We have been at Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort for a week now and we finally made it over to The World Birding Center (Bentsen Palm State Park) – the major draw for this area. How can you tell we are not really birders! It was over 90 degrees so after a few miles, we opted for the tram and rode the rest of the way. Oh yea, I think we did see more birders than real birds!! The tour guide on the tram apologized that we had not seen more birds but said it was due to the high winds. Since this RV park provides free park passes, we will have other opportunities. We actually have seen quite a few common birds because we are parked next the couple who lead the birding tours for this park and they have 4 bird feeders behind their 5th wheel – much to Paul’s dismay since he is trying to keep ours clean.
This park is lovely – we have a concrete pad to park on along with a concrete patio. Each site is divided from the next site by flowering shrubs and most sites have a small palm tree on it. However, the only social activities are a Margarita hour on Wednesday afternoon and coffee and donuts on Saturday morning. Fortunately there is aqua fitness class 3 times a week to which I have gone.
Since there is not enough to keep us busy here, we have explored a few neighboring RV parks which have entertainment or meals open to the public. Saturday morning we went to a flea market north of the City of Mission where we are staying. We should have realized that we might not be in the right place when we parked in a lot with farmers selling calves, goats, sheep, chickens, ponies and calves. During our tour through the main part of the flea market, we encountered very few “Winter Texans”, the rest of the shoppers were local Mexican Americans. Most of the stalls contained used clothing or other prized junk. When we returned to our park, we mentioned something about the flea market and the comment was – oh, you went to the Mexican flea market. Needless to say, we decided to pass on another flea market in the neighboring City of McAllen and on Sunday we returned to the Donna / Weslaco flea market which caters to tourists. I bought two bathing suits from a French-Canadian couple from Laval, Quebec.
On Thursday and Saturday evenings we went to Borderfest - an outdoor cultural event with a small midway that takes place every year at this time. We listened to lots of good music which even included a Mariachi band from a local junior high school, several Mexican groups, country and western bands and Jamaican reggae bands. The highlight was to see Charo in person – she is really a good performer and plays classical guitar very well. This festival is called Borderfest because it is held in Hildago, TX which is just across the bridge from Reynosa, Mexico. We chose not to go over to Reynosa because there has been a lot on the local news about the drug wars and shootings in that city. Instead we do our Mexican shopping in Nuevo Progreso because that seems to be a safer town and they rely on Winter Texans for their livelihood.
We are pleased that we can buy diesel for $1.86 – since in this area everything is far away. Mcallen is the largest industrial city in the valley, but we are out in the rural area – so even the closest grocery store is miles away. Amy will be visiting this week, so we get to play tourists as we explore more areas.
check our photos : http://picasaweb.google.com/pjkralik/WinterTexanReport4
Jane & Paul
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