We are in Laredo, TX. There happens to be a quite nice state park here, and we are parked in a nice spot right on lake Casa Blanca (map).

Today is my birthday, and we thought it might be nice to have dinner downtown, then perhaps walk over the bridge into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Early in the afternoon we headed into town to check it out, and it turned out to be a real nightmare negotiating downtown in Odyssey. On top of that, the street leading up to Bridge #1 (the one you can walk across) is closed off a couple blocks from the bridge, effectively cutting off access to anyplace we might have parked either to eat or to walk across. We finally conceded defeat, bought a small cake and some dinner fixin's at the local grocery store, and retired to our campsite for the night. It's been raining all day here anyway, so the whole walk-over-the-bridge thing was probably off the agenda. Louise made me a nice spaghetti dinner (my request) and we cracked open an excellent bottle of Joseph Phelps Merlot that my good friends Chuck and Ellen Haas gave us as a wedding gift (thanks, Chuck and Ellen).

My abdominals are aching today. Yesterday, when I was replacing the leveler, the only way to get to the upper bolt was to, essentially, do a giant crunch, and work the pair of wrenches (requiring both hands) for as long as I could hold it. I guess I did maybe ten or fifteen crunches, but held them for perhaps 15 seconds apiece (well, okay, they got shorter and shorter as I worked). I was so worn out when I finished that it was a struggle to extract myself from under the bus. I didn't think anything more of it. Today, of course, my body is letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that it was unhappy with the treatment. It hurts even to cough or sneeze. I suppose this would not have been an issue had I been in better shape to begin with.

Tomorrow we head further upriver, on our way to Big Bend National Park.