Tours2005pg03

Montana Tours of 2005

February 27 to March 23, 2005

My, it has been almost a month since I wrote any diary or travel log. Obviously this report will be a synopsis, so, here is what we have been doing:

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.

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!

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!)

See the next page for the rest of this report.