On the Rio Grande

No trip to the deep south of Texas would be complete without a cruise on the Rio Grande. So we did that. It was an Escapees trip planned by our friends Greg and Jean (and Kat, far right) from Nebraska or Wisconsin or maybe South Dakota. It’s kind of hard to tell where some of us SKP’s really are from. We get our mail in one state, register our vehicles in another, claim another as home, and of course pay taxes in all of them. We just try to keep it to a minimum by doing all of the above. Anyway we went on the cruise. It was OK, but my opening sentence might be a bit of an exaggeration.

The cruise began and ended at the Riverside Club (left) just a couple of miles from here. It’s a nice place to eat, drink, listen to a little music, or maybe do some dancing. The margaritas are good as is the pork cutlet sandwich. It pretty much covers a good size plate. Kat and I keep intending to get back for a couple more margaritas but we haven’t had any luck yet. I keep getting away from the cruise which in no was is a reflection of the cruise itself. Well, on second thought….. You can see the boat or some of it. Just a boat set up to look at the Rio Grande, not your party boat kind of a thing. If the river looks a little wider than you expected it because of the dams that weren’t there or other locations or other rivers were used to depict the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo as the cowboys, indians, and horse soldiers were chasing each other across the river in the movies. This is now the real thing. Border Patrol helicopters and boats looking for illegals, turtles sunning on logs, the occasional car abandoned half in, half out of the water, a few birds (this is the birding capitol of the world, but that is a story for next year) and a couple of fishermen. I almost forgot the Mexican KOA RV park seen in the picture on the left. There you have it. Not something I ever need to do again, but it was kind of fun. And we met some nice SKP’s, course, nice and SKP’s go together.

Easy Bleeders

Because of our exceptionally poor weather I haven’t sat outside and done as much woodcarving as I would like. But I’m still into carving and learning from some of the folks in our club. The Easy Bleeders if you forgot. We had a show and demonstration in the hall just recently and it went very well. I think pretty near all of our members either had a table of their own or shared a table with someone. I shared a table with Russ(lower right). We displayed a few of our things and worked on something of our choice. I brought my little bag of tools and sharpening stuff to show how little you really need to take up woodcarving, even as a full time RV’er. Lots of folks came to see what was happening and we strutted our stuff so to speak. You can see some of our guys and gals. Tom(behind me at right) is the designated leader and the carver I have learned the most from. Bill Brown (Brownie) and Jean(left side) are long time Easy Bleeders and Nina(upper right, seated) is one of our most accomplished. She has won some prestigious competitions. All in all a really neat group and certainly one of the reasons we keep coming back.

We went to the Rally on the Rio in Pharr, just down the road a piece. It’s an annual carving show and competition. I got a couple of ideas and new tools and stocked up on wood for the coming summer in Georgia. Now all I have to do is find a place to store it. I guess I’ll just have to through something else out. Got to keep my priorities straight.