Sunday, January 22, 2012

Always Doing Something

 

Seems like we are always doing something, and by the evening I don’t feel like writing a blog post but I need to catch up.  I got a belated birthday present the other day. While at the laundry room we saw a for sale sign for a Nook Simple Touch. One of our neighbors bought it in December but decided he wanted a color Nook, so I now have my very own e-reader. I really like it, and so far have taken 2 bags of books to the “library” here at the park. I still have one more spot to clean out and by the time I get rid of the rest we should have lots more storage space and be much lighter. And no more books falling on our heads when we open the overhead storage!

They had an open house at Retama Village Friday afternoon. Retama is a development adjacent to Bentsen Palm Village RV Park, where you can purchase a lot for your RV which includes a coach house, or glorified shed. Many people were showing off their coach houses for the open house, so we had to go take a look. Most have the interiors finished to use as extra living space, containing small kitchens, bathrooms, and comfortable sitting areas with TVs. They were all impressive, and looked larger than their 12x24 size.

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This is one of our favorite RV lots. They have an oversized lot and did some beautiful landscaping.

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Also in the open house was a New Horizons 5th wheel. It was 41 feet long and cost $187,000. Quite lovely inside! If you get the F450 truck needed to tow it, you’d have over $240,000 invested. Certainly not for everybody but it’s fun to dream.

I’d like to see us get that many people in our Lazy Daze.

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Yesterday we attended a program at Bentsen State Park given by Seth Patterson, a conservationist and nature photographer. He had some great photographs and interesting stories to go along with them. We really enjoyed it.

Today we took a ride to Estero Llano Grande State Park, with a stop along the way at Don-Wes Flea Market. It was pretty windy and dust was blowing like crazy so it was a short shopping trip. We didn’t go to Quartzsite this year but between the dust and all the usual junk for sale we felt like we were there!

Estero Llano Grande is a wonderful state park, part of the World Birding Center. With a lake and several ponds, there are lots of birds to see, and plenty of trails to hike.

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We ran into our neighbors at the visitor center, and being avid birders they marked our map with places along the trails where we would see certain birds.

Here are some of the highlights. The pictures aren’t all that great but we got to see several birds for the first time. Besides the usuals like cormorants, egrets and hawks,

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We saw our first black crowned heron.

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Roseate spoonbill.

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And our favorite, a common pauraque. Look closely at how well it blends into the ground. It is nocturnal and sleeps on the ground during the day. Had it not been pointed out to us we would have never seen it.

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A closer look.

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There are also alligators in one of the ponds. We spotted this big one on the other side.

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I liked the part about yielding right-of-way on the trails. They really didn’t need to tell us that!

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We would highly recommend a visit to Estero Llano Grande if you’re in the Rio Grande Valle. We will probably go back again while we’re here.

And finally one of the very friendly burros at Cinderella Pet Rescue. We have to walk through their area to get to the kitten room. They were disappointed when we had no food for them. Need to bring them carrots tomorrow.

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5 comments:

  1. WOW...what a cool park. We are definitely going here. Of course, we won't know one bird from another but we love looking that them. Is the Pauraque a bird? It looks like a snake.
    We should go toady because we will be in that area...going to dentist in Mexico. But too much for one day. It is on our calendar for later this week or first of next week.
    You got some gorgeous pictures. No matter what you say!

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  2. Glad to here you got a E-reader. It sure gives you more room for other stuff. Nice bird pics.

    We are all missing you in Quartzsite. We have 15 rigs so far with more coming this week.

    It looks like you are really enjoying your stay in Texas.

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  3. What fun you two are having. If you had the opportunity, would you be willing to trade your Lazy Daze for a 5th wheel like the one in your pics? It's a lot to carry around. Your pics are wonderful!

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  4. It's a good thing to be too busy to blog. :-)

    Love the bird pictures and the darling burro.

    Sherry
    www.directionofourdreams.blogspot.com

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