Texas 2006 more

...And More

Here we are getting ready to board the Riverside Dreamer for our 3 hour tour wth the Captain and crew...

Not to worry we made it there and back with time to spare. No desert islands were in our future. There wasn't a millionaire (darn) or professor in sight.

It was a great tour and a lovely day. Along the Rio Grande that barely separates Texas and Mexico

After all that relaxing on the Rio Grande it was lunch time and we found Pepe's on the River for some of the best ribs I have ever tasted. The atmosphere was pretty Texan and the staff were not only very nice but pretty interesting.

Is that ice in the river in Souther Texas???

It is but the guys from the resturant had just thrown it in there. Don't worry the Rio Grande did not freeze over due to the number of Winter Texans in the area

Pepe's has an outdoor entertainment section by the river and we took a stroll after lunch.

Anne and Paul then strolled along a tiny board walk to take another look at the river before it was time to go.

Capilla de la Lomita, the Lomita Chapel built in 1889

Anne, Paul and I did a some picture taking and some investigating at this really interesting site beside the river.

Getting Paul an Anne into chuch was such fun I had to take pictures.

The landscape and trees are funny out here.

An old stone oven on the same property.

One of the selections of my "next" home and the tie downs that go with it.

Yup, time to eat again and we needed some direction on this one...

Blue Onion was an iteresting place with very BAD (meaning of cours very GOOD) deserts.

There was much interesting artwork that appeared all to be done by visiting children everywhere.

Time to go and find the parrots.

Actually we first found the dangerous (?) doggy

The locked up one seems very friendly, the little one seemed a bit of a terror. Hmmmm wonder what happended there.

Red-crowned Parrots

We went in search of these great (and noisy) birds on a residential street in Weslaco.

Each evening around dinner hundreds of them come back from a day of feeding and chatter for a couple of hours before they go off to sleep nearby.

Click on this picture to the left for some more information on this lovey bird of Texas.

While note great with my little camera, the parrots filled every tree and the wires while chattering at such a level it was hard to hear eachother.

Linda managed some better shots with her camera. They can be found at her site by clicking on the link below

Our Day at

South Padre Island

On our way to South Padre we went through Port Isabel. This was interesting in its own right. Much pirate touristy stuff

Once we all had fun with the pirate we began to explore for a place to have lunch.

We decided on the Jolly Roger and were not disappointed in the fare! yum yum.....no diet today

After a "fish" story about the world's largert fly reel...

and some ice cream for a good cause...

We set off for South Padre

Walking on the sandy shore

Jellyfish of many colours and shapes

Pelicans

Lots of sand and sea

(Gulf of Mexico actually)

Brave Paul enjoyed the exploring and braved the beach and scrub in bare feet.

Linda and Ron and the adventure on the sand dunes

Hay bales to try to hold the sand off the road.

Actually there are also many sweepers that seem to work endlessly as the sand insists on moving on to the road.

The end of the road on

South Padre Island

The porpoises of Port Isabel were everywhere

And so were the gulls and the pelicans

Too bad for us, the lighthouse was closed for the day when we returned to Port Isabel.

Ron and Paul got another chance to see it when they went back the following week.

This is a cat that Paul wanted a picture of

We happened upon the most interesting of coffee shops

Good coffee and the stangest collection of people and animals

How about this for a super tacky souvinier shop on the way home from Port Isabel?

These were all in the parking lot of this giant souvinier story on the highway

All of these were life size.

The shark was big enough to stand in his mouth!

Check this out!

Ready made surfing with te porpoises and the shark!

Yet another feast by Ron and Paul

Pool time and a call from home

Caravaners together again

Here is a look as some future retirement ideas?

Why not?