Saturday morning, February 3, found us heading further east, toward the large city of El Paso. The beginning of the trip found us traveling through miles and miles of grasslands, with interruptions for moderate sized mountains here and there.  While the scenery was beautiful, the populace seemed very poor, and there were many abandoned buildings everywhere.  We wondered what sort of a life it was for the remaining people, being so far away from everything, with no grocery or Walmart nearby.  After getting settled in our campsite, we went to Olive Garden for dinner.  On Sunday, Shelley and Judy went shopping while the guys went for a ride to the Franklin Mountain Park.  A drive to the top was followed by a short detour to the state park.  The car was left in the parking lot while we climbed up a short ridge for a super view of the surrounding area.  The afternoon was spent watching the Super Bowl (Jim and Judy's favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts won), the advertisements that always go with the big game, and the nosh we had that was made by Walmart, Shelley and Judy. [El Paso, TX - Mission RV Park - 31.42 N / 106.17 W]

On Monday morning we began our trip to the southern end of Texas.  On the first day, we had a little excitement as Jim and Judy had a blowout on one of the inner rear tires on their motorhome.  They were fortunate that the incident occurred only a mile or so from an exit of the Interstate, there was a truck tire place right near the exit, and they had the correct tire.  After a delay of about an hour, we got back on the road.  The speed limit was 80 mph for all vehicles except trucks, which had a 70 mph limit.  It was a good thing that we don't travel that fast especially since they got a flat tire.  After a drive of about 90 minutes south, we stopped at the small town of Marfa, TX.  Marfa's main claims to fame are (1) mysterious lights that appear each evening about 2 hours after sunset, and (2) the Hotel Paisano, where James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and Dennis Hopper made their headquarters during the filming of "Giant" in the 1950s.  We didn't stay for the lights, but we did get to tour the beautiful hotel which has lots of memorabilia about the film and its stars.  We also wandered down the main street to the lovely Presidio County Courthouse.  In front of the courthouse were many old pecan trees, and the four of us were soon scurrying around scooping up nuts.  We spent part of the late afternoon battling to shell the nuts with pliers and sore fingers.  We arrived at our campground at Big Bend National Park just before sunset, which turned some of the mountains in the area a beautiful shade of purple.  We all thought about the verse in America, the Beautiful - "for purple mountains majesty...."  On Tuesday, we saw a short film about Big Bend which encouraged us to take a short hike.  We took the 1.2 mile hike into Boquillas Canyon, about 175 feet high on three sides, where the Rio Grande seems to just disappear at the end.  On the walk, we all managed to throw rocks across the river into Mexico!!  That was a lot of fun!  The best part of the day (according to Shelley) was the natural hot springs we heard about from the rangers.  We drove down a dirt road for a few miles where we soaked our bodies.  The hot springs was right along the Rio Grande River.  Shelley had one leg in the hot spring and the other in the river - as she needed to cool down!  Evidently, in the 40's, this was a "hot spot" for the rich.  It originally had a building over the foundation, but during a monsoon, the building blew down and the foundation remained.  So that's what we soaked in, a foundation with separations that used to be rooms when the building was intact.  That's what is remaining, the foundation - very cool....no, really hot!  Aah, how relaxing it was, and we all were ready for naps.  On Wednesday we drove west to Presidio (and back).  The trip basically parallels the course of the Rio Grande, and showed us some spectacular scenery.  Along the way, we went through the town of Terlingua, which has a real ghost town!  Norm had been wanting to see a ghost town while we were in Arizona and New Mexico and we finally got him his wish!  There were lots of portions of house foundations remaining, which were built using stone and adobe.  Along the highway, there were mountains, valleys and plains, and we all agreed that the scenery in Big Bend National Park was among the most spectacular we had ever seen.  We even had the added treat of seeing about half a dozen mule deer climbing amongst the rocks of a nearby cliff.  Along the way, there was a 15 degree hill that we had to climb.  To give an idea of how steep this is, most steep roads have climbs of 8 or 8.5 degrees.  After a great lunch at El Patio in Presidio, we stopped at the Fort Leaton.  It was a huge adobe structure with many rooms.  The walls were at least 3 feet thick.  It was a trading post at one time and a refuge for the village people whenever there was a threat by marauding Indians.  [Terlingua (Big Bend National Park), TX - Big Bend Motel and RV Resort - 29.20 N / 103.32 W].        

We left Big Bend and again headed south and east.  We spent our evenings at the Walmart in Del Rio (29.24 N / 100.54 W] and the Walmart in Laredo. [27.31 N / 99.27 W]

On Saturday, 2/10, we finally arrived at our destination in the furthest south portion of Texas at Sunshine RV Park in Harlingen, TX.   The campground has about 1,100 sites and is a busy place, with all sorts of activities.  We brought Rags to the vet for some tests, results will be coming in a day or so.  The weather was cool (high in the 50's) for the first few days, but Monday and Tuesday were really beautiful...just what we needed.  We even got our shorts out of the basement, and Jim and Norm did some limited bike riding.  On Tuesday we drove to Progresso, Texas and walked across a bridge (over the Rio Grande) to Nuevo Progreso, Mexico.  Shelley ordered 2 pairs of eyeglasses from an optician and we had a really good lunch at Rene's, a fun, noisy place.  We were very busy while at Harlingen, even doing nothing felt busy!  We spent a lot of time playing pool and cards and Rummy Q in the evenings at the campground.  One late afternoon, Shelley & I visited the hot tub and luxuriated in the bubbles while we shared tales of the road with some other campers.  We went to Mexico a number of times, and unfortunately, Shelley ended up returning her glasses.  She just couldn't get them to be both comfortable and good for reading.   We visited with friends Mo and Mary Guffey, whom we met in Elkhardt, Indiana in 2005.  We once caught up with them at a rest stop along the Massachusetts Turnpike! 

Last Sunday, we met up with our friends Leon & Susan Hananel, from The Highlands, NC.  They were on their way back east, after spending a few months in southern Arizona and California.  We had spent Thanksgiving with them at their place in NC for 2 years and they are fellow CHAI members.  Leon always makes us laugh and smile!!

Guess where the original of the famous Iwo Jima statue is located?  Its right here in Harlingen, TX.  The original was made of plaster, and the first casting in bronze was the famous statue erected in Arlington, VA.  And the bronze shrunk a tiny bit after it was cast, so the one here is actually an inch or two larger.  And another surprise, the day that I randomly choose to visit the statue was the 62nd anniversary of the beginning of the famous battle.  The statue is amazingly large...the soldiers are about 32 feet in size.  The original plaster statue was erected here because (a) the constant temperature and low humidity are ideal for its preservation, (b) the nearby street is Iwo Jima Blvd., (c) one of the individuals in the statue was from nearby Weslaco, and (d) the Marine Military Academy paid for erecting the statue.  We visited the Palo Alto Battlefield in nearby Brownsville.  It is where the Mexican American War started out in 1846 as an artillery battle and ultimately lead to the capture of Mexico City by the U.S.  The peace treaty that ended the war led to the annexation of almost half of Mexico by the U.S. and also formalized the Rio Grande river as the border between the U.S. and Mexico. 

State of Iwo Jima

 

One day, we visited South Padre Island. Its the southern end of a 100 mile barrier beach.  Probably it was really beautiful some time ago, but today it's all built up, with tall condos and hotels and buildings everywhere.  We did walk the beautiful beach for a mile or two and we stopped at the sea turtle rescue foundation.  They have a large number of disabled sea turtles and there was a very interesting lecture on sea turtles and their fate.

On Saturday morning, Shelley tripped and fell outside our motorhome.  A trip to the local ER gave rise to a preliminary diagnosis of either a sprain o bruise, but they asked for us to return on Monday.  After a tearful goodbye with Jim and Judy, as they left to return home to KY, we returned to the Emergency Room.  After more X-Rays, one doctor thought that Shelley had a fractured elbow and another doc thought probably a bone bruise or sprain. But it didn't matter, since the treatment for all of these is the same.  So her elbow was rewrapped and placed in a splint.  Keep the splint on for 5 days, she was told.  If there is still severe pain, go see an orthopedic surgeon. If its much better, just exercise your elbow a little more each day. [Harlingen, TX - Sunshine RV Park - 26.14 N / 97.44W]

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On Tuesday morning, we headed north for about 150 miles to Mustang Island State Park.  This is near the northern end of Padre Island, and is really beautiful.  There is virtually no construction on this part of a barrier beach, and we were parked almost right on the white sandy beach.  We took a walk along the beach, and saw fishermen surfcasting and RVs camped right on the beach.  At the campground, we again bumped into our friends Paul and Carol Goldberg.  Carol graciously made delicious fajitas for dinner as it is hard for Shelley to do a lot with her arm in a splint and sling. The next morning, we awoke to a peasoup fog.  As it started to lift, the Goldberg's left to head east.  We took care of some housekeeping and then drove to the town of Port Aransas to see what there was to see.  It turned out that there wasn't much. It's an old fishing village that is slowly becoming somewhat touristy, but nothing caught our fancy.  While driving around, we stopped at the waterfront.  We noticed a line of about 30 people there, and were told that they were waiting to buy shrimp from the shrimp boat which was just docking.  We watched people buy up to 15 pounds each and worried that the catch would be sold out before our turn came. We got our shrimp, - they were huge, even incuding heads and all - for $30.  When we got back to the campground, it took us about 45 minutes to behead, devein and peel our treasure.  So, for dinner, we had about 1 1/2 pounds sauteed with fresh parsley and garlic - it was wonderful.  We froze about 2 pounds in the freezer for future meals.  [Port Aransas - Mustang Island State Park - 27.40 N / 97.10 W].