-by La Huerita
Coastal Highway (La Costera) from El Golfo to San Luis & Yuma. It's time to hit the road!
The new coastal highway from Puerto Penasco to El Golfo de Santa Clara, all 83 miles of it, has been open since last December and it's in very good shape. Wide shoulders, nice rest stops, the whole nine yards. But if any of you have tried to continue on up to San Luis Rio Colorado/Yuma via that old stretch of road you know what a white knuckle experience that has been. Potholes big enough to swallow cars or to force oncoming cars to leave their lane and occupy YOUR lane; rough pavement where the potholes end; sections where you have to actually leave the road and drive in the sand. At times the painted divider line disappears, and at many places the surface of the road is as much as 3 feet higher than the surrounding terrain-- with no shoulders. That 69 miles of Sonora Highway 003 has provided, shall we say, many a YIKES moment.
Well, that is finally coming to an end. I'm happy to report that the powers that be are finally doing something about that stretch of highway. Filling potholes, repaving, in general doing their best to insure that anyone who wants to reach the new part of Highway 003 from San Luis can actually do so without putting their lives and the continuing health of their autos in danger. Driving north, when arriving at the intersection of the highway that leads from Rocky Point to San Luis you will soon be able to continue all the way to Yuma, AZ without the bone-jarring, 10-miles-per-hour torture that has probably kept a lot of people from even trying. The government is determined to create optimal conditions along this stretch of road, looking to the future and the potential for development along the way. In the meantime, workers have been busy sweeping up broken glass, pieces of old tires and the like as well as patching all those potholes. So it's still a mess, but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
In other highway news, Governor Eduardo Bours recently announced plans to widen and improve the highway between Caborca and Puerto Peñasco (Sonora Highway 37), which will be financed with public and private resources. It is hoped that this will improve tourist opportunities in the region, among other things. And Caborca is worth a visit; I'll be posting a story about that in the not-too-distant future.
So that's it for road news today. Happy driving, but as Jim Morrison sang, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel...
About Beach Buzz: Not necessarily the news, this is a place for information, opinion, speculation, gossip, tips and other good stuff about Rocky Point, and Mexico in general. If you have something you'd like to share, I'd like to hear from you!
Contact me at lahuerita2@gmail.com
