Feb 21, 2012  10:30 am   70 degrees

Long Bill Thrasher

We went to a country music festival in Mercedes this week where there were 5 stages, each with a different kind of country music, ie bluegrass, gospel etc. and you could just wander from one tent to another.  Each performer had one-half hour and the shows went on all day for 6 days so you were bound to find something you really liked.   With me it was music by Terry Smith who wrote Far Side Banks of Jordon.  He is a wonderful performer  and I liked all of his original songs as well as the others he sang.  Here is a link on You tube

http://youtu.be/A4xG5xLgisA

And this is my crappy pic.

Have you ever seen a building similar to this one on South Padre Island with whales and sea life covering the whole outside of it?

Chances are it was painted by  Robert Wyland who painted 100 buildings around the world with his "Whaling Walls."  There are a number of them in California but you can also see one in Portland, Me, Portsmouth, N.H., Orlando Fla and others in many states and countries .

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Port Isabel  lighthouse, where Neil climbed to the top and I sat happily in the park at a nice safe sea level

 Neil talked to two guyswho take their sea kayaks out fishing.  I thought, I want to see that so we hung around and waited for over two hours to get this not-so-great pic.

This Chapel By The Sea might be enough to encourage even me to go to church.

We see a lot of these Homeland Security buses and now I know why.

  I guess this is where the undocumented are processed and sent home.  There is a sign just before this one that asks you not to pick up hitchhikers. 

Would you eat a place called Dirty Als?  

Also not sure I would swim at a place that has signs that tell  you there are rip currents and how to survive them.

. Soooo, I won't go up in a high place, I won't eat at a place called dirty anybody and I won't swim  where there are rip currents, but I would seriously like to take spray paint to remove the M from these political posters where the candidate has the coldest, calculating eyes!

Tuesday Feb 14  4:30 cst   75 degrees

Monday the Kelly Miller circus came to Port Isobel.  The newspaper said that they invited the public to come down and watch them set up....couldn't pass up a photo op like that..  

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Had fun talking to these two ladies.  Becky on the left...Sally on the right.

 Becky  is the trapeze artist for the show.  She  is married to the guy that does the lighting and  they have a daughter  seen here.   Sally just came for the show, like us, but she was a lot of fun.

.. There are 11  children  with the circus that they home school and the kids all have some part in the circus.

  

   This little girl was dressed as a bird for the pirate section.  She was awfully cute.  Lest you think the kids don't get the proper education this way, Becky says that three of their recent graduates have gone on to college.

With only two shows and one night in town, I don't see how they can make any money with all the equipment, 80 or so  people in their RV's, and all the animals   and  tents.

They even bring their own Port-a-Potties.

Some of the acts:

This juggler was fantastic!

Earlier in the day, while they were setting up, on the other side of the field we saw a large cat ...this is not a rural area, it is just behind the boys and girls club in Port Isobel.   This big non-housecat was just walking down the road.  No one could get close enough to  see  it clearly  and the circus people said they only have the tigers and all were accounted for in their cages.   We still don't know.  I hope some reader will blow  the picture up enough to be able to identify it because it looked an awful lot like a lion to me!

Here is Becky  hanging by her teeth(!) which her dentist says are very strong.  Good thing..Dentures would ruin her career!

And here she is on the trapeze

At the ticket booth, we spoke to this girl a little as her English was not very good.  She is from  Argentina.  She said everyone has more than one job  and her job  in addition to selling tickets, includes riding the elephant.

She gave us a big smile when she and her elephant  came by..

Sally and  the Ringmaster after the show.

This little boy sat next to Neil and kept  offering  him candy.  Sweet little guy.

Black belied whistling ducks.

About 150 of these ducks have taken over a small pond nearby.  They stay all around the edges of the pond at night  but during the day, they go cross the road to browse in the fields.   

At least  they did up until the last few days when we have had some heavy rains.  Many of the fields are flooded.

Saturday, however was a beautiful day so we went to a yearly event called Kitefest on South Padre Island.

This lady appears to chosen her shirt to match the welcoming banners.

There was a big crowd and the kites were just awesome.

This one is huge!

With so many kites in the air and  most had multiply strings, this is the only tangle I saw.  They brought it down and no damage to either kite.

There were professionals, amateurs, grown ups and big kids flying kites, but I guess flying kites is not for little kids.   "Stand back, Junior, and let Mommy  play."

 There were many competitions but this is the only one that we saw.  These four kites are in perfect unison performing a dance to music.   There were other teams doing this too.

These are the people who are making those kites dance.

Howie enjoyed the show too.

We all just tried not to look like this.

Why are these people laughing?  The lady just handed me Neil's cup of coffee that was on the back side rail of the truck as we were on our way out.  

On our way in earlier, we stopped to talk to a man who was leaving with a big smile on his face.  He said he had just taken a WHOLE ROLL of 18 pictures and he was going to get more film.    He needs to update his camera a little.

I took a few dozens more that he did and if you want to see just a few culled out on Picasa, click on the link below.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117773323031898668140/albums/5706857790443401697?hl=en