Days 136 & 137 - Thursday & Friday, March 26 & 27 - Final Days on Padre Island

 Getting arranged for group photo, to be taken by Nolans camera. I missed getting Cindy & Nolan in the photo.

Eating dockside. Immediately on the far side of this building are the docks, and lots of fishing boats.

Condo street side. The french doors opened into our bedroom. The glass blocks were part of the wall of our walk in shower.

Cindy, Kelsey & kids did more exploring, some sea turtle place. Kathy & I  stayed at the condo.

This morning we packed up and headed home. Cindy, Kathy & I arrived back at the RV and got unpacked with  no issues. Kelsey sent us a text about a half hour after she and the kids left. Lydia forgot her backpack. They were turning around and going back to get it.

Around 4 PM Kelsey sent us another text saying that the check engine light came on in her Chrysler van. Fortunately they were close to a Chrysler dealer. The "engine code' said a cylinder was not firing correctly. They are spending the night at a Hampton Inn in La Grange, TX, about 12 hours from home, Centertown, MO. Hopefully it is just a bad coil, which the dealership can fix in the morning.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 134 & 135 - Tuesday & Wednesday, March 24 & 25 - At the Beach

 Weather is great. Enjoying relaxing at the beach.

From our balcony.

Lydia, Nolan & Kathy enjoying the beach.

South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center

From tower, looking east at oceanside.

From tower, looking west toward mainland. The walkways are part of the nature center.

Feeding tortoises lettuce

Looking back at nature center tower.

Multiple schools of fish like this. Don't know why birds aren't after them. The fish are 12-15" long.

Along edge of parking lot the waste water treatment facility is being enlarged. You have to walk around it to get back to the parking lot.

We stopped at a group of food trucks for lunch. I had a chili cheese dog, Kelsey & Lydia shared tacos. We stopped at a McDonalds on the way back to the condo so that Nolan could get a Big Mac. He was even less adventuresome than me.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Condo Photos

This is the South Padre Island condo where we are spending the week with Kelsey (granddaughter), Lydia & Nolan (great-grandchildren) & Cindy (Kathy's youngest sister).

Kitchen - 2nd floor

Dining Room and Living Room - 2nd floor

View from 2nd floor balcony

Sunrise our first morning

The person on the beach appeared to be filming the sunrise.

We are in the structure in the center, in the condo on the right end.

Zoomed in. In addition to the kitchen, DR & LR the master bedroom, a full bath and a half bath is on the 2nd floor. A two car garage, two bedrooms, a bath with a shower and a bath with a tub/shower are on the first floor. The first floor "porch" has what is called a "pool". Its big enough to get in and get wet, about the size of a hot tub, but not heated.

Looking south down the beach.

Looking north up the beach.

We are enjoying our stay.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 127-133 - Tue-Mon, March 17-23 - We Are Well

WOW, a week between posts. I think thats the longest. No excuse, just lazy I guess.

Highlights:

Tuesday - corned beef and cabbage at the clubhouse.

Friday - picnic/potluck at the campground gazebo.

Saturday - in the morning I helped Merrill move several wheelbarrow loads of dirt from a pile on one side of the campground to the edge of his driveway slab. In the evening Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan (our granddaughter & great-grandchildren) arrived from MO. Andy/Dad chose to stay in MO so that he could hunt mushrooms when he wasn't working.

Sunday - another good service at the Cowboy Church. Back home after church we loaded the vehicles,  locked up the coach & headed to the condo on South Padre Island. It's a 45 mile, 60 min drive from the CA ground to the rented condo.

Monday - Kathy & I were on the balcony and watched the sunrise. Everyone, except stick in the mud grandpa, spent most of the morning on the beach, no serious sunburns yet. In the peace and quiet I caught up reading my daily devotionals, worked a half hour on Spanish & did so e reading. After lunch Kathy, Lydia & Nolan are back on the beach. 

I didn't bring my laptop. I'm using  my old tablet to post to post this. I will post some photos after we get back to the campground at the end of the week.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Day 125 & 126 - Sunday & Monday, March 15 & 16 - Cowboy Church and Grocery Shopping

 Sunday Kathy went to the campground church service and then we drove up for the Cowboy Church service. Chris had another good message. It is so much fun worshiping with a bunch of believer who truly enjoy the time they are in the service. Lots of boisterous singing, two way communication with the crowd, etc. The service was about 1 hour and 20 minutes long. Chris's message was probably at least 30 minutes of that time. 

People are slowly leaving our campground and heading back north. I'm sure the same is true for all the other campgrounds in the RGV. I thought there would be more empty seats at church. There were more than we have had but I still think attendance was around 200.

On the way home we stopped at a Wendy's for lunch. Mediocre at best.

Today we went grocery shopping at Sam's and Walmart. Both stores were busy but the checkout lines moved right along. 

Yesterday the high was a sunny, WINDY, 94 degrees. The winds were 20-25 mph with 40-45 mph gusts, all day and last night. Today the high was a sunny, just breezy, 75 degrees. It is amazing how cool 75 degrees can feel.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

PS. Why are we propping up Asia and Europe by selling off the oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve? https://bertspoliticalviews.blogspot.com/2026/03/who-are-we-propping-up-with-our-oil.html 

Days 123 & 124 - Friday & Saturday, March 13 & 14 - Horses Parked Here

 Below are a couple of photos I took while doing one of my walks around the campground.

Below is a typical park model unit, maybe a little nicer than most. On the right is a "travel trailer". On the left is a "stick built" additional room. Texas rules are that if the "park model" could be moved, and if it is less than 400 sf, it is a trailer and no property tax is due. The stick built room and the roof are accessed and pay property taxes, maybe $50/yr. 

I don't know who lives at the place in this photo. I need to find out who it is and ask how long they have been working on trimming these "bushes" to turn them into lawn sculptures.

I ate my last tamale with my Friday breakfast. I will be making another tamale run.

Friday was the day the Trail Riders stopped for lunch on their way from Port Isabel to the annual stock show in Mercedes. They stop for lunch here but don't stay overnight here. We are less than 15 miles from the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show. It is about 60 miles from Port Isabel to the Show site.

Below is the line of tables with different soups. Kathy is in the photo, but she is sitting down and the lady in the blue is in front of her.

I took these on my walk over to the clubhouse.

I sat with several of the folks during lunch. Nice folks. Below they are heading out. There is a guy in a yellow vest at the far left side of the photo. He is the lead rider. There are two Harlingen police pickups in front of him. A police car followed the group.  One of the guys who I ate with mentioned that the police were really helpful with traffic control, as they went from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The guy in the yellow vest is the last of the riders. There were several trucks with trailers behind him.

The local station did a brief piece on the riders. 

https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/trail-riders-headed-to-the-livestock-show/ 

This morning we went over to Donna, to the DonWes Flea Market, to get onions and grapefruit. We bought a bag of each. At least a dozen grapefruit and a 23# bag of fresh Texas onions. On the way home we stopped at Nancy's for lunch. 

The soup was part of our meals.

These are MEALS.

With plenty of left overs for supper. The two small bowls on the left are deserts that came with the meal. A Hispanic lady at the table behind us came over and ask Kathy if she knew what the desert was. Kathy tasted it and said it tasted like some type of apple cobbler. The lady noted that it had apples, raisins, coconuts, and ??? in it. The lady said they call it bread pudding. Kathy wasn't a fan. I ate mine. It was interesting but I'd prefer good plain pie.

Weather has been sunny with highs in the high 80's and lows in the low 60's.

On the way over we saw a station advertising diesel for over $5/gal. According to Gas Buddy it is selling for $4.69 to $5.24 in this area. I'm glad our coach is nearly full (probably 140 gallons).  I looked at my fuel records. The first time I filled up the coach was in June 2022. I paid $4.99/gal. I paid over $5/gal every fill up until September 18, 2022, when I paid $4.66/gal to fill up in Kingdom City, MO. Fuel prices didn't drop below $4/gal until March 2023. From September 2024, in Kingdom City, MO, to December 2024, in Kingsville, TX, I paid less than $3/gal for fuel.

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 120, 121 & 122 - Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, March 10, 11 & 12 - Hot Then Cool

It has been quite warm here the past few days, until today. Tuesday the high was in the high 80's, Wednesday it was 95 and today it was only 76. The winds weren't bad today but Tuesday they were 20-25 mph with gusts of 40-45 mph, all day long. The constant has been no rain for weeks.

The humidity here is normally surprisingly high for as dry as the area is. Yesterday, with the high temperatures it was surprisingly low. I think it was only 16% when it was 95. It was sunny and hot but not terrible. I got in a 45 minute, 2 mile walk around the campground. 

Tuesday was the last Jam Session of the season. We stayed for most of the two hours. Kathy and three other ladies opened the singing with I'll Fly Away.

Today we went to Golden Corral for lunch. After lunch we went to Ybarra's. I had mentioned to Barb, the lady who teaches our Spanish class, that I like tamales. She told me that she remembered seeing this sign on a local bakery. A bakery with tamales seems surprising, but worth a try. Kathy went in with me to check out the sweets but didn't see anything she wanted. I bought 6 pork tamales. I enjoyed 5 of them for supper. 

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.