Welcome back to Mexico Monday redux! I can’t remember if I’ve shared the corrected versions of my slides this week, but they include some of my favorite memories. One or two of the images seem to relate to ones I’ve previously shared — like the one below, showing our VW camper parked outside an open-air restaurant along the highway, shot in the summer of 1972. Notice that the door to the engine compartment is open, probably because it needed to cool down on a hot day! There’s also a curious dog, and one of the white tables is just visible in the shade of the building. You can see a few more views of this same cafe if you scroll to the bottom of my Mexico Monday post from May 2020.

Another familiar scene — this slide is part of a set of three showing a city street and the park-like boulevard in the center median. I shared the other two slides that complete the picture in June 2020.

Wherever the big bus goes, all the cars follow — even to the diesel pump at the Pemex station! This slide is also from 1971, when our camper was part of the caravan that included Frank Gonzales’ bus, a bright yellow Camaro, and that blue car which I can’t identify (maybe a Pontiac?).

I’m not sure what year this photo is from; I believe the team is leaving a radio station or maybe a recording studio. The poster in the window says “Plant a tree.” You might also notice the brown vehicle in the background. It’s a Volkswagen Type 181, and I don’t see them very much in the US these days, but they were sold for awhile as the VW Thing. Back in the early 1970s, these cars were a very common sight all over Mexico, and I knew them as the VW Safari — a name I prefer to this day!

As a child, nothing thrilled me more when checking into a motel than seeing a big swimming pool like this one in Culiacan. And that was despite the fact I didn’t know how to swim! I’ve previously shared poolside photos from 1968 that look very similar to this shot from three years later.

Another pool, but a very different environment. Again, I’m not sure of the year, but I do have a memory of visiting a prison somewhere in Mexico and being directed to stand around the edge of the pool until it was time to enter the building. This may have been that same year or similar visit at a different time.

Frank Gonzales with his wife, Jeannie, waiting for their cue