Tuesday, March 25, 2014 7:30 cdst    72 degrees

This week we visited Boca Chica village which is situated one mile north of the mouth of the Rio Grande which is a long way from Brownsville or any other settlement...maybe 18 or 20 miles. It began with an advertisement somewhere up north.  I didn't find out the name of the developer or the newspaper, but the ad was in Polish.
2,000 lots  were sold unseen but only 32 house were actually built.

There are only 6 non-Polish who live here now and 5 decedents of the early Polish owners. It's easy to spot which houses they live  in because the rest are in pretty poor shape

Looks like one is still hoping for a sale.

funny!

There is a big problem with owning a house here..no water.  Each house seems to have at least one of these water tanks, the water being brought in from Brownsville.

Boarded up but nice.  Maybe anticipating a revitalization of the village because in 1012 a private (not government) space company, SpaceX, bought land here.

Copied from SpaceX's web page :

                                    Our launch manifest is populated by a diverse customer base,

                                                              including space station resupply missions, commercial satellite launch                                                            missions, and US government science and national security missions.

I went to their site and read the list of anticipated flights in the near future and didn't see any from Boca Chica but who knows.  Anyone want to gamble on a land investment?  

While there we saw a few of these hooded warblers scurrying around  eating.  I don't think they live here so I think they are in migration.

Closer to home, I got a lesson on how to buy a shed last week.  Neil picked out the shed at 

Lowe's and we bought the stuff to  make a base for it, and to my surprise, it is delivered in a box about the size and thickness of a  twin sized mattress.  If I bought a dress and it was delivered as a pattern and a hunk of fabric, I would be upset, but apparently, the men knew this was the way  sheds come into the world,

So Neil and George built the base 

and Theresa and I put up the sides............ha ha ............joke.  Theresa is the master directions- reader and I am the totally useless kibitzer.

We are now waiting for a non windy, non rainy

day to put the roof on.  Who knew shed building was such a chore!

   Neil was all primed to visit this museum until he realized it said Roberta Lee, not Robert E. Lee

March 20, 2014  4pm cdst   68 degrees

I didn't post on Tuesday this week because we were moving to a new RV park  and have waited for two days for AT&T to come and hook me up to wireless service.  Still waiting.
So, I am at the clubhouse using the park's internet.
Well, this is what we have been doing last week besides moving.

 We have seen these towers on South Padre Island  many times before but this week we found out that they are carnival rides.  The two straight towers are a ride called Rocket.

This horrifying piece of entertainment costs $30 if you ride it alone, but for $50 they put two of you in the cage and for a heart stopping couple of minutes, you spring from the ground up about 100 feet and bounce back a few of times.  No kidding, people pay money for this.  Well, by people, I mean college age, half-grown people.  People whose judgement will some day govern our country...Scary thought.

Now, the inverted V shaped tower is called Skycoaster.  After being strapped in face down with  a pretty complicated harness, they drag you in your rigging up 100 feet to the top of another tower.......

 and then turn you loose to swing out like you were hang gliding.

 For this, you also pay handsomely ($30 single, $50 for two) and they did not seem to have any shortage of customers while we were watching.

I"m thinking it is not coincidental that these four port-a-potties are situated near where you get off the ride.

Well, we old folks don't do silly flying-thru-the-air stuff,( Unless we are on a commercial plane  headed for warm climes in November), but we take chances too.
Well considered chances.
Not  risking life and limb chances.
Nice safe chances.

  This is us going through the border fence.  OK, the REAL border with Mexico is the Rio Grande River but I still felt uncomfortable going past that fence.  We are on our way to Sabal Palms nature center which is a restoration in progress.

The restoration of the Rabb Plantation  (originally 20,000 acres)  will become the welcome center for Sabal Plams.
The original  Rabb  family  was instrumental in bringing irrigation to the valley and were movers and shakers in their time...the late 1800's to early 1900"s

The restoration is in the early stages but I enjoyed the mixtures of 19th and 21st century furnishings.

Beautiful old dining table with folding chairs and plastic storage cubes.

And perhaps today's  young decorators cannot conceive of a living room without a 

TV.

This took me back a little when I looked at the picture until I realized that was not a picture of Neil on the mantel, but the mirror just happened to catch Neil's image.

I do love this old lamp.

On the way home we stopped at the flea market and got this picture.  Are those children sweet, or what?

March 12,2014  6pm cdt

Been a busy week for us.  Most recently we took a  boat tour around the Port of Brownsville, once called the shrimping capital of the world.  Farm raised shrimp has changed that somewhat.

 Altho there are still fleets of shrimpers like this one, (the boats for each company are all colored the same), they have fewer boats.  The guide says that there would be four or five abreast while in port when the shrimping was at its best.

Some  shrimpers go out this time of year, but shrimping is at its best in the summer.  This part I don't really understand:  He said that in the summer the boats go out but don't even put out their nets until they get to Louisiana.  Seems to me that they would be better off to move their operations to Louisiana............... but then, they didn't ask me where to locate, did they.

Big time operations at the port of Brownsville is turning old ships back into scrap metal.  This biggie is about half dismantled.

The guys are dressed for the job....they look like space aliens. 

Guide tells us you can tell  there has been a lot of stuff removed  when you can see so much of the ship below its water line.

Lots of big ships there.....See those guys waving .......just showing that so you might get an idea of how big an operation dismantling these ships is.

They just cut out a section and remove it just like you would a piece of birthday cake.

And here it is all chopped up and ready for it's journey to Mexico or China and reprocessing into maybe your new car.

And here is a sad sight for us old Navy  families.  The USS Forrestal is here to be undressed, torn apart and sent into oblivion.  Forrestal was a very impressive ship when we were in Norfolk many years ago.  Sadder yet, the Saratoga, Neil's last ship and a sister to Forrestal,  is  coming to the slaughter when the Forrestal is no longer, however, it  is scheduled to take two years for the annihilation.  Do you detect a certain amount of sadness in my tone at these events?  

Well, on a happier note, we did see these spring breakers wall to wall on this excursion boat  yelling and screaming and apparently having fun. I am not one of those people who are ruing the loss of my youth.  I would hate to be young enough to think this is fun.

They also build at the Port of Brownsville. This oil rig is almost ready to go to sea.

On to more healing things.  We went to the Turtle Rescue this week.  One of the new rescues is this guy who appears to have had an encounter with an outboard motor.  The shell was cut so they have those ties glued to his back and every day or two, they tighten them up a little until the gap closes and he heals.  He can be sent back  to the ocean when he is completely healed.

And here is poor Walter who got stranded in the cold weather and while in a weakened condition, he was attacked by a predator...probably a coyote, and lost a flipper.

He also can be released if all goes well.  He is out of the water now (dry docked) because he has an open wound and this reduces the chance of infection, so they tube feed him "squid shakes" because turtles can't eat out of the water.  He is also expected to make a complete recovery.

Message on a fence using Styrofoam cups  While not very attractive, very creative.

Would like to show you our new RV park but we just moved today and it has been hectic so maybe next time I will have some pics.  (Heh,heh, just a teaser to get you to read this blather again next week.)

March 4, 2014   9:45 pm cst   39 cold rainy degrees

Good thing we made a trip to South Padre Island this week because it was the last warm day we had and also it is the beginning of spring break...this week the Canadian spring breakers, next week the American and the week after, Texas breakers.  Time for us Winter Texans to haul our butts off the beach and let the kids have it.... for a while.

Neil climbed to the top of the lighthouse in Port Isabel and took this pic of the bridge to the island with my new ultra-cheap wide angle lens....not bad for a cheapie.

We have seen these dogs before and stopped to see them again when we saw them out  because they are just  so friendly and irresistibly handsome.  Their owner is a maintenance guy at a RV park on the Island.  He sort of looks like his dogs, doesn't he?

This is Winston.  He's about 2.5 years old.

And this is Fletcher who is about 5.  Both are rescue dogs.

I'll bet I have 30 pics of these dogs and every one makes me smile.

They do lick a lot tho.  Owner says it is because they don't have the best smeller so they taste to get to know who you are.

This carving of fish is in a tree that died but the roots are still in the ground and the artist just carved it where it stands.  Beautiful work.

This man has only one leg. Gutsy.

One of the many sandcastles on what the Island calls Sandcastle Tail.

Couldn't decide if this one was vandalized or if that broken box is intentional

Andy Hancock who does many of the sculptures. I asked him if he was a native and he said no one is a native on this Island.  Actually, he comes from Australia.

 I also asked how  the castles survive for so long....didn't they dry out and crumble and he gave me a sandcastle secret....they spray them with Elmers glue mixed with water. By the way, Andy gives  lessons on how to build  sandcastles.

How strange is this:  We met this man, Samuel Stanton at the Dairy Queen last year .  He was driving a vintage Mg with a little trailer that he made from MG parts.  Cute.

  This week, I saw him once again at  the Dairy Queen and this time he is driving a Triumph with a v8 engine which he is showing Neil in this pic.    Seems that every Sunday afternoon, he drives to the island  (He lives in Brownsville) and gets a milk shake at  Dairy Queen.  I find it hard to believe that we recognized him again and that we were at the same place at the same time again.

He still has the MG, (he belongs to  the south Texas British Car Club), and sometimes he drives it ......but he  has become fond of this tr8 which he bought for $3200.  

There is a reason this parking lot is nearly empty.  If you notice in the first pic, it is an enter only, but once you get in there, all the parking spaces are in the wrong direction so if you turn around to come out, the back of the sign says exit only.  Someone has a great sense of humor.

Really?

I studied this picture over and over and I just can't figure out what they are doing.  I think the girl is taking a selfie, but the man..?  Anyway, I just liked the composition.

Twink and Howie, partying.