The Bird

When we arrived at Bentsen Palm RV Resort, we were told that a very rare bird had made it’s home in the park.  The “black vented oriole”  is a native to central America and is not usually seen this far north.  The weather immediately turned cool, overcast and rainy so we didn’t have an opportunity to get out and search for the bird.  The park offered a “Birding 101”  program, taught by Les Hall, a resident birder, which I decided to attend.  Just before the session, I asked Les about this famous bird.  He described it as a typical oriole, with bright orange under-side and a black upper.  The wings are all black, with no bars.  The distinguishing feature is the vent, which is all black.

Les told me that this sighting was so rare that news of it was spreading over the internet on various birding web sites.  Les pointed out a gentleman in a yellow rain-suit and binoculars, standing in the drizzle looking for the elusive one.  He told me that this dedicated birder from Chicago, caught a flight to San Antonio, where he rented a car and drove almost three hundred miles to the park just to see the bird.  “I’m not that dedicated!”, Les said.

During the last few weeks during our walks in the park, we saw an endless stream of birders coming into the park.  It got so bad that the management had to lock the access gates and requested all birders to report to the main office for directions. Yesterday, after our walk we had stopped at the library located in the clubhouse, to pick up some books.  As we were leaving a number of the birders were getting extremely excited with their cameras and binoculars focused on the surrounding trees.   And there it was.  The Holy Grail of Birds, (exaggeration) the black vented oriole.   One guy with his 2 foot long lens seemed to be getting some excellent pictures with the bird turning  upside down around the red flowers.  So, Janet and I, got to experience a bird that many birders may never see.

Here is a You Tube video showing the acrobatics of the black vented oriole.

“Shivers to Sunburn”

The people around here must be really put-off with us.  When we arrived one week ago the weather was a beautiful, sunny 8O degrees Fahrenheit.  This past week the daytime high temperatures were around 46 degrees while the lows approached the freezing mark of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  The bad weather seemed to be following us, as we headed south and seemed to catch up with us last week.  We spent most of our time in the trailer shivering with the heat on.  We went through a full tank of propane in that week, where during a regular season that is ALL that we would use.  Then on Sunday, the weather broke and we were able to finally get over to the park for a bike ride and we were also finally able to get the trailer washed.  We have had a couple of nice days back to back which is nice.

We found out that the Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State park had just re-opened in the last week or so.  Apparently, last June or July a dam was opened somewhere on the Mexican side of the border, unbeknownst to the Americans.  It caused considerable damage to the park infrastructure and it had been mostly closed since then.  On our bike ride we could see one of the “resacas” (an oxbow lake, as it is known to most Canadians) was still full compared to when we had seen it last year.  Many of the farms adjoining the Rio Grande, on both sides of the border where wiped out due to the flooding.  They found a single bob-cat as a casualty of the floods in the park.

As I sit outside, I can see a Border Patrol helicopter patrolling the length of the levee separating us from the park and the Rio Grande river less than a mile away.  We attended a session last Tuesday with a representative from the US Border Patrol.  The Mexican drug cartels have been busy trying to smuggle illegal drugs into the US.  They are quite creative in how they try to get the drugs over the border.  One picture showed a semi-trailer of sod, with an area hollowed out in the center holding thousands of pounds of marijuana.  Another picture showed palm tree where the root ball had been cut out to stash the dope.

The temperature topped out at 88 degrees here today.  We had read the news report today and Thompson, MB (where David is currently doing his current stint with Hydro) was a bone chilling –37C with a wind chill of –44C.  (Thompson was tied with Hall Beach, Nunavut Territory for the coldest place on the planet!)  Meanwhile, Kevin had to celebrate his 24th. birthday alone in Winnipeg, where we understand it was only –33C this morning.  Guess I can’t complain about a little sunburn!

Texas Bound

The alarm clock went off at 06:00 am and we hit the floor running.  We wanted to cross the border before 10:00.   We had the trailer hitched up and ready to pull out of the storage compound in Sanford at 8:25.  Ahead of schedule so far. 

Merging into the traffic on highway 3, we encountered our first problem.  The truck wasn’t able to go past 40 km per hour.  I pulled over and tried to get it going again but to no avail.   With the four way flashers on we were able to get the trailer to the Oak Bluff recreation centre where we unhitched it and made the beleaguered trip down the perimeter highway to Birchwood Motors. We limped the truck into the service bay just when we were supposed to be crossing the border.  They told us that fuel filter  was clogged with gelled diesel fuel and would need to be changed.  By 11:30 the job was completed and we were relieved of a chunk of cash.  Back out to Oak Bluff, we hooked up the trailer for the second time.  We pulled into the border crossing just before 13:00 and breezed through in a record 14 minutes.

Interstate I-29 was in surprisingly good shape despite the huge snow storm that they had experienced just one week before.  Driving conditions were great until just north of Watertown, SD, when darkness fell and we were enveloped by a heavy fog. We crept into Watertown, driving at a top speed of 70 km per hour.  We checked into the Quality Inn; fuelled at the Shell station next door; and grabbed a couple of burgers at the neighbouring McDonalds.

Friday morning we were packing the truck in a snow storm.  We were back on the Interstate by 07:30, and again travelling at a snail’s pace.  As we continued toward Sioux Falls, we saw several vehicles in the ditch, one of which rested in the median upside-down.  Further down the road we noticed a fifth wheel trailer that was in the ditch and broken apart like a peeled banana.  Crossing into Iowa the snow stopped and we continued under cloudy skies through Lincoln,  Nebraska.  We ended our second day in the city of Salina, Kansas.

The sun was just rising as we started out on Saturday morning.  It seems like this area has escaped the cold and snow of the prairies.  There is a thin layer of ice on some of the streams but no snow accumulations on the ground.  It was a a beautiful day for driving, with the temperature rising to about 11 Celsius, by noon.  US 81 turns into Interstate I35 just south of Wichita, Kansas and continues through Oklahoma and into Texas.  We stopped at the Texas State Visitor Information Centre, to stretch our legs.  I also wanted to start the fridge as the temperature was now around 18 Celsius.  I extended the slide room to get at the fridge controls.  After the fridge was started and adjusted I pushed the button to retract the slide room.  Nothing.  The hydraulic pump made some noise, but couldn’t generate enough pressure to bring the slides back in.  A minor problem I thought, as I could pick up a part at the Camping World store in Mission and just close and open the slide in the interim with my drill and flex cable.  The flex cable worked to operate the pump for about 30 seconds until it stopped working. So much for cheap Princess Auto tools!!   I tried fitting the hex head into a drill extension.  It was just a bit too large to fit the drill extension.  No problem – I had a hammer.   I managed to chip the pavement driving the bit into the extension but it went in far enough so that it would operate the pump – VERY SLOWLY.  After about 5 minutes the slide room was retracted back into the trailer.  We were finally on the road again.  We drove around Forth Worth and made it to Waco, where we stayed for the night.  Inexplicably, the slides worked  - extending without any cursing or swearing.  After unhitching we went in search of a few groceries as we had not done any grocery shopping since we left.  As soon as we merged onto the interstate we found ourselves in a major traffic jam. Emergency vehicles were travelling along the median and the frontage roads so we kind of figured this was something big.   A number of vehicles ahead of us were crossing the shoulder and onto the frontage road so we followed suit.  An hour and half later as we returned, we noticed that all the interstate traffic had been re-routed onto the frontage road and the cleanup of the wreckage had begun.  Car parts were spread across all five lanes and extended for several hundred feet.  The traffic moves so fast and seemingly so erratically, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen more of these accidents on our travels.  After a quick bite to eat we fell into bed, exhausted.

Sunday - We awoke to a pouring rain and found ourselves hooking up in the rain.   We were both soaked when we finally pulled out of the campground.  And the rain didn’t stop till we got to Austin.  We took the long way around San Antonio and finally got onto Hwy 281 south towards some nicer weather.  We could have made it to our campsite in Mission, but it would have been late and we knew that the office would be closed; so we stopped in Edinburgh, just north of McAllen, TX.  The temperature was about 75 Fahrenheit.

Monday morning and we were definitely in the sun-belt.  We arrived at Bentsen Palm RV Resort just after 11:00.  By the time we got parked in our site and met every neighbour within shouting distance it was after 13:00.  All we wanted to do was get into our shorts and t-shirts, as the temperature was already hitting 80 degrees.  We spent the rest of the day organizing the trailer and shopping for groceries.