After staying in Mission, Texas, for two months, we have officially exceeded our longest stay in one place in the motor home. We come here to spend time with Denisa's Mother, who has wintered here for 32 years. But we have to say that we really enjoy the daily activities here as well. We will miss those indoor air-conditioned pickleball courts! Both of us have gotten a lot of good exercise and made lots of new friends in our hours on the courts. Denisa will also miss the good exercise and fun from the line dance class. In fact, we extended our stay just so she could attend the evening line dance three-hour marathon of dancing fun.
If you notice, she's on the correct foot in both of the pictures. That's quite an accomplishment! We have great teachers at the park, and staying two months helped her catch up a little with the people that get to dance all year. As the evening progressed, so did the skill level needed to keep those feet moving in the right direction. This is Denisa's favorite form of aerobic exercise--dancing to the music!
Another thing we will really miss is the fresh produce of the Rio Grande Valley. We normally shop for produce from a local farmer that comes directly to the RV park every Friday. But we were leaving before his weekly visit, so we went to the "Pulga" about three miles away. We found out that pulga means "flea" in Spanish, so we were actually going to the flea market to buy our produce. It was a cloudy morning when we were shopping. Yes, those are pineapples that you can buy--two for one dollar.
While the Don-Wes flea market has only winter Texan customers, this pulga is for the locals. We seemed to be the only English-speakers shopping at the pulga.
Denisa was excited about all the fresh produce she bought. Each purchase was $1. That would be five avocados for $1; five peppers for $1, two pounds of grape tomatoes for $1, two pounds of green beans for $1; 4 squash for $1, etc. It's very fresh produce at rock bottom prices, and our refrigerator is now stocked up and ready to hit the road.
When people ask where we are heading, we point north--but not too quickly. We have four very exciting events that are shaping our travel plans this spring. We want to be in Oklahoma City on April 14 for our youngest son's wedding shower. We will be in Kansas City for the expected birth of our first grandchild on May 5. We will be in Oklahoma City on June 3 for our son's wedding. We want to be back in Kansas City for our oldest son's graduation from his pediatric residency later in June. What a busy and blessed itinerary!
But until then, we plan to work our way north through east Texas. Our first stop is just north of the town of Rockport at Wilderness Oaks RV Resort. The town of Rockport has its own harbor, filled with fishing boats and pleasure craft.
They are proud to host some of those rare whooping cranes, and there is a statue of them in the town center. This little town was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey, and their art center is in the background--still boarded shut with major damage inside.
We visited here two years ago, and really enjoyed the town's aquarium. It was run by volunteers, and we appreciated that there was no charge for admission. We remember fondly the fun exhibits inside. The old building couldn't stand up to the wrath of Harvey, however. Mark is standing where those aquarium exhibits once stood, as all the walls are now gone from the building.
We drove in on Highway 35, a four-lane divided highway with a wide median. That median was a handy place to stack the debris that comes from the devastation of a hurricane. The piles include tin roofs, sheetrock, mattresses, furniture, lumber, plastic riding toys--everything that was destroyed by the double punch of wind and water.
The visitor's center told us that 80% of the buildings in this town were damaged. We include another picture of the dwindling debris piles that were once over two miles long. The tractor and truck give a little scale to how tall the piles are. There are signs around town that the final debris pick-up day is this week, so more trash is being piled up on the curbs all over the county.
We're staying at Wilderness Oaks RV Resort, and they are doing a monumental job of cleaning up from this tragedy. There were 50 RVs still parked here when the hurricane hit, and 42 of those were blown onto their sides and totaled. At another RV park, the twisted frames of many RVs have been stacked at the entrance.
We walked the streets of our new home town, shaking our heads when we considered all the things that are badly damaged or even completely gone since our visit two years ago. So we were surprised to see this field of bluebonnets near the port. We thought it was too early for these beautiful Texas wildflowers to be blooming. But just like the town of Rockport, they are resilient and beautiful and happy to be blooming where they are planted.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again--we love the wonderful citrus we get to enjoy while we visit Bentsen Grove campground in South Texas! We love to eat oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit that are tree-ripened and just minutes after they are picked. Denisa's Mother has asked us to pick all her fruit so it won't fall off the trees and spoil. So Mark has been spending some good quality time at the top of the ladder, as well as doing his monkey imitation in the limbs of her fruit trees.
We will get to take much of that fresh fruit with us when we leave. We have also picked some of the oranges on our lot. Even though Denisa has been shooing those pesky black birds away, they are doing major damage to our fruit crop. They sit at the top of the tree, pecking holes in the best fruit and then eating it until only the rind is left.
In an effort to beat the birds to the fruit, we are juicing some of the oranges on our lot. Within minutes after picking, we can juice and freeze quart bags of orange juice. We are learning the most efficient method, as we set up the juicing station right under the trees. The oranges have seeds, so we squeeze them by hand into a colander. Fast and easy, and the sticky mess stays outside!
Besides the birds, we are finding that the bees are very interested in our fruit. The longer we juice, the more bees show up to drink from the just-cut orange halves.
Denisa had to wash her sticky juicing hands to take pictures of the bees one day. You can actually see this guy drinking the juice!
Because we like a little scientific experimentation, we tried to determine which tree had the best juice oranges. We picked ten oranges from two different trees, and found out they made exactly the same amount of juice. After we both did a blind taste test, we were relieved that our favorite was from the tree that we had already juiced the most. Whew! Being a scientist can be a tasty experience.
One of the best parts of our outdoor laboratory is the smell. We wish we had smell-a-blog capabilities, because citrus blooms are Denisa's favorite fragrance in the entire world. (Mark likes it too, but it is a distant third behind the smells of baking bread and grilling steaks for him.) These little blooms are especially concentrated at our motor home, where two trees are in full bloom right by our door. Simply opening a window gives the same effect as lighting her favorite scented candle.
Our juicing table has to be cleaned off every day, just to clear off all the blooms that are falling off the trees. It feels like summer with temperatures in the 80's, but it's looking like winter with the white blooms falling like snow.
We have learned more scientific knowledge about citrus trees this winter. Most fruit trees use a base from a strong rooted tree, with a good fruit tree grafted on top. They combine to give a strong rooted tree that bares tasty fruit. But we have one tree in which the good fruit top section was frozen years ago. That means that the root stock has taken over. The picture below shows the stunted and frozen graft with a single limb going off to the left. The other two healthy-looking straight trunks came up below the graft from the root stock.
Those two straight trunks are straight off the good root orange tree base, which is obviously a terrible orange fruit tree. The fruit off those two trunks is bumpy, and tastes like battery acid.
The lone branch above the grafted trunk has smooth skin fruit. We discovered they are actually lemons, and quite tasty!
To further our education, we have even learned about orange in our Spanish class. We now know that the Spanish word for the color orange is "anaranjado," while the word for the orange fruit is "naranja."
We enjoy living in a citrus orchard, and we'll miss the tastes and smells of this place when we leave. But we'll take a little taste of the valley with us when we leave with a freezer full of orange-colored orange juice! Or as we would say in Spanish class, some tasty "anaranjado naranja" juice.
We recently took Denisa's Mother on a two-day road trip to Corpus Christi. We purposefully did the outdoor touring the first day because Mark noticed rain in the forecast for the second day. So our indoor activity for day two was visiting the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus.
They are advertising the aquarium heavily on television, as a new expansion and update has just been completed. The all new "Caribbean Journey" includes a three-story rain forest exhibit that lets visitors get up-close to their birds. This pink flamingo thinks he is a goose, because right after this picture was taken, he goosed Denisa. Mark was very sad that he missed her surprised reaction.
Because we were some of the first visitors of the day, we got a close-up of this roseate spoonbill in the new exhibit. Shortly after this picture was taken, we watched as he flew to the top of the trees. He then spent the rest of the day safely located three stories above the crowds.
Ducks were floating in the river going through the Caribbean, and they didn't mind swimming close to the visitors.
This white pelican is a brand new resident, brought here after an injury ended his ability to survive in the wild. He hasn't gotten used to being fed, and he kept looking longingly at the fish swimming by.
After all these bird pictures, it looks like we were visiting an aviary instead of an aquarium. But there were water features throughout, and many of them encouraged interaction with the sea creatures. There are both indoor and outdoor tanks for touching the sting rays. On this rainy day we preferred the indoor option. The sting rays often glide by to allow us to feel their velvety smooth backs with two fingers.
Throughout the aquarium, tanks full of other sea creatures can be enjoyed. Some of them look like normal fish, while others look like something that Dr. Seuss invented.
Some of the aquariums have domes, that allow you to view the tank from a 360-degree perspective. Another strange looking creature appeared in the picture below. (That's describing the skinny fish swimming by--not Mark.)
You know that we have a creative God that created so many unusual creatures. These worm-like fish would stand up straight from the bottom of the tank, then retreat back into the sand if startled.
One of the new displays is this giant tank filled with large schools of fish and sharks. An 8-inch-thick piece of curved acrylic is separating us from those vicious-looking sharks.
We watched while the divers were cleaning the tank. The well-fed sharks glide right past them, and completely ignore the other fish.
We saw evidence of sharks of a larger size in another part of the aquarium. It looks like Mark would just be a nibble to this big guy.
Besides the displays, there are shows that run throughout the day. We had the schedule in hand, and made it to each one. We started with the animal encounter, where we could touch the baby alligator.
Then we headed outside for the sea otter show. It was hard to get a clear picture, as she is moving so quickly.
The trainer had left bits of food around the enclosure. We watched as the otter was playing a version of easter-egg-hunting to find them all.
There was a bird show, where different animals were paraded in front of the audience. This military macaw was named for his startling green feathers that look like he is in uniform.
But our favorite was this guy, who picked up that plastic snake and "killed" him by beating him against that rock over and over. That's a handy bird to have around.
When we needed some time to rest our legs, we found the 4-D movie theater. The other good part of this experience is the fashionable glasses we got to wear as the Shark movie played.
But our favorite show had to be the dolphins.
They would leap out of the water on cue. . .
and do amazing tricks like catching a ball.
They were very good ball-handlers, as they could also balance balls on the tip of their noses.
It was still raining a little outside, so we had our rain gear ready during the show. We found out that wouldn't be enough, as the people sitting next to us were soaked from one of the dolphin splashes. It seems we were sitting in the splash zone.
After the show, we could see the two dolphins underwater as they would glide right behind this handsome silhouette.
Dolphins always seem to be smiling.
The morning rain showers subsided so we could see the outdoor displays before we left. The aquarium was built right on the water, and we could see the ships passing by.
The ship in the background of the picture above is the U.S. Lexington--a military air-craft carrier that is also open for touring.
The view from the other side of the aquarium is the bridge that connects us with the points south of Corpus Christi. After another meal of fish and shrimp, we'll cross that bridge and head back to where the motor home is parked in Mission, Texas. It was a fun two-day road trip with Denisa's Mother!
