Days Out

Some trips we made don’t merit a full blog, so what follows is a selection of these.

As mentioned before, Texas has the greatest number of butterfly species in the USA, so what could be more fitting than having the National Butterfly Center in Texas. It was just down the road. We’d seen some superb butterfly gardens already, so were expecting something special. But, disappointment: it’s all a bit run down. Even the entry logo is partly hidden by shrubs, and looks more like a cemetery entrance.

We were expecting enclosures with specific habitats for different species, but found it was all in the open with the same butterfly bushes we had seen elsewhere, therefore with the same butterflies.

However, the bird watching was good. The green jay is so colourful, and is peering straight at the camera.

These creatures look like chickens with long tails. They live in noisy flocks in the trees. It’s called plain chachalaca. The bird book doesn’t mention if there’s a fancy chachalaca.

The squirrel is unimpressed by all of them. He’s had a busy morning nutting and is now flat out in the heat of the afternoon.

Let’s not be too mean minded about the butterflies, so we’ll include one pretty photo that reminds me of a kaleidoscope.

A solitary picture from the next excursion- to the seaside. A boiling hot day, so we go to South Padre Island that is linked to the mainland by a bridge. We took a picnic and walked for several miles along the Gulf of Mexico sea shore, with paddling thrown in.

That was Friday: Saturday the temperature plummets from 92F to 54F (33C to 12C). It’s caused by the northerly air flow and is unseasonably cold. We tog up and go to a museum in the local town of Harlingen.

Harlingen was founded by a Mr Lon C. Hill who was a lawyer with a finger in numerous pies. Before he arrived in 1904

it was a crossroads called Rattlesnake Junction. Hill quickly turned his talents to setting up and running many types of business. The next two photos show, firstly, his house and then the interior of one of the rooms. Surprisingly sophisticated and elegant given the frontier nature of the town.

You might think I wasn’t such a hazardous place to live after all- until you read the next picture caption.

It reads “Sugar mill built by Lon Hill in 1911 and burned by Mexican bandits 1917.” Bandits with a sweet tooth evidently.

In 1923 two nurses opened a hospital in Harlingen. Rooms were $5 a day.

This is the operating theatre. Saturday operations drew large crowds of spectators peering through the windows.

 And the dentist’s xray machine, looking like a Starwars death ray – which it was, in a way.

In a reconstructed cabin elsewhere in the museum, we spot an 1880 doughnut maker. Junk food isn’t so recent then.

There was a lot more to see in the Rio Grande Valley than was first apparent.

We move off in a few days, moseying back in the direction of Dallas from whence we picked up the motorhome. The weather’s got even a little colder with the first frost projected for next Tuesday night.