Corpus Christi to Brownsville or Searching for Citrus

Sunday, February 21, 2010

We left under a drizzly, cool sky for the short drive down the coast to Brownsville. The farm fields around here have been ploughed and disked but the fields are covered in water.  They have had so much rain here…February has had four times the normal rainfall for the whole month.  The terrain here is very flat almost like it is around Winnipeg.  As we passed through Kingsville the land became much more rocky and covered with scrub brush and small trees.  The east side of the highway is dominated by the King Ranch, this is the largest ranch in the Texas at 825,000 acres, larger than the state of Rhode Island.  This is definitely cattle country.

We were still about 60 miles away from Brownsville when we saw some flashing lights ahead of us.  As we approached, we could see that the other side of the highway had been narrowed to a single lane and some traffic had been pulled over to one side.  This was a US Border Patrol checkpoint, checking for drugs and illegal aliens.  As we proceeded on our side of the highway there was an array of about 40 infrared cameras aimed at the vehicles on this side of the highway. 

We arrived at the Rio campground just after noon and the sun had finally come out.  When we pulled up to our spot we were besieged by a lot of old people wanting to help to get us parked.  For an old person in an RV park this is a golden opportunity for some excitement.  Some will just come out and watch but for most they have to get involved with parking the new people; as if the new people had never, ever parked an RV before.  As I said, there has been a lot of rain here and the sites are really wet.  The wheels of the truck and the trailer have left deep ruts in the ground, just waiting to fill with more rain which is predicted in the next few days.

After a quick bite to eat we were off in search of citrus.  Specifically oranges. The temperature had risen to about 22 degrees Celsius and we were finally able to get shorts and sandals on.   We pulled out of the campground and headed east having heard that oranges are sold everywhere along these rural roads.  We had only driven a couple of miles when we saw a barricade in the middle of the road.  It was another Border Patrol, checking traffic. The guard was about to wave us through, but I rolled down my window to ask him where we could get some oranges.  He directed us back to Boca Chica, where we found a couple of old beat up half tons with the beds almost overflowing with oranges and corn. The Mexican spoke broken English and my Spanish consists of maybe 3 words, but we finally purchased about 19 pounds of oranges for $7.00.  We also bought 4 ears of corn for $2.  We were looking forward to fresh corn on the cob for supper.  What a disappointment.  After we had cooked the corn I had slathered it with butter only to almost break my tooth biting into it.  I might just as well have saved all the energy cooking it. It was totally inedible. This certainly isn’t the same kind of corn we get at home.  I wondered afterwards if this corn is perhaps taken off the cob to be used for tortilla shells or something.