Fun with the RV Group

It is another beautiful day here in the Rio Grande Valley. It is likely close to 80 already and not even 10am. I love it!

Yesterday was a day of fun, fun, fun. Some of us girls went out to lunch at a huge Chinese buffet and then we were off to the  thrift stores. Jude knows her way around the valley so she was our official driver. We shopped till we dropped.

Upon our return, we caught  a ride with Bob and Sally  to "End of the Trail" to join all the RV group for an afternoon of music and fun. We  certainly did have fun!
This group  definitely knows  how to have a good time.
In these bars everyone can bring their own alcohol and snacks in if they want to and  just pay for the mix.

There were many songs where everyone would jump up and yell the words. Unfortunately, they were up and down so quickly I could never catch them all up at the same time.

The band was quite good and consisted of a man and wife team. The wife, besides providing some of the vocals, also provided a lot of hilarious acts where she dressed up in various costumes.

She came out several times in different costumes and sometimes would do solo dances as well as dancing with the guys.

 

We all danced until we could barely make it off the dance floor. Here's Anna just dancing up a storm!

All in all, it was an afternoon of great fun.

Keep warm.

 

Mexico and Potluck at the Park

Just want to let you all know that the blog has been a bit problematic lately. The finished product does not appear as I intended it to. So bear with me. Hopefully, it is just a temporary problem.

Yesterday Anna and I went to Mexico so Anna could get some dental work done. I, being the loyal friend that I am,  went along for moral support. While she was under the drill for a couple hours I had a very interesting conversation outside the front of the building with a local mexican fellow who works for the dentist.(I had to leave the building as I couldn't bear the sound of the drilling any longer). Basically, he just stands in front of the office and if someone wants to see the dentist and the  dentist is not there then he makes an appointment for them or phones the dentist to come down. So after a couple hours visiting with him I managed to find out a lot about Nuevo Progreso and how the people survive there. Basically, the main income of the people in this town comes from the "Winter Texans". When the Winter Texans go home in the spring, the people have a hard time finding work to make ends meet. There is very little government assistance, mostly just food vouchers for a week or so.  The fellow I spoke with works in Texas throughout the summer months and then comes down to Nuevo Progreso in the winter to work.  This fellow makes about $50.00 a week working in Mexico. In spite of this, because things are so much cheaper there, he says he manages to get by on that pay.

When Anna's grilling was complete we walked around main street to do some shopping.There are some unusual buildings on main street; like this narrow one below.

This Super Centre has a wide variety of items from dresses to alcohol and everything in between. I bought myself  a fabulous dress there.

 I had some delicious street food called Lonches. They were so good I had three of them. They cook and sell them from little carts on the street. They dip a bun in hot oil, then take it out and put some kind of shredded meat and cabbage in them. Then you put lots of hot green chile sauce on them. They are absolutely yummy. I am practicing my Spanish so managed to order and thank the fellow in Spanish. Okay, so Anna had to prompt me a bit, but mostly I did okay. I felt bad that Anna wasn't able to eat. Not bad enough to pass on the lonches, but I did try to  express great sympathy towards her while I ate.
We returned in time for me to walk to the market and pick up some veggies for the pot luck here at the Park. One of us got to attend the pot luck. It wasn't Anna because Anna was in great pain and agony. I brought her home chocolate brownies to cheer her up. (Anna is famous for her love of chocolate-do not, I said DO NOT leave her alone in the RV with chocolate. She simply cannot be trusted!)
 While at the potluck, I had a visit with a fellow from Iowa who was telling me about the land prices there. A neighbor just sold 80 acres of farm land for $21,000 an acre. This land had been flooded for an entire year by the Missouri River. There must be a lot of money in soya beans and corn!

By the way, for those of you who are following Anna's blog and read the story she made up about me and the pink dress, let me say this. I am seriously plotting my revenge, so stay tuned.

Keep warm.

South Padre Island-Did We Have Fun!

Walking the beach! This is the life!

We just returned from a wonderful weekend on South Padre Island. Although it was pouring rain when we arrived at Bob and Carol's, we did not let that stop us from having fun. We spent the afternoon visiting and going for a long walk. We met some very interesting people along the way, including a fellow who was getting married that afternoon.

The groom is in the green T-shirt. He was very happy to see Carol and invited her to come to the wedding.

Here we are together. The dangerous foursome!









Saturday  evening we went out to hear J. Michael Laferty at the Padre Rita Grill.  It was a fun place with quite the decor. Anna got some good pictures of it so check out her blog. The music and singing was excellent and we stayed until he played his last set.
Remembering the fellow we had met on the street that afternoon and how he had invited Carol to the wedding, we decided we should go and check out how the wedding dance was going. The party was in full swing  when we arrived and we were promptly invited to join in on the fun. Of course we did. We not only danced, but I managed to sweet talk a nice young fellow into giving me a peice of a delicious chocolate cake that was "only for the men in the wedding party".  Then out of the blue someone from the wedding party gave me a beautiful bouquet-white roses and some kind of red flowers. I guess just about anything can happen on the Island on a saturday night.
Today, we got up and walked along the beach to the end of the Island. South Padre has one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been on. The sand is so fine it is like flour and the water is the most beautiful deep blue.

 

I trailed along behind looking for unusual sea shells. I found quite a few.

This is the first time I had ever come across a flourescent blue shell.

 I also found a few blue jelly fish on the beach.

 

You do not want to step on these fellows if they are still alive. I have heard they have quite a sting.









When we reached what was almost the end of the Island we decided to explore some of the fancy hotels to see what they had to offer.

Anna and Carol testing the water.

What a view from a few floors up! That is Port Isabel in the distance.

You really cannot leave these two alone for a minute.

Very nice pools!







The front of the hotels are being decorated for Christmas. It still seems weird to me to be looking at Christmas decorations when it is over 80F.

 

 

 

Three hours later we finished our walk. It was a great morning!
We went across the street to Boomerang Billy's to listen to what I am sure is the best female singer I have ever heard. Hands down! Her name was Leslie Blasing.
We listened to her all afternoon and during that time she sang one great song after another and had the whole place hopping. She sang all kinds of music but mostly older pop and country. Her vocal range was amazing. It was all outside so we got to sit in the sun. I worked on my burn. It is coming along nicely. My back resembles a beet.
All in all, a fantastic weekend!

A quiet day

We had a nice quiet day here. I did my yoga this morning and then took a very enjoyable bike ride  down the highway into Weslaco. It was so nice to have my bike fixed and be able to get around again. All the patches Bob put on held well and no new leaks have developed, thank goodness.

I spent the afternoon reading, doing some more yoga, and working on my book.

It started raining around dinner time tonight and has been just pouring ever since. No leaks in the MH so far. We are crossing our fingers.

Anna and I got out the guitars tonight and TRIED to play some tunes. We are very rusty and need a lot of practice. A LOT of practice!

We were planning on going to South Padre Island tomorrow but we may need to rethink that idea.  We will check the forecast in the morning.

Keep warm.

Mexico

Happy American Thanksgiving! We drove down to  the border this morning, parked the car and walked across the bridge over the Rio Grande into the town of Nuevo Progresso.

The Rio Grande is a beautiful river that is nearly 2000 miles long beginning in Colorado and flowing all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico. On its journey, it divides the state of Texas  from Mexico. As you walk across the bridge going into Mexico, you have a beautiful view of the river. Unfortunately, walking back across into the US, there is no view of the river at all as there is a wall from the side walk that extends upward so no one can jump into the river and swim across.

Here I am at the entrance to Nuevo Progresso.  

As it was still very early (around 9am), the streets were very quiet and many of the street vendors were just starting to set up their wares. We soon discovered that the new price in Mexico is "almost free", or at least that is the price the vendors were calling out to us. Anna and I shopped around a bit just enjoying the walk and taking in all the atmosphere. It is amazing how ingenious some of the people there are. We saw purses made entirely out of candy wrappers????? Street vendors were selling all kinds of food for a dollar or two. 

   There seems to be an abundance of dentists in town as we seldom walked a block with out seeing several dentist offices. Some of them had some really eye catching advertisements.

 

 

 

 

The stores had almost everything
you could imagine. I liked this
angel.


 

Anna remembered a place where she used to eat that was off the beaten path so we got off main street and did a few loops around different neighborhoods.

Eventually, we found it.  It was inside the market place below.

It was almost like a little town once you made it through the entrance. There were all kinds of shops and lots of trees and flowering shrubs scattered about. I got a shot of Anna being her boisterous self.

 

 

 

 

         In the picture above, Anna is contemplating buying something unusual. However, she left without a Texas longhorn skull.

 

I am not sure if this store had "the best junk in town" as the sign advertised, but they did have a good price on Mexican blankets. A large one that would cover a queen size bed was only 9.95 and they were of  very good quality. If I can figure out how to bring it home I will pick one up before we leave in the spring.

 



After winding around in circles a bit we
 finally found the restaurant.

It was hard to believe this restaurant existed in the area we found it in. We actually sat at a table outside to eat as it was such a beautiful, sunny day but I had to share these photos of the inside with you anyway.

This restaurant has live entertainment every night and often throughout the day as well. I am told that this dance floor gets very busy. 








This painting on the door of the place
 really cracked me up. I guess it was meant
 for those who had a few too many Margarita's.
While we were eating, a nice fellow came along to show us a collection of jewelry that his wife makes. He was such a nice fellow so of course I had to buy a pair of earrings. They have  the colors of the Mexican flag-red, white and green. So I wore my Mexican earrings while I ate my Mexican lunch. Next thing you know I will be buying a sombero!

After lunch we walked around a bit more, just doing some exploring. We met a young Mexican girl with the cutest baby you ever saw so we had a little visit with her. The baby was only 3 months old and you could see she was the light of her mama's world. Just adorable!

I took some more pictures when we got back to the main street. As you can see, it is a quiet day here, not too much happening.

 

We had a party to attend this afternoon at Wes and Judes' place at the RV park so we headed back home. The party was great.  All the people here are so nice. A great time was had by all.

 

Tomorrow I plan to go bike riding.  My bike has been out of commission since we arrived  here as the tires were severely punctured by burrs. However, we have made friends with a wonderful couple -Bob and Sally- and Bob has spent a good part of  the last couple days finding and patching all the holes and he has informed me it is now ready to go again.  What would we do without friends.

 

 

I hope that you are all well and warm.

Catching up

As though of you who have been following my blog have likely figured out by now, I have been a tad behind on my blog. This was due to my inability to get a good internet connection. It was not for lack of trying. I was beginning to reach my saturation point in the patience department. However, thanks to the kindness and generosity of some new friends we have made, we have managed to solve that little dilemna. I am up and running again. After posting a few days that I had made notes of, I have decided to condense the last few days into one post.

We have been having a lot of fun and adventure here. We have taken in a couple of indoor/outdoor markets that were huge in size and very broad in scope.

    At the markets we saw  wonderful live mexican bands. 














We saw all kinds of birds and animals;
crazy looking chickens, and beautiful macaws.






These birds are so beautiful. It saddens me to see them in a cage though. Their colours were so bright that they almost looked like they were lit up.

There was even  a carnival there for the kids with different kinds of rides. .

 Just when we thought we had seen it all we came across this.












There was even a huge snake outside of the place that was supposed to be a promo I guess.



I was sure I could live without seeing "The strangest Show on Earth", so I gave it a pass.

Besides all of the above, we saw countless stalls of clothing (both new and used), make-up, jewelry, shoes, furniture, electronics, antiques. It was like a wallmar gone crazy.

We had bought a delicious mexican lunch at one of the stalls and sat at a picnic table in an open area and listened to a mexican band while we ate.







We have spent lazy afternoons visiting with friends on their patios, had a girls day out with Jude where we went bargain shopping and had just been relaxing and soaking in the rays. The temperature has been in the 80's here so I am  deliriously happy.

I hope you are all well and staying warm wherever you are.

We have arrived!

Nov. 16

We finally made it to Donna, Texas today. Just 16 days after crossing the border into 
Washington with only 3 days off for rest and sight seeing, we have arrived!
 Donna is a small city surrounded  by a chain of cities. It's motto is "The Heart of the Valley" (Rio Grande Valley) and it's population as of 2010 was just under 16,000 people. It has a small town feel to it and when Anna checked us in at the Dolphin RV Park, the owner  actually remembered her from 4 years ago.

 

 

The park is very pretty with lots of flowering shrubs and palm trees around the grounds.It is nice to be set down in one place for awhile. I think we were both starting to get a bit road weary as we had put some long days in trying to drive out of the cold. As my good friends know, I love being warm so I was especially happy to finally arrive at our destination.

 

Our little home sweet home.

 Word spread quickly after we arrived and before long many of Anna's friends dropped over to say hello. They were happy to see her. I can see why Anna likes it here as the people are very friendly and nice.

 Anna and I picked up some groceries at one of the local stores. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with friends and just relaxing. Friday night is no cooking night here so lots of people from the park meet at a restaurant for dinner. Anna and I caught a ride with Wes and Jude over to a Mexican restaurant. I met  lots more people from the park there. It was a great evening of fun. 

 

Big Beautiful Texas

Nov. 15

We covered a lot of miles today.  Texas is one big state.  After taking highway 10 east through Junction to  Kerrville, we took  173 down to Jourdanton  where we turned south onto Highway 16 to about 10 miles south of Tilden.

 

 

We drove through some beautiful country between Kerrville and Hondo.  It was ranch and oil country and the people seem to be doing well.  There were beautiful estates scattered throughout the valleys.  Often the houses were high up on the hills or even on the very top of the hills. There were also some estates that were on flatter ground set in off the highway.  They had beautiful yards with manicured lawns and trees and the houses were massive.  These estates generally had small pastures off to the side, often with horses grazing on them.   We saw a lot of cattle in this area and grass seemed to be plentiful.

The entrances to these estates were  quite a work of art.  Often there were brick or stone pillars on each side of the entrance with an overhead arch where the name of the ranch was written.  Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of any of the fancy ones but I did snap a couple of the plainer ones just to give you an idea.

 

 

 

 



Approaching Bandera



 

 

The town of Bandera, which lies about halfway between Kerrville and Hondo, is a very charming little western town with lots of character. I snapped this store front as we were driving through town. 

 

 

And what would a frontier town do without a horse on top of a building?

 

 

 

 

 

This little river flows along the eastern side of Bandera.

 

 

We stopped at Jourdanton for a very tasty B-B-Q rib lunch.  Prices were right and the food was plentiful. The decor was very western (like being inside a big log cabin)-this is cowboy country.

 We had been  planning to end our day at Tilden but could not find anyone home at either of the RV "parks". I think these parks maybe have sprung up to provide temporary parking to the pipeliners as we saw a lot of pipeline work going on along the highway today. The town itself did not look too prosperous.

We were lucky to find a roadside parking area further down the road so we decided to call it a day there. Unfortunately, the parking area was right beside a major intersection so there were a lot of big rigs going by all night.

Tomorrow we will make it to Donna and set down there for the winter.