March 1 to March 7, 2002

The morning of Friday March 1 looked discouraging; heavy overcast with some drizzle gave way to dark gray clouds on the northern horizon.  We hoped to attend Charro Days Sombrero Festival senior day, then see an evening illuminated parade, but these would sure be no fun in rain. The forecast was for clearing by noon; the sky did not look like it had heard the forecast. By noon, however, it was not raining, so we decided to start out.  The plan involved an 11AM lunch buffet at Los Brasos, then moving the RV a couple miles to Sunrise Mall and taking a special hourly shuttle bus to Washington Park downtown. Lunch buffet turned out to start at 11:30, so we arrived at the Mall just as the bus did, 10 minutes before the hour, and still had a few things to get ready in the RV.  When we emerged a few minutes later (well before the hour), the bus had gone. We decided to walk across the square and take a city bus rather than wait another hour. The sun came out and it turned decidedly warm.  Forty minutes later the city bus appeared and we soon found ourselves in Washington Park joining a crowd of festive people, many dressed in traditional Mexican finery.  

It was warm (HOT?) to me, and we sought out the little shade provided by the newly leafing out Springtime trees. Many folks wore black or dark colors, quite handsome, but also quite warm for THIS afternoon.

 Vendors offered food, drink, rides and games for tickets bought at central ticket booths.  We were not much interested in the food yet, just having come from Los Brasos all you could eat seafood buffet. We could not help but notice and appreciate the LARGE number of porta potties lining the fence of the park. They were CLEAN too!! :-)  Little contests were being held with T shirts for prizes; one interesting local custom is the "grita"; it is a long yodeled greeting ending with "hi". (I do think you must hear it to fully appreciate it....)  This festively dressed young lady is proud of her newly won Sombrero Festival 2002 T-shirt!

  Her grita was as impressive as her costume, too.... :-)  There were other contests with cash prizes for best costume.  This girl was a winner.  

There were folk dance demonstrations performed by a group from the university here. These were quite colorful and dynamic.  There was an interesting Aztec dance.

  Following were a number of Mexican dances.  We particularly enjoyed the flowing dance movements the ladies made with their full skirts spread out as they twirled.

    There was a big emphasis on family as a part of this festival;

 Kids were everywhere, and I particularly enjoyed the ones dressed in festive costume.  

The Country Roland Band played for hours in the late afternoon and evening. Folks were dancing in the street in front of the stage and we joined in for a few songs we felt comfortable with.  The band leader/lead singer is probably 60, and had his daughter, grandson, and even great grandaughter (around 5 years old) on stage with him.  She was cute with her tamborine, but shyly declined great granddad's invitation to sing.  She is not in this picture; all I tried to take of her were impossibly blurry due to camera shake; getting late perhaps?  :-)

The music was LOUD in the open air park!  I felt my chest vibrate with the bass from the massive speakers.  I asked how much power they were using, but the sound technician did not know (he asked if it was too loud for me-I said "no"...perhaps a bit of a stretch of the truth, but I was free to move away). It was a thoroughly professional setup, and included theatrical spotlights for the night time performance as well. I could not understand how the security officer could stand right in front of the big speakers the whole time, though.  The evening parade started, but we were enjoying the festivities in the park and elected to skip it.  It was cooling down as predicted, and we soon appreciated the jackets that had hung around our waists all day in the warm sun.  As the parade ended we decided we had enough fun for one day, and chose to go back to the RV.  One bus filled with us still waiting in line; the next one came quickly, though, and we were soon back in the mall parking lot.  Purry was visible through the RV windshield, in front of the curtain.  I bet he thought we would NEVER return.....I guess we cannot successfully claim "no pets"; he advertises his presence!.  We returned to Walmart's, and retired TIRED.

Saturday March 2 I worked on the website early.  We planned to see the International parade which starts at 1PM in Brownsville (it terminates in the middle of the border bridge, where it meets a similar parade starting in Matemoros, Mexico).  We had hoped to see an evening charrada (horsemanship skill demonstration) in Mexico in the evening, but it had gotten much colder, with strong north winds, so we decided to try to see one advertised on Sunday afternoon.  We dressed warmly and took extra layers with us.  We caught the special bus easily this time; having no schedule expectations makes the wait easier, and you are always pleasantly surprised when it shows up. :-)  The parade route was already lined with people, and we sought a spot protected from the wind and offering some shade from the sun, which we've found can burn even on cold days.  The beard police were operating along the route; tradition demands that men stop shaving January 1 and not start until after Charro Days; oh well, best I can do is stop shaving when I get into town. It worked;  I avoided jail! :-).

  We found shelter and shade from a large church, and joined a family sitting on the steps.  This festively dressed young lady was taking her first steps without a helping hand, as her family cheered her on.  

She did not fall to soil that dress either!  The parade was led by horsemen from Mexico.

They start riding young; this girl controlled her own horse expertly, sitting tall, without help, and had one hand left over to wave!  

Float after festive float passed by, WAY too many to post here.  Many were sponsored by businesses, and a good number were from Mexico and pulled by vehicles licensed in Mexico. This one is sponsored by the College of Mexico.

 The dress and general theme of the parade participants (and indeed the whole Festival) seemed refreshingly "family oriented" after Mardi Gras.  The emphasis here seems to be "classy", not "licentious".  

The sounds of the crowd and the music from the floats are a part of the excitement that I cannot capture in pictures.  We thoroughly enjoyed the parade, but it was getting downright chilly  as the front passed through.  We decided we should return to the heated shelter of the RV, and departed before the last float passed.  On the way out we narrowly escaped being waylaid by this shriner's pirate looking to add to the bills in his belt. :-)   

We had no long wait for a bus; we were near the head of the line when it came, and traffic was not choked up yet.  When we had returned to Walmart's friendly lot, I finished the webpage, ready for early morning upload to the site, and turned in.

Sunday March 4 I awoke early and uploaded the website quickly.  It was VERY cold, but had not frozen as predicted.  The wind had stayed up; our outside thermometer read 40 degrees under the RV.  That was still cold to sit at a charrada, so we dressed very warmly and took two extra layers of clothing in our packs.  The flyer had said the bus would pick up at 10AM for the 11AM charreada start, but we had no other information.  We had to drive the RV to the border area today; the Brownsville Charro Days activities were over, and no city busses were running. We found the city almost deserted this morning.  We found parking next to another RV in an unchained University of Texas lot near the bridge; the sign said "Special Event parking $3",  but no attendants were present.  We walked across the border, paying our 40 cent bridge toll. Here is the real border, in the middle of the Rio Grande; I could not poke the camera lens fully through the fence web.  Notice the two US Border Patrol vehicles waiting at the river's edge in the center of the picture.

 No official on either side showed any interest in us. I had followed advice, removing the small pocket knife from my keyring, as we were told that could be considered a weapon illegal under Mexican law. The Tourist Information stand on the Matemoros side had lots of taxi's lined up, and there were a number of small busses across the street in front of Garcia's gift shop.

We asked a number of bus drivers and taxi drivers about the charrada; nobody knew anything about it, but said the place we spoke of was far out of town. We decided to wait to see if a special bus showed up, but language was a difficulty; only a minority of the folks here spoke ANY English, and of course MY Spanish would not even get me a cold beer.....  Most stores here were closed on Sunday, and few persons were on the streets.  We waited until well after the appointed hour for a special bus, considered walking the two miles to the center of town and decided it was too cold, then walked through Garcia's gift shop.  We found an inexpensive thing we were looking for, bought it, and headed back to the US.  The toll on this side of the bridge was 25 cents.  We carried backpacks stuffed with our extra warm clothes, the bag with our purchase, and my vest with Camera, GPS, and cellphone. Dogs were sniffing the cars coming across; a border patrol officer working with a dog teased us about looking like we were dressed for real cold weather.  An officer at a checkpoint checked our drivers licenses, and we were back.  No big deal, no look at our packs.... :-)  After I went on the roof and freed the TV antenna which was stuck half way up after the crank handle broke, and greased it's gears, we headed to Port Isabel 20 miles away.  Half way there we saw signs to "drive carefully in blowing dust" and shortly found the blowing dust.

 Cars were using headlights, and they were necessary as dust clouds driven by the strong north wind swirled across the road.  I felt rather bad about our engine air filter as we smelled faint traces of dust inside the closed up RV.  In a mile or so the dust subsided, and we found the Walmart easily.  We stopped for lunch, then continued across the bridge to South Padre Island.  We drove north along the single main road, past high rise hotels and vacation developments, into undeveloped beach areas. We passed this place; I thought it so considerate of  Texans to have a special place for Purry and Pookie, and felt sorry we had no time planned to stop....  :-)

The strong wind was blowing the sand here too, and whipping the Gulf waters into a froth; I became quite uncomfortable thinking of it's potential effect on our machinery.  

We decided to turn bach at the first paved opportunity, but it was a mile or so before we found it.  We returned to the town without incident, and checked at the gate to the County Park on the southern tip of the island to make sure we understood the park fees and services correctly.  The gate attendant indicated the water available at the dump station was city water, but he would not drink it.  The police officer chatting with him said he drank it all the time.  Both assured me it was safe, just might not taste good to some folks.  Oh, well, when it is the only water you have, it tastes OK if it is safe.....we learned to cope with different tasting water a long time ago while sailing.  We recrossed the bridge to Port Isabel, noting that the wind did not seem quite as high as it had been earlier when we crossed; the RV was not pushed around as much on the bridge.  Here is the Port Isabel lighthouse seen from the bridge.

  We returned to the Walmart lot for Claire's Armenian lamb and prune stew.  Mmmm Mmmm good!  This was a quiet night without trucks sharing the lot with us; we slept well.

Monday March 4 the temperature outside was 44.1 overnight.  Considering a freeze was expected, we are happy, and the wind is much reduced.  We moved out to the County Park and paid our $6 for admission and dumping.  This park is mainly an RV campground, with over 600 sites.  We immediately dumped and then moved to an open RV site to take on water. We had gone 8 days and our tank was LOW.  It had a strong chlorine taste, but was otherwise OK.  We then found a parking place on the bay side overlooking the Brownsville Ship Channel.  We were just in time to watch an offshore oil drilling rig get towed to port;  these things are HUGE, with a heliport hanging off the side seeming quite insignificant in size compared to the rest of it.

 Note the men standing on the Helipad on the right side of the picture.   We found the beach to be a pleasant walk, with the surf still rough from yesterday's wind.  The fisherman's monument overlooked the ship channel, with many names of those lost on plaques at the base.  

We intended to use all the water we wanted today, then dump and refill on the way out.  We started with a walk on the ship channel jetty and the beach.  The birds were abundant and accomodating for photos.

The Gulf waters were still rough from the winds yesterday, so we did not walk to the jetty's end; it was periodically being drenched heavily in spray from breaking waves. It was interesting that we finally reached mile zero on the intracoastal waterway, even if NOT by boat...  :-)  

We returned to luxurious hot showers with all the water we wanted to use, then a delicious Bok Choy with Tofu stir fry dinner before watching the beautiful sunset over the Bay.  Purry enjoyed it too, although he may have been even more interested in the Blue Heron at the water's edge.

 We dumped a bit late in the day; it is always easier when we can see what we are doing.  The payoff for the dark dump came when we got ready to move out for water; Claire spotted something moving in the road.  I turned the headlights on and there was a BIG jackrabbit.  He just went about his business and gave me time to get the camera and handheld vehicle powered searchlight from the sailboat that we brought and had never before used on this trip.  Claire held the spotlight on him while I photographed through the open RV door.  He was not afraid.  Here he is; our own jacklighted jackrabbit!  :-)  

We topped the water tank and Claire drove us back to the Brownsville Walmart for the night.

Tuesday March 5

We shopped for a few last minute items in Walmart, then proceeded to Los Brasos for a last buffet before proceeding west.  We drove the river road, often in sight of the border, and often seeing border patrol cars along the levee.  There were big fields of sugar cane, cabbage and cauliflower, onions.....  Tractors moved along the road, slowing traffic, but that gave us a better chance to sightsee.  We moved through a number of border towns, and finally reached Hidalgo, across the border from Reynosa Mexico.  The small tourist information office had pamphlets on points of interest; the last existing steam powered irrigation water pumping station is here, restored as a tourist attraction.  It had been built in 1909 and removed from service in 1983, replaced by electric pumps.

 The first killer bee swarm in the US was discovered here, and this BIG version stands near city hall.  

We parked in a church driveway across from the bee to take pictures, and the engine had barely stopped before two gentlemen in a city vehicle pulled up beside us to ask if we were staying the night.  They left quickly when I said no.  While photographing the bee, we observed a large RV being towed by another similar sized RV on a 30 foot rope.  They proceeded to make a left turn in front of us and proceed unmolested past the police headquarters towards their destination.  The towed one was dragging a piece of itself (drive shaft, exhaust pipe?) noisily on the street.....    We took advantage of the photo opportunity, as I was not sure even I would believe what I was seeing without it...  :-)  

Yes, both RV's had US plates, and  were from northern states.....  maybe I should cancel my road service towing policy?  :-))  We proceeded to seek a parking area near the border in Hidalgo where we could walk to Mexico, and found one that offered all day for $4.  We determined to do that tomorrow, as it was already mid afternoon.  We drove toward the McAllen Walmart/Sam's Club.  There was construction that prevented us from reaching the Walmart we passed on the opposite side of the highway, and we drove looking for a way to reverse direction.  Suddenly we saw Camping World ahead; easy decision, pull into the parking lot!  I had intended to visit the Mission TX Camping World in the next few days to look for more air cleaners for the RV generator.  I bought the last remaining one here, and we then proceeded to the Misson Walmart for the night.  The cats enjoyed the field next to the parking lot, and were intrigued yet intimidated by the family of ferrule cats living near the Walmart dumpster.  We kept them separated to avoid possible fights or disease.

Wednesday March 6 dawned drizzly; it felt cool although it was much warmer than it had been.  We intended to walk into Reynosa today, but that activity in this weather was not appealing.  We decided to return to Camping World and seek a replacement crank handle for our TV antenna, hoping the weather would clear as predicted by noon and allow us to proceed to Mexico.  We bought the crank handle, found other things of interest at Camping World too;  they had MaxAire roof vent covers on sale, and we needed a protectant for the RV's fiberglass finish.  We will probably not use the protectant until we get home, but this is possibly the last Camping World we pass on this trip.  The roof vent covers would let us open the vents even in rain, important when we leave the cats inside in warm weather.  We bought MUCH more than intended here, but it is stuff we need and cannot get easily later.  We then decided to modify plans and do laundry in the afternoon.  We found a laundromat, and I installed the two roof vent covers on the front and rear vents while Claire did laundry.  It  was breezy on the roof, but we managed to lose only ONE tiny piece of plastic packaging material to the winds.  The vent covers do not seem to degrade the appearance of the RV ....  :-)  We moved to the McAllen Sam's for the night as the Walmart lot was full.  Gas here is $1.069/ gallon.  It is up 10 cents from what we last paid.  We found a few things we needed in Sam's, and returned to meet Steve, a Walmart truck driver who was curious about how RVers found the Walmarts, as he noticed RVers in every Walmrt he visited.  We told him we had the Walmart's map book that listed all of them.  He said they were hard to find from the book with only the address given.  I told him we used the computer map to locate them from the address.  He indicated Walmart was an EXCELLENT company to work for, were very selective about who they hired, and paid their drivers top  dollar.  A retired airline pilot in a 37' diesel Country Coach parked next to us indicated he got 8-8.5 mpg at 60 mph.  It weighed twice our 17,000 pounds, so I guess that makes sense, but I had always figured diesels got much better milage.  Steve seemed amazed that his new truck had improved to about the same; I did not ask what the older trucks burned.  I was interested to learn that the most big trucking companies govern their trucks to between 60 and 65mph maximum to save fuel.  That explains the long line of trucks in the right lane going the same speed as we do....

Thursday March 7 dawned sunny;  THIS is the day for Mexico, but first we fuel.  The Sams gas pumps take our credit card, so we will use the Sams gift card we bought (on the sales clerk's guidance when we asked how to use the gas pumps) for Sam's in store purchases where our credit card (with it's 1% bonus) is NOT taken. We proceeded back to Hidalgo and received the agreed $4 price to park the RV all day in the lot at the border bridge. We walked across the bridge where I again asked if there would be any trouble getting my camera, GPS, and cellphone back into the US.  The attendant assured me "no".  A pleasant young man with excellent English stepped out of the door and handed each of us a street map of Reynosa while we were looking at a map displayed in a window on the Mexican end of the bridge.  We proceeded to walk to the shopping area, rejecting the numerous offers of "Taxi?".  My initial impression; this is a different world, EXTREMELY interesting, but WORLDS different from my familiar world only 100 yards away.  There are many beautiful things.

Some things are almost SHOCKINGLY different.  This wagon pulled by a burro stood patiently awaiting further instructions, as cars passed hurriedly.  

The people were friendly, smiled, some said "hi", but the two young women tending the counter of a bakery we entered could not speak English at all, referring us to the shop owner loading baked delicacies into the front window.  All prices were in pesos, and in our ignorance we had no idea how much a peso was worth.  We negotiated a price of $1 for a bag of 4 pastries, and went on our way eating them. We chose the shop because it appeared clean, and we thought baked goods would at least have been heated to a safe temperature recently. They were fresh, I thought they were good, but Claire was a bit disappointed.  As of this writing, no ill effects.  :-) We did see street vendors with cooked sweet corn for sale from open containers on the dusty street corner; YIKES, not for us, for SURE!  Bargaining is expected in these markets, and we are not good at it (YET!).  Claire was interested in a few trinkets, but we walked away empty handed.The central square was neat and well manicured. Note the bushes sculpted into animal shapes.

 The church in the town square was interesting, and the old hand pulled bell in the tower rang out LOUDly at 11:44 AM;  why I do not know.....  

We walked, gawked, and photographed until we had seen as much as our wearying bodies could absorb.  It was time to turn towards the bridge and home.  We walked through a night club area, and poked into a few shops, then Claire entered a liquor store near the bridge; we each bought a liter bottle of something expensive imported from Europe.  The prices were good, but after paying the $1.10 per liter Texas tax we probably could come close in the US.  It depends somewhat on how good an exchange rate we get on the credit card.  The shop priced the goods in dollars, but charged the credit card in pesos.  My bet is that the card's exchange rate will beat the liquor store's exchange rate by an insignificant amount....  :-)  The liquor store had to carry the bottles to the bridge and hand them to us as we entered the toll turnstyle, so they could not possibly get transferred to a Mexican citizen free of Mexican tax.  We returned to a long line at the US immigration office.  It was lunch time and only one official was on duty.  When our turn came we proceeded without incident thru the line, but I was stopped by an officer on the way out and asked if I had a camera (it was in the pocket of my fishing vest, and showing through my open jacket).  When I said "yes" he asked to see it.  I showed it to him, followed by the GPS and cellphone.  He commented that it was a nice arrangement I had; I replied I had not been ripped off yet, and did not want to be.  He smiled.  :-)  We rapidly returned to the RV and the Mission Walmart.  We were both tired, and declined to do anything further this afternoon but rest.  Dinner was macaroni and cheese.  Trip planning for the next few days occupied the early evening, then SWEET DREAMS!

PLANS; We have been to Benston State Park today, Friday, and moved to Rio Grande City after dark.  Benston state park was an experience, in strong south winds that kicked up dust.  Since Rio Grande City has strong digital cellphone service, and I do not want to cover Benston Park hastily,  I will cut this weeks update off with Thursday and upload early in the morning.  We plan to go over 100 miles to Laredo tomorrow, stopping on the way at Falcon Dam.  I want to finish the internet work early and be off.  We will spend a day in Nuevo Laredo Mexico before proceeding north 150 miles to San Antonio.  From there it is Big Bend National park, then through El Paso and Tuscon AZ to the South Rim of Grand Canyon and then hopefully east to Canyon de Chelly before we must start back toward Massachusetts April 10 at the latest.  It is not at all certain the weather will cooperate with these plans, but they are general guidance for those curious....  :-)  We are continuing to enjoy the trip; even Pookie seems to be out from under the couch more in daylight, though he is FAST to return if the ignition keys jingle. Until next week, HAVE FUN! We are!!