RV Show

The All Valley RV Show was held at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show Grounds, in Mercedes , Texas. So we went. $4 each including parking.Boy this is a BIG place! Some of the folks that go every year, claimed they only had about half as many units as in previous years. There were more than enough to keep us busy.
I can't begin to show all the rigs that we toured so here is one that caught our eye.
This is a Mobile Suites by Double Tree. It is a Fifth Wheel that is big long and heavy. Need at least a 350 Ford, or a 3500 Chevy or Dodge to make this go down the road. List price over 100K but show special was 89 K. I'll bet it can be had for less than that!
Slides on both sides of the living room and an Island in the center of the kitchen area.

This is a mid stair up to the bed room, with the toilet on one side and the shower on the other.
Check out the electronics, in the special closet made for them. This was in the bedroom wall.
I have no intentions of purchasing a Diesel pusher bus at 270K, but I thought the Cat diesel was neat in the business back end. This one has a Onan gas generator, in the engine bay under the driver. I was 15,000 watts and would make a nice engine for any of our cars or trucks. Pass anything but a fuel station.
I couldn't imagine how one would work on this, as space to get up around the motor was very limited.

This show was in three buildings with the last building being a varied products and services. Many of the valley resort campground facilities had booths. Every RV product was available for purchase.

It got really hot while we were there, as the temperature had reached 82 outside. When you went out of the buildings, it felt much cooler than inside the buildings. The temperature inside the RV's, in the buildings became overwhelming. We tired of that fairly quickly and left.

Our Saturday was just the typical day here in the park. We had the sit out in the sun part. We had to run the AC, as the old tin trailer heats up more than you can stand. We explored to the West of Weslaco as the sun went down. Our dinner was just a burger from a quick drive through.

Once home, we watched the New England Patriots overwhelm their latest victim. and talked with folks from Iowa on Skype.

Temperature here was 82 at 2PM and got down to 42 early this AM. Our heater ran quite a bit during the night, but we were never cold. The sun is out again today and we are up in the mid 50's by 10AM. The wind went thru at about 7PM last night, so I put up the awning in order to not have it flap and damage itself. I had it strapped to the ground, but stakes will pull out, so I error on the side of caution.

We have no plans for today except the comedy folks in the Rec center tonight.

Just Hanging Around

Not every day can be exciting, and yesterday just wasn't. We had the new TV so we were somewhat glued to that. In the morning I went to Radio Shack to get the proper cable to hook the sound into the sound system that came with this Jayco trailer.

As an electronics geek, I expect things to have a good quality , and I just am very hard to please. And so it goes with the TV and its sound system. Just not up to my expectations. I goofed around most of the morning , trying to make it better. Oh well!
In the afternoon we both did the computer thing using both laptops to do internet research. Loyce was using the smaller Toshiba calling it her new Laptop. I bought it used in a Hamfest, from one of my buddies from Des Moines. Usually she doesn't have much time for computers, so this is a new wrinkle.

So for an evening meal, we decided to do Taco Cabana. A McDonalds type of Mexican fast food chain. Its a little bit of everything. Dirve thru, patio window, and eat in joint.
I took a picture inside and everyone stared at me so I had to turn the flash off. These are available light shots but give you the look and feel.
Mural on the back wall was the end advertisement from an avacado box. This was with the flash and would have been better without it. Mexican folks get goofy when a camera comes out.
Loyce had the chicken enchalidas and I had a big texmex platter that had a bunch of stuff that I didn't know the name of. One taco, one tostada, one red tortilla with meat and beans that I don't remember what it was called. Both our plates were covered in refried beans and we got fresh warm tortillas in a foil wrapper to eat the beans with. Plus a small salad with guacamole on top. The whole deal was only $11 as we both had water to drink. A new experience, Mexican fast food.

51 degrees this morning and the sun is just coming out. Birds are singing. The heater never came on at all last night. The locals wear their winter coats when it is in the 50's. They are just frozen at that temperature. We had a high of 76 for an hour or so and the sun heated the trailer up to almost Air Conditioner time. But not quite.

Got to go buy some Bernie and Red tickets here in a few minutes. They are comedians that will be here in the Rec hall Sunday evening. Everyone says they are a hoot. They are selling 400 tickets and stopping. At that many the Rec Hall is very full. It will be a sell out.

I wonder what kind of trouble we can get into today?

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.

Gray Days

Have you ever noticed that the days when the sun never makes it thru the clouds, are always dreary? That was yesterday. And so far today. Just gray, overcast blah.

So just what do we do on a gray day? As I read various other blogs from fellow RVers I find that some folks are upbeat and never let this kind of thing bother them what so ever. And others just can't move beyond the mood. I work on being the former, but unfortunately the latter seems to take over.

Its not cold here and I am wearing shorts as I write this. We made it to about 68 yesterday and it is to be in the 70's today. We slept with the window open wide in the bedroom and a small fan running all night.

The difference between vacation, and full timing in your RV, is that you have an agenda as you vacation. You plan to go to the next attraction, and when the attractions run out you hitch up and move on. But full timing in the winter is not like that. If we move it will have to be South into Mexico, as North to the Cold weather is why we are here in the first place. So then living here becomes just like living at home. Only the tasks are different.

You still cook and clean and go get gas and so on. Just like home. So that is what we did yesterday, just live the normal life in the RV. When did we dump the holding tanks last?

So the cold I have, progressed in the normal fashion, making me sneeze and cough with the watery burning eyes and such. So we went to Wal-Mart to get some Pseudoephedrine. The kids make Meth out of this stuff, so you have to ask the pharmacist for it. The line to see the pharmacist was back thru the aisle and the down the main aisle all the way to the entrance door. Right where you come in past the greeter. Lets say about 60 people, of course all speaking spanish, as english is the second language this far South.

I waited in line for about an hour and a half, only to have a manager come over and declare that they were done serving folks at the pharmacy for today. It was 7:00 PM and they were going home now. Choking the life out of this little guy wasn't an option, but I certainly thought about it. So much for Wal-Mart.

I did finally get the medication at the Local H E B grocery for nearly the same price, without a line and they were even nice to me. Go figure.

So what great adventures does today hold for us in the life of an RVer? I can't wait to see.

Walmart and a Cold

We went out to search for a suitable fabric store and quilting shop for Loyce. She really misses the Jo-Ann fabric stores that are not here in the Valley. Thats almost a deal breaker for her to come here. After some internet research we went out armed with three new addresses in Harlingen to scope out.

The first address was out of business and there was a different tenet in the building. The second location was on business 77 or Sunshine Blvd. This is a main drag from North to South thru Harlingen. The address was way to the South and there was a store there. It was a small mom and pop store and they were having classses when we arrived.

With the class going on Loyce only stayed for 10 minutes or so and did not buy anything. The third address turned out to be a personal home. The internet does not distinguish between business locations and small business folks working out of their homes. So we drove all the way to the North outskirts for zip.

So on to Wal-Mart. We loaded the truck. Seems like we can't go to Wal-Mart unless we spend all the money we have. Ha Ha.

I've been battling a cold that I picked up here in the park. Nasty thing with the weepy eyes and the never ending runny nose. Kills the creativity for blogging. So we just sat here and watched the election results in the mushroom cloud of too many cold tablets.

53 this morning, so winter slips back in and reminds us that she hasn't gone anywhere far away.

South Texas Farming

Map of the irrigation district canals as they come from the Rio Grande.
Picture of a canal. These are 15 feet above the farm fields.
The canals are piped underground and then come to the surface in stand pipes like this one. At the base you can see the rolled plastic tubing that is spread out to distribute the water into the rows of the field. Many of these pipes have a valve wheel on the top and a ladder to crawl up and open the valve. At some places I found lift pumps to raise the water levels to higher canals.
Standing on the canal dike you can see the field below. They cultivate the rows where the water runs every so often while the crop is small. I tried to get a picture but could not find a tractor close enough.
Sugar cane that is closer to harvest.
This was freshly plowed. The clods were like concrete. Flood the land, then add the sun to bake it, when sufficiently dry, then go plow. Only Rod would take a picture of dirt.
I think these were cabbage.
Farm workers harvest these heads by hand bending down and then tossing them one by one into the wagons. There were at least 50 workers on this field.
Texas agriculture is very labor intensive.

High temp yesterday 84 Low last night at 3 AM was 73. We turned off the air conditioner for a while but its back over 80 so back on it goes. The wind continues. But it would be really steamy without it, so let it blow. Last year it got really cold down here, for 10 days from the 15 to the 25th of Jan, so will enjoy the warm while it is here.

5:00 PM We made it to 88 this afternoon and the wind went from SSW to NW and died to around 10 MPH. We are supposed to get to 55 tonight which is great for sleeping. Put the awning out this afternoon and used the lawn chair to secure the concrete so it wouldn't blow away or anything. Tough duty but someone has to do it.

Padre Island Visit on Saturday

Out on Padre Island it is mostly commercialized. Big high rise hotels are on the beach without any way to even see the water from the roads. It is exclusive unless you are staying at one of the hotels. There are many beach wear shops and tourist related businesses.
On the way out of the tourist town to the north it becomes a road thru the sand dunes.

After about 10 miles we reached the end of the road. There were many cars parked here using the beach which is on both sides of the road. The ocean was on the right and the bay to the left.
The sand blows just like it was snow. They bale up some of the vegetation from the area and place the bales as a sand block to keep the roads clear. The ocean is beyond in the distance.
We tried to drive out to the beach but found the sand to be mostly too fluffy and deep to drive in. We came upon a jeep cj that was in 4 wheel drive and had dug himself in down to his axles. Another Dodge pickup with big sand dune tires was hooked to him with a tow strap. They were both spinning at high throttle. Finally they both lurched backward all at once toward more solid sand.

That was enough for me, so I headed back to the pavement. It was 80 degrees in the valley, but out on the island, next to the sea, it is still winter here. It was about 68 with the wind blowing in from the sea.

Speaking of wind, today there is still a gale wind blowing from the South. But it is, very warm. We slept with the windows cracked and the roof vents open. Our small fan ran all night to keep the air from being so stale. It is humid this far South.

The air conditioner is running as I write this.

5:00 PM How much wind does it take to bend the flag pole and palm trees like this?

The ladies at the laundromat said that strong wind is quite normal, in the winter, down here. Bummer!

Hang on to your hat!

It seemed like a nice day at 7:30 this morning as the sun arrived and the temps were almost warm enough to use the air conditioner. But by 9:30 the winds arrived.

As I look out the door of the RV I see the big palms all blowing North in 20 Mph to 30 gusts. It rocks the rig even with the legs down on all four corners. It seems that wind is one of the ongoing factors of the Rio Grande Valley. We are just hanging arround this morning not doing much of anything.

We went to South Padre Island and took a few pictures yesterday so I will get those put up after bit.

I did put the little temperature button on the web site last night to show the weather now as you check in, but it says nothing about the wind condition unless you click it and then it is a full blown weather site. Have fun with that.

One of the places we have looked at on the internet was the South Padre Island KOA campground. It looks so cool on the web site. So we went to check it out. The old oil tanks are now the office and the bath house. It is a long narrow strip of land that has the tanks on the beach. They completely block the view of the bay that looks back at the mainland. Ya you don't look out to the Ocean at all.
But there is a playground on one side of the tanks that is right on the water, and next to it there are about 6 sites that are viewing the bay. They had motorhomes on them . I perceive there was a waiting list for these sites.
The rest of the place is a big gravel parking lot that has blacktop roads running thru it. Rigs are side to side and back to back. No grass, no trees, no shade, can't see anything except the camper next to you. And the main bath house is a tin building back in the back. All along the south side of the property is a big marine building that is 2 stories or more tall and you can not see anything that direction at all. I didn't even take a picture of that.

Now check out their web site. South Padre KOA

And to think we thought we would like to stay there! Beware of web site advertisements.

1:30 PM
We got a new neighbor. They are across the back lot. This is a monster 5th Wheel. Their back door is nearly directly adjacent to our door. I am hoping they will use the front door! More Canadians. Is anybody left up North?

Nice picture of my finger huh?

Pepe's on the River

Pepe's


Its a big Palapas. That is a palm frond beach shelter, Its a roof and poles that hold it up. The sides were heavy tarps. The end behind the band was just open. The band trailers were backed in beyond the end poles.The sign is on the end of the kitchen building that is also under the big palapas. It is an enclosed building. It also has an indoors bar room that could be used for serving food if the weather was just horrible.
Of course the attraction is the rio grande river.You can sit right out and eat on decks that are on the bank of the river. Occasionally the border patrol goes flying up the river in patrol boats, I am told. We didn't observe this while we were there. An yes that is Mexico on the other side. Double click this one and make it big to get the full effect.

But the attraction is the band and the booze that is under the palapas. Full country, Texas style band, with a steel and a fiddle. Music from 15 to 20 years ago just like us silver hair folks like. Everyone was up dancing at it was 2 in the afternoon. Must be the beer.

I have read about this place on at least three different blogs, and they have reported it better than I have, so I just had to go see it myself. I had the Friday special of fried catfish and shrimp, with fries. They smashed the shrimp out flat and breaded with a cracker crumb style batter. It was good. I would have taken a picture but they jumped from my plate to my stomach before I could get it done.

Getting Settled

Llano Grande Lake Park Resort
Our Site
Pool at Rec Center
Rec Center
Our Street Rec Center at end.
Avenue of the Palms
Check in Office
Our Street from in front of our rig.

My son says more pictures! So if pictures tell a thousand words then this should tell the story.
Our travel trailer looks forlorn in the middle of the many park models here in the park. The North part of the park is more for RV's but we really liked the more developed part of the park with its old stately trees. Also the rec center and the activities are all located back here in the older part of the park.

So the motor homes are all up in the new part of the park and we are more of a mixture of units from mobile homes and park models to small class C's. While our 29 foot travel trailer looks quite long when we are in a state park, it seems rather small here in this destination park.

I'll get some more pics of the North, when I get the bicycles out of the truck.

This post may not be done for the day, as I learn more I'll add to it.

We went thru town on business 83 which winds from village to village. Went for miles. Mexico does lap over into Texas down here.

South of Mission we went down to the Rio Grande where it makes a Northern turn and went to Pepe's on the River. This is a palm frond palapas with a bar and kitchen attached. Had live country music with a 5 piece band. Sang all the old standards. Like Lukenbach Texas. I had catfish and shrimp basket and Loyce had just shrimp. We sat for more than an hour next to the river, looking at Mexico on the other side. The current is quite fast and really scoots by.

I took some pictures but will put them on tomorrow as we have enough for today.

Mercedes, Tx

George West, Tx Campground
Welcome to Texas! Still cold here too!Sissied out at Ardmore, Ok Motel 6.
Oklahoma state line as we went by. Concrete thing says Oklahoma but its hard to see.
Snow as we packed up.
Cold in KC as we left.



We are at the Llano Grande RV resort in Mercedes, Tx. It is a 1000 spot mobilehome and RV park that is connected to a golf course.

We are set up on a site in the older portion of the park, as we just appeared on their door and did not call ahead. The site is nice and has all the connections. The cable TV has something on every channel, and there is supposed to be internet on the cable as well.

But it is my luck that the cable modem they gave me will not work. So out went the wifi repeater, onto the roof of the trailer. I joined another campers wifi, as I can just barely see the office, which is just as they said it was. But we are daisy chained onto another wireless router called linksys hawkeye. Must have and Iowan that is my benefactor.

We rented the spot for 30 days so we are here for a while. We are set up and will not have to deal with that for another month. And the 4 ton weight is off the back of the truck.

It was in the mid 60's this afternoon, with a South wind from 10 to 15 MPH. It is always windy here in the winter. The TV said we should have lows in the 40's tonight. I know that is a lot better than up North, so we have concern for the folks in the cold.

Sun is going down now, so I'll get some pictures tomorrow.

On the Road

In the little town of George West, Tx South of San Antonio. On Hwy 281 headed to Mc Allen. Its still cold here tonight. It was about 40 degrees when we stopped at 8:00 PM.

Have not checked it out since. Both heaters are running in the camper. The electric one its running constantly and the LP gas heater is cycling on and off. Every time that Loyce opens the door, both heaters run for a long time.

We left Kansas City about 11:30 on Tuesday and headed South on I 35. Didn't change the outside temperature much all day, as it was 22 or so when we left and we never saw over 30, even though it was sunny. We lost the snow when we went into Oklahoma but the temperature never changed. Snow or no snow. We drove on through Oklahoma City and then on to the South edge of Oklahoma at Ardmore.

Stopped at the flying J and bought gas and propane. It was 20 degrees, the lady at the desk said they were forcasting 12. We had the dog with us and the only thing we could find that was pet friendly, was Motel 6.

Spartan is the word for that. But is had a heater and it worked. So we got the bigger room, might as well splurge when you are at the big M6, Ha Ha.

It was clean and fairly comfortable, the shower was hot and we were fine. We drove a little over 400 miles each day and are within about 250 of reaching the Rio Grand valley. An easy run for tomorrow.

We can only hope there is Wifi when we get there as we have been out of touch for the last two days.