Into and out of the big city of Morelia, Mexico and another great overnight spot

We had a great sleep at the top of the mountain, and then headed downhill all the way into the big city of Morelia (pop 900,000).

On the way, we stopped for an hour at a Pemex gas station with a good parking area and had some breakfast and filled up with gas.

We had to skirt around the ring road of Morelia, and we would be driving right by a big Walmart so we stopped in to pick up a few things. Walmart sells a brand of Great Value mixed nuts that I really like, and was hoping to stock up on two or three big bags, but they only had one left in stock. 

The outskirts of Morelia.

We were actually in the store for a long time. It was busy, and we waited in line at the cash for a while. By the time we got out, we decided we might as well have lunch while we were parked there.

We were headed for a natural rock formation that looked like it had a decent overnight spot. It wasn't much of a detour, but it was a very secondary road that wasn't in very good shape.

And, we had to go through a residential section of Morelia to get to it.

Always up for an adventure!

A bit slow going, but the alternative was 15 kms longer.

We got stuck behind this yellow dump truck for a while.

There was some kind of event at this town church. Everyone was dressed up.

Watch for cows on the road!

We arrived at the Los Piloncillos site and sure enough there was a nice level parking spot for Igor. It's only about a km from a nearby village, so it's not especially remote, but the road out front is in bad shape and hardly anybody uses it except for some gravel trucks that would stop by the end of the work day.

Igor, parked up at GPS 19.826929, -101.33992

We also had two friendly dogs to show us around.

The attraction here is the weathered sandstone rock formations.

It's not a very large area, but fun to wander around for an hour.

That dog would have been another great stray to adopt. We've come across this situation many times in our travels where a dog tries to adopt us... but it just doesn't suit our lifestyle right now.

Great spot for the night.

This morning, we are headed to Valle de Juarez. It's still 225 kms (140 miles) west, and we're going to take the free road the whole way. So it'll likely take five hours of driving plus stops. We hope to make it there by 4:00pm!

Happy New Year!

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