Side Trip

On our way home from South Padre Island,  we were passing miles of open fields when I looked to my right and saw...

Kong?!!

Yes, Kong!  Kong The Mighty!

Kong The Magnificent!!!

Here he lives surrounded by other giant creatures

(Why Duane doesn't ever swim in the ocean!)

surrounding Bobz World.

Inside Bobz you can find rows and rows of stuff you need--clothes, cards, snacks, household stuff,  jewelry, souvenirs,

and thousands of sea shells in hundreds of sizes.  There is also a eating area (left rear) where we opted for some good hand-dipped Blue Bell ice cream.

Did I mention that they had shells?

Bobz also offers a large laser tag arena and a closeup view of Kong and his world behind the store  building (not open when we were there). 

Bobz is something else--always worth a stop.

Louise and Duane

You Know You're Getting Close To The Ocean When...

...seashore themed tourist attractions start popping up,

businesses are ocean themed,

historic spots are placed for strategic advantages,

fresh seafood restaurants are on every corner,

and you see a sign for hurricane shutters.

You know you've arrived when you start getting glimpses of the water.

Warm sunshine offset the somewhat chilly breeze so that our bike ride to South Padre Island was not too uncomfortable.  The closer we came to the gulf, though, the cooler the air became, and we stopped just before Port Isabel to add a layer under our jackets.

The island is definitely set up to suck in tourist dollars.  Any views of the shores  on both sides of the island are blocked by hotels and 

tourist souvenir/beach accessory shops.

Since the shores are all National Seashore, public access is limited to these small parking areas. 

The beaches are littered with shells of all sizes. 

Not many people out today.  There were a few sun worshipers in spots sheltered from the breeze.  

No one was in the water.  

We were quite comfortable in chaps and coats.  

On the way home we found...

But that's another story.

Louise and Duane

Sunshine At Last

We came to Halingen, TX on a quest for warm air and sunshine.  The first couple of weeks were very nice, great in fact for riding the bike, playing pickleball, and other outdoor activities.  Unfortunately I was sick for those two weeks, and Duane was sick for one of them.  When we were feeling better, clouds moved in for another 1 1/2 weeks bringing fluctuating temperatures, various levels of humidity and rain, and strong winds.  We managed to get in one bike ride and meet friends for a short (2 hour) riverboat tour of the Rio Grande River.  Other days we had some outdoor chores and repairs to make.  Now that we have only 5 days left here, we are trying to figure out when to make a trip to South Padre Island.  The last time we were there (7 or 8 years ago), a cold wind blew so hard that we were scoured with sand.  Now that nice weather is forecast we want to make the 80 mile round trip while we can.  We're hoping to do that tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

Louise and Duane

Sunday Funday

Saturday afternoon was not fun.  A 3 hour long series of thunderstorms dump a lakeful of water on us.  There's nothing like a drenching rain to find any house leaks you didn't know about. 

This morning we ware amazed at just how much rain fell.  This 5 gallon bucket was dry when the rain started!

In the evening I watch part two of the series Blue Planet II.  I was inspired to use one of my Christmas gifts--do-it-yourself pencil eraser color blocks-- to recreate what I was seeing.  After they were done, they had to be baked at 250d. for half an hour, then cooled.  I was pretty pleased with my creations, and they really do erase pencil marks.

Without threatening weather, today was a day for fun activities.  The pickleball crowd that's been showing up (20-30 people for the last three days) opted to do other things.  The small group of about 10 people that showed up was there to have fun.  Bloopers and  mis-hits were greeted with jokes and laughter. Good shots were promptly complemented.

  For afternoon fun Duane played table tennis and pool.  I read a book, exchanged it at the library for another one or two, and walked the long way home around the block.

Only 5 days left at this park.

Louise and Duane

Good Mistakes

How many times have you said that you made a bad error?  I have found that in playing pickleball I have made a lot of bad errors.  I have also made a lot of good ones.  Pickleball is a game that, compared to other sports, doesn’t require as much agility, speed, or strength.  It helps, but isn’t required to play a winning game. What is important is where you put the ball.  The idea is to put the ball wherever your opponent isn’t.  After playing pickleball for a few years, I have actually been trying to place the ball (if it comes to me slowly enough).  This requires thinking, something I don’t have time to do in the game.  This is when I make bad mistakes, putting the ball exactly where my opponent wants it to be.  Most of the time the ball comes flying and I have no time to think.  Then I just stick out my paddle in the general vicinity of the ball and hope for the best.  Most of these non-thinking moments I manage to contact the ball and send it into the court.  That’s a good mistake. Often this move changes the trajectory of the ball and  it lands someplace unexpected by my opponents.  Happily that is another good mistake.

Hope you had a good mistake day.

Louise and Duane

Giant Killer Bees!!!

Tired of sitting around every afternoon, we ignored clouds threatening rain and hopped the bike for a 2 hour (round trip) ride.  From Harlingen to Hildago, TX 281 is not particularly scenic or picturesque.  The view consists mainly of fields in various stages of  plant growth

uncut bushes,

and small towns with the usual mix of  new and old houses and business. 

Our turnaround point was here, close by the Hildago City Hall.  

According to RoadsideAmerica.com (in 1998), killer bees have been around since the 1950's when some African queens escaped from a lab in South America.  "Their volatile spawn migrated north, growing nastier with each succeeding generation."  In 1990 they arrived in the US at Hildago, TX.  Mayor John Frantz capitalized on the event by proclaiming Hildago the Killer Bee Capital of the World.

In 1992 he obtained $20,000 from the city budget to build the World's Largest Killer Bee.  

(The bee is enclosed in a web of lights.)

I kept my distance, but Duane felt adventurous and got too close to that deadly stinger.  Fortunately I was able to rescue him.  I told him that he'd better get out of there or  I would have to drive the bike home.  

He moves pretty fast for an old man!

Louise and Duane

Too Much For Me

We have one of those Tailgater satellite dishes with two ports for our two Walley receivers.  The way the dish works is this.  The main tv (which happens to be Duane's) has the full range of three satellites.  When he changes to a channel that is on a different satellite, his signal blips and voila! new satellite, new channel.  My tv is hooked to the secondary receiver.  This means that when Duane switched channels but not satellites, my tv should be ok, but when he switches satellites, I have to manually restart my receiver and wait while it finds and loads the new satellite.  I am then restricted to the channels provided by that satellite.  Most of the time this works ok for two reasons:  one is that most of the time I don't know what I'm missing on the other satellites, and the other is that a lot of time I am on antenna tv or have the tv off. 

Recently, however, odd things have been happening.  Sometimes when Duane switches to the same program I'm watching, my tv goes blank until he switches to his previous channel.  Sometimes when he switches to a different channel on the same satellite, my tv loses signal and may take several restarts and sometimes 30-40 minutes to find the signal again.
 
This evening the latter happened.  When Duane switched from the channel he was watching to the same channel I was watching, my signal went away.  I switched to antenna tv, perused my options, found nothing I wanted to watch and switched back to satellite.  The channel that came up was one that is not available on the satellite that he was watching!  Furthermore, my Dish remote wouldn't work.  I couldn't bring up the guide, I couldn't change channels; I could only use the volume control.  Duane couldn't get it to work either, nor the antenna remote.  Electronically minded as he is he finally picked up the dvd player  remote and turned it off!  Who knew?!  After giving me explicit instructions not to touch any remote, he restarted my Dish receiver twice and finally I was back on satellite. 

Did I mention that electronics and I don't play well together?

Louise and Duane

Wall? yes

The sky wept all day.  Instead of playing pickleball in the rain we went to the activity center to hear a talk given by the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol.  During the hour+ talk we learned the true answer to the question raised in an earlier blog:   how many of the total people illegally entering our country actually come from Mexico.  According to the chart below (and for other years) the ratio of Mexican citizens to citizens from other countries is 1/5, or 2 out of 10.  Most of the OTM’s (other than Mexicans) come from Central America, but they also come from all over the world.

The chart below synopsizes the main concerns of the Border Patrol:  the use of the ease of entry not only of illegal people, but the use of the open border by the drug cartels for flooding the US with illegal drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine.     The other concern for the Border Control is the welfare of the illegals.  Many have to be rescued because they are injured or dehydrated.  The dead need to have their next of kin located and be returned to their home countries..  Keep in mind that this chart only reflects one year in the Rio Grande Valley, which represents just a fraction of Texan border, which is only one state.

OTM means "other than Mexican"

When people talk of Dreamers—unaccompanied children here illegally—I wonder two things:  how did we end up with 800,000 illegal children and why, after growing up here, and if we know how many there are, are they still illegal?  The Border Patrol explained that the the term “unaccompanied children” means not with their parents.  They usually come in large family groups including aunts, uncles, and other adult family members.  The trip here is relatively easy—cross the river, hide in the tall grasses or sugarcane, get to TX 281, and then melt away.  Since portions of the wall have been built along the US/Mexico border blocking access to some fields and other properties , farmers must open special gates to access their properties.  Recently, a lot of these groups wait until someone opens the gates to access their property, walk through and wait to be picked up.  Once they get onto American soil, the Border Patrol has to take care of them.  The illegals must be given food, medical attention, and clean shelters, and personal items while they wait to be processed.  Once everyone over 14 years of age are fingerprinted and photographed,they are sent to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) where they are told that they will be prosecuted on the felony charge of illegal entry, then flown home.  They are given a court date and told to show up.  Since the courts are backed up for months, most of them don’t bother to show up.  They can’t be traced through fingerprints unless they commit a(nother) felony, so they become Dreamers. 
After listening to the training required to become part of the Border Patrol, I have new respect for anyone who takes the job.  After 5 months training, the new Patrol agents must be in top physical condition and know all of the laws that they have to inforce.  It sounded to me very like a combination of armed forces physical training combined with law enforcement training required by police forces.  The reason for this strenuous training is because the job is very dangerous. 
The drug cartels operating along the border are very powerful, very rich, and very well armed, and very much in control of the Mexican government and police force.  They have no trouble coercing people to carry their drugs across the border.  They have no trouble orchestrating a disturbance at one point along the border in order to push the shipments across at another point too far away for the Patrol to cover both places.   They have no trouble arranging deadly ambushes  for Border Patrol agents when it suits their purposes.  The controversial “Wall” was the subject of a short film.  The film showed hundreds of people running into the US through the southern California border check.  There weren’t enough agents to detain everyone.  When a wall was erected there, the illegal entries dropped  90 percent.  The film showed several entry points in different states where the same thing happened.  In some, where the checkpoint was open, vehicles carrying drugs would crash through anyone in the way and take off.  Since the vehicles were speeding through areas with a lot of people, agents weren’t able to give chase for fear of hurting people.  They could only monitor the vehicles and hope they could be safely apprehended.  (A lot weren’t.)   Whenever a wall, and sometimes a vehicle barricade also,  was erected, illegal entries dropped to 10 percent.
During a Q and A session, someone asked whether using our politicians to talk to the heads of Mexico and other Central American countries would help.  Our presenter Agent said yes, that did work to reduce the number of their residents trying to enter the US.  The problem arose when public attention shifted.  Someone asked if the Border Patrol was in favor of building the entire Wall.  The reply was that they saw the Wall as a deterrent.  A lot of people couldn’t climb it and it gave the BP time to get to the area.  They also said that it would make their job safer because it would be harder to set up ambushes. 
Before I went to this presentation, I was ambivalent about the need for a wall.  After hearing the statistics and other information,  I now think the wall would be a good idea—at least until Mexico can implement and maintain a stable legal government, and the US can stem the flow of drugs entering the country from Mexico.  After all, who foots the bill for all the illegals?  We do, with our taxes.
Kind of a ‘downer’, but now you know.
Louise and Duane

Ruts Can Be Groovy

The days and nights are getting to be pretty much the same now.  There are lots of activities to occupy our time here at Tropic Winds resort, but since I was sick for the first 2 12 weeks we were here and Duane was sick for a week, we were never really interested in a lot of things.  Now that we have only ten days left here, we comfortable enough in our ruts to just ride things out.

The weather cooperated a few times for a bike ride to the coast, but not when we were feeling well.  Of late we have been socked in by chilly temps and high winds.  Not bad for playing pickleball or doing other outdoor activities within the park, but not too pleasant for an extended bike ride either.

Indoor activities are in full swing.  I could go work the jigsaw, but am out of the mood now.  I have been reading Dick Francis books from the library. 

Hopefully we will get in a bike ride or two before we leave!

Louise and Duane

Another test

My Live Writer program let me post pictures, so bear with me here. Trying different things.

Yesterday/Today

Weather-wise both days were much the same.  The wind blew, the temperature was pleasant—although at 70 or so today was a bit cooler.  People were out and about, running their remote control cars,playing, walking, doing chores outdoors,and inside.

Duane has joined the table tennis group on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.

Life is good.

Louise and Duane

Trouble posting

We are having trouble getting things posted. Hope I can get it going again soon.

Honesty? Honestly!

I did the laundry on Thursday.  It took until today for me to notice that my laundry soap and jar of quarters weren’t where I store them.  Really?  4 days?  I looked in the truck.  No joy.  I walked to the laundry.  There they were—even the jar with $12 in quarters!  Awesome!  This place really is a nice place to stay.

In the previous blog about our riverboat trip along the Rio Grande, I stated the fact that 8 out of 10 illegals crossing the river from Mexico are from countries other than Mexico. That information came from our boat pilot who was also our narrator.  I stated it that way on purpose, thinking about how such “facts” fill our daily lives.  How often do we question such things stated positively and emphatically?  I wondered how, where and when he obtained this information. (I wasn’t curious enough to ask him, though.) 

Pictures tomorrow.

.Louise and Duane

Straddling Countries

This morning we drove west to Mission, TX to meet long-time friends Paul and Marsha.  (The last time we saw them was in Ohio Amish Country in July of last year.)  The Riverside Club is a large restaurant whose owners also operate a narrated riverboat ride on the Rio Grande.

The boat holds about 50 people on three rows of seats.  Duane and Paul are in the lower left corner, while Marsha and I opted for the window seats to take photos.

Along the Mexican side of the river there was lots of new construction of elaborate private entertainment venues. There were five or six of these with buildings for indoor activities, outdoor open areas, playground equipment, and docks.  Some even had exotic animals in cages.

There were several workers taking breaks.  They all smiled and waved.

Our trip took us south east with Mexico on the south and the US on the north.  At one point we went around a big loop which put this Mexican public park on the north.

Within the loop was this dam, jointly built and operated by both countries.  The barrier is a safety precaution.  Just beyond the dam is a 30 foot waterfall.

In contrast to the beautiful Mexican venues, on the US side of the river are a couple of defunct venues, one with a watchtower,

and some rustic riverfront houses.

Most of the land we passed was wildlife refuge.  (This overgrown area is a popular crossing spot for illegals because it can’t be seen from the surveillance camera and it is easy to hide in the foliage.  The Rio Grande Valley is the most popular place for illegals to cross.  An interesting fact is that only 2 out of 10 illegals are from Mexico.) 

There is also a large sugarcane field.  Every year after the harvest, the field is burned to clear it for replanting.  Before setting the fire a warning is broadcast in English and Spanish—for obvious reasons.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife on our one hour tour, but we did see a few birds.

Blue herons

Hawk

Back at the restaurant we visited another hour or so during lunch.  When we went outside again,  the weather had changed completely from overcast, damp and 55 degrees to sunny, clear skies and almost 80 degrees!

We always enjoy spending time with Paul and Marsha, even though our time with them is always too short.

Back on the pickleball court tomorrow.

Louise and Duane