The Rio Grande Valley

As we are driving down through  Texas, to South Padre Island, 

everyone is asking us if we are headed to the "Valley", 

I didn't think we looked like "Valley girl's",

Cindy is  from the Livermore Valley and is truly a valley girl, 

but what they meant was, 
were we snowbirds, heading to the Rio Grande Valley to winter

Brownsville is the hub of the valley, 
and also the most southern point you can go to in the 

United States,
I thought Key West was they even have a sign saying it,
but no, it is here and this was the only Southmost sign I could find

The last battle of the Civil War was fought here, the Confederates used Brownsville to ship cotton to Europe, and they didn't get the news that Lee surrendered and were fighting a month afterward

You can't get to the port, but from the road you can see many shrimp boats, and freighters, Brownsville is right where the Gulf ends and Mexico and the United States come together at the Rio Grande

Railroad cars come out of the port, looks like a very busy port from the road

There are 3 border crossings into Mexico from the Rio Valley, this one is in down town Brownsville

 There are about 10 smaller cities making up the Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville being the largest, strip mall after strip mall, easily takes care of the over 500 RV parks in the area, but they also have this cute downtown area, right by the Mexican border, in fact most of the signs are in Spanish

We follow the Rio Grande River, the derogative term "wetback" came from the Mexicans swimming across the Rio, now days, at Brownsville there is so little water in the Rio that one could walk across it

As we followed the road we ran in to this sign and had to turn around, must be too close to the border

When we turned around we saw this fence, now why would anyone build a fence that tall, 18 feet tall, sunk in two feet of concrete, and steel mesh, but no gate, anyone could walk around it

As we followed the Rio we saw more of the fence, 2.4 billion dollars worth of fence, but I guess they never got around to getting the gates

After a few hours of driving up the Rio we came to the second border crossing, not much between the two, few houses lots of fields

I've heard that alot of our manufacturing plants are behind these borders in Mexico, Hotpoint, GM, and many more, but we didn't see any of that being Sunday and all

Thought this was funny, the first thing you see when you come in to the United States, 

Drive Friendly - The Texas Way

We decide to head back to South Padre Island, and drive through the north side of the Rio Valley, here is the first of the 500 or so RV parks, you don't see them all over the place, like in Yuma, because the area is so much bigger

Freddy Fender grew up in San Benito, who would have guessed it.

We get back home to our little bitty island, we are all tired, it's 95 degrees and very humid, maybe I can understand why there are no people here, it's hot!  We will be winding our way out of this valley, we are 800 miles a way from El Paso, where we hook into Highway 10 and start our way west, we will blog when we get a chance but it doesn't look like much is out there between here and there.

Where did all the people go on South Padre Island?

We start out our day looking for people on the Island, we see no one

South Padre Island is the 2nd largest barrier island in the world, the largest being Long Island, most of the island is empty, it runs from Corpus Christi to Brownsville, hardly anyone here, and there are only 2 rv parks on the island

The Gulf side has miles of white sandy beaches, Conde Naste rates this the number 3rd best "wild beach" in the world, but we find no one there

It's 90 degrees out and the water is warm, no reason not to find someone here, it's a tropical paradise

The other side of the road is the bay, in season it looks like they have to separate these two, and charge them $3 to get on the beach, today, no charge, and no body there

We send the dogs out to find anyone, they look behind everything, but find no body

Schlitterbahn means slippery road, they are the people who invented water parks, this one has been rated the number 1 water park in the world by many sources, but it is closed, no one here

The whole water park is in a sandcastle form with the Shrimphaus restaurant that you float up to on your inner tubes, can you imagine? You have to, cause no one is here.

There is a Sea Turtle rescue center here on the island, so many of the sea turtles are caught up in the shrimp nets and die, but nobody is here either

Also a birding center is next door, over 500 different birds migrate to the Rio Grande Valley, and over 400 butterflies too, but not that many people

We finally run in to an endangered brown pelican, but still no people, but we find the visitor center open, with a woman in it on a Sunday morning, and ask her, "Where are all the people?" She says they are always slow in September, October and November, but the rest of the year is good, she explains that they only have two rv places so they don't see many of the snowbirds, but the ones who stay in the Rio Valley come up and spend the day, also, they like it slow now, gives them time to do repairs. I still don't get it, it is over 90 and humid, too hot for me, and it is miles from anywhere, just right for a Stephen King novel.......

The Day of the Dead on South Padre Island

The further south we go the more palm trees appear and we realize that we are getting into a more tropical area, in fact we are the same latitude as Tampa Bay, Florida. The road is straight and we make no turns all the way from San Antonio.

Gracie is on her last nerve, the creaking of the motor home over the Texas roads has got to her and she will not leave our sides, Timmy is lounging on the couches in the back, no worries.

Six hours later we reach our destination, in the 80's a manager at KW told me I had to go here that it was the most wonderful place, it took me this long to get here, but we are here

This is our first look at SPI, as they call it, where is my little cute island? It looks like

Miami Beach!

You have to go over this 2 1/2 mile causeway bridge, largest bridge in Texas, and you also have to look out for the pelicans, the brown pelicans are endangered

As we approach it, my cute little island keeps getting bigger and bigger

Our KOA home is right off the bridge to the right,very convenient

The doggies even get their little tropical paradise

This is right in front of our campground, doesn't seem to be too deep

But we have to go explore the island, I asked the first person I see, "What happened to this Island, it looks like it was on steroids", I won't say who he was, but he told me that less than 2,000 people live on the island full time, that what I was looking at was Mexican Drug Cartel money, it all happened so that they could launder their money, but, he said, they don't bother us, we don't bother them, so OK.....

Huge homes all over the one end of the island, but they are all empty, well, no one is there, in fact there aren't many people on the island at all we notice

We are in a tropical place, which I would think would be in season in the winter, but there is hardly anybody here, both Cindy and I thought it seemed like something out of a Stephen King book, where did all the people go?????

And they even get an extra day in February!

These hotels are right on the beach, empty, you could get a room for $25.99, we can't figure out why, it's 80 degrees, cold everywhere else, where are the people? Oh, Yeah, they take the Day of the Dead very seriously around here, many Hispanics, what with being so close to the border, lots of parties

The sun sets and we are going to have to find out the answers to our questions another day. Wanted to make sure and say hi to Phil and Sandy, they are looking at our blog all the way from Australia, thanks for going along with us!

Texas is sooooo big, it takes days to drive through it

We drop straight down from Oklahoma City, right through the middle of Texas, on I 35, known in the old days as the "Chisholm Trail" the trail that they brought the cattle up from San Antonio to Kansas

We are traveling with Chuck and Jerry, who we met up with in Branson, they will leave us after San Antonio and go west to Yuma, Arizona, their wintering place

Jerry is holding Pepe, they have another Chihuahua, Paco

We follow Chuck and Jerry to Waco, spend the night get up early and go past Austin, the capital of Texas, in to San Antonio

The first thing we do is check out the Texas BBQ, they are so proud of it and rightly so

It was good, really good! Cute little plastic bag with the onions and pickles too. Washington needs a drive thru BBQ, we've even seen Chinese and pizza drive thru's

In the early 1700's Mission's were built to convert the Indians into tax paying members of "New Spain", counting the Alamo, San Antonio has 5  missions and San Jose is known as the

 "Queen of the Missions"

All of these missions helped establish San Antonio and in 1920 the founding fathers recognized this and have worked hard to restore these missions

San Jose Mission is the largest of all the Missions, there are fields around it with paths taking you around huge yucca plants,  there is an active parish there now

Mission Conception was one of the Missions on the San Antonio River, the Indians were being attacked by the Europeans, so they would join these missions for protection, all they had to do is learn Spanish and Latin and convert to Catholicism

The Alamo was one of these missions,  Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie (of the knife fame) were some of the people fighting the Spanish in their failed stand against the Spaniards, the Alamo means Cottonwood. Hard to imagine people yelling "Remember the Cottonwood!"

The Alamo is a small block behind those trees in the middle of San Antonio downtown, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas take care of  it now and is open and free for anyone to stroll through it

This tree in the court yard is 138 years old

The Alamo was the first mission on the San Antonio River

I thought it was funny that bordering the back side of the Alamo was this hotel, named for one of those who gave his life in the battle, Davy Crockett

San Antonio has a "Space Needle" just like Seattle

What it does have that sets it apart from all the other cities is the River Walk

The water canal is set a little lower than the rest of the buildings downtown, but it takes a leisurely stroll through the downtown area

Although the water level is only 4 feet deep, the flat bottom boats will take you on a ride for about $8

You can eat at one of the many restaurants with outside tables or just stroll down the walkway, next to the water, the River Walk has been there for a long time

We've enjoyed our few days in San Antonio and tomorrow Cindy and I will go to the farthest south in Texas you can go, to the Gulf and South Padre Islands