Another week in paradise (rv park) here... Life has been quiet, and warm.. the rainy season is over, a tenth of an inch in January. but the wind still blows somedays

Carol has been swimming most every day, and Frank some. Temperatures in the high 70s days and 50s overnight.

Saturday we got off campus with friends.. First to mass at the Basilica Of Our Lady Of San Juan Del Valle. San Juan is a neighboring town. The Basilica is a grand place.

Beautiful and big, with a mariachi band with a couple trumpets, a couple violins, a harper, and several guitars all in uniform and with a moving preform ace. For a Saturday night it was packed. A high mass (I think) with a lot of candles, Singing and incense.

Mariachi Orchestra at the Basilica Of Our Lady Of San Juan Del Valle

The church has a strange history, having been leveled in 1970 in a suicide by a pilot that crashed his plane into it, but no one inside was injured. Ten years latter it was rebuilt. There is much Spanish as well as Anglo styles in the place, and the outdoor stations of the cross

check it out at http://www.olsjbasilica.org/

They even have a several weeks of Sunday noon mass recorded to play back 'on demand'

---

Then we headed to the "chicken house opry" Somewhere in the darkest parks of south Texas. The place was remote enough to give its address as "N 26 19.166 --W 098 21.387". In hindsight, never go to an address like that at night.


It was a good 20 miles in the country, and not much to guide us.. a 'Morton' steel building with seating inside for a couple hundred in reclaimed movie seats. and a patchwork calico curtain. The acts we're actually funny, if you cross that thin line 'tween "laughing with", to "laughing at". Comedy routines with everything but a punch line, and hew-haw type dancing.. we stayed to the end of the show, and found our way back home......





Sunday was another bike ride at the Santa Anna National Wildlife Reserve south of us with our friend Phil. A nice seven or eight miler in the Spanish moss.





Monday was a quiet restful day,.. a few errands





Tuesday we went to Los Ebonos in the afternoon with several other couples. Named after two large "Texas ebony" trees, one on either side of the Rio Grande, Its a cable ferry, the ends of the lines tied to these trees.










Notice the cables, safely securing the ferry to the US side of the river, to the Ebony tree


It takes three cars, and whatever walk-ons are there, and powered by five men pulling the ropes. with a toll of fifty cents for walk ons, we hopped on board. The road turning into sand just past the us customs booth and down the bank. A two minute trip to the Mexican side with all hands pulling the rope. Once there we walked up the bank to the Mexican customs and strolled around a bit.. no town there, just irrigated fields. a few miles to the nearest town










once done we walked back and got on board for the return cruise. our 20 minutes in Mexico done we pulled our selfs back to home. as the ferry hit land one of the homeland secureers walked up with a BIG lock, and chained the ferry up for the night.. Last trip of the day, then the Mexican crew got in a little blue wooden rowboat and paddle back to Mexico, and carried the boat up the road and to home. All very strange.

check out more pictures at
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/meterpics/texas09/