December 19, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

Yesterday we took a trip to Nuevo Progreso, about 20 miles south of our park.

You may have read recent reports about the danger along the border towns in Mexico related to drug trafficing.  Nuevo Progreso is a town just south of Weslaco, Texas.  Nuevo Progreso is considered to be safe for tourists.  We did, however, notice military presence just south of the border.

The military had several sand bag, machine gun, bunkers just past the entrance to the town.  These bunkers and all of the military vehicles were all facing south.

Nuevo Progreso is where we will generally have our dental work done.  We’ve been coming here even while we lived in the Fort Worth area.  The town has not changed much.  The main street is very busy and lined with dental offices, drug stores, and craft stores.

As expected, this time of year we found some shops dedicated to peñata sales.

We had lunch at the Red Snapper Restaurant, one of the many fine restaurants in the area. As you can see, it was filled with a wide selection of “old people”.

One block to the west of the main street we found the plaza.

You might think that you were in a different city.  The plaza and the street were nearly deserted.

The temperature was around 80 degrees, but the relative humidity was approaching 100%.  When we arrived, about noon, the sidewalks were wet from the damp air.  The sun began to dry them off as the day marched on.

After lunch and a stop at a drug store, we made it back across the border and were home by about 2:30 PM.

Tomorrow we’re off to Dallas to spend Christmas with family.

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December 19, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

We’ve had some interesting weather.  In general it has been great.  Many days in the 80’s, however, about 2 days a week we get a cold front through and the temperature drops considerably.  This is unlike our experience last year in Mexico where every day was beautiful with a high around 85 and lows around 65.  The wind also blows about 20 MPH most of the time when the sun is out here in South Texas.  The flag in the photo below is usually standing out straight in one direction or another.

The other day we were playing petanque (a French game kind of like boccie ball) when the temperature went from 82 degrees to 50 degrees in a matter of 2 minutes.

As mentioned in an earlier entry, time finally arrived when one of our recliners approached the unusable status that all recliners finally reach.  You might guess that it was Rick’s.   Anyway, we  replaced both chairs from a merchant at the flea market with some nice wall-huggers.

We’ll give the one usable chair away but we needed to get rid of the bad one.  So off to the dump we went.  We scaled what must be the highest point in the valley, the Hidalgo County landfill.  It is amazing how much plastic gets tossed out.  They have installed fences just to catch the bags as they blow around.

From up on top of the landfill, we had a nice view of the orange grove below.  I’m not sure that I want fruit with this run-off.

The citrus trees are really full and picking is in high gear.  We’ve seen both orange and grapefruit trees.  Below are some Texas Ruby Red’s.

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