Searcher

January 19th - Zapata, Tx, just north of the Mexico border. We are on a little spit of land that leads into a huge reservoir of water from the Rio Grande river which was created when the river was dammed up south of Zapata. Apparently this is a very popular area for competitive Bass fishermen until a year or so ago when the fish began dying. We are in a little RV camp which is just a mile from the reservoir. We were unable to call this particular RV camp because the phone was either disconnected or out of order. Richard called a couple of other RV places and a woman gave him the name Sunshine RV Park. He told her that the phone was not working and she told him "oh, that is ok, just go there as I know there are three or four open spots for campers." We plugged in the address in the Garmin and found it. No one was in the office or the home of the hosts but one of the campers told us to just pick a spot and it would be fine. We picked a spot and set up camp. This type of situation reminds me so much of home and how much different little towns are from big cities. The owners eventually showed up and came to introduce themselves to us. It appears there will be plenty of areas to ride our bikes and we are looking forward to that for tomorrow.

We left our second camp grounds this morning to head to Zapata. We did go for a bike ride yesterday in a development area across the highway from our RV park. It had been planned to be a large sub-division but couldn't make it during the down swing of the economy of last year. There are just gravel roads in but they wind all through an old sugar cane field. I was able to take some interesting pictures of a large white hawk that was hovering over us looking for dinner and also of a huge group or flock of birds that were skimming over the ground eating seeds from gourd like plants. When they took off they looked just like fish in a school., when one turns they all turn as one. What was interesting is that in the flock of birds there were a few red-wing black birds that I didn't notice until I downloaded the pictures on my computer and looked at the picture.

The whole area that we drove through today could have been Mexico. We were definitely in the minority as we stopped at a gas station, attempted to purchase a couple of soft tacos and was asked where I was from. I was told that I needed to learn some Spanish! This was done in a joking manner but I felt very far from home at that moment and understood what it is like to feel like a stranger in a strange land. The land is stark, dry and the healthiest living things are the cacti. It has its own kind of beauty especially at sunset when color appears out of nowhere as the sun is setting.