Montana Tours of 2005, March 10, 2005, Fruits & Vegies Supreme

The weather has been nice, over all, the average temps are up to around 80 degrees during the day. We have had a few days of 85 to 90, had one that was 99, ooeee, that was warm! Have to remember tho, that here it is mostly dry heat, and that does make it a bit more tolerable than 99 with the humidity we get in Michigan. Needless to say, there have been a number of visits to the pool and hot tub and therapy tub (water in a therapy tub is not as hot as a real hot tub, but still has all those wonderful jets of water to help get rid of the sore spots).

We have made several trips to Mexico, the shopping is always fun there, we have great lunches, and come back. We were even able to attend “Winter Texan Appreciation Day” in Progreso, Mexico. That was QUITE the experience. Some free food, people everywhere, entertainment stages up and down the streets. We discovered a new shopping area, very colorful and fun, off the main drag one block, worth the walk!

We also have been to the flea market a few times, did a little shopping, mostly the $2.50 t-shirts and cheap hats for Al! I found bathing suits for me for $5.00 a piece. Yep, I bought some, 4 of em, to be exact! Must be discontinued suits, but since I am no fashion expert and so out of the loop, like, who cares! HAHA.

The Rio Grande Valley is well known for its fruits and vegetables, below are photos from one of the larger fruit markets we have found. The prices are very reasonable, beats the grocery store prices by far!

Montana Tours of 2005, March 2, 2005, Borderfest

We attended the Borderfest Festival at Hidalgo. It is a celebration of the heritage of the area and more! Great food, to say the least! Art and arts and crafts are displayed and sold. There was a tent that discussed farming and ranching here in the area, showing what products are made from some of the plants and animals of the area. They have ENTERTAINMENT! We cannot remember a festival that had so many entertainment tents. We saw just a portion of what was offered, and we saw, Polish dancers, Scottish bag pipe band, and Japanese drums. There was also a number of Mariachi bands and Folklorico dancers, they even had belly dancers, which we did not see, but I did see a dancer walking around the fair - - it was a guy! They had street entertainers, including a gal, dressed in Mexican folklore clothing, that was a street mime, one of those that freezes into positions! When we saw her, she was sitting on a picnic bench and a Winter Texan was trying to keep her from falling over, he would adjust her arm, she would move one way, adjust the arm in a different position, she would fall another direction. Fun to watch! It was quite a nice day!

Yes, that IS the Weinermobile!! Borderfest has it all!

There was a car show at Borderfest, every good festival needs and has a

car show. Here were a couple we found a bit interesting. I would have

loved to see them set this demonstration up!

Below, one of the entertainment groups,

(Just for Anne and Karen!)

Montana Tours of 2005, February 28, 2005, Sand Art, HUGE Bee

We are still in Llano Grande Park, we contemplated moving to Victoria Palms on March 1st, however, we got a cold reception when we stopped to discuss the situation with them, they are contemplating a 1 dog per rig rule. They don’t want my dogs, they don’t want my $$. And life goes on.

Al has been playing billiards almost every night and has gone with the fellows to another park a few times to play in tournaments. He has been enjoying this very much.

We drove out to South Padre Island for the day, Al had SEAFOOD for lunch, HA HA, now there is a surprise! We looked around at the campgrounds. Most are county parks, and literally every site is reserved for a full year in advance, the same people keep coming back. One lady we met commented that the only way you might get one of those sites is if someone died. They really love it out there, salt air and all! There is one commercial campground that we found, it was rather pricy! The parks that we saw on the mainland, but close to the Gulf were horribly run down, not where Al and I would feel comfortable staying. There are probably more parks, yet to be discovered by yours truly, but for now, we will not be staying out in that direction!

So, what is the photo at the right of?? I call it "Sand Art". It is a photo of the sand on the beach at South Padre Island. This is looking straight down, we liked the unusual formations.












Al also discovered that Llano Grande has a brand new wood shop, since we were in desperate need of a shelf to secure the new TV, he took advantage of the expertise of the volunteers that run the shop and of the time. We now have a really great looking shelf, with DVD player and TV all secured. He also made 2 doors, one for under the refrigerator and one for under the stove, knocked out the panels below each, installed doors and oooeee, 2 great new storage areas. I have been rearranging the kitchen. (Photos can be seen here.)

This huge killer bee is actually a "monument" we found in Hidalgo, Texas. It is hard to tell, but those palm trees in the back are TALL. They say this is the world's largest killer bee. We just had to have a photo!

Montana Tours of 2005, February 15 to 26, 2005, This 'n That

February 15 - 17th, 2005

Still lazy, we are now walking the dogs every morning, Al takes 1, then another, then he goes for a longer walk, when he returns I walk 1, then the last. The dogs LOVE it!

On the 17th, members of the Montana’s Owners Club (online forum) that are in the valley, meet for a late lunch/early dinner in McAllen Texas. You know who the MC for the afternoon was. We had about 30 people, spent a great afternoon of chatting and visiting and laughing. My cough is gone, except when I laugh, oh, we were laughing, oh, dear!

February 18 - 26, 2005

We have 3 or 4 days of wonderfully warm weather. We go to the pool and hot tub and laz around for 3 afternoons in a row. We go out and run some errands here and there. Some MOC members, Les and Julie, ended up in our park for 1 week, and we visit with them, talking fulltiming, and of course, Montanas! We go out to eat a couple of times with them, they are great people and we hope to run into them again sometime on the road!

We spend another afternoon in Harlingen, did a little window/antique shopping in the downtown area, which is like so many of our country’s downtowns, hard on businesses. Many empty buildings and a few “going out of sale” signs. We tried to go to the Rio Grande Valley Museum, but found it closed. They don’t publish their hours on their glossy brochure, very irritating. Had dinner in a all you can eat Chinese buffet place. Al had wanted to go to the Shrimp Fest that evening, till they told us it was boiled shrimp, and a tad pricey. So, we found this Chinese place, and they had boiled shrimp, and crab this, and mussels that, and catfish and salmon and more shrimp with flavorings. He still got all he could eat! And, got to say, that eating Chinese with Country music twaingin the in the background is different! Only in Texas?? What fun!

While we were killing some time that afternoon we happened upon the Harlingen Public Library and wandered in. They had a nice collection of art work, which we wandered around and looked at. I wandered into the genealogy area for a few minutes and found a book on Page County Virginia that has some photos of a house I want, connected to my families. Go figure, all the way to Texas and find something on one of my Virginia families. I found that they book is also owned by the Allen County Public Library, so I will take my scanner and look it up there.

On the afternoon of the 26th we run out to La Joya and take in the performance of the high school kids, like we did last year. They surely are a talented batch of kids. We stopped on the way home and visited another MOC member who is parked out that way, spent a few hours with John and Donna from Ontario, what a nice visit and afternoon.

Well, that about brings you up to date. We have been here almost a month, and have yet to be to Mexico. Have not done much at all, but we are in the Montana, and as far as we are concerned that is a good thing!

Montana Tours of 2005, February 11 to 14, 2005, Llano Grande & Iwo Jima

Finally we are able to show you the Montana as she sits this year at Llano Grande RV park. The grass is about half grown in, and the palm trees are only about 10 inches high. The lots, however, are very wide and the utilities are set up very nicely.

February 11 - 14, 2005

Still recovering from our colds we are still not doing much. Weather here is not the best, but then look at the weather they have been having in Arizona! OUCH. We have a day or two of rain, gray then we get a day or two that is rather nice.

Al finds a replacement TV at the local Best Buy, a 20 inch flat screen Toshiba. It has a great picture! A day after we get that all set up, we go to play a CD, and you guessed it, the CD changer will not open and we discover that it is fatally ill. The day we did laundry, it was rather damp outside and I could not hang out the shirts to dry, so we set up the little clothes rack we have in Montana. You guessed it, in the middle of the night, crack, crack and crash, the rack broke and I had to gather up all the still semi-wet clothes. Next morning we went to Linens N More and bought a new one, this one a bit more substantial than the old one. This is turning into the “replacement tour”.

On the 14th, we finally feel we are strong enough to undertake a day of sightseeing, so we head off to Harlingen. We visit the Iwo Jima monument. This is taken from the same mold as the monument in Washington D.C. It is quite breathtaking. There is a nice park, lots of memorial live oak trees placed in memory of fallen soldiers, a museum and a interesting movie on the Battle to take Iwo Jima. We have lunch in what is supposed to be one of the 50 best Mexican restaurants in the US. It is fine, but we think we found one here locally near our campground that is at least that good, maybe better! Yep, we have eaten there a couple of times! We also wander out to the Texas Air Museum, which will be closed by the end of February for ever, the collection is being sold off and all artifacts will be moved to other locations. It is an interesting collection of airplanes and World War II war memorabilia. The collection needs to be moved away from the salt air (we are near the Gulf) and parts of it needs some TLC, but we still find it an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. It was 92 degrees in the afternoon, February 14th! OK, we loved it, it is part of why we come to the Rio Grande Valley, the high temps!

Iwo Jima Monument in Harlingen Texas

Montana Tours of 2005, January 30 to February 10, 2005, Texas and Still Sick

January 30, 2005

Today we drive to Dallas Texas. It is another LONG day, 410 miles. The campground we end up in is OK for overnight, but has small lots, crowded, they want us to unhook, which we DO NOT do as they gave us a site where we could just manage to get into. It is cold, it is raining, and wind blowing, rather nasty all the way around. Carol drove today, and was reminded how wonderful this Montana pulls.

January 31, 2005

Dallas to George West, Texas, did not record the mileage, exactly, something like 300 to 350?? It is still cool, rainy and frankly nasty. The campground we pick for tonight has HUGE lots, pull throughs that run alongside the road. Concrete pads, nice little covered picnic area on each site. Bad side of the coin, the access roads are all dirt, it is raining, so the access roads are all a slimy slippery mud. Both of us are starting to feel bad, ok, worse, again. Nasty colds! SIGH

February 1, 2005

Arrive Mercedes Texas, staying at the Llano Grande Resort. Victoria Palms was full, so we are in a sister park. We arrive it is about 45 degrees, cloudy, breezy, and raining. We will set up in this nastiness. Or, partially set up, we only do what is strictly necessary, as we both feel so bad and this weather is so nasty we don’t want to be out in it. We are in a brand new section of the park, the electric meter reads 00000. We have signed up for 1 month, then we will see, maybe we will move on, maybe not.

February 2 to 10, 2005

Well, we have been very sick, nasty cold, cough, slight fevers, just generally crummy. We mostly stayed in the Montana, nursing our wounds! A few trips out for groceries, gas, and not much else. Some days we even managed to take the yorks for short walks. No fun being sick, but we were warm, safe, comfy in Montana. Carol read a LOT of books. We had trouble getting the cable modem to work, went back to the office for 4 different modems, only to find that they had a filter on the line, which we were told was NOT there, and that one of the poles had some missing equipment. Once the cable company was called about the missing part it was less than an hour and we were up and surfing. Al now has both laptops hooked together, network style, via a cord, (cord goes into the LAN connections) and we are surfing the net at the same time with our cable modem. VERY COOL!

Our TV is kaput. Al opened it up, found a blown fuse, went out, purchased new fuse, replaced fuse, plugged TV in, and FLASH! Lit up the whole Montana. What a blast! Took the TV into a local repair shop, where it was pronounced unfixable. So, we are surfing the net looking for a new one. Constrained by the size of the cabinet, this is turning into quite the search.
The weather has been, well, lets put it this way, has not been the best. We were here several days before the temperature got above 50. It has been mostly gray and icky and spitting rain here and there. The temps finally climbed out of the dungeon, and we had a couple of days of 70 and 80's. It is now back in the 50's for a day or so.

We did splurge on ourselves and had one of the local guys wash and wax the truck and wash down the sides (not the roof) of the Montana. With all the road dirt off, they both look better.

Nothing very exciting to report on our first couple of weeks out. Sometimes it just is like that.

Montana Tours of 2005, January 23 to 29, 2005, Snowy Sick Start

Well, there is the photo, this was 12 noon on January 23, 2005. You cannot see it, but there was a snow drift ON the truck that was about 15 inches deep, right up against the back window.

January 27, 2005

Temperature 4 below zero F. Sunny, bright, little wind, but COLD! The slides move slow, and stop once while moving them in, wait a moment, start them in again, they are IN!

Warm the truck a bit for the “kids”, load them in, and we are off, time 8:45 AM.

We have let the GPS unit pick the “fastest” route from Tipton to Donna, Texas. US 12 to I 69, south to Indianapolis, to 70 West to Effingham, Illinois, 57 south. We drive 390 miles today, which is 140 more than we like to travel. But, we know the routine, pack the trailer at the last moment, as quickly as possible, for us that is a 2 day event. Then drive as far as we can the first couple of days, heading as far south as we can, the goal being warm enough weather to put water in the unit.

We stop for the night in a little town called Watson, Illinois, at the Percival Springs Airport/Campground/Restaurant/Driving Range. Not much to look at as far as a scenic campground, but the owners could not have been nicer, we drove up and he was waiting for us at the road! We had dinner in their restaurant and watched the weather reports. We had very limited TV on board, as we could not get the antenna up, it was still frozen to the roof! It is still below freezing, about 19 tonight, brrrr!! Weather is cold here, but shaky further south, there is mumbling (OK, forecasting) of ice and freezing rain. YUCK! If necessary, we will stay here over driving in freezing rain.

Note: Virgin Olive Oil congeals and turns a funny cloudy consistency when it is semi frozen! It is cold enough all day, that gallon containers of drinking water stored UNDER the kitchen sink has ice at the top when we open a jug. We sleep with all the doors and drawers open in the rig! By morning the olive oil is clear again.

January 28, 2005

COLD, again, or rather still. Oh, brrrrrr!!

Well, we watch the weather, and decide to GO FOR IT! We are almost out of propane, after heating the rig for 2 days before we left. We are also low on fuel for truck and fuel for the humans. We travel about 30 miles, stopping in Salem Illinois. We fuel the truck at Walmart, the humans at Denny’s and find a propane business, all in a area of less than 1/4 mile. All fueled up, we head out, turning south once again on 57. After we cross into Missouri we find some pretty bad roads, reminding us of I 10 in Mississippi and Louisiana. 57 turns into 55 and when we cross into Arkansas the road gets WORSE. About 20 miles of nasty nasty roads. We figure this is a good acid test of the changes made in the Montana and the truck late last fall, changes made, that we hope will result in a smoother ride for the passengers and the gear in the back of Montana. The passengers are still commenting, “UGHA, this road is horrible!” We pull into the left lane, a trick we learned last year on I 10, and like I 10, it is a much smoother ride. As far as we are concerned, anyone wanting to get around us, can pass on the right. We discover later, when we reach our stop for the night, that indeed the changes made last fall are working, as not ONE cup or glass had fallen over, the dishes were all exactly where they were in the morning, NOTHING had moved in the kitchen! This is a first, and we are celebrating with small whoops of joy and little happy dances around the rig!

We drive hard again today, doing 380 miles. We stop for the night at Brinkley, Arkansas, in a campground behind a Super 8 Motel. We decide to get cable TV, which also gives us full hookups. After just a few minutes of thought we decide it is indeed warm enough for water! This is always a great thing!

We do discover tho, that we have somehow managed to kill the TV in the front room of the Montana. The night before we had somehow managed to leave the remote control near one of the electric heaters and Al suspects we burned it up. I remember shutting the TV off with the remote, but it will not come back on 8 hours later. When we get to Texas we will pull the TV, see if there are any fuses that need replacing, and then decide what to do next if we find none. Irritating, but nothing to do now, but try and figure out what is wrong. SIGH

January 29, 2005

We have coffee, orange juice and sweets at the motel continental breakfast. On the way back to the rig, we decide we are gonna stay put for 24 hours. It is raining hard, we are both a bit wounded, Al’s virus cough is worse again, we just need to lay low and rest.

We surf, play with the computers, he reads more about the TV, cannot find anything in the literature on a quick fix, and we both take naps. I do some stitching and work on some cemetery projects. I do the corrections found during proof reading, I get 3 projects corrected. Not bad for a licking the wounds day!