Preparing for a Road Trip

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.