Fun with Paul & Anne in Texas

With Anne & Paul in Texas
We arrived in Weslaco, TX on Jan 16, 2006. We'll spend almost 2 months here, a chance to settle down for a while.After getting set up, having a bite of lunch and checking out the town a little, we contacted the Mollons.
Of course, the first thing we did when we got together with Anne & Paul was enjoy a lovely dinner and nice wine! Paul BBQ'd some lamb-burgers and we brought one of Paul Porteus' wonderful Cabernets for dinner. Then Ron & Paul reviewed our respective routes on their maps.
	On Jan 24 we all visited the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge on the Rio Grande. We took a short walking trail through thorn trees, cactus and a forest thick with Spanish moss. The trail led to a small lake where we watched some wading birds for a while. We visited Santa Ana again on Feb 2 with Monica, this time we took a tram tour of the park.
On Jan 26 Monica arrived, we celebrated with a Mexican dinner (without margaritas) at Anne & Paul's park. Entertainment was provided by the Donna High School Mariachi Band.
Jan 30 was our Mexican expedition. We parked on the US side of the bridge and walked over to Progresso Nuevo to sightsee and shop. Paul had a prior engagement, so Anne, Monica and I took care of the shopping part.
There are some real bargains to be had, but there is also some junk available. We bought some blankets, leather belts and a cowboy hat for Monica.
	On Feb. 6 we all took a riverboat cruise on the Rio Grande. It was actually a cool windy day, and we didn'y see much of interest on the tour, except for this lovely riverside cottage, complete with private dock for your yacht!

On Feb. 8; Paul, Ron, Monica and Linda drove to South Padre island to enjoy a day at the beach.Anne wasn't feeling well and elected to stay home a spend the day relaxing. The weather was perfect, bright sun and blue skies After lunch in Port Isabel, we headed across the bridge to the beaches.
On South Padre we mostly hung around on the beach, Monica collected a ton of shells, and we walked along watching the sea birds in the air and the stranded jellyfish on the shore.
We returned to South Padre with Anne on Feb. 17 to visit the Sea Turtle Rescue Center. This group rescues and rehabilitates sea turtles and is involved around the world in sea turtle conservation.
They find that can accomplish their mission best using only voluntary donations; and accept no tax funds whatsoever. Click HERE to visit their website.
We'd heard a lot about Bentsen State Park, so we decided to visit there on Feb. 15. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out.
	We toured the park once by tram, then picked a few spots to walk around and see the park occupants up close. Bentsen was a great place to see all kinds of birds; we even got a chance to see the javalina in daylight.
On the trip back we stopped to take some pictures at a souvenir shop, the Seven Seas. While the store's inventory was mostly the same junk you find in these type of stores, the exterior was a whole new class of junk, and we just had to have pictures.
	For 2 weeks Monica became a "Winter Texan," enjoying hot sunny days and sandy beaches - in February! Her pictures and descriptions are on her webpages, click in the logo to look at Monica's pages.
Feb. 18 was kind of cold and rainy, but we braved the weather to visit the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. Even though some of the more "exotic" animals were inside to protect them against the weather, we still got to visit with an interesting variety of them.
Feb 28, and the Mollons have to start for cold, snowy Owen Sound. We decided on one last Texas "fiesta" in San Antonio. Two of San Antonio's major draws are The Alamo and the Riverwalk, and we explored both in the day and a half we had there.
After that, it was goodbye to Anne and Paul and back to Weslaco, via Corpus Christi and Kingsville, home of the King Ranch. We visited the King's Saddle Shop, which is actually a high end clothing and furniture shop, but they do make custom saddles and repair saddles there.

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