After watching the weather stories describing the frigid conditions and record-breaking snow that the rest of the country "enjoyed" this winter, we are feeling so fortunate to get to hang out in South Texas for this season. Denisa planned to eat her weight in citrus during these two months, and it looks like she has accomplished that. Many of our neighbors can't eat grapefruit because of their medication, so they pick the fruit off their trees and give it away. Boxes of fruit appear for free at the rec hall on a daily basis. We were juicing grapefruit from several trees, and it made an interesting picture to see the different colors of the same fruit.
We juice the smaller fruit, and cut the larger ones in half to eat. This one was so big it took both hands to hold.
The fruit on the trees in the park is certainly ready to be picked. The birds have noticed it is ripe, and they love to swoop in for a snack.
These pictures were taken from our window, as we watched another hole being pecked into another orange right beside our motor home.
Citrus trees are interesting, in that the ripe fruit can hang on the tree for months. We've heard that it's best to pick it when the blooms begin to appear, so the tree can begin using its energy to produce the new fruit. This tree will certainly be covered with lemons if all those blooms become fruit! We wish we had smell-a-blog capabilities, because these citrus blooms make one of the sweetest scents on earth!
We're just a few miles from the International Butterfly Center, and we get our share of their clientele visiting the park. This guy was spreading his wings on the flowers that Denisa planted at her Mother's house this year.
When he folded his wings to show the back-side of his wings, he looked like an entirely different creature. It looks like we have wandered into another of God's wonders right here in our campground!
Denisa is easily entertained, and she enjoyed watching that butterfly sipping the nectar from those blooms!
One of Denisa's favorite plants around our park are the Crown-of-Thorns (aka Christ plant). Those perfectly-formed flowers last for days. We're going to miss our walks and bike rides that take us by so many of the pretty blooms of the Rio Grande Valley.
We will have a change of scenery, as we are ready to leave Bentsen Grove Resort. We are driving Denisa's Mother in her car back to her home in Oklahoma. Then we'll continue northward to help our son and his family move into their new house near Kansas City. So we have a long road trip ahead of us as we travel temporarily out of this citrus paradise to spend some family time.
During the two months we have been sitting in one spot in South Texas, Mark had a long list of projects he wanted to accomplish. We were having too much fun to do them early during our stay, so it seemed they all waited until our last week.
One job was washing the motor home. After four years, we have finally accumulated the best cleaning gear. A soft bristle brush on a telescoping pole that hooks to our water hose was a great investment to make the job easier. That is followed by drying with a new chamois that helps to get those hard water spots under control. No pictures during the job because we were wet and busy. But we were pretty proud of the shine when we finished the job.
Our 2013 Tiffin Allegro RED (that stands for Rear Engine Diesel) has stood up well to over four years of travel. Besides washing the sides, Mark also read that cleaning the roof is an important maintenance job. He did that last year, so it was time for another major cleaning project. He spent another morning cleaning the roof, and then coating it with two layers of Mop and Glow. Denisa was line dancing while he was on his hands and knees on the roof working. He learned a new lesson on that sunny day. While the white roof was cool, the black roof rails were not. When he backed onto the edge of the roof, that hot roof rail literally sizzled his knees. That black paint was so hot that it blistered his knees like a hot stove. He will wear those blisters for more than a week!
Mark used this time camped at one place to do other chores. He checked the water in the batteries and replaced the faucet at the bathroom sink. He also got parts and then replaced the check-valve to the hot water heater. Denisa sure thinks it's great to be wandering around with a handy-man on board to make these repairs!
We really love our motor home and its quality. But we never understood why they put metal towel holders inside the shower. Even though we squeegee the interior after every shower, that metal will eventually rust in that wet environment. It was time to take them out.
We would have loved to find similar sized racks in acrylic, but an internet search found no such thing. Mark did find this shorter rack, and also some plastic hooks to cover the holes.
He also mounted a new liquid soap dispenser over another set of holes. We drive our motor home into hard and soft water locations, making it hard to keep a shower clean. But we have found it remarkably easier since we stopped using bar soap and squeegee every day.
No injuries were done to any other parts of Mark's anatomy during these last projects, so it was successful all the way around! Now that some projects are finished, we will be ready to hit the road again soon.
Two months ago we bought tickets to go bay fishing from Padre Island. We have been watching the weather forecast, waiting for the perfect weather day when we had nothing else planned so we could make the trip. We've had some really nice days, but we've just been too busy having fun to give up an entire day! So during our final week in the Rio Grande Valley, we finally made the time to go with Denisa's Mother, Betty, on this new adventure.
That first picture is obviously after we had boarded the boat. We had to be at the dock at 7:45 a.m., and of course we were early. With the recent time change, it was still very dark as we crossed the bridge to the island that morning.
We boarded our fishing vessel with the rest of our hardy crew. We had purchased our one-day Texas fishing license the day before, and Betty was glad that people born before 1931 don't have to have a license. There are a few advantages to being old.
Since we are fishing in the bay, our boat captain steered us under the bridge that is the only connection South Padre Island has with the mainland. A couple weeks after the tragedy of 9-11, this bridge was hit by an errant barge that was off course.
The barge struck the support beams, causing the cars crossing the bridge to plunge into the bay. For the days following this tragic accident, the only way for people to get to and from South Padre Island was via boats like the one we were riding on today. The local grocery store owner paid for that make-shift ferry system until other suitable boats could arrive.
Our first fishing stop was right beside that long bridge. We got a few instructions, and then we were free to start feeding the fish using the shrimp on our hooks.
It was a nice temperature, and a good day to be out on the water!
We weren't very successful at our first stop. In fact, the only catch was this eel, who twisted himself around the fishing line and made a tangled mess. Our group would catch several more eel this morning.
After moving to a better location, we started seeing more fish on the lines. It's a pretty sweet deal when the fishing charter provides the poles and the bait, and they even take them off the line for you. Denisa just caught a catfish, and the captain demonstrated how their serrated fins can easily cut through an aluminum can. Now she's really glad that he is handling that fish!
It wasn't long before Denisa caught another fish, and this one is a whopper!
Actually, he was too little to eat the shrimp bait, and she accidentally caught him on his side with her hook. She is a pretty pitiful fisherwoman! You can see how tiny this pin fish is when you compare it with the size of the fishing weight on her line.
We had moved to our third location, when the fish really started biting. Denisa looks a little concerned as she brings her third fish out of the water. What is it?
It's a puffer fish! Once again, she's very glad that an experienced hand is taking that fish off the line. This puffer is pretty calm, as he hasn't inflated into his normal puffee self when he is traumatized.
We touched those hard spikes that line the fish's body. Now we can understand why a larger fish will spit out a puffer when he inflates and drives those spikes into a predator's mouth. Their other line of defense is the arsenic-laced substance inside that would kill us if we tried to eat this guy. So Denisa has caught her third fish, and none of them were edible.
So many kinds of sea life! It reminded us that we can wander into God's wonders in the sea, as well as on the land. Unlike Denisa, other passengers on our boat were catching edible, good-tasting fish. The captain brought around this whiting to show what we are supposed to be catching!
Finally, just fifteen minutes before the end of our four-hour bay fishing adventure, Mark caught a whiting. The fish wasn't big enough to feed the three of us, so we sent him home with another passenger.
Even if we didn't take home any fish, it was a fun day to be on the water. From the boat we got good views of the brave souls flying above the water under the parasail.
The fog continued to tease us with ghostly views of the high-rises on the island that were peeking out of the clouds.
We got off our fishing boat around noon, and we found that Padre Island has rolled out the blue carpet to welcome the spring break crowd to their beaches. That made for an easy walk over the sand dunes to get to the Gulf.
The afternoon winds have picked up, and the red flag warning was out for swimmers in the Gulf.
Between the fog and the waves, it wasn't a great day to be at the beach. We didn't stay long because after all that hands-on experience with fish, we were ready to eat some sea food.
We headed to Pirate's Landing for lunch. At the beginning of the season at the Winter Texan Expo, Betty had won a $25 gift certificate here and we were ready to cash it in!
But first we had to take some pictures of the handsome pirate outside.
That pirate deserves a close-up!
Just a few steps from Pirate's Landing is the Port Isabel Lighthouse. Since Denisa loves lighthouses, she wasn't going to leave until she got a picture. . .
or maybe two pictures. At the end of the day, we didn't come home with our ice chest full of fish, but we did come home with a tummy full of fish. We enjoyed seeing a little sea life on the end of our fishing line, even if we couldn't eat it. We feel like we got to see some of God's wonders up close in a different way today.
Since this is our fifth year spending a month or more at Bentsen Grove Resort, it is fun to spend time with old friends that we met in years' past. But it's also fun to meet new friends. We were certainly delighted when we were contacted by Mike and Sandy Mills, who have found our blog on-line and wanted to meet in person. Mike writes a very entertaining blog--mills-travels.blogspot.com. While reading their blog we already knew that we had much in common. So we were honored to meet them for lunch one Sunday, and find out that his sense of humor is just as much fun in person. We thought the picture we took outside the Griffin Grill was good, but Mike didn't like Sandy's purse "that was big enough to carry a small child" in the picture we took that day. So it was our good fortune that we got to see them again for another picture in front of our motor home.
They full-time in a Tiffin motor home, so we got to compare notes as we visited inside our rig. Sandy is a retired teacher, and the perfect "straight man" for Mike's pilot antics. We also found that Mike is playing the piano for the Sunday services at their RV park this winter. So we were honored when he sat down in front of our electric keyboard to play us a tune! When we compared notes, we found that we had been at the same rally in 2012. We think it is great fun to meet new friends on the road!
Another new friend we met is also musically talented. We went to the Molly B show when she was touring through South Texas. During a single show, she demonstrated that she can play the piano, trumpet, alto saxophone, accordion, clarinet, drums, euphonium, tenor sax, pocket trumpet, melodica, valve and slide trombones, Alphorn, and probably any other instrument she can get her hands on. Mark's parents have been fans of hers for years, so we had to get a picture of her before the show began. Her fans probably already know that she made her Hollywood appearance this spring in Clint Eastwood's new film, "The Mule." It seems that Clint watches her show on television every Saturday night as well.
One of our favorite parts of the full-time RVing lifestyle is getting to meet new and interesting people! We'll be following Mike and Sandy's blog now, and we hope to see them many more times down the road. As for Molly, we might have to be content to see her on the big and little screens.
The end of the winter season in South Texas means a steady stream of parties as groups say good-bye until next year. We were attending one of those parties, when we realized that the weekly card bingo was about to start. So we hurried to the rec hall, and laid out five random playing cards in front of us. Around 100 other people were already there, and the bingo caller began turning over cards from his shuffled deck on the stage. The winner in card bingo is the person whose five chosen cards are called first out of the caller's deck. We barely had time to catch our breath when we paid our first nickel and the first game began. So we were certainly surprised when Denisa's five cards were called and she yelled a very surprised "Bingo!" But that is a special bingo, because the female with the first bingo gets to be queen for the entire evening!
After receiving her crown and the pay-off of the winning game in nickels, we settled down for the second game. Denisa's Mother mentioned that it sure would be funny if Mark won the next game. And guess what happened . . . wait for it . . . Mark's five cards were called! Since he was the first male with a bingo for the night, he was presented with the king's crown.
This led to a flurry of text messages to friends and family that we have played card bingo with in the past. Denisa's Mother wanted to be in the picture just to prove that she was related to such royalty. We didn't win any of the remaining 28 games that night, but the king and queen get another pay-out at the end of all the games. Our bag of nickels continues to grow as do our memories from the season.
The end of the season means that our projects must come to an end. We started some rock projects two months ago, and for some reason it took a final deadline to get them done. We collected rocks in our travels last year, and we put some in the rock tumbler two months ago. After tumbling with different coarse grits for close to 60 days, we found that they were smaller and shinier when they were finished. We poured them out on a towel, wishing that we had a similar "before" picture to go with this "after" photo.
We have also been slicing and hand polishing stones. Living in a motor home, we didn't make one of those lovely rock clocks, or polish up any sizable slabs. Denisa opted to make small cabochons that will fit into an interchangeable necklace mounting she has had for years. We learned a lot about how to use the rock club equipment, and which rocks take a shine. We also learned that a grinder that can shape up a piece of rock can also grind off a fingernail before you know it. This was our final inventory of new rock pieces that have become jewelry this winter.
Some of the stones are nice souvenirs of our travels from 2018. This is a Charlevoix, a tiny petrified coral we picked up on the shores of Lake Michigan near Charleviox, Michigan.
Similarly, we loved hunting for the larger petrified coral known as Petoskey stones that we found near Petoskey, Michigan. This is the stone that is a boring gray rock until it is wet (or polished) and the interconnected segments of coral can be seen.
We went on a rock hunt here in the Rio Grande Valley, and found this crazy lace Texas agate. We love the detail hidden inside these stones.
So with the end of the winter season, Denisa has some new jewelry to wear the next time the queen is dressed up for another royal engagement.
