Touristy Things

Where does the time go? It seems like I just updated and it's been almost a week already. We had some visitors on Sunday so I guess I can use that as an excuse for not updating. Terry and Randy came to stay in the same park we're in for a few days. Even though we had never met them before Terry and I had been writing back and forth through our blogs for over a year. I already felt like I knew her. It was great to finally meet. They are on their way out west so they were only here for a few days. What a jam packed few days it was though. Everybody hit it off right off the bat so we ended up spending a lot of time together. Since they had met Mark, Dortha, Ellie & Jim before they wanted to see them also so we all decided to meet up for dinner at The Big Fisherman (where else?). We spent a great evening together with everybody and then came back here to our park where we sat with Terry and Randy getting to know them better.

Here we all are at dinner. That's Randy and Terry in the front

Monday was laundry day but it wasn't until late in the afternoon that the washers became available. The laundry room here is nice and it's pretty big with about ten washers and dryers but it seems they're always in use.

Tuesday we went to the Fulton Mansion with Terry and Randy. It's a restored mansion built by George and Harriet Fulton between 1874 and 1877 and for which the town is named after. It was quite modern for it's time compared what else was here. Most of the furnishings after the restoration weren't original though. The lady who was conducting our tour kept saying, "this is what they would have had". Cracked me up.

The Mansion


Randy and Terry


The Parlor


The Dining Room


After we got home we decided to pool our food together for dinner so Terry brought over mac and cheese that she had made and I made pork fried rice with leftover pork chops and some green beans and we were good to go. After visiting for awhile they left to go to bed and prepare for our big trip to Mexico on Wednesday.

We had planned on driving down to the border town of Progresso but when we discussed this with the others they decided they would take their cars because of the better gas mileage. Dortha, Mark, Ellie & Jim both have motorhomes and they tow a small car behind so all eight of us travelled down to Mexico in their two cars. It was a three hour drive and we were cracking up because some days we don't even go that far to a different campground. We had to set the alarm for 7:00 am (I KNOW!!!) in order to meet at their campground at 8:30.

We parked on the U.S. side for $2.00 and crossed over the Rio Grande River bridge on foot after paying our 25 cents (it's 30 cents to get back) and were in Mexico in time for lunch at Arturo's and it was excellent. No waiting for a table. We've been to Mexico many times before but Terry had only been there once and that was 24 years ago. I don't think it's changed at all. Her eyes were as big as saucers as we were strolling along between all the vendors. They still have the jewelry, leather goods, drugs you can buy without a prescription, various sweet treats and little kids begging for money. All I bought was vanilla and peanuts and Rod bought a bottle of Black Bush whiskey. The liquor prices were not really that good plus you had to pay another $1.25 at Customs after you cross the border. I really wanted to buy some avocados but Dortha told me they cut them in half and take out the pit because you're not allowed to take the pit back into the U.S. Interesting.

Rio Grande River


Halfway across the bridge


The "Mall"


Inside one of the shops


One of the street vendors


He was watching the goings on down below


Almost back in the U.S.


We saw this brush fire on our way back to Rockport


After leaving the border town we drove to Donna to visit the big flea market. It was pretty much just a whole lot of more junk. It was 4:00 by time we got there and they were closing up so we went across the street to the produce market. Now you're talking!! This place was great and I could have shopped there all day. I bought oranges, tomatoes, zucchini, onions and green beans. Sure wish we had something like this close to where we're staying. Terry didn't want to buy anything because she said if she bought something she might actually have to cook something with it. LOL

It was a GREAT trip and we enjoyed every minute of it. Terry and Randy left on Thursday and we're really going to miss them. Sometimes you meet people on the road and it's just so sad when they leave especially when you really connect with each other and they were staying only a few rigs away. I can't wait till we see them again somewhere. Don't know where or when but it will happen.