Natural Clinches You Somehow Avoided

[kphoger]

Not quite a clinch, because I've never driven the northernmost 76 miles, but...

I'm pretty sure I've driven all of I-35 south of Hinkley, MN (including all of I-35W through Fort Worth and either I-35E or I-35W through the Twin Cities, but I can't remember which of the latter two I've clinched).  Except for the southernmost 3½ miles.  Yep, I've never driven between the Mall del Norte and the Mexican border, despite having used I-35 on trips to and from Mexico multiple times.  This is because I've never actually used either of the two downtown Laredo border crossings (since I was like nine years old anyway):  when going that route, I've always crossed at Colombia instead.

So, between Hinkley (MN) and its southern terminus, I've driven 99.8% of I-35.

That would bother the hell out of me. I was just looking at Laredo on GSV last night, and I-35 stops short of the border by a few blocks, so...maybe on your next trip through the area, you could detour, hang a U turn after I-35 ends, and go back to your usual crossing at the Colombia bridge?

Obviously, you have kids and other drivers and all of that to consider, but it'd probably be about a ten minute delay, so if you communicate to the other drivers that you'll catch up to them in about 10 minutes (or plan a food stop that you can disappear from for a while), maybe it's doable. Or maybe it would be easier to contrive a reason to use the Juarez-Lincoln bridge.

Not quite.  Our usual route nowadays goes nowhere near Laredo, and we cross at Del Rio instead.  Driving the Laredo/Colombia route again would mean choosing to endure Fort Worth and Waco traffic, pay an arm and a leg for TX-130 tolls, either put up with a zillion trucks on the free Monterrey bypass or else pay my other arm and leg for the toll bypass–all after having found a cheaper, more relaxing way to get to where we're going.  You probably guessed by now that I don't intend to do so.

Back when I used to go that way, though, there were only two occasions on which I ventured farther south than Exit #24.  The first was when our Mexico-side ministry partner had driven up to Texas a day before our northbound departure to pick up a friend in Laredo, and he wanted us to meet him, so we crossed at Colombia but then drove down to the Mall del Norte parking lot.  The second was when I couldn't get a second vehicle added to my Camino Colombia Day Pass account by phone because it was a Sunday morning and the hotline was closed, so we drove down to Mines Road and then back up to the Colombia crossing from there.

I haven't been south of Exit 3 since childhood.

[Scott5114]

OK I-40 - been on all of 40 from New Mexico to North Carolina, except between I-35 and Peebly Rd because my co-pilot was very adamant that we avoid Oklahoma City because it's "a traffic nightmare" (???). We detoured down to SH 9 and stopped by family in Norman.

Says OKC is a traffic nightmare, yet insists you use SH-9?? Seems legit.