Lagniappe

On our way through Houston, we were able to have dinner with Tara, the remaining Texas gal that I had met on my Thailand trip. Fun evening! It was wonderful reconnecting with these fabulous women. I would love to travel with any of them again!

The Painted Churches of Texas

There are about 15 of these painted churches in Texas. From the outside they look like many other churches, but on the inside nearly every surface has been painted with beautiful colors and the stained glass windows are breathtaking. Built by 19th century immigrants, inscriptions on the walls read not in English, but in the mother tongue of those who built them: German and Czech.

You can read more about them here: http://www.klru.org/paintedchurches/

We spent about 4 days in Beaumont, hanging out with Deborah & Jeff. Unfortunately, they had to work (bummer) and so we spent some fun evenings together, until the weekend rolled around. We pitched in to help with some home maintenance, while they were working. Les installed an electrical outlet outside and I did some painting in the bathroom. It was actually kind of fun to have some projects to work on.

Salt & Pepper ~ AVERY ISLAND - Land of Tabasco!

Just outside of the town of New Iberia, Louisiana, is Avery Island. Considering how Les appreciates a good hot sauce, this side trip was a no-brainer for us. We had the misconception that the island part of Avery Island meant we'd have to cross some major water source to get there, but really it is just surrounded by bayous, salt marsh and swampland.

Tabasco was created by Edmund McIlhenny in 1968. The basic recipe, the process by which it’s made, and the ingredients remain unchanged. (Basically peppers, salt and vinegar). All Tabasco sauce is still made on the island, but the peppers are now mostly grown in Latin America (however all the seeds come from the island). The peppers have to reach the perfect stage of red before they're picked (they start out green and then go through yellow and orange before turning red). The pickers even have a small wooden dowel "le petit bâton rouge" painted the correct color to compare against the peppers. After they're picked, they're mashed and mixed with salt and placed in white oak barrels to ferment for up to 3 years. The barrels come from Jack Daniels, who by law can only use their barrels once! The history is fascinating and you can read more here: http://www.tabasco.com/tabasco_history/mcilhenny.cfm#targ

Here's the most impressive fact about Avery Island: it's really a SALT DOME. This 6 mile island is the tip of a mountain of salt that is 8 miles deep; one of the worlds largest salt mines. Picture it this way: if you fashioned of pure salt a lifesized model of Himalayan Mt. Everest, it would still be so much smaller than that plug of salt that there would be room to add a dozen or so of the major mountain peaks of the Allegheny range. (Taken from the Avery Islands Jungle Gardens brochure.) Wow! The salt is mined by through a shaft 530 feet deep. Oil was discovered on the island in 1942. Five generations later, the McIlhenny Company is still privately held by direct descendants.

Son, Edward Avery McIlhenny, or "Monsieur Ned" as he was affectionately known, is credited with saving the snowy egret from extinction. He founded this bird colony—later called Bird City—around 1895 after plume hunters had slaughtered egrets by the thousands to provide feathers for ladies' hats. Monsieur Ned gathered eight young egrets, raised them in captivity on the Island, and released them in the fall to migrate across the Gulf. The following spring the birds returned to the Island with others of their species, a migration that continues today.


"Jungle Gardens" is the 250 acre natural area created by Monsieur Ned, which includes numerous native and imported plants.

Look closely, that's a baby alligator.

Lagniappe means something more or a little bit extra...

Hill Country

Les's sister, Deborah, and her husband, Jeff, met us in Kerrville for a long weekend of riding in the Hill Country southwest of Austin. They've had a drought, so it wasn't as green as normal, but we had a great time. Their daughter, Shana and her husband, Stephen, brought their motorcyle and came over from the San Antonio area for the day. Unfortunately, the day they came it was too windy and cold to ride. We had a good time anyway, playing pool, catch-phrase, and having dinner.

This is Deborah riding her very own Dyna Low Rider! I am so impressed!

Les and Jeff got out the RC trucks to play with.

They have a very cool 2 year old Boxer, named Hot Rod. Isn't she a beauty. She weighs almost as much as Deborah.

Shana is trying to keep Hot Rod from chasing the RC trucks!

Our first Armadillo sighting! Stephen knows how to pick them up without being mauled by their very sharp claws.

Jeff's ride is a very cool custom Big Dog - Mastiff.

The Hill Country is a popular riding area and this was a fun spot to stop for a chili dog and a cool beverage.

Canyon Lake (this is cool... my new camera has a program that will 'stitch' multiple photos together to make a panorama shot.)

The town of Gruene has the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas. I found it a bit strange that nobody in this area pronounces the names for towns and such the way they look. Gruene is green, Boerne is bernie, Leakey is Lay-key and Bexar is Bear. Go figure.

Seagulls

This is a funny little video of me feeding the seagulls outside the coach window in a parking lot in Corpus Christi. If you watch closely, you can see the bread being thrown and the birds catching it in midair.

Heading North

Having made it as far south as you can go in Texas, we're finally heading north. We left the McAllen area and headed up to Corpus Christi. Unfortunately the weather in CC was pretty gray while we were there, but we didn't let it stop us from doing so site-seeing around the area. We ventured out onto Padre Island to the National Seashore and were so surprised that you can drive on the beach there. The paved road only goes about 5 miles into the national park and then you can drive another 65 miles on the sand (we only went down a couple of miles). You can also dry camp right on beach. This is the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the world.

They're also doing a lot of work there to save the Kemp's ridley turtle. The seashore is the most important nesting beach in the U.S. for the Kemp's ridley, the most endangered sea turtle in the world.


After driving to the northernmost part of the island, we took the free ferry at Port Aransas back to the mainland side.

The highlight of our trip to Corpus Christi was getting together with 4 of the women from my Thailand trip last fall. Fran and her husband graciously organized a dinner for us and we had a wonderful time reliving our trip.

Les was not too pleased that we ran into a rainstorm between Corpus and San Antonio. Yuk! When the trucks pass you they throw all kinds of road grime up. What a mess it made of both vehicles and all the bikes.

After leaving CC, we spent a day in San Antonio. We had been there before, on our 2002 trip, but it was fun to go back and walk along the riverwalk.

We had lunch at Rita's and this was my view. Les likes to try and capture me in 'candid' moments. Usually, he just gets me with food in my mouth!

The story of the Alamo is still pretty moving, and a great part of Texas history.

Tonight we're in Kerrville ~ the Hill Country ~ outside of Austin. We're anxiously waiting for Les's sister Deborah and hubby, Jeff, to arrive tomorrow morning. We're looking forward to spending some time with them and doing so touring around the area.

Big Bend to South Padre Island

Whenever Les gets a little bit bored, he just drags out a different toy to play with.

What's so great about this is that it's a wonderful conversation starter with the neighbors.







This is the Bromeilliad that Sterling brought to me when he came out on our first week, down in Ocotillo Wells. It's been blooming ever since. The blooms alternate on each side and last about a day. Isn't this a beauty.



You can click on any picture to see it larger!



We had a good day riding through the Davis Mountains. You have to understand, that most everything is 'big' in Texas, but they ain't seen the Sierra's! At home, we'd call these the foothills.... We rode up to the McDonald's Observatory for the view.










We really got a chuckle at Big Bend National Park. As y'all know (that's Texas talk), the Rio Grande is the boundary line between the US and Mexico. If you look closely at this photo, you'll see the rafting tubes on the Mexico side of the border... Is that so they don't have to swim?

A nice lady offered to take our photo. That's Mexico in the background.

In Del Rio is Lake Amistad. This apparently was the original road. Just something that made me chuckle.

And a picture of me at my first attempt at Chili Relleno's. Must say, they were a ton of work, but, oh my, were they good. Notice the fashion gloves.

South Padre Island suprised us. I don't know what we were expecting, but it wasn't this big resort area. We've been told that we're here during off season and that it's crazy at Spring Break.
We weren't able to stay on the Island (everything is wait-listed), so we're based in Mercedes, Texas, for a few days and site-seeing from here.

Today we walked across the border and had lunch in Progreso. It's a typical border town and since we don't have our dental work done there, or buy our prescriptions or get our hair/nails done, we just went over and had lunch. It was a fun afternoon. A funny side note, there are turnstiles as you go in and it costs .25 to get in to Mexico and then it costs .30 to get out. (Cars cost $2 to get in and $1.60, we think, to drive out. Also, when you leave you have to pay Texas taxes on your alcohol and cigarettes. The tax on a carton of smokes was $15)

We'll be heading up to Corpus Christi this weekend.

Storm watch

We spent 2 days in Del Rio, Texas, riding out a storm. We did have a lot of wind, but the rain skirted around us to the north.

If you're wondering about our country's Homeland Security budget, I can assure you that it's being spent on our border between Texas and Mexico. We've been stopped numerous times at highway checkpoingts, as we've traveled the highways along the border towns, checking to make sure we're US citizens. It was also interesting to watch them 'grade' the dirt roads that run alongside of the highways. They attach 3 tires to the back of their SUV and run down the dirt roads with the tires bumping and sliding along behind them. That way, they can see if there are any footprints in the dirt later. Clever! They're looking to hire a lot more Border Patrol Agents, so if you've recently lost your job, there's income potential here.

It was 84 degrees here today in Laredo Texas! We're boondocking tonight at the Wal-Mart and then heading south to Brownsville tomorrow. Destination: South Padre Island.

Too much time between updates.

Bisbee and beyond:
We spent a few days exploring Bisbee Arizona, a copper mining town (plus silver and gold) founded about 1880 The town reminded me of Nevada City and Les of Virginia City.









On our first day we walked around town and found the Stock Exchange saloon. It really was a stock exchange during prohibition. They had an open mic night on Thursday, so we grabbed some pizza and a seat at the bar. There was some really good local talent.

We took the tour into the Copper Queen mine, which was the original underground mine. Sonny, our guide for the mine tour, in his 70’s, had been a miner his whole life in Bisbee. He explained that the air in the Queen mine was all natural ventilation and the only toxic pockets were caused by the miners themselves. :-) The mine had 143 miles of tunnels on 7 levels, each level 100’ apart. It’s a constant 47 degrees in the mine. With the advent of modern machinery, the mining was done in 'open pit' style. This is the lavender pit, which was closed about 1974.

This was the first spot that we got mail from home. We discovered that you could have mail sent to your name at General Delivery. It worked well for us and we will probably continue to use that method on our trip. We think the trick is to pick a very small town with only one post office.

There is also really cute, old style RV park, called The Shady Dell, where you rent remodeled trailers by the night. Fun.

We took a motorcycle ride out to the border town of Naco (we had heard of this place from one of the campers in Tucson) and then on into Sierra Vista. There is nothing in Naco except a border crossing, a decrepit town and a dusty RV park with a small golf course across the street.

There’s a very nice museum in Bisbee (partnered with the Smithsonian), that focuses on the mining history. We spent a couple of interesting hours there.

New Mexico

After leaving Bisbee, we headed out of Arizona into New Mexico and spent a day in the Las Cruces area. We especially enjoyed our bike ride through historic Mesilla. This is a protected historical site with wonderful old buildings. It became part of the U.S. through the Gadsden Purchase.

According to local legend, Sam Bean and his brother, Roy, had lived and acquired property in Mesilla, but lost their property after the end of the civil war. They were confederate sympathizers and in 1864 their property was confiscated for “armed rebellion against the Government of the U.S. and in all respects aiding and abetting said rebellion.” Sam stayed in the area but Roy left and eventually went to Langtry, Texas where he became the fabled hanging Judge and the self-proclaimed ‘law west of the Pecos’. The trial and sentencing of Billy the Kid was also held in Mesilla in 1881.

Into Texas:

Old El Paso

El Paso was a huge surprise to us. We were thinking a smallish West Texas town on the border and were terribly surprised to discover a city of over 600,000 people! The I-10 through the main part of town was especially hair-raising. It’s interesting to note that the I-10 between New Mexico and El Paso, has a speed limit of 80 for cars and 70 for trucks.

I have finally (willingly) gotten behind the wheel of this behemoth. I’ve driven three times now (first day 30 miles, then 60 miles and today over 90!), on some wide country roads with minimal traffic. It’s good practice and good for the confidence level. Les is very supportive, but still sits on the edge of his seat. ;-}

We spent yesterday on the bike, touring through Big Bend National Park; beautiful, grand scenery. It doesn’t seem possible that today's very tame Rio Grande could carve all these canyons. BTW in Mexico, the river is called Rio Bravo del Norte.