After two months at Bentsen Grove Resort in the Rio Grande Valley, we are ready to head on down the road to new adventures. We're sad to say good-bye to Denisa's Mother and our winter friends. It looks like the sky is crying as we headed out in our just-washed motor home in the rain. After spending most of the winter in the very bottom tip of Texas, the only way to go is up. We hope February isn't too early to head north! As we exited onto north highway 69C, we realized this is the direction we will be driving for many months.
We have traveled this road for many years, and it always seems to be a long drive from the border until we reach this border inspection point about an hour down the road. This was our first time to pass through the brand new facility that has opened up since our last trip north.
Our destination is another hour down the road to Seawind Resort near Riviera, Texas. We are camped right beside Baffin Bay, a salt water inlet from the Gulf of Mexico.
It's good to be back near the Gulf, and its many shore birds. Denisa kept taking pictures of the birds that call this area home.
They like hanging out on the jetties that reach out into the bay almost as much as we do.
The pelicans like being near the pier, hoping for scraps when successful fishermen are cleaning their catch of the day. Every seat was taken on this row of posts in the bay.
The pelicans are so used to people, that they don't mind if a couple of wanderers with a camera get very close.
Against this salt water bay, we think it is interesting to see desert cactus growing on the shore.
We are at Seawind RV Resort because they participate in the Passport America program and offer half-price camping. It also is a lovely park. In this warm south Texas environment, everything from palms to spruce to live oaks do well.
Some of the seasonal residents prove that many other plants also thrive here in this park near Riviera, Texas.
We stopped because of the nice rate. But we will continue to stop by because it is such a friendly park. Denisa was welcomed into their line dance class, and we signed up for more activities at the rec hall during our brief stay.
Our favorite activity was the Friday night fire pit meal. Volunteers start the fire in the morning, then use the hot coals to bake potatoes for everyone. At 5:00 participants bring their meat to put on the fire pit--carefully monitored all day so it will be at the perfect temperature for grilling.
At least half of the entrees have already been plated, but that's still quite a meaty picture of supper goodness! We arrived without knowledge of this fire pit event, so we were lucky to have some bratwurst in our refrigerator that were just right for the grill.
We were welcomed to a large table that offered to share their side dishes and dessert--what a friendly place! Then we stayed for the dance that allowed Denisa to practice her new line dance steps. We would see these same friends at the Saturday morning breakfast, and then at church the next day. As we watched a pretty sunset on our last evening at the park, we know that even though we love spending time with old friends, it is also fun to make new ones on our way north.
As the last days of our two month-long-resort-stay count down, we are finishing up lots of projects. The most important was hosting a big birthday party. Denisa's Mother started wintering at this 55+ park 35 years ago. If you do the math, you can see that she's turning 90 years old this spring. In 35 years here, she's made many life-long friends. Even though her birthday isn't until April, we decided to host a party here with her winter friends before we left the park.
We served cake and punch to close to 200 friends that stopped by to wish her a happy birthday that afternoon.
It will take her until her birthday in April to get all those birthday cards read!
The next day we helped to host another party. Many of our winter friends come from far northern states like Minnesota and Wisconsin. Those states have big crowds when they have get-togethers in our resort. But when talking to a friend from Nebraska, we realized that both our states had too few people in the park to party. So last year we invented the Oklahoma/Nebraska pot luck. We had a nice crowd for our second annual party, and we can confirm that the citizens from these two states are great cooks. They also have a good sense of humor in participating in our silly games and trivia contests.
In those final days, we also made time for another line dance party. We have the best teachers in the valley, and each month they invite other resorts to join us for three hours of continuous dancing. We had long lines of line dancers, with as many as 80 people on the floor.
We also had our last evening of serving ice cream at the club house. Mark eats ice cream every day, so we are uniquely qualified to serve up this frozen treat.
Another last minute project is to pick fruit off Denisa's Mother's trees. The trees need to be stripped of fruit so they can put all their energy into the blooms that are forming next year's crop. We've been complaining about the sorry citrus harvest this year, so it took less time to pick the fruit this time. We also have seen some odd fruit this year, including this huge grapefruit. When we cut it open, we found that it had formed an unusual amount of rind around a tiny heart of citrus.
Two months ago, we made lists of things we were going to accomplish in all our spare time while we were off the road. That would include cleaning the outside of the motor home. So of course we waited until the last week to get it done. First, Mark cleaned the top of the motor home roof.
Then Denisa finally showed up to help spread a coat of mop-and-glow wax to the white fiberglass top. After that first coat, Denisa climbed off the roof and somehow managed to get a drop of the cleaner inside her ear. She can report that it is a painful accident, and a very efficient way to be banned from ever helping with this project again.
So after two months of dancing and playing pickleball on a daily basis, we jammed even more parties and projects into our last week of resort life.
We have been to the Rio Grande Valley many times, but we have never visited Estero Llano Grande State Park--about 30 miles from our campground. Armed with our new Texas state park pass, we picked a day when we have fewer activities inside the park, and we went on a field trip.
This is another location of the "world birding center" and we started seeing birds as soon as we arrived at the visitor center.
People that flee the cold northern states for the warm temperatures of the Rio Grande Valley are often called "snow birds." Today we would see some feathered versions of snow birds that have arrived for the warm weather.
Unlike the state park just three miles from our campground, Estero Llano Grande has a series of ponds that the water birds are enjoying. Staying on the trails, we could get quite close to the birds.
Many of them were new to us. Just like us, these birds aren't from around here.
We've heard people given the advice to get their "ducks in a row." Today we see that Estero Llano Grande State Park does have their ducks in a row. If we look closely, we see that the row is made up of many different varieties of ducks.
Out of the water, this green-headed duck looked like his head was too large for the rest of his body. When we spotted him earlier on the water, he looked perfectly proportional.
Spring has already come to the valley. When we visited the Grebe pond, we found these downy baby grebes on the water.
But our best find of the day was a pair of roseate spoonbills. Their name is very descriptive. "Roseate" describes their pink color, and "spoonbills" describes the shape and the way they use their bills.
They use that spoon-shaped bill to dip goodies from the bottom of the shallow water.
We also hiked to the far end of the state park, but we didn't find any alligators in the Alligator Lake. But it was fun to explore a state park with water that attracts some beautiful birds.
The next stop on our field trip day was just a few more miles down the road--into Mexico. We haven't ventured across the border yet this year, so we headed just four miles south to the parking area at Progresso. Like most winter Texans, we have never driven our car across the border. It is much safer to leave it tucked away on the north side of the border, and then walk across the international bridge. The actual border is centered over the Rio Grande River.
The view from the bridge of the river was pretty this morning. The U.S. side was peaceful and empty. As we crossed to the Mexico side we could see groups of people of all ages on the banks of the river, yelling to the tourists on the bridge to throw down a "neeckle."
We were alerted to some changes in the cost of visiting Mexico. Visitors must now pay $1.00 (in quarters) to open up the turnstiles at the border. There are no officials asking to see our passports or checking to be sure we weren't bringing in dangerous substances. If you have $1.00, Mexico welcomes everyone.
We stopped to take the normal tourist picture in front of the Mexico sign to prove that we passed those rigorous standards to make this into an international field trip.
While we wouldn't cross the border just anywhere, we have always felt safe in the tiny town of Progresso. We know many people that make this trip for dental work, and others come to refill pharmacy prescriptions at rock-bottom prices. Hawkers on the street will invite you inside their medical facilities the minute you cross the border. We much preferred this quiet and friendly approach at this "farmacia" whose mascot waved to us from his over-sized suit.
The streets are filled with vendors selling wares, making it hard to get down the sidewalk. We also ventured into several stores to make a few purchases. It seems that most of our purchases were edible, as we love to try new food as we travel. We can say that we have never experienced ill effects from food purchased here in Progresso.
After walking as far south as we dared, we headed back north on the other side of the street.
On other trips south of this border, we have seen the line to return to the United States stretch for a block or more. But this day it only took a few minutes to show our passports and be welcomed back to the U.S.A. The return border crossing costs 30 cents, and we crossed the bridge back to the parking lot where our car was waiting. Our international trip didn't take long, and we were back home in time for the Friday fish fry at our neighboring RV park. We are usually kept busy with all the activities that can be found at our resort. But sometimes it's nice to do some bird watching and then cross the river and take an international trip.
Like most of our blog posts, we're late in wishing a "Happy Valentines Day!" This year we celebrated our 41st Valentines day together. Denisa thought we had agreed to celebrate with a nice meal followed with an evening of dancing. That would certainly have pleased her. But Mark had more elaborate plans. She figured it out when she opened the motor home door after a two-hour line dance class and an enticing smell greeted her. (Does that peak your interest?)
Mark had been plotting his strategy for some time, googling interesting valentine bouquet ideas. We are familiar with edible fruit bouquets that are made from colorful assorted fruit. Mark knows that Denisa loves fruit. But what is the one snack that she loves even more? After 41 years he knows that she loves pickles, so he did what any romantic husband would do. He set out to create a pickle bouquet.
He used the jar from her favorite brand of "wickles" (wickedly spicy pickles) for his vase and worked upwards. He knows that Denisa also loves a snack of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and carrot sticks. So he added those into his aromatic arrangement of goodies. The attention to detail was awesome, as he even did some spiral cutting for variety. He added fresh parsley and pickled red peppers to add texture and aroma. Delightful!
The enticing aroma that greeted Denisa was symbolic of the good feeling that she always gets when coming "home" to the motor home and Mark after a tough morning of dancing. But there's more to the Valentine present. To the right is a package of four chocolate-covered strawberries. To the left is a bag containing a new fit-bit watch. In the center is a beautiful card that said mushy sweet things that she really appreciated hearing. Denisa is one very lucky Valentine!
On top of all that delicious and thoughtful Valentine's goodness, we also had a night with a nice meal and dancing. We had purchased tickets for the Bentsen Grove Valentine banquet and dance. After eating an Italian meal and heart-shaped dessert, we took a picture under the red arbor.
Mark had two dates that evening, as we took Denisa's Mother out as well.
As we wander God's wonders, Denisa feels loved every day. But there's nothing quite like a pickle bouquet to make a girl feel extra special on Valentine's Day!
This winter we went shopping for a new car, but decided to drive our old one another year instead. In spite of that decision, we still purchased some new wheels this year. Instead of four wheels, we just bought two. Mark got a new bicycle!
His old bike had a bent front rim, the pedal bearings were going out, it no longer liked to shift gears, the brakes were almost non-existent, and it had a nasty habit of throwing the chain. Then he had a blow-out on the front tire on a ride in the park. We were just glad it wasn't the day before when we were five miles away from home. Mark bought a new tire and tube, then realized that $30 would be a nice down payment on a new bike with all the parts working. So Denisa talked him into buying an early birthday present. She can even ride this one, because it doesn't have the tall cross bar. It's a nice smooth ride!
We had to take the new bike out for a spin to the state park down the road. We had wanted to go back one last time to see if we could dig up an ant lion. We had taken pictures last time of these unique conical indentations.
Later, Mark read that this was the lair of the vicious ant lion. So today we did a little digging to see if we could find one. Sure enough, at the base of the cone, we found this guy. Notice the pinchers attached to his head.
Lion is a big name for a tiny insect. We left Mark's thumb nail in the picture just to show that this lion isn't very big.
He didn't like being above ground, and he quickly headed under the sand as soon as he could find enough sand to cover himself. These curious insects are also called "doodle bugs" because of the meandering trail they make while they are cruising above ground to find the perfect place to bury themselves. Their meandering leaves a trail that looks like someone wrote doodles in the sand.
We had heard about the ant lion's plan to grab any ant that stumbled into their "cone of death." We didn't see any action today, so we sped up the process a little by delivering a tiny ant. Sure enough, the lion kicked up sand to keep the ant in the cone, while grabbing the ant's leg with those over-sized pinchers. The pictures of the tiny ant didn't turn out, so we delivered a larger ant. It's still hard to see, but it was interesting to watch this battle. We are obviously fascinated by some pretty weird things.
We took a nice long ride around the park, and then to the National Butterfly Center next door. The weather wasn't optimal for seeing butterflies, so we will have to try that another day. So we loaded the new two wheels back on the bike rack attached to the old four wheels. We finally made a purchase this winter, even though it was a lot smaller than we had planned.
