Rio Grande Boat Tour

February 28, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

For those who thought that the Rio Grande is not much more than a stream, here’s a different view.  The Rio Grande begins in Colorado and works its way through New Mexico and the southern border of Texas until it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico.  (We wrote about the river earlier this year in http://tinka.net/2008/04/30/santa-fe-bandelier-and-taos/. )In the area of Mission, Texas, the Rio Grande is about 300-500 yards wide and runs about 25 feet deep.  On one of the few cloudy days we’ve seen, a group of about 65 from our park headed off to Mission and to the Riverside Club Restaurant for a river boat tour.  Referring to the map below, the tour started at the Riverside Restaurant and covered the river between the blue lines.

We boarded the Riverside Dreamer for the tour for the first of two groups.(Click to enlarge)

This is the Riverside Restaurant as seen from the boat.

The Riverside menu looked pretty good.  Their specialty is the pork loin sandwich.  We’ll have to come back and try it out.

As we headed west on the river, we passed a number of RV parks on the shoreline.

Some were not formal RV parks, just RV’s set up on land as fishing cabins.

Further west along the river, the  US side becomes mostly sugar cane fields.  The picture below shows evidence of the recent burning of the cane fields and the damage that it caused this grove of palm trees.

Residents of both countries, the United States and Mexico, have full use of the river.  South of the border the river is known as the Rio Bravo, like in the 1959 John Wayne, Dean Martin movie.

As you can see by the map above, Mexican Hwy #2 follows the southern side of the river, therefore, the Mexican side is has a little more development than does the US side.   There were several parks and recreation areas along shore. At one curve in the river there are parks on both sides.  In this case, this Mexican park is located on the north side of the river. (See map above)

And this US park is located on the south side of the river.

We came across a beautiful log cabin estate on the Mexican side of the River.  As with many properties along the shore, they have their own boat ramp. (CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE IMAGE)

Remember, that is a Mexican house.

In case you’re wondering, US Homeland Security is staying busy.  Here is an observation station located on the shore of an RV park.

The river is also patrolled by border patrol boats.

After the hour-long cruise, we headed over to Pepe’s Restaurant for lunch.We wrote that restaurant up in an earlier post - CLICK HERE.

This side trip was well worth while.  We would recommend it to anyone and the price is only $7.50 per person.  Here is more information on the Riverside Club and Cruise.

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Posted in TX Rio Grande Valley, Texas | Print | 2 Comments »