A first for us!

We have been geocaching for decades. In that time, we have found well over 1,600 caches in various locations, including Italy, Portugal, France and Spain. But we accomplished something on South Padre Island we have never done before. We have often attempted to find all the caches hidden in a city or in a location we are visiting. In all previous cases we have found most of the caches, but some eluded us, probably because either our geocaching sense wasn’t working that well, or in some cases caches will have gone missing. Well, on South Padre Island, cache owners claim there are exactly 14 caches hidden, and for our first time ever, there are 14 caches found. Yipppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Talk to you soon!

Fun evening out

Our days have become surprisingly routine in South Padre Island. Breakfast in Colectiva nearly always, several doggie walks, a visit to the Birding Center to see if we see any new birds, then possibly lunch or dinner out – one of the local seafood haunts for the most part. Today’s visit to the SPI Birding Center got us a couple of new birds, one of which is the Eastern Phoebe.

The other is a bird that we have seen almost daily. But they are extremely shy, so our sightings have always been from far away, or just a glimpse through the reeds or sea oats. But today, a Black-crowned Night Heron decided to pose for us. He was out in the open, not in the reeds, and even chose to give us a profile. It was awesome!

We managed to find the only Teppan tables in South Padre Island. The way they run this place is they fire up a table when anyone is interested, and then seat additional folk as they arrive while those at the table are getting situated and ordering drinks. Because we were early, even by SPI standards, we ended up getting a private showing, sitting by our selves in the two middle seats! Overall, it was just OK food and an OK show, but it was something different out on the island, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Talk to you soon!

Words I never thought I would hear out of the Woman's mouth!

The Woman loves the ocean. She will go out of her way, quite a bit actually, to be able to stroll on a beach, or watch a sunset over the water. I can’t blame her for her total fanaticism, but yesterday I heard words I never thought I would hear.

We still have a month on the Island, Colectiva nosed into the bay with a private patio to watch sunsets. Sadly, the daily temperatures here have routinely been half of normal. Instead of norms in the 60’s, our daily highs have routinely been in the 30’s. And we just experienced our second hard freeze for this winter, something we are told has never happened before.

Trapped in Colectiva by the cold we’ve gone a bit stir crazy. Yesterday having enough, I suggested to the Woman that we head out and find a couple of more obscure geocaches. So, we headed out to score some not too far away on the mainland. What we encountered when we got to ground zero was a frozen wonderland! Icicles were hanging from the bottom of highway signs. The tree the cache was hidden in was completely covered in ice, filling in all the gaps in the uneven bark. Unbelievable!

Each morning on the news, the weather forecasters beg with the Winter Texans not to pack up and leave, but its hard not to at least think about it with the temps in the Southwest being near normal. The Woman confided in me that for the first time in her life, she was seriously considering cutting her beach time short and heading West. We will see what happens.

Talk to you soon!

The Woman really did good work!

The Woman had worked hard to get us reservations at the KOA in South Padre Island. When she first called, they were booked and had no room for us. Later, they had part of the time, but not all of it, so she took what she could. Later she called and was able to book a couple different sites to cover the time, but we would have to move in-between. Later she got one month in a site that allowed us to nose Colectiva into a view of the bay and the sunsets. Later she got the other two months in a similar site when someone cancelled. She kept on top of it all the time, and it paid off!

Now we know why it was so hard. The KOA is large, but the Cameron County Park next door has maybe 2 or 3 times the sites. Today we were wakened by local police activity with lights flashing, generators and flood lights, and lots of commotion. We didn’t know what was up. We later learned that each year they hold a lottery in mid-January for the sites in the County Park. Hundreds of people show up, get a number, and essentially wait all day to see if their number is called, and they are lucky enough to score a site for a year from now. Sheesh!

Good work Woman!

Talk to you soon!

The Woman continues to amuse me

I have always told the Woman that my life with her is bliss. Not only do I love her, and not only does she make my life a dream, but she always amuses me. What is better than a wonderful life with a smile to boot. This last one will make me smile for a very, very, very long time.

The Woman decided that there was too much sugar and calorie count in the all-natural cranberry juice she loves. She decided if she got some no-calorie carbonated water, and added it to her juice, she would get some bonus carbonation and cut the calories in half.

So, she grabbed the carbonated water from her carton of various bottles. She opened the twist top, and added it to her cranberry juice. When she sipped it, the smile on her face was huge! She said “I had no idea it would taste this good. I will definitely do this from now on!”

So that was the routine from then on. When she emptied the bottle, she looked at it closer to make sure she would get the same product when she went to the grocery store. The look on her face stunned me. She said “No wonder it tasted so good. This isn’t carbonated water, this is Moscato!” Moscato for those who don’t know is essentially a super sweet desert white wine. The ring of my laughter still bounces around inside Colectiva.

It turns out that she had put the carbonated water she bought in her wine box, and grabbed the wrong bottle by mistake. Because it was a cheap Moscato it had a screw top cap, so that didn’t tip her off. Sadly, when she actually tried the cranberry juice with the carbonated water, it wasn’t nearly as good. However, she tells me she is sticking with it.

Talk to you soon!

Our first real Texas RVer!

We have been RVing to different parts of Texas for over 10 years and never really spotted a true Texas RVer. We have been nestled in South Padre Island surrounded by more than a hundred motorhomes, fifth wheels and trailers for a month and a half and we still hadn’t spotted a true Texas RVer. Finally, yesterday, a true Texas RVer arrived. Remember the Alamo!

Talk to you soon!

Birding in strange locations

We keep seeing new birds. We don’t know if they are slowly changing as winter begins to end in the Gulf or if we are just getting lucky. But to see the Tamaulipas Crow we had to venture to what I don’t exactly consider a lucky space. Living almost exclusively in Mexico, it only reaches the very southern tip of Texas in the winter. To see it here, we had to visit the Brownsville Landfill, and mention the code words “We’re here to see the crow” to the guard at the scales.

There were other birds here as well, but were not recommending it as a first-choice birding location. You have to dodge equipment at work, and the aroma leaves much to be desired. However, we did get a special bonus above and beyond the Tamaulipas Crow. Several Crested Caracara appeared to also enjoy whatever it is that draws the crows to this interesting location.

We’re pretty sure we saw a Grey Hawk. In our almost daily visits somewhere we spotted some American White Pelicans. We’ve spotted Blue Winged Teal, and at least one Least Grebe. At the SPI Birding Center yesterday we finally spotted a Snowy Egret. We had been looking for one each time we visited, and finally were rewarded.

We also found a new bird – new to us – that we probably saw before but thought they were a sea gull. The Black Skimmer has a distinctive bright orange ring around where its beak attaches to its head. When hunting for lunch, it dives down hovering over the water, dipping its bill in the water and skimming for fish. I can only imagine that is where its name originated. What fun they are to watch!

Who knows what we will see tomorrow!

Talk to you soon!

Our first Armadillo!

We decided to hit the Laguna Atacosta National Wildlife Refuge. Only about a half hour drive up the Western Coast of Laguna Madre, the body of water between the Padre Islands and the mainland of Texas, we knew it would be worth the drive.

We had been led to believe that we could bird, see wildlife, hike and bike. With the exception of the biking part (the Woman doesn’t have thorn resistant inner tubes on her bike, which are essential in Texas if you bike off road and don’t want to walk back from a flat due to massive burrs) we got it all. We weren’t able to score either the unique antelope, the deer with horns like moose, or an ocelot, but we did manage to scare up a number of deer.

We saw a lot of birds as we hiked around the Refuge. But our big surprise was when we stumbled on the Armadillo rummaging through the decaying tree branches by the side of the trail. This is the first Armadillo we’ve ever seen outside of a zoo, or dead on the side of the road. He was literally only inches from us, but our presence and the noise we made seemed to have no effect on him. He just ignored us and kept nuzzling in the debris. I guess that is how you get when your armor plated!

Talk to you soon!

Turtle release

We learned while we visited the Turtle Rescue Center that there was going to be a turtle release back into the wild in January. The release was going to be in the Isla Blanca County Park at the Southern tip of the island. Luckily the Park is almost next door to the KOA where we are staying, so we could just bike over there and avoid the entrance charge for motor vehicles.

If you remember me posting a picture of the snow flurries we had back in December, well apparently that dip in temperatures is not well tolerated by Kemps Ripley Sea Turtles. What happens is they become “cold stunned” and lose control of their limbs. Many washed up on shores at South Padre Island, and the dedicated folk at the Turtle Rescue Center went out and gathered them up. They put them in large tank where they could stabilize, and made sure they did not become desensitized to human contact.

After the sea turtles warmed up and regained their senses, the folk at the Rescue Center set out to release them in the wild. We were quite surprised at the number of turtles affected. As we watched, a dozen Texas DNR trucks pulled up to unload a dozen turtles that would take 5 or 6 people to lift – huge! The placed them in the water gently, and the grateful sea turtles swam off.

After that, literally dozens of smaller turtles were carried down to the waters edge. The turtles ranged in size from ones you could almost hold in your hand to several that were one to two feet long. Again, we watched as they were gently placed in the water. They wasted no time in skedaddling out of there and returning to their life in the wild.

All in all, it was quite a spectacle. Check that off the bucket list!

Talk to you soon!

More new birds

We made the long haul into Mission Texas to visit the World Birding Center, and we were glad we did! New birds galore! The World Birding Center is located in Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park right along the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. Our first new bird was the Golden-Fronted Woodpecker. It looked a great deal like the Ladder-back Woodpeckers we would see in Port Aransas, but are a fair bit smaller.

Next, we spotted a Long-billed Thrasher. They look a great deal like a sparrow only are bigger and have a very long tail. We ended up seeing several of them before the day was up.

We ended up seeing a couple of Orioles that were new to us, but only managed to get a shot of one of them. This Altamira Oriole was striking deep orange. His black face couple with the black and white striping on his wings was a great combination. We also spotted a Hooded Oriole. They are virtually identical, except that the body of the Hooded Oriole is a lighter orange, almost yellow tinted a bit.

We spotted a Pyrrhuloxia. At first, we thought we were looking at the female Cardinal, but looking it up in our Sibley’s bible it was clear that Cardinal females did not have the crest like the males. After searching a lot, it became apparent that what we had seen was a Pyrrhuloxia, which generallyinhabits Mexico but in the winter, hits the very Southern tip of Texas. 

We were reminded how the US/Mexico border changes as frequently as the route of the Rio Grande River flows. Over our trips we have seen missions that were originally built North of the Rio Grande, but are now South, or vice versa. Inside the World Birding Center grounds, we discovered a 1925 official border marking, that today is perhaps a mile North of the current border.

Before heading out of McAllen we visited the National Butterfly Center. We went here for two reasons – the Woman loves butterflies, and the current plans of the Trump administration call for the border wall to go right through the center of this 100-acre park. We wanted to see it before it was gone. The docent there warned us that as the winds had kicked up a bit, the resident butterflies were likely spooked. But we managed to find quite a few and were please we came.

Talk to you soon!

North end of the island

We decided to try to reach the North end of South Padre Island. Development and roads only reach about 10 miles from the Southern tip. From then on – no roads – you can only drive on the beach. It turns out that it is just under 25 miles more before you get to the Port Mansfield Channel, shipping channel that allows freighters to get to coastal towns.

When we reached the Port Mansfield Channel we allowed Kona a romp on the beach. He, of course, rolled in dead fish and seagull droppings – glad he won’t be sitting on my lap on the way back. We didn’t let him anywhere near this Kemps Ripley Turtle that was sunning itself on the beach. We were pretty sure the turtle would have no idea what Kona’s signals meant when he wants to play.

The 25 or so miles of beach drive were wonderful, as the sun was out this day. On the way back to Colectiva we stopped at our favorite haunt, the SPI Birding Center. We were rewarded for the stop by sighting a Peregrine Falcon sitting on the board walk railing. Although we had seen sightings of this magnificent bird listed pretty much every day we visited, we had yet to see one. Bonus!

Talk to you soon!

Mexican American War

About 20 years before the Civil War broke out, Texas and the US were embroiled in the Mexican American War. We visited the Palo Alto Battlefield where on May 8 1846, Major General Zachary Taylor engaged Mexican General Arista who had 5 days earlier overrun Fort Brown handing the new Republic of Texas its first defeat. Despite being outnumbered in troops 3,700 to 2,300, Taylor had far superior artillery and shredded the Mexican Army forces. Mexican dead totaled 102 to Texan losses of 4. Arista, in order to stop the carnage, retreated 6 miles South and took a new stand in dense foliage hoping to avoid Taylor’s superior artillery. That's a Mockingbird checking out the cannon BTW.

We also visited the Resaca de la Palma Battlefield. The dense foliage provided the respite from the artillery that General Arista had hoped for. Unfortunately, the Mexican forces fared little better in hand to hand combat with the more experienced forces of Major General Taylor. This meeting resulted 154 Mexicans killed to 33 Texans. After this humbling defeat, Arista crossed the Rio Grande back to Matamoros with Taylor in pursuit. These two early battles set the tone for what ultimately led to the US seizing nearly half of Mexico’s claimed territory.

We discovered that Palo Alto Battlefield was one end of the Brownsville rails-to-trails bike path, which runs about 10 miles to the Gladys Porter Zoo. We brought out bikes along to check this out, and made a great day of it. Picnic lunch at the battlefield, scoring a cache along the way, we biked about half the trail, leaving the rest for another day.

Talk to you soon!

Miscellaneous Gulf stuff

When we picked up Karen at the airport in Harlingen, we learned that there is a Marine Military Academy located there. As with all Texan’s, folks from Harlingen have a very strong respect for the military. Their respect and pride has expressed itself in a full-size replica of the Iwo Jima Monument in Arlington Virginia.

We learned that not only is Clayton’s the largest beach bar in Texas, and not only can you witness a hundred people plunge into the 60-degree waters of the Gulf in the midst of gale force winds with air temperatures of 41 degrees, you can also see an all-out crab fight. As far as we could tell, the yellow guy was pretty much going to pull a claw off the orange guy.

Looking out the windshield of Colectiva we saw this gathering of what had to be more than 50 White Ibis. White Ibis have a distinctive curved orange beak, look to be pure white when on the ground, but have a crisp black stripe on the edge of their wings when they fly. Impressive.

Talk to you soon!

Turtle Rescue Center

We visited the Turtle Rescue Center, which is right next door to the South Padre Island Birding Center. The Center was founded by Ila Fox Loetscher, otherwise known as “The Turtle Lady of South Padre Island.” In the 1960’s, Ila began rehabilitating injured sea turtles in her home. Most had been injured by power boat strikes, getting tangled in abandoned fishing line, or ingesting trash. By 1977 she was receiving so many interested guests at her home that she established Sea Turtle Inc. and opened the center.

The Center’s mission is to rehabilitate injured sea turtles for release back into the wild, as well as to educate the public in the process. Many of the turtles they care for are able to be rehabilitated and released, however, some are so badly injured that they could not survive if released, so they live the rest of their natural life at the Center. One such turtle we met was Allison, named for the young girl who found her and reported her to the Center. Allison lost 3 of her 4 flippers to a predator attack, and for the first 4 years could only swim in a tight circle, and had to be kept in a shallow pool so she could surface and breath. In 2009 the doctors at the Center began attaching prosthetic devices that allowed Allison swim in somewhat of a straight line. Now she is the center of attention at the Center, and we were no exceptions.

Talk to you soon!

Happy 2018!

After a great Christmas with the kids, the temperatures finally plummeted. The temps in the low 40’s were supposed to arrive on Christmas, but luckily held off until they left. However, this dude loved the gale force winds as well as the boiling seas. Waves crashing on the Gulf Coast shore today are immense.

We headed to Clayton’s, the self-proclaimed biggest beach bar in all Texas. Despite the light drizzle, the strong winds and the 41-degree temperature, the place was packed with people, all abuzz about what was about to happen. After the New Year costume competition, the annual Polar Bear Plunge was scheduled.

It was sooooooooooo cold, windy and wet that my teeth were chattering, despite having a winter stocking hat and Thinsulate gloves. But despite the elements, 10's of dozens of people wearing only swim suits were just itching for the starting horn. When the horn sounded at Noon, well over 100 nutcases ran into the frigid mid-60-degree waters of the Gulf of Mexico – sheeeeeeesh! While I was impressed, I immediately headed for the Equinox and cranked up the heat!

Talk to you soon!

Christmas with the kids

We spent a great Christmas week with Nick and Karen, Valerie and Albert, Moose and Kona. Kona was beside himself with joy, having missed the kids and their significant others terribly. However, his favorite was his day long play sessions with Moose. Up til now, Kona has roused in the 5:30 to 6:00 AM range. With Moose here, he has had days when he slept in until nearly 8! Yeah Moose!

Our days with the kids routinely include hitting the beach, and taking in a different local haunt for lunch. Kona and Moose loved the beach as much as we, and reveled with each other. Fresh fish selections, along with views of the water and all the people and boat traffic, made each lunch a new experience.

We took a day and headed down to the mouth of the Rio Grande. Even though where the Rio Grande hits the Atlantic is less than a 5-mile Pelican flight from our coach, to drive there we needed to head West to Brownsville and then back East to the mouth. Along the route we stumbled on Elan Musk’s new launch facility under construction for Spacex. While not open, it was still fun to see where commercial space flight will soon be centered.

We also stumbled upon the last battlefield of the American Civil War.  At Palmito Hill, Confederate forces defeated Union forces, resulting in upwards of 30 Union soldiers killed, 20 of both forces wounded, and over 100, primarily Union forces, captured. The sad thing was that this battle took place over a month after Lee and the Confederacy surrendered. Apparently neither the Union or Confederate forces got the email. Allegedly, in this remote area of Texas, communications were so slow that those in charge of the forces did not know the conflict was over.

Pretty much the only folk at the mouth were Mexicans who were fishing. The Rio Grande was too deep for us to cross, either on foot or by car, but we were literally yards from those folk, and the Mexican homeland. Even though there was not much going on, we enjoyed our visit.

We did get a bit of a bonus. This Reddish Egret was prancing along the Rio Grande just inside the waters of the Gulf. We had seen one at the South Padre Island Birding Center, but not one that decided to perform for us.

Talk to you soon!