highway. Want to stop? I asked my wife as I sipped the tea she had made for me while we were rolling slowly in a long traffic jam caused by a toll booth. She started drooling and mumbled something. I saw a gap and I flung GANNET2 through the hole in the traffic and pulled up within a short distance of the outside tables.
It was in all respects a Starbucks as you know them. Toilet seats, toilet paper, cakes, mugs and a rather splendid upstairs lounging area- all present for us to enjoy. We shared a chorizo sandwich on a delicious crispy roll. Layne had an iced coffee and we used the WiFi to watch the latest video uploaded by Webb Chiles in distant Illinois. We greatly enjoy Mexican food but a little break is also in order for us. Europeans think we are funny for having a/c in our living space even as they gasp at the discomfort they suffered in sticky hot Latin American jungles. Building their character I’m sure.
We arrived at our turn off the ring road in mid morning and made our way down Google’s blue line to our designated campground on the suburb called Cholula: 
Inside we found some WiFi which enabled me to tear my hair out getting this post uploaded. Mike from Yorkshire is in our side of the campground with the dog he rescued from a beach in Baja. His red four wheel drive Sprinter was built for the French market so it has the steering on the left side of the van. He wants to sell it to save shipping it back to Britain. If you’d like to buy it let me know. He’s a nice guy and has made our arrival here great fun with his stories of driving South America. We will be sure to hear more after we visit the ancient city of Puebla, my next post when WiFi allows. 