Saturday, November 15, 2008

We've been having a great time. I just wish that I'd be able to find the time to write about it.

Time. There is never enough.

I was doing OK blogging until about two weeks ago. When I blogged about being at Indianola, Texas we were actually set up down the road in Corpus Christi. Move on to the next locations, Organize those photos, reflect, and take the time to write. That's how it's supposed to work.

Corpus Christi was wonderful. We were on a small island just outside the downtown area proper. There were a handful of bars, a nature park, the USS Lexington aircraft carrier, and little else. And the salt water was maybe 20 ft. in front of our bumper. Deb was up fishing at 4 and 5AM several days in a row. As a side trip we ran over to Mustang Island and took the ferry to the legendary Port Aransas. Just beautiful!














Since our stay in Corpus Christi we moved on to Port Isabel, Texas for a few days. Port Isabel and nearby South Padre Beach were also beautiful.

Now we are in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, about 60 miles inland and down on the Mexico border. We'll be here for about a month.

In the meantime we have been exploring the Mexican border areas at a furious pace and deciding where to go and what to do next. Budget willing, of course.

We ran over to the modern-day Playa Bagdad, an area that I have wanted to explore for years. Historically the last Confederate port open during the Civil War, the Bagdad of old was perhaps 7 miles from the Playa Bagdad of today due to the shifting sands of the Rio Bravo River. We discovered a delightful fishing village built right on the ocean, along with a small tourist village. If there was ever a good place for a gringo to go and hide and to get away from it all then the Playa Bagdad is the place to go.








Near McAllen, Texas we found the perfect RV park, right on the Rio Bravo River. You could literally look across the river and into Mexico. The border patrol was in attendance, and so were numerous fishermen from the RV park. I'm not sure what the bag limit was, but I suspect that you had to throw back anything under 95 lbs.

Alas, the perfect RV park was next to a flood wall that was under construction, and we didn't think that it was prudent to try and get a 40 ft. motorhome over that steep embankment with a tight turn and a sheer dropoff.


So we checked into another, very nice RV park that caters to "Winter Texans," i.e. the generally-retired snowbirds that flock to Texas as the weather gets cold. We may be a bit younger than most of the folks here but we are having a great time!

We have also made several trips up and down the border around Reynosa. We've checked out a couple of points that we could see from the USA side and which just scream "future development!" all over them.



The only real fly in the ointment is that our rear air conditioner finally went caput. Long-time readers of this blog may recall that we replaced the front "basement" A/C unit with an overhead unit in the Spring while we were still in Florida, and we were considering installing a similar rear unit. The rear A/C unit was getting weak when we were doing disaster relief work. We actually scheduled an appointment weeks in advance to do the replacement with an RV dealer in Houston. Alas, the rear basement unit stopped completely a number of days ago. I had a replacement overhead unit shipped in, and the next day a roving RV maintenance guy and I removed the overhead vent and put the A/C unit into the existing spot (I had wanted to cut another hole in the roof but after we started it became obvious that we'd have to cut through a major structural beam and that put the kabosh on that plan). Mercifully the temps have been cool so we haven't really missed the defunct A/C unit.


What does the future hold? Well ... I am organizing a small group to go and (don't laugh too hard here) check out a supposed UFO crash site in Mexico, not too far from el Paso. We'll likely move the motorhome to Del Rio, Texas so that Deb can hit the casino there for a few days while I explore in rural Mexico.


Wish me luck, and if you don't hear from me again then let's just hope that those alien abductions are merciful.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Was wondering where you went. I saw a Bluebird parked over in St. Pete Beach here. Thought of you, but hope yours is in better shape hehe

http://fierynomad.smugmug.com/gallery/6652118_iAn4P/1/424585211_C7wv8

PyrateJohn said...

Wow! You aren't kidding - that one has certainly seen some better days!

Naw, it looks like that was an old Bluebird FS schoolbus that was someone's conversion project for SOMETHING, since they cut most of the body away.

The Beast still manages to go from strength to strength ;)