More Shopping

This is the Mexican part of downtown McAllen. You really do not need to go over to Mexico just to buy the typical trinkets that you find there . They are all here in Texas as well. The signs on the stores are mostly in spanish and most of the customers are of Mexican decent. But there are enough gringos mixed in to keep the area going. I would have taken more pictures inside but the folks just do not like their picture taken very much. They stiffen up and frown And I pretty much stood out as a bull in their china shop anyway . But just imagine the cheapest little Chinese , plastic trinkets, bright colored paper flowers , and studded belts and you got the idea.
This is fashion intimate as the translation goes word for word into English. Most of the time here in the US we do not hang bras and panties in the front window of our stores. But in the Mexican area anything goes. Note that it is a big discount house.
We went to the area, as there are Mexican fabric stores mixed in, with the other stuff. Loyce likes fabric stores! Even if they are Mexican. So she had some fun going thru them.

But then we hunted for the real store we were looking for. It was over in Mission, Tx. I had the address as West, but it was really East 2805, a quick check of precision mapping on the little laptop straightened me out.
She liked this place much better, than all of the other stores, we have been to. It was owned by a home care nurse. They seemed to hit it off right away. She bought some fabric and a pattern but I can't tell what it was because someone might get the finished product as a gift.

So since we were in Mission, we had to go look at the Bentsen Palms "RV Resort. I was driving around in a campground that I didn't have a pass for, so I didn't stop and take a bunch of pictures. It was really nice, with big double wide drive ways to park your RV on one side and the truck on the other. In the back of the left side on most sites was a little lawn shed. I swiped this photo from Ed and Marilyns blog so you can see the cabana. Read Ed's January 1, 2008 post as he does a lot better job describing the park than I do.


The cabanas were not metal buildings, but made from real wood like a small garage. To put all that clutter in that seems to come out of the RV when you stop. We all haul a bunch of stuff on the floor that is in the way and gets kicked out when we arrive. So here you have a building to put it in. To keep the esthetics looking good.

The place is pricey but quite nice. It is just outside of the entrance to the Bentsen State Park. This is another wildlife preserve and requires a $2 per person per day user fee. If you rode your bicycle down there very much it would get real expensive, really quick. But then that is the whole reason you would pay the campground big bucks to be there in the first place. I don't think we'll be moving any time soon.

On the way back to our camp, I stopped at Best Buy and bought a new TV for the RV. We have been using a 10 year old 13 inch Sony that we had in the kitchen in Des Moines. It works just fine but really lacks luster. So a new LG LCD was in order. The little cubby hole that the TV goes in here in the camper is only 21 inches wide, but of course it is 32 inches tall as it was designed for the old style TV. It is 2 feet deep so it is a real waste of our cupboard space.

With width being the limiting factor, then all we could get to fit was a 20 inch 16x9 flat panel. It stands on a plastic foot that does not look like it will take travel very well. We will have to have a system to stabilize it for travel. It is only 700p with 700 to 1 contrast ratio but for 399 what do you think you can get? So Rod gets a new toy.

43 here this morning. The heater ran during the early morning hours. We were up to 76 yesterday and the sun came out to kill the gray day. This got really long. Sorry! Until tomorrow.