Brownsville Texas

Monday, February 22, 2010 to Thursday, February 25, 2010

We have spent the last few days relaxing around Brownsville partially, because the weather hasn’t been that great.  When we had arrived on Sunday, the weather was really nice with a temperature around 20 degrees Celsius.  We were finally able to get shorts on and we thought we could finally put our sweaters away.  Wrong!  Monday morning was nice but the afternoon clouded over with the arrival of a cold front from Canada.  It started to rain Monday evening and continued off and on till Wednesday.  The temperature on Tuesday night dropped to about 4 degrees Celsius with a strong north wind. When I say strong it was gusting at times to 35 mph with sustained speeds of 30 mph.  It certainly got the trailer rocking.  And the 4 degrees…well we broke the all-time record low temperature.  But it is an el Nino year so this is what we can expect as we go forward; crazy weather – just look at the weather in BC for the Olympics.

What can I say about Brownsville.  The population is over 90% Hispanic.  Almost all of the signs in the stores are in Spanish.  When we were in a Wal-Mart a couple of days ago there was an announcement over the PA in Spanish, only.  We waited for the English announcement but none came; we both remarked on this.  The local TV anchors are almost exclusively Spanish and the Spanish names roll off their tongues so easily.  And the news lately concerns Matamoros, Mexico; the city just over the Rio Grande River from Brownsville.  There have been numerous kidnappings and shoot-outs in the streets of Matamoros between drug-lords and law enforcement.  It has become so bad that the US government has issued a travel advisory for American citizens against unnecessary travel to Mexico.  The police forces on the American side have been put on heightened alert and the Border Patrol have increased their presence in the area.

As we drove around some of the rural roads near here we ventured toward the Rio Grande River.  As we got closer to the river we saw a high steel barrier close to 20 feet high.  The steel posts are spaced very closely and are topped by a sharp point.  There is no cross bars within the top 10 feet for anyone to connect a rope.  We heard on tonight’s newscast that this is called a border wall and is an effort to keep the “bad guys’ out.  And there are numerous reports of drug seizures including a travel trailer caught at the highway checkpoint near Kingsville, just north of here.  We also heard that a tanker truck had been seized full of marijuana.  Now that is a lot of smoke!