Harlingen, TX 08

What a busy and fun time we have had. We arrived in Harlingen on Wednesday and Wednesday evening, Mem and Larry and their friends Shirley and Dallas had cooked a great BBQ rib dinner. It was wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting Shirley and Dallas. They are the kind of people you meet once and think you've been friends forever. On Thursday, Mem, Larry, Shirley and Dallas showed us the town of Harlingen and where the Wal Mart is. It's very important to know where the Wal Mart is when you are camping! That evening we ate at one of their favorite Mexican food restaurants. On Friday, we all went over to Mexico for the day. (See pic 1 of Jim and I standing in front of the Welcome to Mexico sign). The Mexican border is about a 45 min drive from our campground. We parked the car on the US side and walked over a bridge to get to Mexico. It was amazing to see all the dental offices in town - there must have been 20 of them on one street. And every other store was a pharmacy where you could buy drugs without a prescription. It was wild. I priced a few of our medicines but we get them cheaper than they were selling because of our health insurance (it must be wonderful for people who don't have insurance). Meanwhile, we basically shopped til we dropped. We had a great lunch at a place called Garcia's and then us girls went back to shopping. Then we took a break and met the guys at a place called the Neon Moon. (See pic 2 above of us in the Neon Moon). They had a great band and Jim and I enjoyed a few dances and a Margarita. Actually Jim enjoyed several margaritas! We also met friends of our dear friends from Tulsa (Mason and Flo); their friends are Gerry and Kenny from Sands Spring, OK. As you can imagine, being friends of Mason's and Flo they were quality people. We really enjoyed meeting them. We made plans with them to get together for dinner later in the week. Pic 3 is of Bono chilling out and watching the outside TV. Saturday night we (Jim and I and Larry and Mem) met Gerry and Kenny for dinner. It turns out that our buddy Mason called Gerry and "instructed" her to take us out to dinner on his behalf. What a wonderful meal. We went to a place called the Roadhouse which is famous for their BBQ. There was so much food, Jim and I took the leftovers home and will probably get 3 more meals from it. They're not kidding when you hear everything's big in Texas. On Sunday we went to a huge Flea Market. Again, we seemed to shop til we dropped. After the Flea Market we decided to satisfy Jim's need for a WhataBurger. On Monday we took a ride over to S. Padre Island. The last pic 4 is of Dallas and Shirley, Jim and I and Mem at the beach in Padre Island. (Larry was taking the picture). We all took a tour the town and ate at a place called Dirty Al's. We also celebrated my birthday at the restaurant. The food was excellent. Everyone but Jim got the fried shrimp which were gigantic. Jim got a chicken sandwich and he claims he enjoyed his meal as much as the rest of us. I don't see how he could have. We all agreed we had never had such big shrimp before. On Tuesday we had a down day. I came down with a tremendous sinus cold. Jim went out and got me some Mucinex-D and I slept most of the day. We did manage to watch two movies though. I must have had quite a few drugs in me because that night I woke up to see this naked, hairy body with a led blue light shining the blue lights up on the cabinets in the front of the motorhome. At first I thought I just had a nightmare then the creature starting walking toward the bedroom. I was scared to death and could hardly breath and I shook Jim to tell him to do something when I discovered Jim wasn't in the bed and the naked hairy creature was Jim. I asked him what in the world was he doing. He said he had 14 control systems to checkout and he was just checking to see that everything was working. I could have killed him! Wednesday Jim and I had a cookout for 10 (Larry&Mem, Shirley&Dallas, Gerry&Kenny, Judy&Frank and Jim and I). We really had a good time. We played one of my favorite games, Left, Right, Center. (Pic 5) Because we had 10 people playing at $3/person each pot was worth $30. We played twice; Shirley won the first game and Jim won the second. We would have probably kept playing but American Idol came on so we tuned in to watch the show. Pic 6 is of Gerry and Kenny and Jim and I. Thursday, Mem, Shirley and I went shopping in the town of Harlingen and that evening we all went out for Mexican food again. Friday, Jim and I went to Mission,TX with Mem and Larry. We met up with Shirley and Dallas who were visiting friends in Mission and we went to another favorite BBQ called the LoneStar in Mission. Everyone got catfish except Jim and Larry who got the BBQ. Again it was a great meal. Afterwords, we all met back at Shirley and Dallas' RV and had pie for dessert. We leave tomorrow, (Sat) to go to Thibadeau, LA to do Habitat for Humanities work for two weeks. We've met so many nice people here we're kind of sad about leaving. The weather here has been great. Lots of sunshine and nice cool breezes. We really enjoyed our visit here. Until next time...........