September 19, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

 Well, we’ve moved on back to Rockport on the central Texas coast.  As it turned out, we probably didn’t have to leave the area since Hurricane Ike turned north and hammered Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula.  However, we didn’t want to take any chances.

Last year, about this time, we were leaving Florida and overwhelmed by the love-bugs that smash easily on the front of vehicles and destroy the paint.  Well, it turns out that love-bugs are pests throughout the Gulf Coast.  They are not as dense as you would find in Florida, but they are certainly present near Rockport.

As we moved away from the coast, the love-bugs vanished and were replaced by swarms of butterflies all the way to Laredo.  They are still messy, but not as destructive as the love-bugs.

We had considered heading south to South Padre, but settled on going west to Laredo, Texas.  Laredo is located on the Rio Grande, about 180 miles due west of Corpus Christi.

We had made arrangements to stay at Lake Casa Blanca State Park.  Because we were “evacuees”  we were allowed to stay free.  There were several people that didn’t get reservations in on time and had to “dry camp”.  In other words, find a place in a parking lot and camp without electric or water.  Luckily we had 50 Amp service and city water.  As with most of the state parks, Lake Casa Blanca had large, well maintained RV sites.  The park was quite active and has a fishing and swimming lake within its borders.

We expected a small, older town.  It turns out that there are several new subdivisions to house the beneficiaries of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Interstate 35 terminates at the Mexican border and is a major entry point for goods being moved between Mexico, Canada, and the US.

In the older part of town we noticed a variety of businesses selling various crafts.  Here’s one with wire statuary.

And Pottery.

The buildings in the downtown area date back a number of years.

The building on the left has ornate tile-work.

Many of the Laredo streets were obviously designed for horse traffic rather than cars.  They are extremely narrow.

On Friday, we decided to head across the border to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas.  We parked on the US side and walked across Bridge #1.  From the bridge we had a nice view of a beautiful riverside park in Laredo.

Looking southeast from the bridge we see the Rio Grande and Bridge # 2.

On the south end of the bridge we found ourselves at the Mexican Point of Entry.

Before we crossed, we asked where the good restaurants were and were told that many of them had closed.  It appeared that the streets were quite busy, but we found no upscale restaurants near the border.

Had we arrived a week later the place would have been crammed with people celebrating diesyseis de septembre (September 16th), which is Mexican Independence Day. You can see that the vendors in the park were getting prepared for the holiday.

We spent a few hours in Nuevo Laredo and had guacamole and a couple of beers at one of the few restaurants we found.  We left Mexico carrying a tube of arthritis cream and a couple of bottles of Bacardi Añejo which is made in Mexico and makes the best rum and cokes.

Friday night we found a very good restaraunt, the Palenque Grill, which is located near the state park at 7720 Bob Bullock Loop.  The food was excellent.  Tinka had the pollo asado and I had the sirloin steak. 

In this area, it appears that the hunters set themselves up in mobile deer stands.  We saw a number of vehicles set up with racks, and seats on the roof.

This one gave us an idea for upgrades to our jeep.  I especially like the seats mounted to the hood.

Sunday we made our uneventful way back to Rockport and were able to set up between rain storms. 

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April 14, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

We put on our presentation about Wintering in Mexico on Wed night.  Rick made the power point for the presentation.  The group seemed to like it and many commented about how much they enjoyed it.

Although, it is much better with our fine narration, a slightly modified version of the slide-show can be found here: Mexico-PDF.

We are glad it is over so that now we can devote our time to the dreaded INCOME TAX.

Our last night with the Montana Rally we all met at Macaya’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner.

When we woke up on Friday morning Montanas were pulling out heading home or other destinations.   It looks pretty lonesome around  here without all our Montana friends.

We were waiting for the return of our exhaust brake controller so we decided to stay over one more day.  For some reason, when we had the ABS sensor replaced, the exhaust brake ceased operating.  Banks Engineering replaced the controller under warranty.

Friday night we met our friends, Roland and Karen, at the Agave Restaurant which is located on the Desert Diamond Casino grounds.  It was an absolutely fabulous meal.  We will meet up with them again in TX in a couple of months.

As we laid in bed early Saturday morning we heard the whistling of the AZ winds.  We got ourselves up and out in that wind to get the rig ready to leave.  What fun!!!  At least the wind would help push us to Phoenix.  We arrived in the Phoenix area about 2:00 PM with temps in the low 90’s.  Our type of temperatures.  We will be relaxing in the area for a few days and while here will work on our agenda for the next few weeks.  Our next stop will be Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon.

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April 4, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

 In 1970, the movie Catch-22 was filmed, in part, at Playa Los Algodones in San Carlos, Mexico.  The beach is some of the most beautiful white sand dunes that we have seen.  You can see that new construction is cropping up on the northern edge of the beach.

Looking to the south, the dunes stretch back about a quarter of a mile toward the road.  Apparently the Mexicans are trying to be diligent about the preservation of the dunes.  Their efforts may be sending the wrong signal.  There are signs at the beach that you can’t ride horses or 4-wheelers on the beach or in the dunes.  To enforce this, a police officer was perched on top of the dunes with his 4-wheeler.

I’m sure that back in 1970 you could look out over the bay and see nothing but sand.  Here’s what Playa Los Algodones looks like today from the hills to the south.

In another 38 years you probably won’t see anything but condos and hotels.

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March 30, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

Before leaving San Carlos last week we decided to take a drive to the far end of the bay where we could see lights at night from the shore.  This was in the direction of Guaymas, but mid-way between the towns.  We found several large complexes of condos.  You can see one of them on the right-hand part of this picture.  San Carlos is across the bay.  Click on Picture to enlarge.

In this area we discovered a piece of property that we might be able to afford.  It appears that someone gave up on their dream and left.

We continued around the bay and came across some interesting rock formations, one in the mountain…….

And another little island rock…..

A little farther around the bay we arrived in an area of nice homes and a fishing fleet.  I’m not sure whether one has anything to do with the other.  Many of the boats were out doing what they do, but a few remained.

This market area appeared poised for the return of the boats so that they would have something to sell.

On the far side of the bay we ran into the Playa de Cortez Hotel and Trailer Park.  We hadn’t seen any reviews of this park, but it looked pretty nice.

Each site had some shade and a concrete “patio”.  A rig the size of ours, with 4 slides may have had a little problem with the width of the sites, but you could fit about any length in them.  If you wanted to be out of the hustle and bustle of San Carlos or Guaymas, this might be the spot.

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March 25, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

Our intent was to leave Mexico around April 1st in order to get to the Montana Rally in Tucson by the 4th.  Because we had an issue with our refrigerator and wanted to get it fixed before the rally, we elected to head north a little earlier.  We learned that driving between Palm Sunday and Easter was a bad idea. 

It appears that about 40 percent of Mexicans elect to take that week off for vacation and most head to the beaches.  The roads are busy enough as it is and we didn’t want any part of it.  Therefore we decided to get out before Palm Sunday weekend.

All through the country are shrines on the hillsides.  We noticed that over the days prior to Palm Sunday that these shrines were getting a face-lift.  Here’s an example of one that got a fresh coat of paint.

The vendors aren’t going to let the holiday get by without a chance to promote religious items.  It looks like they may be trying to recycle some of the Christmas stuff.

Guess what, every place we found a tope (speed bump) we found another display.

Well, our plan came off without a hitch.  We crossed the border on the Thursday before Palm Sunday and were spared the mass surge to the sea.

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