Final Stretch of Road to South Texas

We often plan travel days around good weather forecasts. But we were on the road this morning in spite of the predicted rain. On this last leg of our trip south, we usually play the game to see who can spot the first palm trees. Today we spotted them through a rain-streaked windshield.

It's a long drive from the most northern point of Texas to the southern tip. When we travel we use three different travel aids. We use google maps on our smart phone, the big-rig GPS, and Denisa holds a paper map. You can't have too much road information when driving a rig that is 53-feet long! Denisa likes to keep her paper maps, where she highlights the roads we travel. She uses a different color of highlighter for each day. You can see the blue and yellow highlighted trail from the northern edge of the panhandle all the way down to the southern tip of Texas. That's 820 miles in ten days--moving faster than usual for us.

We pulled into our winter destination at Bentsen Grove Resort in the misty rain. We're back in our camping spot at site 626, hemmed in between a couple orange trees. We had to wait until a prettier day to take a picture of our south Texas home.

We are here mostly because Denisa's Mother spends her winters in this park. She has been coming to the Rio Grande Valley for six months each year for the past 33 years--and all of those at this same park. After getting the motor home set up, we went immediately into fun mode. The next morning we found ourselves at the Winter Texan Expo at the McAllen Convention Center. In the picture below you can see the back of Denisa and her Mother's head, with the rest of the white-haired and balding crowd.

We  played all the games and spun all the prize wheels and came home with a tote full of free stuff. We have a winter's supply of pens and note pads, and coupons for food at area restaurants and grocery stores. We also got t-shirts, golf towels, eye glass cleaners, bingo daubers, candy, key light, coozies . . . Denisa made a hole-in-one at the game below for more prizes, as did Mark. We also won a couple of the door prizes--a $25 restaurant coupon and a large goodie bag from a local business. It was a successful morning.

We feel very welcomed in the Rio Grande Valley, and we're now immersed in the activities at Bentsen Grove Resort. We'll be here for a month or two, enjoying the fun and fellowship with a growing number of friends we have met from years before. It's hard to believe that this is our fifth winter to camp at this park as we continue wandering His wonders!