The Motorhome Was Packed for Our Move to Mexico
Dinette Area Was Packed Very Efficiently! |
Our move to Mexico required more work than we anticipated. As a result, I'm a bit behind on my writing. Here's my first catch-up article about our exciting move to Mexico.
By October 21, Jon and I were ready to move to Mexico. The motorhome was packed and ready to roll! We had sold all of our worldly belongings except a few of our treasures, tools, and necessities. We felt free!
We had done some research on the Expat Blog (now www.Expat.com (for Mexico) ) about whether to tow a trailer behind the motorhome to move our belongings to Mexico. The importation of personal property by land is allowed by Mexico, but only up to $300 per person (garage sale value) duty free. The consensus from the folks chatting on this Expat Blog discussion was that a trailer full of stuff might cause more scrutiny by the border guards. So we opted to cram as much as we could into our motorhome, trying not to overload it.
Our carefully packed boxes, plastic containers, and black trash bags contained just enough for us to start our new life in Mexico. We planned to buy a casita, a small home with minimal furnishings, so we weren't bringing any furniture and very few dishes. The forty small "containers" of stuff we planned to bring didn't look like that much before we loaded it. But as we prepared to move our stuff into the motorhome, we realized the challenges were going to be:
1. How to balance the load evenly throughout the motorhome, front to back and left to right.
By October 21, Jon and I were ready to move to Mexico. The motorhome was packed and ready to roll! We had sold all of our worldly belongings except a few of our treasures, tools, and necessities. We felt free!
We had done some research on the Expat Blog (now www.Expat.com (for Mexico) ) about whether to tow a trailer behind the motorhome to move our belongings to Mexico. The importation of personal property by land is allowed by Mexico, but only up to $300 per person (garage sale value) duty free. The consensus from the folks chatting on this Expat Blog discussion was that a trailer full of stuff might cause more scrutiny by the border guards. So we opted to cram as much as we could into our motorhome, trying not to overload it.
Our carefully packed boxes, plastic containers, and black trash bags contained just enough for us to start our new life in Mexico. We planned to buy a casita, a small home with minimal furnishings, so we weren't bringing any furniture and very few dishes. The forty small "containers" of stuff we planned to bring didn't look like that much before we loaded it. But as we prepared to move our stuff into the motorhome, we realized the challenges were going to be:
1. How to balance the load evenly throughout the motorhome, front to back and left to right.
2. How to make sure we didn't overload the motorhome beyond the Gross Maximum Weight recommended by the manufacturer.
3. How to keep the "containers" from shifting in transit.
Jon built the dinette area into a temporary cargo hold, using a finished sheet of plywood for the front of the cargo box. We carefully loaded it so the heaviest containers were toward the front of the RV since the rear tends to be heavy naturally with the gasoline, water, and sewer tanks. Then we secured the load with a cargo net.
We decided that we would not use the slide on the dinette/sofa side of the motorhome while it was loaded this way to avoid the chance of damaging it. Jon shifted his heavy tools and air compressor to the storage units on the other side of the motorhome to balance the load.
Shower Stuffed with Black Trash Bags Full of Linens |
The shower looked like another cargo hold to me. I lined the floor of it with anti-slip rug pad to protect the surface, and then filled the shower with our new trash containers packed with household items. I wrapped each container with a Mexican blanket to keep them from banging around. Then I filled the rest of the space in the shower with black trash bags full of blankets, pillows, and linens. I told Jon we could shower at the RV Park restrooms. No problem! We stuck a dowel in the shower track to keep the door closed during the drive, admired our work for a few moments, and proclaimed this a great packing idea.
Bikes On the Back, Ladders, Fire Pit, Saw Horses, & More on Top |
Jon did a brilliant job of loading and tying down the large items onto the top and back of the motorhome. Each item that rested against the body or roof of the rig had padding to protect the body paint and the roof equipment. When he was finished, he had snuggled down a load that included a 20-foot extension ladder, an 8-foot ladder, two stepladders, a metal and tile fire pit, 2 shovels and a yard hoe, and 2 saw horses. The extended hitch held the spare tire and our two bikes covered with a tarp. It looked great! We decided that in order to minimize the weight we onboard, we would carry only enough fresh water to fill the tank one-fourth full. We would keep the Gray and Black Water Holding Tanks as empty as possible, and only fill the gas tank to about one-third full all the way to Sayulita. Jon added air to the tires until they were at 115 psi, the maximum recommended, so that they could handle the weight we had loaded in to our rig. It drove like a dream....well, like a boat, actually. Just a little sloppy, but otherwise pretty smooth.
The next stop was a truck weigh station to check how well we had done on our weight and balance. First, we weighed the front half, with the 2 front tires on the scale: 7200 pounds. Then, we weighed the back half, with the 2 back front tires on the scale: 15,550 pounds! Oh no! The right side was fine at 3450 pounds, but the left side weighed in at 7700 pounds! We were not only 2000 pounds (ONE TON!) overweight, we were still running much heavier on one side than the other. We had to come up with a Plan B for transporting our stuff to Mexico!
A Stop in Klamath Falls, OR. to Purchase a Trailer |
Jon Attached to Hitch Extension |
But, on October 29, when we arrived in the Palm Springs area, we noticed the tow hitch was scraping pavement when we drove into a gas station. We checked it and realized that the hitch extension was sagging, causing the hitch to drag. We decided we had to move the bikes and bike rack into the trailer, which would require repacking the trailer. This was using up precious time, and we had a deadline for arriving in Mexico. We were supposed to do the final walk-through on the casita we were buying on November 7 and close the sale by November 10!
The Hitch Extension Started Sagging and Dragging |
Repacking the Trailer in a Sand Storm |
A Welcome Rest at Mar Rosa RV Park in Mazatlan |
Read more in my book Retirement Before the Age of 59: Healthy Living in Mexico #2. What an adventure our move to Mexico was!
Thank you for reading my blog posts and books. I hope you'll leave a review of my books on Amazon!
What cities do you stay in before arriving in Maz? We will be heading to Maz via Durango 11-1 in our RV.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my blog, Brenda. When traveling through Durango, we couldn't find convenient RV Parks so we stayed at motels with enclosed walls, a gate high enough to get through, and a security guard in smaller towns. We paid room rate to plug our power in to the room for air conditioning since it was hot. Once we stayed at a Pemex. We usually drive down from Nogales through San Carlos, Sonora. See: http://healthylivingandtravelinginmexico.blogspot.mx/2014/12/christmas-at-totonaka-rv-park-in-san.html
DeleteThank you for your positive comment and for reading my article.
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