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tbutler

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  1. tbutler
    Our bicycle rides from our winter retreat take us to many places. We visit a number of wildlife parks that feature a wide array of animals. If you look at a map of Texas and find the southern tip, you will see that it is well south of much of Mexico. Many animals from Central America make their way as far North as the Rio Grande River Valley. As a result this area is known for its variety of animals. We aren't the only snow birds here. Many bird species that summer in the Arctic spend their winters in South Texas. The Rio Grande Valley is a mecca for bird enthusiasts. This is the only place in the U.S. to see many of the birds that are here. These are a few of the places we visit on our bicycle rides.
    There are a series of locations that have been designated World Birding Centers all along the Gulf Coast of Texas. These extend up the Rio Grande River as well. On our bike rides we visit a number of these parks. The Bentsen World Birding Center near Mission, TX is a particularly rich environment for birds and other animals. Javalina are common and some members of our group have spotted Bobcats as well. There are numerous feeding stations throughout the park. Chachalaca, a raucous large bird similar to a chicken, travel in flocks. Catch a group of them at a feeder and you will see some entertainment! Many of the feeders here have blinds set up so you can be just a few feet from the birds and get excellent views as well as pictures.
    Near Bentsen is the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) International Butterfly Park. On a still warm day you can see hundreds of butterflies. You will find butterfly experts roaming the grounds frequently. They are more than willing to share their experience and knowledge of butterflies with visitors.
    Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge near Alamo, TX, has many acres of land with numerous lakes. There is only one feeding station here and it is near the Visitors Center. Here as well as at Bentsen, there is no automobile traffic permitted in the park. People may tour on bicycle or foot. At both parks there are trams that circulate to take people into the park and pick them up. At both parks there are viewing stands or towers. This time of year, both parks are manned by birding experts who are counting the hawks as they return from the southern migration. Great groups of hawks known as kettles will gather and migrate northward together. We have seen kettles with over 200 hawks at Santa Ana NWR. A special treat this last year was the sighting of several Coral Snakes.
    Laguna Atascosa NWR is on the coast just north of Port Isabel. This is a large tract of land with a large lake or laguna. Many shore birds are seen here and American Aligators live in the inland bodies of water. There is a 13 mile loop which can be driven or ridden on bicycle. The loop runs along the coast for about 5 miles.
    In addition to these, the Audubon Society has several parks in the Rio Grande Valley. Their parks can be toured only on foot but are somewhat smaller in size. Still they have a wonderful array of animals in a natural setting.
    Most of the animals in the album with this entry have been seen at the above parks. Some of the photographs come from other areas because they were the best pictures I had of these animals.
  2. tbutler
    Each season we participate in many activities at our winter home, Sandpipers Resort in Edinburg, Texas. One of my favorites is the weekly bicycle ride. Most of our rides originate as a car trip from the park to a location where we ride for several hours and then return to our cars and travel to a unique restaurant for lunch. In the process we explore nature areas, state parks and wildlife refuges. We also visit cities in Texas and in Mexico. Tomorrow will be the last ride of the season. To give you some insight into some of our winter activities, I'll describe a few of these rides.
    Rio Rico is an interesting town just across the Rio Grande River. In fact, the Rio Grande River used to be on the south side of Rio Rico. At that time it was part of the United States. Now it is in Mexico. The land was formally ceded to Mexico in the 1977. We park our cars on border at Progreso, Texas, and cross into Mexico on our bicycles. From Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, we ride East on a gravel road for about four miles to reach Rio Rico. Rio Rico is a small, poor community. There is a school and several churches. The children are out of school for a holiday and they come to visit us as we ride through town. We resolve to bring school supplies on our next visit to Rio Rico. When we return to Progreso we go to Arribas Restaurant and enjoy a Mexican meal on the patio as music plays inside.
    In the small town of Los Ebanos, Texas is another border crossing into Mexico. There is no bridge here, only a small ferry that holds three automobiles. The ferry is attached to cables and is pulled across the river by hand. Pedestrians may assist in pulling the ferry but usually only the tourists do so. We can get about 20 bicycles on the ferry alongside the three cars. Across the river a two mile bicycle ride into the town of Diaz Ordiz takes about 20 minutes for our group. We ride through town seeing homes and businesses. On occasion we have stopped at a bakery for some cookies. The church on the square has been remodeled and we enjoy touring the building. The priest visits with us explaining that the vast improvements were possible with a donation of a church member. After our ride through town we arrive at a favorite restaurant. Villarta features seafood. The menu is in English for us but the waiter speaks very little English. Service is good and the prices are very reasonable. Everyone enjoys eating at Villarta. We return to the ferry for the ride back to our cars.
    About an hours drive West of Edinburg, Texas is the town of Rio Grande City. We park our cars at the Lacks furniture store on a remote corner of their large parking lot. The manager is friendly and happy to give us permission to park there. We ride across the bridge on our bicycles and then four miles into the town of Carmargo, Mexico. We ride through town to a small footbridge where we cross over a stream and then stop for a rest. Those who want some refreshment can stop in the small store and purchase a Coke or a cervesa (beer). We resume the ride to a small village, Villa Nueva. It was founded after people fled Carmargo to escape a flood. After several years without more floods people moved back into Carmargo. There are large abandoned stone buildings and a scattering of small homes. We stop to visit the school. Everyone has brought school supplies to leave with the staff at the school. This has been a tradition of our bicycle rides for at least seven years. Today the children are out for recess following their lunch time. Children swarm us as we arrive. They extend their hand and say, "Good morning," even if it is the afternoon. A teacher explains that they have their English class in the morning so they know good morning. The principal and teachers visit with us and take us through the buildings. We leave them with a teachers desk piled high with paper, crayons, pencils and pens and many other resources. Lunch this day is at El Johnny, a very nice Mexican Restaurant. Here the menu is in Spanish and we all collaborate to interpret the choices. Everyone enjoys their food. We travel back through town and then over the bridge to the US. Each of these three towns are totally different than the typical tourist border town. There are no shops for tourists here and the restaurants are patronized by the local populace.
    We take one tour to South Padre Island, riding from one end of the tourist area to the other. Everywhere we see the damage done by Hurricane Dolly in mid-summer 2008. Roof repair continues everywhere even though nearly five months have passed since the hurricane. We pause to watch dolphins leaping in the bow wave of a passing ship. Admission to the state park is free for bicyclists. We ride past a beach that has only a few hardy people on such a cool day. During the winter, the town is quiet and restaurants are glad to see us. We enjoy some fresh fish at Dirty Al's. Al is dirty, not the restaurant! Good food at reasonable prices.
    Another trip we cycle around Port Isabel. We see the old Yacht Club now being remodeled and turned into a hotel. The owners give us a tour and talk about some of the history of the old building. A side swing drawbridge takes across the ship channel where we can see the shrimping fleet in dock. At the end of the road we can see the causeway to South Padre Island. Our leader describes the events of several years ago when a barge traveling the intercoastal waterway hit one of the bridge piers and knocked down a whole section of the bridge. Several people drove off the high bridge during the night before authorities were notified and closed the bridge. South Padre businesses were severely affected by the loss of their connection to the mainland.
    These are just a few of our bicycle rides. We enjoy exploring South Texas and Mexico, meeting people and learning about the history of the area.
  3. tbutler
    I just finished reading an article in the New York Times travel section.  Titled: To Reduce Travel Stress, Plan Less, the article by Geoffrey Morrison highlights the advantages of making travel decisions on the run, as you travel.  While it is based on travel by plane or automobile, stays in hotels or hostels, and meals in restaurants, many of the concepts are applicable to RV travel.  In fact, in our travels, this has been our normal mode of travel. 
    I know that some people have to have every RV park reserved for an entire trip.  Activities are planned before leaving home.  We seldom plan more than a destination and that is in general terms.  As we travel we make decisions on where to stay each evening based on our location and the possible places to stay that are ahead.  This usually happens about 3 or 4:00 p.m.  If we're looking for a rest area or Walmart, we start looking for possible places within our desired travel distance.  If it is an RV park that we want for the night, we'll call ahead to ensure a space is available. 
    Traveling this way allows us to consider things like traffic, weather and our endurance in each day's travel.  Traffic delay?  No problem, we will travel less distance that day and stay some place within range before sunset.  Bad weather ahead, we may stop and stay near our current location.  Even if the weather is unavoidable, I'd rather be parked than on the road during a dangerous storm.  If continuing to travel longer than usual will keep us ahead of a storm, we can stretch our travel for the day.  With no reservations, we can alter our travel to fit conditions without worry about having to be a certain place at a certain time.
    As we travel, we are always looking for places of interest.  Without a set schedule, we are able to spend a spontaneous moment or a day exploring a park, festival, visitors center or museum.  In Wyoming there are many roadside historical or cultural sites.  Each one is an opportunity to learn more about the state, it's history and people.  I mention specifically Wyoming because almost all of these sites we've seen are RV friendly, well marked large pull outs with easy exit and re-entry to the highway.  They make excellent lunch stops as well.  They are perfect for relaxed travel.
    In the spring of 2016, we made a stop in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  We imagined spending two nights and once assured of our arrival we reserved a site for two nights.  Once there we started exploring Hot Springs National Park.  After the first day, we added two more nights to our stay.  There were more things to see and do than we had anticipated.  We ended up reserving the full spa treatment at the Buckstaff Bathhouse, the one remaining original bathhouse in the park.  Louise and I both had the full treatment then went to The Pancake House for breakfast!  Well worth staying an extra day or two. 
    In 2004, we left Texas with plans to travel the Lewis and Clark Trail.  It was the 200th anniversary of their trip going westward.  We made our way north and east to Louisville, Kentucky traveling another of our favorite routes, the Natchez Trace.  At one of our stops we happened on the grave marker for Meriwether Lewis.  We hadn't planned on finding grave sites for Lewis or Clark but ended up making that part of the trip.  Anyway, that delayed our trip by a few hours, no problem, no reservations.  It turns Clark's grave was in a cemetery we passed frequently when we lived in the St. Louis, Missouri area. 
    We made that entire trip with few if any reservations.  Each day Louise read an entry from Lewis' journal so we would appreciate the travel challenges faced by the expedition.  We found many of the visitors centers and historic sites had RV parking and when necessary we could spend a night in a park to tour a museum.  The relaxed nature of our travel made the trip a delight, one of the highlights of our 18 years of RV travel.
    We did have one serious interruption in the trip.  Louise's mother's health had taken a turn for the worst.  Her doctor told her she could no longer drive.  This was the end of her stay in Lake Havasu, Arizona.  We left Missouri, spent three weeks helping sell many of her belongings, and drove her to Arvada, Colorado where she would take up occupancy with her youngest daughter and her family.  Following that two week delay, we headed north to the nearest portion of the trail in Western South Dakota.  We spent several days in an RV park in Custer, SD then picked up Lewis and Clark in Pierre, SD.  On the return to the midwest we would visit several of the sites we had missed including The Sargent Floyd Monument in Sioux City, Iowa.  Sargent Floyd was the only casualty of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  His death is thought to be a result of a ruptured appendix. 
    We were able to take on the unplanned event without worrying about reservations or staying to a schedule.  Today we are at my daughter's home with no set date for departure and we are discussing where we will go as we head east to visit relatives.  We'll work it out as we go.
    Do we ever make reservations?  Yes!  Some events attract a crowd, some events are scheduled for only a certain time.  The FMCA Conventions are reservation events for us.  We attend a pre-rally before the convention and that also is a reservation situation.  In 2003, we attended the celebration of 100 years of flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  We had reservations in an RV park as soon as we had secured tickets for the event. 
    Many people made long range plans and reserved a location for viewing the total eclipse last year.  We chose to locate in northeast Colorado, near but not on the path of totality.  As day of the eclipse approached we changed our plans several times based on the weather forecast.  Two days before the eclipse we left our campsite in Colorado headed for Idaho.  The day before the eclipse we woke up in the parking lot of Little America on I-80 in western Wyoming.  The weather looked as good or better in Wyoming so we picked the general location where we would be for the eclipse.  On the way to Riverton, Wyoming Louise called the Wind River RV Park.  They had a cancellation, we got a site with full hook-ups for the eclipse.  It turned out perfect, we saw the complete eclipse. 
    Que sera sera, what will be will be. 

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