Working on the Road

I looked at the UPS tracking for the truck title and although it was promised in a matter of days, the tracking said it would arrive in a week, completely scuttling our trip! Plan B was enacted. My son Rocco and I jumped in the truck and drove the 200 miles to the nearest California DMV office in El Centro. As we left, Google Maps said we would arrive around 4:40 pm, with DMV closing at 5pm. 

The border wait was about two minutes; record fast. The border agent asked how our trip was, and funny enough, I explained to him our permit situation. He wished us safe travels and waved us through. We skipped lunch, ate some trail mix in the truck and made it by 4:40 to get a copy of the vehicle registration, another acceptable method for proving ownership. We dipped back into Mexico for the night, staying in Mexicali, and headed back to our campground the next day through a series of small villages and a nature preserve. We were set!

We broke camp the day after and headed to the aduana 90 miles away in the middle of the desert, to get our temporary vehicle import permits. The worst case scenario reared its ugly head and we were initially denied because of the truck weight. It's a story that I won't bore you with, but the Mexican government has had this mistake on their books where they confuse a vehicle weight with its gross weight, it's total weight including what it can carry. 

My vehicle weight is within specs, but if you read the law wrong, which seems to happen about half the time, my truck is ineligible for temporary import. Thanks to my Spanish speaking friend, we managed to get approval from headquarters, about two and a half hours later. I find it astonishing this continues to happen since the problem began around 2015.

During all this drama, along with constant cooking and cleaning, as well as driving and technical issues having to do with towing and electricity, I'm still working. As the trip unfolded, I watched May's dismal sales unfold. It turns out May wasn't a good month for a lot of stores, and you always get that sinking feeling when it happens when you're away on a trip. I did what I could from the road, and thankfully I have a sales history to look back on, so I can say, May be that way.

I also have enough structure in our sales environment to know what's coming: A Ding & Dent sale (today), our first time vending at Kublacon (week 2), a Pokemon release (week 3), and a Magic release (week 4). Any of those events could go implode, but they'll all bring in sales to make May less dismal. Imagine if you didn't have structures like this in place. How many levers could you pull from the road? Not too many.