Our timing wasn't great for visiting Brownsville, Texas

After eight visits to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, it feels like we have seen and done everything in this area. But we realized that we haven't spent much time around Brownsville, Texas. We've been there several times, but it was always on our way home from Padre Island. We were always tired from a day at the beach, and hurrying to get home. This year we decided to spend a day just exploring the Brownsville area--even though we soon found out that our timing wasn't great for this trip. Our first stop was another nice Texas State Park--Resaca de la Palma. Our new word of the day is resacas--which are water channels that were once connected to the Rio Grande River. The river no longer flows through this state park, but these disconnected channels still provide some water that provides good bird habitat.

We checked the forecast for the best weather day of the week. We went on a Tuesday when the temperatures were in the low 70s, with no chance of rain, and the wind was light. This seems like great timing, right? At the last minute we found out that this state park is closed on Monday and Tuesday. The rangers are working those days, but they don't open the entrance gate or the visitor center on those two days. Our timing obviously wasn't great. We called and found out that we were welcome to park outside the gate, fill out a visitor pass with our Texas state pass, and walk in.

That's a little more complicated with Denisa's Mother's mobility. We were glad that we had borrowed a wheel chair for today. The resort where we are camped has all kinds of medical equipment available to use. We were sad that the tram tour wasn't running today, as that would have been a good option for her. Again, our timing wasn't great today. So instead, we pushed that wheel chair on a couple trails to see a little bit of the park. That would include the palm trees. While we see the very tall palms throughout the valley, these shorter Sabal Palms are the only ones native to this area.

We also stopped by the bird blind behind the visitor center, to look through the viewing holes to see what birds were feeding this morning.

We had read that this park also hosts some butterflies, and we spotted this one on the ground inside the bird blind.

That was the last picture with our good camera today. The battery was so low, that it shut down. That's no problem because we always carry a spare. What are the chances that the spare battery was also low?!? Our timing for battery charging wasn't great today! So while we watched as green jays, cardinals, and woodpeckers flew around the feeders, our cell phones can't capture them. There are several birds in the picture below, but you can't see them in a cell phone picture.

Our next planned stop of the day was the Palo Alto Battlefield. The weather is just beautiful today, and it was a great to spend some time on the trail outside at this National Historical Park. We were soon to realize that we knew very little about the U.S.-Mexican war.

Displays at the visitor center educated us on what happened here in the 1800s. In 1845, Mexico controlled the area in green on the map below. But it was here at the Palo Alto Battlefield that the first major battle of the U.S.-Mexico War took place. As a result of this war, that map would change drastically.

Now that we are educated, we left the visitor center to explore the battlefield. This concrete path is more than a mile long, and provides a great surface to push a wheel chair.

This was a battle of fire power. While the Mexican army had more men that were lined up over a mile across, their cannons were not as powerful. Mark and Betty are posing beside one of the Mexican cannons on the south side of the battlefield.

We walked another half mile to see the United States side of the battlefield, and their superior cannons. Randomly found among the the cactus and grass are these larger caliber cannons that could shoot 18-pound exploding shells. This ammunition caused more severe damage than the smaller solid cannon balls from the Mexican cannons. Because the United States's cannons were more accurate, agile, and fired exploding shells, they severely hurt that mile-long line of Mexican soldiers. The U.S. forces were also better trained, had better gun powder, and were able to fire more quickly and move their cannons with more agility to put them in better firing range. It was definitely a win for the U.S. forces when the Mexican army retreated to a more protected area five miles away.

The mile of concrete also took us beside the marshy part of this historic park. We traveled over boardwalk to keep our feet and wheels dry.

Besides the retreat of the Mexican army, this park also showcases the retreat of the Rio Grande River. That big river once ran through this area, but now the only evidence of that are these long channels called "resacas." Does that word sound familiar from the name of the state park we just visited? The sign below points out that many water birds make their home here. Right on cue, you can see a white heron in the upper left hand corner of the picture below.

We tried to take a picture of two different herons with our cell phone, with limited success.

We were still lamenting our bad timing and our low camera batteries when we noticed movement in the distance. We tried to determine what kind of animal this could be, and the fuzzy cell phone picture won't help with that identification. The animals in the distance behind the cactus were too thick-necked for any deer we recognized, and the wrong shape for a cow.

A sign along our path solved the mystery. This was a herd of nilgai. Ranchers imported this species of Asian antelope for hunting, and some of the herd escaped to take up residence here at Palo Alto. Since she couldn't take a picture of the real ones in the distance, Denisa took a picture of the one on the sign. Our timing was good for seeing them, just not great for photographing them. Sigh!

While this area is mostly grass and cactus, we did see a few wildflowers on the trail in the historic park. Of course, Denisa stopped to take a picture.

Our next stop in Brownsville was a restaurant that got good reviews. Being so close to the coast, we wanted to eat fresh fish today. But again our timing wasn't great. The dining area of the place we chose was closed, so we went in search of a picnic table. We found it at another national historic site. This is the place where the Mexican Army retreated in search of the protection and cover of trees, and where the U.S. Army followed them in 1846.

In the other direction, we could see the second battlefield of the day where the U.S. forces again outgunned the Mexicans. This is where the Battle of Resaca de la Palma was fought in 1846. (Note--there's that resaca word again!) The U.S. forces again won this battle, as the Mexican army retreated back south. The U.S.-Mexico war would continue for two years, and would result in Mexico giving up what is now California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, half of Colorado, and that all-important Oklahoma panhandle where we were born and raised. Without the win at the two battlefields we visited today, we could have been citizens of Mexico. 

The next stop of the day was Betty's favorite--the SAS shoe outlet store. Our timing wasn't great because Betty forgot her coupon and we missed the $20-off sale that will happen this weekend. But they gave her the special deal on the shoes she bought if she promised to mail in her $20 coupon as soon as she got home. No pictures, because how picturesque can a shoe store be?!?

Our last stop was one of our most anticipated. In the eight years we have been here, we have never made the trip to Boca Chica beach. This is the southernmost beach in Texas, and it is about 23 miles southeast of Brownsville. We've always headed over to the beaches at Padre Island instead of this off-the-beaten path beach on Highway 4. One of the reasons to explore this new beach is because it also allows for a drive right by Elon Musk's space flight experiment. He has built "SpaceX Starbase" just a few miles from Boca Chica beach. This is where he has been launching experimental space craft in anticipation of his first orbital flight of his starship prototype. We watched one of those launches from Padre Island last year. So we were looking forward to exploring a new beach and getting a look at SpaceX. But . . . our timing wasn't great. Because it was such a beautiful day, they had scheduled "maneuvers" at SpaceX that required closing the area. We signed up for the automated updates on Highway 4 closures, and we got one while we were in Brownsville. Rats!

So we don't have pictures of Boca Chica Beach or SpaceX because the road was closed today. While we got to see some interesting new-to-us sites around Brownsville, we didn't get to make the last stop. Our touring day was a little shorter than planned, and it felt like our timing wasn't great ALL DAY!