My sister and I with some new friends in our motel swimming pool

Welcome back to Mexico Monday! I’ve started going through the latest batch of slides which my mom recently discovered — and like the previous images I’ve shared, most of these are not labeled, although some of them have a date stamp showing when they were developed. I’m trying to organize them by year as much as possible, but it does get a bit tedious! So this week I’ve picked out some of my favorites from 1968, even if I can’t always tell exactly where they were taken.

During our earliest trips to Mexico we spent a fair amount of time in various Volkswagen dealerships. Our camper was slow and amazingly reliable — considering that it carried us from Northern California, through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and finally all the way to Mexico City and back — but a few breakdowns were inevitable, and I recall sitting in a number of dealership waiting rooms for what seemed like hours to me back then.

Getting a complimentary soft drink with my mom, Mexico City dealership

Unique vehicle in the VW dealership, Zacatecas

We also visited more than a few motels and restaurants along the road. While they all tend to blend together in my mind, my family still chuckle over the memory of a restaurant in Tepic where the waiter was so busy making eyes at my sister that he spilled water all over our table.

This motel was in Tepic

I think this motel was in the city of Culiacán

Not sure where the Restaurant Savoy was, but I suspect it didn’t quite live up to its fancy name

The image below was labeled as Guadalajara; from the architecture in the background, I believe the location must be outside the enormous Mercado Libertad, one of my favorite places to explore — and beg for my parents to buy me things! There were handmade Spanish guitars, blankets, toys, and a huge assortment of tropical fruits and vegetables. I’m fairly sure I never asked for a live bird, but the stacks of cages were always very colorful and attractive.

I’ll finish off this week with a photo of my mom, my sister, and me on the steps outside the US Embassy in Mexico City in 1968. It’s still located on a city street named after the Danube River. I’m not sure why we were there or why everybody looks so serious!