It's 90 in the Shade.....

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Off we drove, reluctantly, south again to San Benito and the First Colony Mobile and RV Park.  The RV Park Review website was correct, once again – friendliest bunch of people we’ve met since Naples in Maine.  AND!  The pool is actually functioning, as well as the hot tub.  The only thing about the place that’s odd is the parking  - it’s like parallel parking on a median between two streets.  Doesn’t leave any room for putting chairs out or the awning, and we’re a bit worried about Roku being on the street.  The rest of the park is a big open field, so I don’t know what’s worse.

Friday, March 23, 2010

Up at 7:30 blogging to catch up, emailing, texting, beading.  Funky mood, a little off, pissed off, off base.  No idea why after many, many days of happy.  TC finally up at 10:00, at about 80 degrees and climbing.  Finally got our asses in gear, Roku in and off we drove to South Padre Island. 

S Padre is where those in the know go.  LOTS of farmland on the way, and even a long glimpse of the border fence.  The fence travels at the edge of farmland, is very conspicuous.  All the little towns that nudge it are Hispanic in name, Hispanic in ethnicity – like being in Mexico in America.  

US Side of Mexican Border Fence

Port Isabel is the last beautiful seaside town prior to the magnificent bridge that carries you to S Padre.  We stopped at the lighthouse here and walked around a bit.  S Padre is a long and high city, many condos and hotels.  We stopped at the visitor’s center and picked up a few tips on the beaches, headed out to find them.

My mood hadn’t improved with the drive and the beautiful water around me, mostly irritated like I had PMS over TC’s sloooooowness.  Slow to unlock the car door, slow to walk, slow to catch on to my conversation, can’t hear-many repeats – for some reason these common occurrences grate on me today.  I try and swallow them down and concentrate on what we’re doing; my irritation is mine and shouldn’t reflect on his actions, but that’s being a couple.  He rarely takes ANYTHING I say or do personally, thank god, ‘cause I have a lot to say and do.

Then, the beach, the cure for my irritation.  This has been a discovery for me on this trip, this beach healing.  My feet hit the sand, smell the salt and brine, head goes down looking for shells, picking up garbage – all calm me and I am a centered and happy(er) person.  Looking at this magnificent 34 mile stretch of S Padre beach I feel why those we met who winter here get all dreamy-eyed.  It is beautiful, not crowded, too seaweedy (makes it smell too) and has enough shells to pique my interest.  

South Padre Island Beach and Gulls

S Padre - Back in my Happy Place

South Padre Island Beach

We walk and walk and walk, in the surf, out of the surf, always scanning for shells.  We do a litter pick up too, as we’ve vowed to do everywhere we visit.  A few minutes spent picking up the deadly plastic bags and bottles goes a long way to “pay” for the beauty we visit.  EVERYTHING helps this world, every scrap picked up, every bit of human toxic flotsam says you care about this earth you walk on, and may keep a sea critter or bird safe.  Definitely worth the time and gets some much needed stretching in.

And stretching I need; took a short step off a long edge in the Riviera shower, catching myself with my left knee.  Split second decision had me thinking, “Just fall to the ground, this hurts!”  I couldn’t do that – I have developed germaphobia about RV park bathrooms and will contort myself like Gumbette if it means I won’t touch anything.  It may smell like bleach, but it ain’t clean like home.  Ultimately my knee and left thigh muscles – none of which are used to exertion – took a beating and I could tell my next few days would be a bit stiff.

There were a few kids left over from the debauchery of spring break lounging around, skim boarding, tanning and swimming.  One of the nice kids we talked with said his buddies had bailed one of them out of jail twice – surprise, surprise! – alcohol related incidents!  He said two weeks ago was “Texas week”, when all the Texas colleges “do” S Padre; the next is the Okies, then Kansas.  Apparently they can’t all be there together because of team and college rivalries, which would end up in fisticuffs over ….. anything.  He was leaving the next day back to Oklahoma, and didn’t want to go.  Don’t blame him.

The surf was fierce and slightly cool/refreshing; the sand full of shells, some of which I didn’t have.  Really beautiful and only slightly littered.  I needed food and a bathroom, TC needed to see the end of the island so we drove north until the sand-dune encapsulated road ended.  I just couldn’t resist a beach without hotels and condos so we traveled over the molasses-like sand, finding large beds of scattered shells far from shore.  No one really around except some kite buggies and a few cars driving the beach.  Man, what beach isn’t a good thing?

Headed back to Port Isabel and ate at El Papa’s Mexican restaurant – great service, good food.  I left a trail of Teva-packed sand all over their carpet, yikes.  Poked around Long Island Village a bit, watched the bridge swivel, then back home to a quiet evening of blogging and beading. 

We have “free” – nothing is free at RV parks! – cable and wifi which makes the world a more interesting place.  I watched a few shows, but to be honest, after having spotty TV coverage for 8 months, it’s all noise and nonsense to me.  Hear my truth – all news is bullshit.  It’s not meant to inform, but to inflame.

As I was in bed with my nightly book, Roku started yowling outside my window – I should KNOW by now what that means!  A few minutes later in he comes with a rabbit; Tony yelling at him, Roku drops it – it’s dead.  Bundles the evidence – god please don’t be someone’s PET rabbit! – with our garbage and walks up to the dumpster to deposit.  Oh boy.

I asked TC the next day, “You’re sure it was dead?”  He said, “Yes, I thought the same thing – what if it wasn’t dead, just in shock?  So I held it for a long time, thinking it would come alive.”

But it didn’t.

 Sunday, March 25, 2012

Another beautiful day in the high 80’s and we’re off to the Weslaco Onion Fest.  Turns out it’s a small little event that celebrates the “1015” onion, so named for the date it was discovered.  We were assured that the bloomin’ onions are the best – we couldn’t care less about the big old greasy things so didn’t find out if those Weslacoites tell the truth or not.

However, we did find an Andalusian horse show that was out of this world.  These horses are so smart, so well trained; their trainers are dressed in full regalia for a charro – sombrero, then wool everything.  It was 90 degrees!  Lovely to watch.

We then sauntered to look at what food was offered, which was typical “fair food.”  Yuck.  However, I spied the kettle corn  booth and made for it.  Talked with the friendly folks who then led us to the booth next door which was service up chamboyada – snow cones with pepper sauce.  Oh yes.  We got a cup of fruit, thinking that would be ground into a slushy, but they just put the pepper sauce on the fruit.  We loved it.

Chamboyada

Fruit with Pepper Sauce

We also keyed in on the booth for Bird Watchers of the World.  They proceeded to tell us about their little park/bird sanctuary, sending us away with maps and me dreaming of hummingbirds landing on my head.  We went there after the O.F. and man what a wonderful place to spend time.  Birds calling and flying everywhere, lizards and geckos all over the path, ducks and egrets and coots in the lake.  I took as many pics as possible, as we’d never seen some of these birds.  Orange birds!  Yellow  birds!  Blue lizards!