Winter in South Texas

Louise and I are finishing up our winter in South Texas and it has been a wonderful time here.  We continue our weight loss program - I've lost 102 pounds to date and she is at about 75 pounds down.  The closer we get to our goals, the harder it is to lose weight.

This is about our 10th (or 11th) winter in the Valley and every year gets better as we make more friends and meet up with old ones.  Our neighbors are wonderful!  Cecil and Brenda just left to go back to Kansas and we will surely miss them.  Ray and Jane are our next door neighbors and they will leave on Monday.  They are entertainers and spend their summers doing a show on the Celebration Belle, a riverboat which sails out of Moline, Illinois.  In fact, we plan to time our summer trip this year to go on one of their day cruises and see their show.

Bill and Rita live in Wichita, Kansas and they will be leaving in a couple of weeks as will Jim and Judy from Wisconsin.  Judy is Louise's shopping partner and I think they've made shopping into a contact sport!  We did miss Norm and Charlene this year; they live in Vermont and are building a new home so they had to skip the winter trip.  Larry and his wife, Joann, are from Missouri and we've sure enjoyed our time with them too.

I've played more golf this year than I ever have.  South Texas is about the only place I play - when I get back home, I'll hang up the clubs and not touch them again until next winter.  I must tell you that my game never improves - it seems to get worse as the winter goes along.  In spite of that, I look forward to playing golf in the winter.

Staying in an RV Park is just like living in a small town.  Everyone knows everyone else and knows what they are doing!  We stay at La Feria RV Park in La Feria, Texas and I wouldn't consider staying anywhere else.  We had a park "happy hour" yesterday and had a large turnout.

When we leave the valley this year, we are going to go to Houston for a few days to see Aunt Pat, an old school mate, Frances, and some other friends.  After that, we are going to Frederickburg, Texas (in the heart of the Texas Hill Country).  We'll spend a few days there with Don and Lynn from Sanger, Texas, then we will head home.

South Texas Weather

We arrived in the Valley the day before yesterday and the weather is gorgeous! Our trip down was uneventful except for filling this motorhome up with gasoline! I find myself just kind of holding my breath to see how much it takes.

We are actually located in La Feria, Texas, a small town between Harlingen and McAllen. If you aren't familiar with this part of the World, it's called "the Valley" because it is part of the Rio Grande River valley. There is no scenery here to speak of except that South Padre Island and the Gulf of Mexico is about 30 miles away. Since we are only about 10 miles from the Mexican border, a lot of the "Winter Texans" go over there to shop and sightsee. We used to but, because of the drug wars, don't any more.

Yesterday I got my HF antenna up and it works fine on 20 meters. I think that's probably the only band I'll work while we are here. The antenna is a Buddipole and I have it mounted on a painter's pole about 16' high. I'd like to have it higher, of course, but it ain't gonna happen!

Back to the weather, it was about 75 degrees yesterday and supposed to be near 80 today. I can live with that.

South Texas

We are getting ready for our annual trek to South Texas, aka "The Valley", aka the Rio Grande Valley. We will stay there as long as it it cold in Oklahoma!

The Valley is an interesting place. It has absolutely no scenery, only mild temperatures. Typically, the temps in the Valley are about 30° warmer than in the Tulsa area. If its 30° here, it will be 60° there, enough reason to travel that way.

Some observations: the place is full of OLD PEOPLE! When you go into a restaurant or bar, everyone in there except the wait staff is over 65. Since old people are notoriously bad tippers, I would hate to have a job like that in South Texas.

In the Valley, you are very close to Mexico, usually 10 miles or less. Louise and I used to make frequent trips across the border to shop and watch the other old people shopping. In the past couple of years, however, we have decided that Mexico might be a bit more hazardous than we like. When you cross the border in Progreso (near Harlingen), the first thing you see is a soldier with a machine gun in an armored personnel carrier. It doesn't give you warm, fuzzy feeling.

You are, however, close to the beach. South Padre Island is only about 30 miles away and we do make several trips to the Island every year to sight see and eat at the restaurants there.

We are going to be staying in our new (to us) motorhome this year. It will be a bit different but should be a lot of fun. We'll let you know in future posts.